NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Paul Magne Haakonsen Well, "House of the Rising Sun" proves to be no grand thespian experience. I mean, just look at the cast ensemble, and you essentially know what you are in for.The story is about former dirty police officer Ray who is now working security detail at an illegal casino and brothel. After a robbery Ray finds himself framed for the robbery and murder and must go to extreme lengths to clear his name.It should be said that the movie is entertaining enough for what it was; a somewhat bland action movie that was running on autopilot and offering nothing to challenge the intellect of the audience.Now, I mentioned that this is not a grand thespian experience earlier, and with names like Dave Bautista and Dominic Purcell at the lead, well, enough said. Bautista moves about with the grace of a bull in a China shop, and Dominic Purcells hair just gets taller and taller with each movie.There were a couple of adequate action sequences here and there, but it was not sufficient to lift up the movie and bring it above mediocrity.If you enjoy action movies, then your money is better spent elsewhere if you want a movie with just an ounce of content. However, if you enjoy pointless and predictable movies that are devoid of anything to stimulate your intellect, then by all means spend an hour and a half on "House of the Rising Sun".

Tony Heck "You find the men who murdered my son and bring them to me." After the club he works at gets robbed on his watch ex-cop Ray (Bautista) is told by the owners that it is up to him to find and retrieve the money and get the man who killed the owners son. When the clues he follows leads him to question everything he wonders who's side he is really working for. This movie surprised me a little. The main reason is that nine times out of ten movies with wrestlers as the main star are not that exciting. They seem fun and good for the first twenty minutes then really drag and become repetitive. This one is the opposite. The last twenty minutes in this one are good, the build up to them is a little slow. For a B-rate action movie starring a wrestler I have actually seen much worse. This is not a great movie, but it was much better then I expected it to be. I did feel that the fighting could have been better, being that Bautista is the lead actor. Overall, not a bad movie. Better then I expected. I give it a B-.Would I watch again? - I don't think I will.*Also try - Blood Out

John Raymond Peterson It's difficult to find a good starting point when it comes to this movie. As the author of the second review explains, the very beginning of the movie may have held some promise but the rest sure did not deliver anything better; it was all downhill indeed. I was amazed at the poor quality of the fight scenes, considering Bautista has the experience to deliver good fight sequences and has done so in the past. That can only mean one thing: production, editing and direction sucked. Okay, the script was as lame as the fight scenes; I would describe it as assembly line output writing or cookie cutter prose. In other words, the script also sucked.The pace of the movie is off; not fast enough when it ought to and chaotic when smooth is needed. If the director was a drummer in a band, the rest of the band would be better off with a "Sideman" (a.k.a. electronic drum/sequencer) and they'd kick him out the band.The cast had enough talent and experience to deliver what the production and direction would have asked, had the directors ask for the right things. Bautista is not quite ready to do dramatic scenes, yet it seems the directors (there were two no less) were determine to squeeze that ought of him. I'll bet Bautista could have directed and co-edited the fight scenes and produced better ones.Finally, Amy Smart was given another mediocre script; and again she did not pass it up. Aside from her amazing good looks, she can act the hell out of a part when it's a well written one; take for instance her role as Tracy Faucet in "The Rat Race (2001)", to name one that she can be very proud of. The whole cast was presumably given a script to read before accepting their parts; so all should share the blame for the poor result, unless of course the re-writes killed whatever life might have existed in the original version.

rightwingisevil In the very beginning, say, maybe 10 minutes, the movie seemed to be quite promising and I really thought at that moment, Bautista might pull through like Stone Austin or the 'Rock' to become the next WWE superstar turned movie star. But after ten minutes, I have realized that this was a very hollow boring movie due to a very weak elementary level screenplay so boring, so clichéd and so contrived. What I saw was a chain-smoking down-and-out ex-cop and ex-con who could not find a decent job after a 9 years sentence and was released from prison. So of course he became a mob's night club's doorman+bouncer+floor manager, got the authority to give credit to gambling loser. And of course, lousy things always happened to bad luck chain smoker, the night joint was robbed by a bunch of ....then, of course....then, "you lost my money on your watch, and my son was killed during your watch. I want you find out who did this, who killed my son and, I want my 300G back!" Wow, what a junior high school script. The only thing I liked in that movie is the leather coat that Bautista wore and some of the pretty night scenes of the city. That's all.