Setup (2011)

One of my all time favorites.

Admirable film.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

sure , this movie have some obvious disadvantages- some b or c list actors , plot holes , clichés and so on . but it also has it merits - nice cinematography , high production values, cool soundtrack , the use of unprofessional actors who gives it an almost neorealism flare , the locations , but most of all i enjoyed the non Hollywood feel , an almost anarchistic feel i might say , of going off the platform of your regular blockbaster .50 cent is no denzel washington but still he possesses some genuine quality that is hard to define .it really give you some kind of weird rush that no mainstream Hollywood film would give you .

As I'm sure with most people I only watched this because of the names attached; Bruce Willis, Ryan Phillippe and 50 Cent, thinking this has to be a decent movie even though I've never heard of it before. It was not. This was mostly a waste of time. Willis, despite the top billing on the poster is hardly in the movie and Phillippe just doesn't cut it as the bad guy despite all his tattoos. The script is weak, and the double crossed thief revenge thriller has been done way too many times before.50 does a decent enough job but he's just not a very good actor and the plot for the most part is based around his act of vengeance after his former partner in crime and childhood friend attempts to take him out after a major diamond heist. 'Sonny' then employs the help of a feared (but laughably stereotypical) mob boss (Willis)to help him recover the cash.There are a couple of other sub-plots running regarding Philippe's jailed father (James Remar), Jenna Dewan has a great scene with a glass table, we also get Randy Couture as a lame-brained thug and Shaun Toub as a mysterious hit-man who skulks about searching for the stolen diamonds -I actually enjoyed him.There are moments of Guy Ritchie-ness here too in the way they introduce "the muscle" 'the hit man" "the mob boss" and I suppose also in how all the story arc's connect and go awry.Ultimately a bit of a fail and not a movie I will remember anything about come tomorrow. 7/26/15

You know, if your going to pinpoint one person as being symbolic of everything that is wrong with straight-to-video movies, it's pretty much ridiculous. I mean, they're straight-to-video movies. Nobody expects anything worthy of mention for them. Yet, that is exactly what I am going to do.Rapper 50 Cent is symbolic of much of what is wrong with straight-to-video movies. It's funny how this guy went from being one of the biggest rappers on earth to a regular in such movies, but he's got a s#!t load of money, so he act/produce these movies. With "Setup", he somehow brings in two bigger stars-Ryan Phillipe and Bruce Willis of all people-into his world of mediocrity.Mr. Cent stars as Sonny, who along with his best friend, is shot (way to be subtle about one of your claims to fame) by Vincent Long (Phillipe) after a heist gone wrong, and now wants revenge. To get this revenge, he teams with the mob, which always works well in these movies. When the mob's muscle Petey (Randy Courture, in a rather thankless role) is shot, and things start to go south, mob boss Biggs (Willis) wants something done about all this.I will say these two things: Willis is good (though only around for like 10 minutes total) and the production values look much better than most straight-to-video movies. Then again, this did cost $20 million to make, which seems like a bit much for something like this, but hey. Apart from that, this is your typical bad cop/heist/whatever movie from Lionsgate and Grindstone Entertainment. That means there's a bad soundtrack made up of dull rock and uninteresting rap, badly written character drama, mostly bad acting (Phillipe's performance could be called bipolar, as he goes from committed to looking like he doesn't want to be there), plot points like a pseudo-religious angle that go nowhere, plot holes the size of craters, and no reason to care about anyone or anything that happens.Then there's 50 Cent. Look, there are rappers that have proved themselves to be good to decent actors. Look at Ice Cube, Ice T, RZA and Mos Def for example. 50 Cent is not one of those good actors. Next to Master P, he's the worst rapper trying his hand at acting I've ever seen. This is a man who is completely void of anything resembling dramatic chops, charisma or screen presence, and serves more as a vacuum than he does an actor. And that's one of the reasons why he's so bad for these kinds of movies. Sure, Phillipe and Willis are clearly there for the paycheck-that or they were blackmailed or owed somebody a favor-but guys like James Remar are talented guys. Yet, this is a vanity project for a man who couldn't act to save his life.If you are a hardcore 50 Cent fan (though I doubt that kind of thing still exists), you will want to see this. Everyone else is better off reading a book or something.

I have thought out 6 different reviews by this point and so far, I have scrapped every last one. There is no need for me to waste your valuable time justifying myself and my reasons for granting "Setup" a rating of only 1 out of 10. What you, as the potential audience, really need to know is: Is this film worth watching? And, very briefly, why? SO here's the answer to those two questions: This film is not worth watching, not even for a moment. There is nothing in this film that you are missing out on by spending your evening doing something, anything else except for an almost non existent storyline which fails to be anything more than insultingly shallow even at it's most "intense" moments. If you consider that a great loss to your lifetime archive of experience then I must also warn you that you will be missing out on some absolutely astounding performances from both 50 Cent and Phillipe, who have each individually found a new and unique way of taking something that was awful and turning it into an absolute cock up.Granted, this is not the usual thoughtful and eloquent type of review I would like to write for a film, but I just don't see the point in taking my time when the film makers clearly didn't. There is nothing in this film that even makes it worth spell-checking the review.Want a good Bruce Willis film, go watch 12 monkeys. Want a good 50 cent film? ...You'll have to wait for it to be made.