A Difficult Decline for Bruce Willis Fans

Wrong Place boggles the mind with an absurd plot, terrible script, and amateurish direction. The low-rent actioner uses melodramatic filler and crude racial humor to bloat its runtime. I must admit to watching with a heavy heart. Wrong Place marks another throwaway B-movie that Bruce Willis cranked out over the last few years. He retired after his family publicly acknowledged an aphasia diagnosis. Willis’ questionable choices and poor acting makes sense in light of his cognitive illness. Wrong Place limits his role with blunt dialogue and quick edits. He’s basically a prop headliner. It’s difficult to see a Hollywood icon decline on-screen.

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Frank Richards (Willis) and his wife, Maggie (Lauren McCord), meet for a somber dinner. Their beloved daughter, Chloe (Ashley Greene), has found a tumor. A year later, Frank gets a job as a security guard at Pee-Wee’s Pawn Shop. The former police chief has overcome a slew of tragedies. His first work week on the job takes a deadly turn. Frank interrupts Virgil (Massi Furlan), a meth dealer, settling a score with a thieving employee behind the store.

Chloe decides to surprise her father with an early visit to his Alabama cabin. She brings her bestie, Tammy (Stacey Danger), along to cheer her up after cancer treatments. They’re taken captive by Jake (Michael Sirow), Virgil’s twitchy meth cook son. He was looking to silence Frank, but now has his daughter as bait. It’s backwoods calamity as Frank and the new police chief, Captain East (Texas Battle), try to rescue the women.

Flaws in Wrong Place

Wrong Place has egregious flaws aplenty. Let’s start with the bizarre shift in tone. The film opens on a sad note before stumbling into the action scenes. It gets violent and bloody then inexplicably takes a humorous turn. Captain East, a black character, starts cracking racially tinged jokes; even though he’s in a dire predicament. This makes no sense at all. People are getting hurt, and he’s riffing one-liners like a comedian. I can’t fathom why this was done. The ugly humor deflates any serious intentions.

Wrong Place is the second film that Bruce Willis has done with director Mike Burns. Their first clunker, Out of Death, serves as a prelude to this disaster. The LA Times did an exposé on filmmakers struggling to deal with Willis’ aphasia. They uncovered an “Out of Death” email where Burns significantly shortened Willis’ lines. Per the LA Times, Burns wanted “no monologues”.

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Vertical Entertainment

Burns was clearly aware of his lead actor’s performance problems before shooting Wrong Place. It’s evident by Willis’ scant dialogue and reactionary stance. Burns cuts away every time he speaks. Willis rarely engages in a back-and-forth conversation. Burns then cobbles together the physical action with obvious body doubles. The end result is a woeful effort to minimize and conceal Willis.

Greene tries her best in a bad situation. She attempts a range of emotions and grit. Her cancer backstory and bestie banter serves as a sappy crutch to fill dead space. There’s also a timing issue here that’s flubbed spectacularly. Wrong Place will be the last new Bruce Willis film I review. He was charismatic and formidable, an action titan. I sincerely hope that huckster filmmakers weren’t exploiting him at his weakest.

Wrong Place is a production of BondIt Media Capital, Buffalo 8 Productions, EFO Films, Five Star Films, and Verdi Productions. Wrong Place is currently in theatrical release and available on-demand from Vertical Entertainment.

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