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Samuel L. Jackson makes movies and gets paid, and maybe every fifth one is something good, but nobody notices because he’s working that whole “Samuel L. Jackson” thing, which is highly entertaining and should be patented. Like, he should do a show on how to act, the way Michael Caine did with that Michael Caine on Acting in Film tape, because Michael Caine, in his day, had the gigs lined up the way Samuel L. Jackson does now. And Samuel L. Jackson could give tips like “raise your voice on random words and then say ‘motherfucker,’ motherfucker.” Anyway, this flick is just like 1988’s Midnight Run, which starred Robert De Niro, or maybe even 1999’s Analyze This, which also, uninterestingly enough, starred Robert Count de Money. Basically, you got one hard-boiled character—that would be Samuel L. Jackson—and one nebbishy character (Eugene Levy from stuff like A Mighty Wind and television’s SCTV), and then somehow, you know, somebody does something surprising and somebody else learns something when they least expect it and, you know, cable TV needs product and this mediocrity might just divert you at some future point for a few minutes. And if you are an aspiring actor, you can watch Samuel L. Jackson use his basic character template—and get paid.

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