“Cherry Bomb”
Year: 2012
Director: Kyle Day
Stars: Julin Jean, John Gabriel Rodriguez, Nick Manning
Studio: Well-Go USA Entertainment
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 82 Mins.
Way before I heard the news that Well-GO USA picked up “Cherry Bomb” for distribution. I heard about this film on one of the various websites that I regularly visit. When I saw the trailer, I was blown away. But I’ve been blown away with some trailers just to be very disappointed. Could I feel the same way, about this film?
The film follows Cherry (Julin Jean), who is dancer at a local strip bar. One night at the bar, she is brutally assaulted by group of men. After being sent to hospital over the incident, the police don’t believe her story that she was assaulted by these men. Instead of feeling helpless, she escapes the hospital and plots her revenge. Aided by her estranged brother (John Gabriel Rodriguez), the two set out on a mission of revenge. But things begin to spiral out of control, when a hitman is hired to kill Cherry and her brother. Now she realizes that there more at stake than revenge.
If there was ever the term of guilty pleasure film, “Cherry Bomb” would fit it the term perfectly. It’s one of those films that you can’t help but like, even if it has a few problems.
Writer/ director Kyle Day does a very good job keeping you interested with this film. I liked the fact that there was tension in the film scenes, even though the action scenes weren’t impressive. He does a good job keeping the flow of the film moving at a good pace. It helped cover up some of the film action sequences in the beginning. Never did I get a sense that any part of the film or its direction lagged on to the point that I was bored. Speaking of the action sequences, it felt very lackluster for the first half of the film. Even though I didn’t like the sequences in the first half, those got better as the film was nearing its conclusion.
The acting here was very good. I liked how Day got his main cast to bring personality to their roles. It really went a long way in making the experience good. Julin Jean was very good as the film’s lead. She does a very good job bring personality to the main character. If this was just you average “Death Wish” type of film where the main character was brooding the whole time, then this wouldn’t been as good. But Jean does a very good job making the character interesting through the way she delivers the dialogue and the way she approached the lead character and her mannerisms. That’s what made the performance work.
Day’s screenplay was good for the most part. I liked how, he focuses most of the story and the relationship between the main character and her estranged brother. By doing that, it does two things for me. It gives the film its interesting subplot, when there isn’t much action going on and it develops the characters so that you interested in their revenge plot. The other thing that I liked about it was the fact that it relied on story didn’t get out of control like most grindhouse homage films that have come out as of recently. Day does a very good job limiting the exploitation aspects to a minimum, as it was necessary to the film’s story. If this film felt like your over the top exploitation film filled with lots of graphic violence and nudity, this would have not fit the film’s tone and it would have hurt the film.
“Cherry Bomb” is a very acceptable homage to the action films of the grindhouse era and eighties.
Review Rating: Three and a Half Stars.
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