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Morgan Freeman is one of Hollywood’s most beloved stars. Throughout his lengthy career, the velvet-voiced octogenarian has starred in a number of unforgettable films, and he’s won some well-deserved awards (including an Oscar for Million Dollar Baby). But even an Oscar can’t guarantee that he won’t star in a total mess of a movie like Vanquish.
Vanquish follows single mom Victoria (Ruby Rose) on a deadly quest to save her daughter. Though she’s tried to start fresh—to turn away from her dark past—by working as a caretaker for retired cop Damon (Freeman), it seems as though she just can’t escape. And when Damon takes her daughter and forces her to go on one last job to get her back, Victoria finds herself taking on crooked cops, German mobsters, and other shady characters from her past in order to protect the one person who matters to her most.
As Damon sends Victoria out on her first mission, viewers might still be holding out hope that things will get better. After all, many films are able to resolve the issues of a perplexing set-up and go on to tell a story that makes perfect sense. And every actor has those graceless moments. Unfortunately, though, that’s about as good as it gets for this horribly written, awkwardly acted action movie.
As Rose snarls her way through one stop after another—each seemingly simple cash pickup turning into a noisy shootout, each trip back to Damon’s house turning into a series of hazy, dreamlike sequences—Freeman remains in one place, spending most of the movie talking through his headset or over the phone to someone who’s in a completely different location. Meanwhile, in another part of the city, some crooked cops with questionable connections to the story try to make a deal with an FBI agent whose slicked-back hair and tiny ponytail make it obvious that he’s not to be trusted.
Altogether, Vanquish is melodrama and bad acting. It’s a bunch of characters and action and alliances that make absolutely no sense. And it’s Morgan Freeman presumably cashing in on a day or two of sitting in a chair, speaking lines to no one in particular.
It doesn’t take long to figure out that Vanquish is just not a good movie. Sadly, the stars aren’t able to make it worth watching—and even though it’s often laughably bad, it’s not the kind of laughably bad that could make it a late-night guilty pleasure.
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