Parents' Guide to Bullet Proof

While it just about delivers on the action front, this movie repeatedly misfires when trying to tell a coherent story featuring characters anyone will care about. Despite looming large on Bullet Proof's movie poster, Vinnie Jones only appears in a handful of scenes as mob boss Temple. His role mostly consists of angrily pacing about while actor, director, and co-writer Clayton's nameless protagonist, "the thief," attempts to catch a plane to early retirement, funded by a bag of Temple's ill-gotten cash. It's a thin premise but a story that could've been enlivened with some memorable characters, while the majority of the dialogue is people reiterating the same recent chain of events back and forth to each other.

There are also some baffling choices made when directing the countless number of shootouts that are shoehorned in to pad out the movie's run time. Temple's pregnant wife, Mia, is also on the run -- surprisingly quickly at times, given her condition -- while Janvier Katabarwa's lone assassin, imaginatively dubbed "the Frenchman," just gives the movie an extra baddie it doesn't need. Perhaps because Jones was only working part-time here. By the time we get to the obligatory closing speeches, after a final shootout that could've happened between the same characters in a scene an hour earlier, you'll want to make your own bid for freedom.