How bad does a film with John Cusack have to be to get the direct to video treatment? The Factory level bad, apparently, as one of the few actors who seemed to be immune to DTV fare for so long that seeing him in a direct to video generic action thriller is disheartening in a lot of ways.
Cusack is Mike Fletcher, a detective who “always gets his man” and such. The girl from Dexter (Jennifer Carpenter) is his partner and he’s on the case of a man who keeps kidnapping hookers. Predictably the mysterious kidnapper snags Fletcher’s daughter and it becomes a race against time to save her, et al, before he loses her forever and such. It’s a police procedural as Fletcher and his partner only have 48 hours to find her before the odds say they never will.
The problem is that there’s a reason why this film was stuck in post production for a significant period of time and was later released directly to video: it’s just not that good.
It’s not that bad, either, but it’s just a generic action thriller wrapped in a police procedural with the requisite performances to boot. There’s nothing new or original in this film as either a genre film or as a performance-centered piece. This is Cusack going through the motions, Carpenter following suit and nothing exciting happening outside of the usual paint by numbers thriller film. It’s not a bad film, far from it, but it’s just a dull unimaginative one.
No extras are included.
Warner Bros. presents The Factory. Directed by Morgan O’Neill. Written by Paul Leyden and Morgan O’Neill. Starring John Cusack, Jennifer Carpenter, Dallas Roberts, Michael Trevino, Mae Whitman. Running time: 104 minutes. Rated R. Released: February 19, 2013. Available at Amazon.com.
