Acerto Final

Lorenzo Lamas and Michael Pare join forces in a clichéd plot revolving a well intended factory worker who gets into debt with a bookie and of course the only way to pay back such a debt is by helping the bookie with a counterfeit operation involving plates. Lorenzo Lamas is fairly unrecognizable as a glasses wearing nerd who is forced into the crime world by Michael Pare's bookie mobster. Indeed Pare is very good, so much so that he steals every scene he's in and manages to upstage everyone else. Lamas is decent, but his overall look is hard to take and indeed the lack of action or martial arts disappoints somewhat as one expects such a team up to deliver such. Still, The Debt is an interesting failure. It's sort of a period piece melodrama/film noir and it's fairly well acted, but the problem lies in the fact that the ending lacks true satisfaction, the plot is ultimately confusing when one thinks about it and of course it's melodramatic as all hell. Indeed this film feels like a rip off of a John Woo heroic bloodshed movie without the bloodshed or heroic prowess. Still the movie has a watchable edge and it works because it's often engrossing to see Lamas and Pare try hard to experiment with non-action roles.

* * out of 4-(Fair)