Our erstwhile protagonist here is Mike. Early in the film, we see things about Mike to make us think that he is an OK guy, such as giving his uncle money. While he works for a disreputable brokerage firm, he seems to at least be genuine about helping a smaller investor. He has a child on the way and a significant other....maybe his wife, though there is some discrepancies in the continuity involving a scene where he is being interrogated and the cop says he's not married...
Mike is offered an opportunity by Ricky to go to California and help someone called "the dentist" to start up a new company. It's two weeks before his first child is expected, so he brings his friend along to help speed up the process. Now, in my estimation, our first glimpse of a problem
comes when Mike tells his wife he is going,
and his explanation seemingly focuses more on doing it for his own gratification rather than the family.
Sure enough, Mike winds up involved in a execution that's setup to look like possibly a robbery. He gets arrested after taking his friend who was shot, and later dies, to the hospital. The mob boss sends a lawyer, who explains its in his interest to plead to manslaughter and keep his mouth shut.
Six years later, he gets out of prison and meets his daughter for the first time. His family has been take care of in return for his silence...there
is some uneasiness that his daughter refers to "uncle Ricky" though it was never expanded on that his wife may have been unfaithful. At this point, Mike can get on with his life.....
But that's not good enough. He's driven by revenge, and winds up returning to California and killing the dentist. He tells the big boss, Cousin, that Ricky set him up. Cousin is willing to forgive and forget about the loss of the dentist, on the condition that Mike just leave well enough alone with Rick. Mike's wife finds out that he got stabbed while killing the Dentist, and threatens to leave him.
Of course, Mike can't leave well enough alone with Ricky...even though it puts his wife and child in danger, and kills him too. This angers his wife to the point she pulls a gun on him and makes his leave.
Soon thereafter, Mike and his uncle are ambushed, which leads to his uncles death. Mikes wife tells him she and the child are gone for good, and not to look for them.
So what does Mike do? He hooks up with Cousin's assistant, and winds up killing him - but not before a warning from Cousin that this is just the beginning, and not the end. He's now
clearly a target.
Sometimes, the actions of a character in a movie just aggravate you. You want to see a character who learns from their mistakes and is redeemed...but this didn't happen here. I'm
not sure if the directors "point" was to make a cautionary tale or if the whole thing was just poorly executed. Either way, I give it a four as a film that had potential but was ultimately disappointing.
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