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Just a few days after his role in Adrenaline, Louis Mandylor (Battle for Saipan, The Doorman) is back in Crossfire in which he portrays Patson, an F.B.I. Agent. This time, however, he is saving women from human trafficking. In Crossfire, Patson is also dealing with the revenge killing of a family member.
The last time he was in the headlines was for taking down the Gorilla Gang which in turn resulted in the death of his wife in a revenge killing and his daughter Alisha (Samm Wiechec, Exit Zero, Atlantic Rim Resurrection) has been unable to forgive him for that. However, she is now coming home during the school break and he is willing to do everything to reconnect with her, starting with quitting the Agency.
What Patson does not know is that somebody else is back as well. The gang member (Kevin Gage, Hustle Down, Heat) who gunned down Patson’s wife is now back and this time is gunning for Alisha.
Writer and director Yadhu Krishnan (Choice, The Great Escape) further entrenches the well-worn approach in Crossfire as a domestic drama with a heavy-hitting start. Alisha epitomizes a tortured young woman, complete with all the clichés of black fingernail polish and a snarling attitude aimed at refusing her father’s overtures of goodwill. For his part, Mandylor is odorously sulking around as the tortured father, a role forever glued to his psyche, flashing back to what life used to be while obsessing with being helpless to connect with his daughter.
In the centre of all this mess is Miriam (Lori Pelenise Tuisano, Fun Size, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw), Mark’s friend who takes it upon herself to bring the two to a reconciliation. Yet another cringeworthy trope often called by filmmakers “the Magical Negro” who solely exists for the sole sake of helping white protagonists see the light. When he spoke about it in 2001 it didn’t make sense, but the 2023 application of Crossfire should be grounds for ridicule.
Crossfire is a mixed bag of great action scenes and low-budget portrayals. For good parts, the fight scenes are well done scripted and choreographed by Victor Chen. However, the cinematographic choice and camera work ruined a lot of it. As for the bad parts, the car crash scene in the film is shamefully dull and trashy. One positive note is the throat-cutting scene being a little decently done.
It could be argued that if Gage played a less cliche and more gripping role, Crossfire would have been saveable. But like everything else on the project, Gage did not care much for character building either. As a matter of fact, he is a nameless character who doesn’t get a backstory context and only appears under the moniker “Stranger”. Even more sad, he’s not even at the centre of the movie’s best action. Those were given to a random purse snatcher and some idiotic rape wannabes from a club.
A bland protagonist and an absent antagonist don’t make for a compelling film, and Crossfire is anything but compelling. The film is mostly sluggish, spending more time on Miriam taking Alisha around the town to meet everyone her father helped rather than focusing on anything action-packed. The revenge plot that is supposed to be the main focus of the film is practically nonexistent.
The revenge plot that is supposed to be at the centre of Crossfire is hardly an afterthought, with Gage’s character not making an appearance until the last few minutes in which the movie reaches its climax. It is not as bad as Adrenaline but it is pretty close. Having two films this bad in the same year is a clear sign that Louis Mandylor, while he still has a career, needs to start considering changing his agents.
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