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The Prince was directed by Brian A. Miller, written by Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore, and stars Jason Patric, Jessica Lowndes, Jung “Rain” Ji-Hoon, Gia Mantegna, Curtis Jackson, Bruce Willis, Johnathon Schaech, and John Cusack. It follows an ex-hitman as he returns to the life he left behind in order to find and save his kidnapped daughter.

The Plot: If you’ve seen Taken, you’ve seen The Prince. While the writers put a bit more time into clarifying character connections, as the movie is built on old history rather than spurious conflict, it’s still a blatant retread.

After not hearing from his collegiate daughter Beth (Mantegna) for a while, mechanic Paul (Patric) intends to find out what’s going on. Prowling around her frequent watering hole brings him to Angela (Lowndes), Beth’s roommate, who reveals that she fell into a bad drug habit. This prompts Paul to travel from Alabama to Louisiana to start kicking in doors to find Beth; a journey that Angela insists on joining. Fabrizio and Passmore aren’t rich in ideas, and this causes The Prince to repeat itself before it really gets going, with the structure quickly becoming a “go here, meet him” cycle that it rarely breaks.

Such figures of intrigue include dealers, who point to a local kingpin named “The Pharmacy” (Fiddy), who’s own men bring up Omar (Willis), another well-known criminal in the area, who Paul worked for in the past. Instead of offering a multi-front war, the movie disappointingly wraps up the Pharmacy thread by bringing in Paul’s old associate Sam (Cusack, comically unenthused) and gun shop owner Frank (Schaech) before moving onto Omar, who by this point has sent out enforcer Mark (Rain) to eliminate the vigilante dad. Of course, Paul’s mission is already well on its way.

Even for those who haven’t seen Taken, Miller plays The Prince so straight that it’d be hard to misjudge the beats and overall destination. It’s too competent to fail completely, but it never rises above self-imposed blandness.

The Characters: In the movie’s continued efforts to ride the coattails of prior works, Fabrizio and Passmore essentially copy and paste archetypes that have been in use long before 2008.

Paul is a seemingly normal mechanic, light on words but heavily invested in the future of his daughter. He’s brooding, icy, and reluctant to speak about unnecessary matters to anyone unfamiliar to him, but that’s because he has a particular set of skills that’ve made him world weary and jaded. The Prince – his old code name, is just another in a litany of cinema’s hitmen without an arc. Patric does an excellent job with the trite material, but Paul still isn’t a memorable lead.

Angela doesn’t add anything to the movie after she provides Paul directions, aside from grating snark, several substance issues that bring more trouble to her permissive guardian, and a vessel to reveal parts of Paul’s past (which were already easily garnered). Other associates are bland as well, with Sam an old cohort of Paul’s from his hitman days, and Frank a man sympathetic to a noble cause. Both are underdeveloped by design, allowing them to feel like an easy way out for Paul to arm up.

Omar has a personal connection that goes beyond his employment of Paul. A thirst for vengeance started brewing when Paul turned on him, accidentally blowing up Omar’s family in a trap that was meant to put down the gangster(?) after his methods got too ruthless. Basic connection is all that’s offered for the big bad, but that’s the pattern for The Prince and its characters.

The Action: Eventually, after Paul’s shakedowns of low-level thugs, Miller tries to inject some setpieces into the proceedings, but budgetary restrictions keep most of them interchangeable with dozens (possibly hundreds) of similar actioners.

A car chase is meant to be the first major scuffle of the feature, but it doesn’t land with appropriate ferocity. As Paul rides away from a club with information on The Pharmacy, two of Omar’s goons follow him in hopes of stopping him before problems arise. The ensuing chase isn’t exactly exciting, with speed and threat levels curiously low. The gunmen try to get Paul to slow down instead of firing on him, at least for a while, which doesn’t add up considering the history between the two big players.

Confrontations are generally similar throughout the runtime, but the showdown between Paul and The Pharmacy is one of the movie’s only above average action sequences. It’s not unique, but watching Paul do that tacti-cool thing that some of these movies do (swift and fluid gun movements, cover to cover positioning, etc.,) as he clears a drug den room by room all while carrying Beth with one arm is far more energetic than anything that came before, despite its brevity.

Miller steadies the pace for the rest of The Prince, meaning the quality and quantity of the action also stays relatively consistent, however it evens out on a slightly below average level. Those hoping for a remarkable finale won’t be receiving it, as Paul’s assault on Omar’s lair, while mixing some alright melee combat and the same cover to cover movement of the pharmacy shootout, is weirdly edited compared to the aforementioned sequence. It’s not bad, just uninvolving, as Paul only really works his way up one flight of stairs and through a few hallways until reaching Omar. The level of action here isn’t regal.

The Technics: Like all of Brian A. Miller’s directorial outings, The Prince isn’t anything special, even when taking into account the fairly low budget. It looks similar, feels similar, and covers basically the same ground with only basic technical competence.

Visually, the movie is how Miller seems to prefer things: bathed in blue steel, purple, and yellow grading and lighting, frequently underlit, and blandly shot except during action scenes, which incorporate useless shaky-cam. None of these things are offensive on the eyes, but paired with mostly seedy locations which are only broken up by the scenes at Omar’s base of operations and Sam’s hotel, the movie becomes a blur of limited release/VOD tropes that’ve been done plenty of times before.

Briskness at least keeps the repetitive nature of the movie to a minimum, as Rick Shaine’s editing pares down the cut to an agreeable runtime of around 90 minutes. Sometimes this seemingly cuts scenes off before they reach a natural conclusion, but with the quality of the writing that remains in the movie, it’s doubtful that these choices are a net negative to the production.

While this is one of Miller’s better movies, that doesn’t say much. The Prince has some decent action and a solid performance from Patric, but it’s far too content with cliches and barely mediocre construction to be a loyal defender of the end result.

45/100