Catch .44

" Catch .44"

"As Reported by Dollyforme"

Nikki Reed is – simply put, quite hot. She is a Twilight star so she has the cash to do cute indie movies like this one. I’ve also seen her in some cool slasher movies made of late too. This cute little indie film stars Nikki Reed, Malin Akerman and Deborah Ann Woll who play young lovelies with guns who are not afraid to use them. As the film opens they are on a mission for a drug lord (Bruce Willis, nicely odd) that lands them in a diner, where their holdup plans don’t go so well.

This ditty of a movie also features Forest Whitaker as a swamp-balls who, basically, perpetrate a Mexican stand-off with the young ladies.

The film gives Willis and Whitaker an off-road chance to show off their character-actor chops with some fun, cheeky inside stuff – Bruce Willis wailing Respect for example.

Jolting backwards from the bloody finale, Catch .44 plugs away on the lives of three girlfriends who toil at the local strip joint, but are now packing guns and heading out on I-40 to hi-jack a coke deal. These three are no angels, in part because they work for the nefarious Mel (Willis), a drug-lord and opportunistic snotwad.

As they tool the mean back-roads in their nifty Beemer, the three lasses squabble in annoying bad-girl drone. It doesn’t take long for them to meet trouble in the form of a squirrelly murderer (Whitaker) who’s gunned down a state patrolman and shimmied into his uniform.

Ricocheting back and forth between the bloody finale and the backstory of each girlie, Catch .44 is a petite amusement. Bruce Willis slinks into his slime-ball role with apt flourish. Sauntering around in his oily bathrobe, swigging bourbon and gorging walnuts, he’s amusing and utterly believable. Forest Whitaker hams it up with a crazy backwoods Hispanic speech cadence, which would make him an entertaining party guest. Of the bad girls, Nikki Reed triggers sexuality and bad temper in lethal doses – she is quite hot in this movie – her shower scene is not to be missed.

The technical contributions are well-wrought, particularly costume designer Johanna Argan's aptly peculiar threads for Willis.

The script (by Aaron Harvey, who also directed) jumps around in time, giving us glimpses of how the ill-fated Mexican standoff came about. Forest Whitaker’s itchy trigger finger and double crosses start piling the bodies before the standoff happens.

The film burns a lot of time on this guns-drawn three-way Mexican standoff, the kind of scene that sustains a lot of tension on the screen. Then, blam blam blam, the tale ends. For a little indie film I liked it – gals with guns is always a favorite of mine.

“Catch .44” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has a hot scene in a strip club and blood is everywhere. If you are a Nikki Reed fan like me – go see it.
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