Parents' Guide to A Day to Die

Sometimes Willis' low-budget action movies have quirky little touches that distract from their awfulness, but this one has none; it's as lazy, nonsensical, and junky-looking as they come. A Day to Die starts with one of the movie's most baffling sequences, in which the so-called heroes blow up a high school with innocent victims inside. Not only does it not make sense story-wise, but the sequence is hard to follow on a technical level. The cinematography, here and throughout the rest of the movie, is garish and wildly jerky, and the editing is so inept as to be confusing. Random images pop up at jarring, inappropriate times.

The writing doesn't get better either. An attempt to discuss how drugs and racism relate to American history feels wedged in and ineffective. Characters' decisions make no sense, and things like a "heist montage," in which a character narrates just how the team is going to break in and steal the money, is dropped in favor of a dull, messy shoot-out. Willis sleepwalks through another performance, and the others don't fare much better. Dillon is miscast. He's 23 years older than his on-screen wife, and their pairing is squirm-inducing (they call each other "baby" dozens upon dozens of times). Even Leon's Pettis, who sports a stylish wardrobe and thinks he's using his drug money to uplift his community, is flatly dull. The only thing A Day to Die manages to kill is two hours of your life.