Blowback (2022) – Tibor Takacs.

Bank heist operator Nick's (Cam Gigandet) plans of executing a slickly orchestrated score are scuppered by members of his crew leaving him for dead, forcing him to enact his bloody revenge upon them! While undeniably formulaic, experienced genre director Takacs delivers a stolid, mostly doable DTV actioner. Surly pugilist Couture is a suitably bellicose thug, Mandylor is often cast as a cop, and Gigandet's Nick provides a handsome, sinewy, if somewhat lightweight hammer of vengeance. I gave Blowback a shot since I am a huge fan of Takacs's The Gate and Armageddon, and, to be fair, it proved to be an amiable enough tea & biscuits time-killer. I think it's a trifle unjust to disparage a boisterous B-picture for steadfastly adhering to a tried and true formula, since that's kinda like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's competently made, and as an occasional sentimentalist, I was more than satisfied with how the greatly beleaguered Nick resolved his crisis. Negative elements are the routine plotting, but I must say I did enjoy Ego Mikitas's icy portrayal of charismatic mob enforcer Pete, expressing the same cool, diffident intensity that made Michael Madsen such a wickedly compelling Alpha Reservoir Dog!