Presumably the makers of the 2013 crime thriller Bullet to the Head hoped to fashion something as entertaining as 24—a TV series which is flawed, exciting, good.  Unfortunately, the movie they cranked out is flawed, exciting, bad, without any of the elements that immediately save 24.

Sylvester Stallone is an arrogant actor here and is miscast as a hired killer.  He and his fellow hit man do their snuffing out, but are set up by the villains who hired them; and the reason for the set up is as dumb as everything else in the film.  Why does the double crosser try to kill Stallone and his partner with a knife instead of a gun?  Later on, Stallone grudgingly teams up with an Asian-American cop (Sung Kang) to root out Adewale Akinnoye-Agbaje’s international thug (Stallone’s betrayer).  But the film has the chutzpah to make Akinnoye-Agbaje a complete idiot—not much of a match for the hit man and the cop.  Why, for example, does the thug allow a muscular baddie played by Jason Momoa to become a loose cannon?

Bullet is based on a graphic novel, which is often asking for trouble.  Yes, it is exciting . . . and raw . . . but it ain’t TV.  NOT EVEN THAT!