Plot: What’s it about?
After his daughter is kidnapped, a former assassin is forced back into the world he retired from in order to rescue her. Jason Patric plays Paul. He is now a small-time mechanic with a fairly simple and routine life. He might not look like much, but he takes out several men with his bare hands in a few scenes. Clearly, he is skilled. You might look at the cover that not only shows Patric, but Bruce Willis and John Cusack as well, but this is largely Patric’s show. In all honesty, Cusack’s role feels more like an extended cameo more than anything else. For a good while, The Prince entertains and easily passes the time. It’s almost like a slightly less obscure version of the taken films. Paul seeks out various clubs looking for his daughter, and eventually teams up with Angela (Jessica Lowndes) who is a friend of his daughter’s and she helps him, despite her reservations. As mentioned, the film entertains for a while, but eventually the walls fall down, so to speak. Brue Willis plays the town kingpin who has a vendetta against Paul after he accidentally killed his wife and daughter.
Willis has done far too many of these DTV films lately, and his performance is almost laughable here. He just seems to be trying so hard and looks bored. Cusack doesn’t fare much better in his (thankfully) limited role. All this topped off by a rather predicable plot ultimately makes The Prince a failure. It shows some promise early on, but there’s just not much here to sustain interest. This might work well if you catch it on cable one night and there’s nothing else on. There are also far better films featuring the kidnapping plot. It just feels a little stale at this point. We’ve seen it all before and much better than this. Skip it.
Video: How’s it look?
The transfer is just fine for a film like this. It’s neither remarkable nor terrible. It’s just sort of there. It should please the fans of the film, whoever they might be. Colors looked natural and reasonably solid throughout. The print showed no distortions of any kind. The image is AVC encoded with a 2.39:1 ratio.
Audio: How’s it sound?
Audio fares about the same here. The DTS HD track serves the film as it should. The background with the city noise comes through nicely as well as the vocals. There were no major issues detected. It serves the film as it should.
Supplements: What are the extras?
- Audio Commentary – The director and Jason Patric sit down to chat about the film.
- Capturing The Prince: Behind the scenes – is a pretty average look at the making of the film. I can’t imagine many people being curious to want to learn more about it, but you never know.
- Extended Scenes – Nothing really, but minor extensions that were wisely deleted.
- Interview with Cast and Crew – Are just that, 14 minutes worth. It’s mostly the usual notes; working together, location shooting, all that good stuff.
- Previews
- Digital Copy
