Falcon Rising starring Michael Jai White follows a one time Marine who embarks on a journey to Brazil to track down his sisters assailants, quickly entering the city's seedy underbelly and discovering a world of drugs, the sex trade, corrupt cops, and organized crime syndicates battling for control.
Y. T. Parazi's unmysterious screenplay drops cheesily clever one-liners on the way to a finish that suggests a bid for sequels, though you're more likely to find those on late-night cable than in theaters.
To the movie's detriment, White doesn't get to show us what he can really do until 30 minutes into the story, then again near the end when he takes on three armed baddies.
Beyond isolated moments of dickish charm - and his climactic four-way fight involving a sword, a crucifix, and two steel pipes - Chapman just comes across like another pseudo-heroic American behaving badly abroad.
A throwback to 1980s action films, with strong men at the center going up alone against an unambiguously evil foe, "Falcon Rising" is an entertaining film with a thrilling physical performance from Michael Jai White.
