The Death and Life of Bobby Z (2007)

Although I've never really been a fan of action films, "The Death and Life of Bobby Z" is a film that I saw when I was much younger, and it's one of the few of the genre that I can still remember of. Last night I watched it again, and I may now understand why it's so good: it has a very cool plot. This story's writers have invented a lot of messy situations in which corrupt people and criminals try to fool each other, and the one who gets away with it is, obviously, our nostalgic actor Paul Walker. He plays a convicted that needs to pretend being the famous Bobby Z, in order to escape from his certain next conviction. It feels right, for me, to state that Walker does his job perfectly, despite the fact that he looks more like a model than like a bandit. His character in here is similar to Van Damme's in 1999's "Inferno". Directing is also very well done, delivering plenty of enjoyable scenes, which end up bringing irony and fun, instead of suspense-- which is more often in action films. So, long story short, "The Death and Life of Bobby Z" is a project that proves to be GREAT, and I really want to know why it's still so unknown in mainstream.

Paul Walker, Laurence Fishburne, and Olivia Wilde definitely earned their keep in this one.The most random and unlikely of situations land Paul Walker in the drug cartel with 3 different groups of people out to kill him and no one thinks he is the same person.The only questionable acting in this movie was from the kid (Paul Walkers kid).The action is heavy, the plot good, and the ending very unlikely.I think it was a great movie though and if you have a chance to see it, please do.

Expecting a Tarrantinian type of experience, I was greatly disappointed with this movie. Not even the talented Laurence Fishburne could elevate the cast's overall acting performance to mediocrity. The rest of the cast demonstrated rigid, theatrical acting in a Charlie's Angels's style train of semi-connected events. The plot suffers from stereotypical characters like the bad cop, loser-turning-into-an-honourable-"doing-the-right-thing"-man, evil latino mafia boss, and cynical drug dealer. Several goofs scarred the movie as well. Eg. when Bobby Z jumped into the water right behind the moving boat, he jumped in the white stir created by the boat's propeller. When he crawled onto the boat, it was not moving and the water was calm.

I bought this book in the black author section of a MILITARY PX(AAFES), So you could imagine my surprise when I opened it up and was reading about a Mathew Mc- kind-of-gay toe headed surfer drug dealer type. I read the book and this is a word for word scene by scene adaption of the book, well the crib sheet of the book. Several scenes of the book were not in it for time and budgetary reasons. A' la one of Bobby-Z's great escapes took place in a crowded theme park, and to film that with the cost of X-tras and such would have added an easy cool million. They also let off all of Booby-Z's desert storm flash-back as well. The final scene shoot-out was a down-play as well but all the characters were there. Obviously this well a well produced, they didn't skimp on the production values but they did on scenes and such. The opening desert body for body exchange should have been what pre-ceded , the post shoot-out desert scene that was in "No country for old-men." WIth the trucks and dead Mexican Mafia hench-men laying every-where. But it was scaled down, again for budgetary and time restraints. Paul WALKER was perfectly cast as a Mathew McCONAUGHEY's younger edgier little brother. A three time loser who's winning at escaping the feds, the cartel, and the bikers who are trying to kill him. I read the book, this is the book, I got what I came for PERIOD.