‘Assault on Wall Street’ DVD Review
Stars: Dominic Purcell, Erin Karpluk, Edward Furlong, John Heard, Keith David, Michael Paré, Lochlyn Munro, Tyron Leitso, Eric Roberts | Written and Directed by Uwe Boll
Jim Baxford (Purcell) is just an average guy trying make his way in the world. When his wife falls ill and the bills rise, Jim works hard to try and find the money keep up her treatments and keep paying the bills. Unfortunately, this is during the economic crash and Jim suffers financially. As he quickly finds himself with less and less money, his life begins to fall apart. When everyone who he turns to for help fails him, he decided to take matters in his own hands. Using his previous training in the army he begins his Assault on Wall Street.
Assault on Wall Street is a hard film to review. It is clear to see how Jim Baxford’s life crumbles around him. The film shows very well how every aspect of his life is taken away from him just as it looks like he is about recover. His money. His job. His house. Each are taken away and as he desperately seeks help from the powers who are put in place for that reason, they either refuse completely, demand something out of his reach or blame him for not understanding that it was his fault all along. It is very easy to feel for Jim as he suffers and society basically hangs him out to dry. Dominic Purcell does a very good job in this role as he tries desperately to put on a brave face for his wife as the bills pile up around them.
That, however, is only the two thirds of the film. The hardest part to review is what follows after that, when Jim actively makes the decision to pick up a weapon, or quite a few different weapons, including grenades, and sets out to systematically murder anyone who had anything to do with the economic crisis and works on Wall Street. I can understand that this is work of fiction and it is purely for entertainment, but it has a clear ‘the people vs the banks’ message. This would be fine, if it wasn’t still so close to the actual event and people still didn’t feel that way. Assault on Wall Street celebrates Jim as a ‘Hero of the people’ as he walks through a building shooting everyone. The majority of his victims who we aren’t even sure were 100% aware of the result of their actions. I guess I just feel uncomfortable about Jim being a ‘hero’ when he solved his problems by shooting people and is celebrated for it.
Either way, if you can look past that and think about it as a simple ‘revenge fantasy’ film, it is an alright flick. It doesn’t suffer from a ‘Rambo’-esque ending, showing Jim emptying unfathomable amount of bullets into passers by (although there is a lot of killing). He is shown to methodically plan out each action and his plan does lead to a pretty decent ending which will leave you satisfied, if you don’t think too hard about it.
Assault on Wall Street is out now on DVD from Metrodome Distribution.
