The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

The Big Bang is
a film noir-style thriller about Los Angeles private investigator, Ned Cruz
(Banderas), who is hired by a recently paroled Russian boxer to locate his
missing girlfriend Lexie (Guillory) and retrieve the US$30 million worth of
diamonds that she took from him.

Cruz’s quest to find Lexie lands him in the
most bizarre of situations in the dirtiest and most dangerous areas of LA,
where he comes across a variety of eccentric characters. In his investigation,
Cruz finds various clues on different characters connected to Lexie, such as an
enigmatic Hollywood action star (Van Der Beek) and an independent porn producer
named Puss, ironically portrayed by rapper Snoop Dogg – ironically because of his character’s name of course, and not because of the porn producer role. Eventually, the
trail of clues lead Cruz to the mastermind behind it all, billionaire Simon
Kestral (Elliot) with the intentions of recreating the Big Bang underneath the
New Mexico desert.

Straight from the start, the plot of The Bing Bang is chaotic and may leave audiences in disarray as they try
to keep up with the plot. What at times seems like it is meant to
be a multi-stranded story never really comes together the way it should. Back-to-back scenes don’t flow, with the tone often changing quite suddenly.

The stylistic elements of the film
are derivative and the failed pastiche approach does it no favours. While it is
clearly influenced by Tarantino films such as Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs,
it lacks the charm and intelligence of these crime classics. At times the film
also delves into, and tries to recreate old-school film-noire qualities, which
it overall also fails to do.

The budget of The Big Bang was well
under US$20 million, and although much better has been made for much less, it would
be difficult for the film to compete with its much better funded action-film
peers.

The only saving grace of the film is the
always dependable Antonio Banderas as Cruz. The role doesn’t quite
live up to his most famous of turns in films such as Desperado and Once Upon a
Time in Mexico, but he actually carries the often over-dramatic dialogue with a
great sense of nonchalance. Supporting roles are little more than caricatures,
and Banderas’ headline status is never in any danger.

This is by no means the worst action
film to be churned out by the Hollywood conveyor belt, but the melodrama of the
plot is not backed up with any originality.