Gasoline Alley, 2022.
Directed by Edward John Drake.
Starring Devon Sawa, Bruce Willis, and Luke Wilson.
SYNOPSIS:
A man implicated in the triple homicide of three Hollywood starlets begins his own investigation. Needing assistance, he enlists the two detectives on his tail in order to expose a conspiracy more explosive than any of them imagined.
The Bruce Willis Content Mill continues with an industrious abandon as the second of the actor’s dozen-or-so planned releases this year, Gasoline Alley, hits VOD platforms this week. Though a fraction closer to descriptors like “competent” and “watchable” than most of the star’s recent output, that’s more thanks to the efforts of Willis’ co-stars Devon Sawa and Luke Wilson, and also some not-terrible production values.
In Los Angeles, reformed ex-con and tattoo artist Jimmy Jayne (Sawa) becomes the prime suspect in the brutal murder of three Hollywood starlets. With detectives Freeman (Willis) and Vargas (Wilson) breathing down his neck, Jimmy sets off on his own investigation to clear his name and catch the real killer.
If at least offering a slight variation on the typical southern fried cop yarns Willis has found himself trapped within recently, this is still a dead-ordinary breadcrumb-following murder mystery the particulars of which are sure to leave viewers glazed-over in record time. The hackneyed, excessively expository dialogue feels like placeholder chit-chat from a first draft that somehow made it into the shooting script.
Writer-director Edward Drake, who marks his fifth collaboration with Willis here, at least makes a few oddball attempts at self-aware subversion. There are numerous unexpected references to the Black Lives Matter movement, and even a baffling meta joke in which a terrible-looking TV show is being filmed under the title “American Siege” – the very name of Drake and Willis’ last film together.
And though this isn’t in any way a good film, it’s fair to say that it’s marginally more upmarket than much of Willis’ recent DTV work. It’s apparent that more time and money has been put into both the visual presentation and acquiring a worthy supporting cast to prop up Willis’ unfussed work in front of the camera.
For starters, this actually looks more-or-less like a “real movie,” complete with cinematic location shoots, neon-tinged lighting, and even a CGI helicopter that doesn’t look completely execrable. At one point there’s a jaw-droppingly beautiful shot of Sawa’s Jimmy staring out over the ocean that feels so out-of-place in its artfulness, DP Brandon Cox doing a generally impressive job under what were presumably brutal time constraints. There are a few too many lens flares throughout, though.
As for Bruce, he shows up here for about 14 minutes by my rough count, and basically every shot he appears in looks like it was the very first take. It’s clear that several locked-off cameras were pointed at Willis to ensure maximum coverage for his little time on set, and so markedly less care has been put into the visual conception of his scenes compared to everything else.
As usual, there are also the hilariously transparent attempts to shutter him out of the plot’s way; Freeman disappears for large swaths of time while both stuck in a deposition and later heading off to watch a young relative play football. Some of Willis’ brief appearances, such as him bopping around in a nightclub for mere seconds, are scarcely contextualised, and given the role that his character ultimately plays in the fabric of the story, he really needs to be in the movie more to sell it.
Unlike most of these films, at least there’s a strong supporting cast actually committing to the material. Beyond the largely unknown cast of convincingly strung-out low-lives, Devon Sawa and Luke Wilson do deserve a measure of credit for actually trying here – albeit also making Willis seem even worse by comparison.
Wilson, making one of his first forays onto the VOD thriller circuit, is an amusing parody of an asshole cop, chewing through the pulpy dialogue with an admirable enthusiasm. It’s Sawa, however, who proves the real hero of the piece, appearing in almost every scene and perfectly cast as the effortlessly sleazy tattooist desperately trying to escape a bum rap. Both actors are wildly overqualified, but they take the assignment seriously and therefore make it somewhat easier to tolerate.
The action isn’t great as is typical for a low-fi Willis romp; there’s a mediocre car chase, oodles of bad CGI blood, and a final set-piece which cuts away before the expectedly explosive climax, presumably for budgetary reasons. We are, however, treated to a genuinely decent, well-shot fistfight in Jimmy’s titular tattoo parlour, so it’s not all bad.
Even at just 97 minutes in length, it really feels like this movie is playing for time, from its hilariously overlong opening titles to its distended, dull story. It is, though, one of the “better” recent Bruce Willis streamer actioners despite him being in it even less than usual. If not as amusingly stupid as some of his low-fi sci-fi romps, Gasoline Alley makes it clear that this filmmaking crew could probably create something acceptable with a stronger script.
Though touting better production values than your average Bruce Willis schlock-factory flick alongside a commendable performance from Devon Sawa, Gasoline Alley’s storytelling fundamentals are still bewilderingly poor.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
