Homefront

Bloody knuckles and broken bones take center stage in Homefront, an ultraviolent revenge thriller that places an emphasis on brawn over brains.

It’s a derivative and incoherent exercise that provides another opportunity for Jason Statham to play the same type of vigilante character that he’s essentially kept repeating for more than a decade.

Statham plays Phil Broker, a widowed former drug enforcement agent who is trying to start over by moving with his young daughter (newcomer Izabela Vidovic) to a small Louisiana town. He runs afoul of the locals when he is confronted by an angry mother (Kate Bosworth) after a fight at the school.

As the animosity between Broker and the townsfolk escalates, he gets involved in a few scraps with strangers and suspects the woman’s acquaintances of stirring up trouble, most notably her brother (James Franco), who happens to run a meth lab in the woods along with his girlfriend (Winona Ryder), who causes Broker more trouble when she gets involved with a biker gang with ties to his past.

Eventually, Broker realizes he must take justice into his own hands, literally, if he plans to save his daughter and his home from trouble.

The screenplay was adapted by Sylvester Stallone from a novel by Chuck Logan (who wrote a series of books about the Broker character). It moves the setting of the story from Minnesota to Louisiana, and ratchets up the number of shootouts and fistfights while dispensing with any subtlety. In fact, it feels like the sort of action vehicle Stallone might have written for himself in his younger years.

The film, directed by journeyman filmmaker Gary Fleder (Runaway Jury), showcases a handful of creatively choreographed fight sequences as well as some impressive stunt work.

But it’s almost painful to pause and consider the gaps in logic and the cliches in the precocious kid-in-peril plot. The villains, of course, are all bearded, bar-hopping rednecks who don’t take kindly to strangers. Plus, the story runs off the rails well before its inevitable climactic showdown.

Homefront somehow lured an impressive cast to subpar material. Hopefully the actors at least enjoyed the crawfish.

Rated R, 100 minutes.