I’m kind of floored by this movie. Because the first half hour is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen – a shouty, extravagant attempt at coolness that waves a great big neon sign reading, “Look how edgy and rad I am” over its metaphorical head. I loathed it. And then the second act starts and the remaining hour is a surprisingly sweet romance mixed with some low-stakes crime drama.

The film is about two of them there star-crossed lovers… a couple of kids whose parents run rival media empires. They were split apart by their parents years earlier and have now met up again to rekindle the flame. It’s like Romeo and Juliet if they hadn’t offed themselves… call it Romeo and Juliet 2: The Revenge (only don’t since that’d be giving this film too much borrowed glory…).

Yeah, that first hour is grim. Just an unwatchable mess. But I can’t argue that, once it chills the hell out and just focuses on the couple, it’s pretty good. I actually started to like the characters… even the try-hard hit-man character in the Hawaiian shirt. It helps that Alexandra Doddario (and her blue eyes) is the lead female… even if this movie might bump up against the limits of her acting.

I kept expecting this to turn into the action movie the title suggests… and it sets up a potential double-cross bloodbath at the end that never quite happens. If you want an action film, yo buddy you’ve come to the wrong place. There’s a decent showdown that actually made me sad for some of the resolutions… and that says something. But an action film it ain’t. No truth in advertising here.

I say if you want a decent romance with pretty people surrounded by a lot of crap, this might be the movie for you? I guess. I’m deducting points for it being a mess but adding more points than I planned after that tragic opening.

Score: 74