Bullet Points: Sinners and Saints

Johnny Strong should be a huge star. Back in 2001, he was a member of Dom’s crew in The Fast and the Furious and was a badass who went out like a boss protecting the choppa in Black Hawk Down. At the peak of his career, Johnny disappeared for a hot minute to focus on music. Years later, he makes his comeback in director William Kaufman’s Sinners and Saints. 

• Whatcha Talkin’ About:  Johnny Strong as Sean Riley, a cop with personal demons and a death wish. He’s searching for his missing friend and trying to solve a series of horrific homicides on the streets of New Orleans. There’s something about these murders that don’t add up and Sean, along with his new partner, Detective Will Ganz, quickly realize their case is connected to a gang of highly trained mercenaries.

• Noises Penguins Make:  Kim Coates has a very small cameo but has one of the best conversations in the movie about penguins and the noises they make. It is a theme of the entire film. No, not penguin noises but the high-quality conversations you don’t normally find in DTV action. 
• Tactical Tactics:  Everybody seems to know what they’re doing while handling the steel. The gunplay is highly professional. As much as we love to watch people flying in the air to kill the baddies, I respect how realistic the gun battles are. The battles should be realistic because it is mostly cops vs mercenaries. 

• A Boondock Saint:  Sean Riley has a friend he hasn’t seen in two years. This friend magically shows up on his front porch and wants to talk. They go to a bar called Boondock Saint. Hmm, this friend is played by Sean Patrick Flanery, an actual member of The Boondock Saints. Insane!
• Gasoline & Fake ID’s:  There’s a horrific shootout where the baddies kill some kids who want Fake ID’s. The baddies also want information from the counterfeiter who’s running the operation. These baddies are ruthless. They tie the poor fella up. Light him on fire. Put the fire out. Light him on fire again! They keep repeating the process. What a horrible way to die!!
• Matching Poodle Tattoos:  Yes, when your bodies are burnt to a crisp, smart detectives identify crispy corpses by checking if the victims have matching poodle tats. The cops are looking for two brothers who loved their poodle. They only find one tat. I guess it is time for some policework.

• Two Mandylor’s For The Price Of One: Costas Mandylor, you might remember him from the Saw movies, plays the main baddie and his brother Louis Mandylor, you probably know him as Costas’ brother, plays the main henchman. You can’t beat two Mandylor Brothers as the baddies. 
• Kids With Cancer:  Man, this sucks. Dead kids who die from cancer is always sad in movies. Sean is going through the death of his young son and it is what makes him have a Death Wish. The only positive is it motivates Sean to kill every baddie on the block. Sean is a tortured soul. He has been through his own personal Hell. He’s the wrong cop to mess with. 

• Find My Friend Montage:  Every cool movie deserves a montage scene. This flick features Sean and Will searching for Sean’s lost friend. They show the picture of the missing friend to a lot of people. The montage is well edited. The scene is very cop smart. 
• It Pays To Have A Death Wish:  Johnny Strong’s Sean Riley is very loco during the entire movie. He doesn’t care. He runs head on to the baddies and the final showdown isn’t any different. I love how he’s running down the street like he’s Will Smith in Bad Boys. The final showdown is epic to the bone. The entire movie is something special. It is DTV magic. You don’t normally see this much character depth in a low-budget action flick. A lot of the movie reminds me of something Michael Mann would direct. I can’t recommend this movie enough. 

Yes, I might be brand new to BULLETPROOF ACTION but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to have any BONUS BULLET POINTS! Here we go!!

• Saints & Sinners: Don’t get this movie confused with the five so movies titled Saints & Sinners, or the football team, the New Orleans Saints, or the video game, Saints Row.
• Johnny Strong Composes the Music: What a multi talented artist. Johnny is credited as the composer in this flick. Johnny also has a band called Operator. If you want to check out some of his tunes, locate the 2007 album, Soulcrusher.
• Baba Yaga: The name alone gives me nightmares. I thought Baba Yaga was John Wick. I learned from this movie the translation is way off, and John Wick has no business having that nickname. Look it up.
• Method Man, Tom Berenger & Jurgen Prochnow: All three are in this movie for a combined total of six minutes. 
• CRS:  My new acronym to live by: Can’t Remember SH*T