Homefront

Homefront (2013) is about a former narcotics agent moving to a small town with his daughter. Phil Broker had infiltrated a motorcycle gang and the operation ended badly; the gang's leader went to prison and his son died. Broker resigns and settles somewhere quiet in Louisiana. His daughter hits a boy at school and it escalates. The boy's mother goes to her brother, who deals drugs in the town. He breaks into Broker's house, finds his files and learns who he is. Then he sends word to the gang leader in prison. The construction is how a schoolyard fight becomes a raid. Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay, adapting Chuck Logan's novel, and had thought of playing the part himself; he gave it to Jason Statham for the character's age. Statham stars, with James Franco as the dealer, Winona Ryder as his girlfriend and Kate Bosworth as the mother. Franco's character is the best written thing in it: not a thug but a man who has built a business in the town and does not want it escalating; it gets away from him. The fights are Statham's usual work and there are few of them; this is a story about threat rather than action. Gary Fleder directed. It did moderately. The final section returns to formula and resolves the tension with an ordinary shootout. It runs 100 minutes. Good for: action thrillers, Statham, and small town stories. Less good for: the plot is predictable and the violence is harsh.