The Prince: Macho Mayhem As The Male Version Of Maternal Instinct

Yet another entry into the dad rescues endangered kid thriller with Brian Miller's The Prince, that macho mayhem as opposed to maternal instinct scenario is beginning to nearly qualify as a guy genre in its own right on screen. Though in this case just about every guy around is a metaphorically conceived maniac from bad to worst, and it supposedly has something to do with the ancient Romans and rabid royalty under house arrest somewhere in the Scotland wilderness centuries ago.

Updated to the present time and with ensuing anti-heroes galore, The Prince plays out as a longstanding grudge between two gangsters with combo anger management diabolical daddy issues. Paul (Jason Patric) is the title character in question, a soldier who reluctantly chose the military over prison as an option he couldn't refuse, and whose combat experience apparently sent him into post-traumatic assassination mode, bringing home the war for the New Orleans mob. Now a mysterious auto mechanic down in Mississippi, Paul returns to New Orleans to locate his missing runaway teenage daughter.

Likewise interested in finding her is Omar (Bruce Willis), a local mob chief out to seek vengeance against Paul, responsible for the car bomb murder of his wife and daughter that was intended to take down Omar instead. Also tossed into the mix though rather peripherally is 50 Cent's leering lunatic druglord dubbed The Pharmacist, and John Cusack as a retired gangster from Paul's old posse back in the day, who wants none of it but is willing to help out secretly in any way he can. Then there's Omar's peculiar sidekick played by Rain, a skinny, dapper effeminate martial arts hitman favoring designer duds.

Willis rather delicately negotiates getting into his darker side, in a shaky balancing act between a slightly humanized professional psychopath yearning for closure over a longstanding major grievance, and just a really rotten dude. Meanwhile, maximum homicidal pandemonium ensues without astonishingly, a single big city cop in sight for the duration. Along with a remarkably bullet-proof protagonist throughout the proceedings, and the most destruction inflicted instead upon exceedingly defaced property if not highly abused chewed up scenery.