It says something about the unsteady writing in this barely generic thriller – think an extended cut scene from a less racy Grand Theft Auto – that, when Antonio Banderas’s character rescues a shoplifting teenager and puts her up in a motel, I genuinely believed he was making the first moves in a sex trafficking scheme. In a sense, he is. Hoodlums later arrive and drag the poor girl off to a implausibly glossy porn factory. But it transpires that The Barracuda (for it is he) was sincere in his desire to protect the waif.
Nothing he has done before explains such boundless generosity. He works for a savagely ruthless kingpin (queenpin?) played by an underused Kate Bosworth. He picks up streetfighters and hires them to beat up unfortunate debtors. He is called The Barracuda, for goodness sake! Oh wait. He feels bad about not seeing enough of his daughter. That explains everything.
This may be time to face up to the reality that Liam Neeson has a lot to answer for. Nothing in Banderas’s recent history suggests he is short of decent work. He is still making films with Pedro Almodóvar. He’s in the new Indiana Jones flick. One wonders why he’s bothering with this sort of barely upright avenger thriller.
Anyway, here we are. After discovering that young Billie (Zolee Griggs) is in trouble, he straps on his guns and heads for the wrong part of Miami. Before long, he’s keeping a straight face through lines like “I am The Barracuda. Today is not a time to kill. It is a time to die.” What does that even mean, mate?
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[ Official Competition: Cruz and Banderas have a ball dismantling their own craftOpens in new window ]
The film is sometimes too sleazy, but it is, more often, not sleazy enough. The sex traffickers’ lair looks like something from a 1990s Depeche Mode video. The overarching feeling is of comic naughtiness rather than life-destroying malignity. That said, there is no doubt but that Banderas knows how to carry this stuff off. Nobody is better at maintaining an Easter Island stoniness through the most awful shades of mayhem. And there are some genuine surprises along the way. I did not expect Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime by The Korgis to play such a prominent role. It will be Sad Café next.
