Time: 110 Minutes
Cast:
Aaron Eckhart as Vail
Nina Dobrev as Kate
Clifton Collins Jr. as Victor Radek
Tim Blake Nelson as O’Malley
Ilfenesh Hadera as Tye
Director: Renny Harlin

From the outside, The Bricklayer looked like a very generic action movie starring Aaron Eckhart. The most interesting part however was the fact that it is directed by Renny Harlin, who has directed some notable action movies. My early predictions proved to be right, and it resembles a direct to streaming action movie, but as such, there’s still enjoyment to be had with it.

Already you can tell that it has a very weak script. The Bricklayer is one of the most cliche filled action movies of recent years that it is actually impressive. There’s particularly a conversation early on between Aaron Eckhart, Nina Dobrev and Tim Blake Nelson which keeps loading one action cliche onto another, it got to a point that it became unintentionally funny. Unfortunately, the movie wasn’t as entertaining as I hoped it would be. On the whole, it is just a very formulaic action movie with a forgettable plot and very little surprises. Familiarity aside, the movie is largely dull, shifting between having characters giving expositional dialogue, and then having action scenes to liven things up. For this setup, I feel like this movie might have benefitted from a pulpier and sillier vibe. At some points, the lead character kills people with bricklaying tools, and even one of his earlier dialogues is literally “I’m the Bricklayer”. Leaning a bit into that absurdity might’ve given the movie some personality.

Aaron Eckhart plays the titular character and he does work as an action star, delivering very well in the action scenes. Outside of that, his character is a walking cliche and there’s not much to him, so Eckhart is just left playing the grizzled spy role. Nina Dobrev is also fine as the other lead of the movie, though she and Eckhart don’t share much chemistry together.

Renny Harlin has made plenty of action movies ranging in quality from Cliffhanger and The Long Kiss Goodnight to The Legend of Hercules. With his latest, he’s definitely made better movies but this isn’t his worst. The action is decent and competent enough, and the fight scenes are satisfyingly crunchy, though the scenes not involving bricklaying tools and equipment aren’t particularly memorable.

The Bricklayer has some entertaining set pieces, but overall, it is a pretty generic and cliche-filled action flick.