A Man Apart Movie Review:


Some law-enforcement guy loses his wife to the gangster-mobster-bad-guy after he gets to close or ends up arresting the big-cheese himself. Gee, have we seen this before?

In case you haven’t, Vin Diesel stars as Sean Vetter, a DEA agent who was an intricate part in bringing down one of the biggest druglords in US history, Meno Lucero (Gino Silva). The only problem is that when Meno fell, a more sinister druglord “El Diablo” assumes the reigns of the drug-empire. In turn a hit is placed on Vetter.

The hit goes array and Vetter young sweet wife, Stacy (Jacqueline Obradors) ends up taking the bullet. Vetter becomes irrational and partially insane as he tries to assume his job at the DEA. Will Vetter keep it cool so he can hunt Diablo or will he end up killing himself and anyone stupid enough to help him?

You have seen this story a million times on television and on film. From the NBC series “Kingpin” to last year’s “Collateral Damage”, we know the pain and the quest of vengeance. It seems to be the favorite story to tell, lately, when it comes to druglords and cocaine. I guess they didn’t learn from Soderbergh’s “Traffic” which is by far the best film on the topic.

One of the warning signs a film is headed for disaster is when it has been sitting on the shelf for over 2 years. This was made before Diesel was “XXX” or a street thug in “Fast & the Furious”. The film’s director, F. Gary Gray had the surprise 1998 hit, “The Negotiator” under his belt and the failed TV series “Ryan Caulfield: Year One”. Gray’s next film, “The Italian Job” debuts this summer. Their equally rugged careers were just forming.

If you look back two years and take this film in the context of that time then you can see that it was a film that reflected the time. It was set to debut after “Traffic” when druglord stories were hip in Hollywood and before “Collateral Damage”. Then in 2001, the world changed with 9/11 and we seem to have forgotten about druglord stories and what they meant to us before 9/11. Its amazing how much can change in so little time.

The film itself feels quite dated. You can see Vin Diesel and the same kind of charisma he had before he hit it big. You can see F. Gary Gray’s precise framing and focusing on the man instead of the mission. But I found myself almost bored to tears because as an audience member I really didn’t care. It was hard to focus on the film when CNN war coverage is much more mind-numbing. Do we really care about anyone on screen? And if so do we want to after sifting through the film’s mind-dumbing melodrama.

The film is a 96 minute action flick that feels like a 4 ½ hour marathon. Do we really need a gritty-drama about DEA and cocaine druglords at this time in our lives?

The film’s hi-lite is probably one of the longest and bloodiest street-gun battles I have seen since Michael Mann’s “Heat”. That scene alone is very riveting but comes off in poor taste given what’s going on in our everyday lives.

For me it was desperately hard to get through this film. I had never been so bored in an action film in all my life.

(1.5 of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer.

Dean Kish

A Man Apart is an ultra-violent revenge story that
was intended to be Vin Diesel's star making vehicle, since it was shot before last year's blockbuster XXX (2002). The film unfortunately got shelved a few times do to some scene reshoots and a big lawsuit over its original title, Diablo. The creators of the popular PC game Diablo were the party that sued New Line Cinema and the film over the name.

Diesel stars as Sean Vetter, a terrific California
DEA agent that has just captured Mexico's most
powerful drug lord, Memo Lucero (Silva). Vetter and
his best-friend partner Hicks (Tate) have been chasing Lucero for seven years, and have finally made the bust of their careers. Shorty afterwards, a unidentifiable new drug kingpin known only by name, "Diablo", takes over the drug shipments in Mexico by knocking off the small-time dealers one by one. Without wanting any problems from Vetter, "Diablo" sends two gunmen to take him out. The one thing that Vetter cherishes more than anything is taken away from him, when the assassins kill his wife Stacy (Obradors) and leave him left for dead. Now unstable and looking for revenge, Vetter develops an unlikely relationship with the
imprisoned drug lord Lucero to help him find the
mysterious "Diablo." Through their investigation,
Hicks notices that Vetter's actions are going
violently overboard to the extent that he is out of
control. The widowed agent's obsession for revenge
has started to make him more of a killer than a man
serving justice.

A Man Apart is a watchable film, but it does have
holes and doesn't offer much outside of Diesel's
performance. The proficiently established F. Gary
Gray directed the film. Gray previously directed the
amusing indie comedy Friday (1995), the two solid
action films Set It Off (1996) and The Negotiator
(1998), as well as the award winning music video
"Waterfalls" by TLC. In my opinion, A Man Apart is
the weakest of Gray's directorial choices. The story
itself is clichi and lacks solid elements, in which
Gray tries to hide the film's problems by delivering
long and violent action scenes. I was really dreary
of some of the over the top sequences, especially the film's big-bang drug bust gone wrong that is loud and explosive, but not totally elaborate.

The whole who is "Diablo" secret of the story is
set-up in the script to be clever, but I honestly
shook my head when the secret was revealed. The
screenplay by Christian Gudegast and Paul Scheuring give hints from a few of the characters that each could be "Diablo," the end result is intended to be a big twist in the film, but it is more or less weak.

Vetter's revenge aspect and his creation into a
short-tempered obsessed being is the script's
centerpiece, but every audience has met this character before. I have already mention the holes in the script, but there are also problems with the voice over narration by Vetter. The character only follows his opening voice-over narration one other time in the film, the last scene doesn't have him closing with his thoughts, it is unbalanced though the choice might have been snipped in the editing.

Diesel delivers his best performance since his
breakthrough roles in his self-directed short film
Multifacial (1995) and Saving Private Ryan (1998).
Over the last few years, Diesel has continued to play the same stern character from Pitch Black (2000) to The Fast and the Furious (2001) to XXX (2002). Vetter, whom himself is stern as well, lets Diesel slip into a different areas of emotions and torment. Larenz Tate is also firm in his companion partner role as Hicks, which actually doesn't agree but understands Vetter's actions. The versatile Timothy Olyphant pops up as a wisecracking drug dealer that delivers some laughs, and Geno Silva is well cast as the powerful kingpin Lucero.

A Man Apart is a violently filled action picture of
one man's revenge that falls into the category of
being tired. It is almost like the film promises to
deliver something different and unique, but it never
does. The bright spot of the film is that Vin Diesel
actually shows some range with his acting outside of just being a tough guy that blows things up.

Report Card Grade: C-

Joseph C. Tucker

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of A Man Apart and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.