Viewers seem to be pretty much against this action flick, seeming to put it down because if IS an action flick, a fact that for this viewer prevents looking for the good parts of a movie that succeeds in making us think. Director Andy Cheng (also a co-writer for the script) has a background as a movie stunt coordinator and that talent serves him well in this fast paced, explosive, interesting film.

Alex Thomas (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) is a secret agent assigned to the President when an assassination occurs: Thomas takes a bullet for his beloved President (Jack Scalia) and comforts the First Lady (Anne Archer) when the President is pronounced dead. Thomas works for Head Agent Vaughn Stevens (James Woods) who comforts the grieving Thomas and sends him off duty to recover: Thomas goes off on a drinking binge and is discovered by an aggressive Pulitzer Prize news reporter Kate Crawford (Angie Harmon) and between the two of them they uncover a conspiracy that involves top ranking people. The perpetrator of the assassination is one Jack Baldwin (Peter Greene) who guides the events from is hidden space. Every lead Crawford uncovers is promptly destroyed by explosions or fires until the final confrontation of Baldwin with Thomas and Crawford. And just when the viewer thinks every step is utterly predictable, the ending leaves the truth about the assassination to the viewer...! Cuba Gooding, Jr. is a fine talent in search of a great role: in this film he does well underplaying his character with some of the subtleties that demonstrate more of his talent. Angie Harmon delivers a fine performance: she deserves more roles. Anne Archer remains a pleasure to watch, even in this small but pivotal role, and James Woods, James Selby, and to an extent the grossly disfigured, post multiple plastic surgeries Burt Reynolds create credible characters. This is not a great movie, but is certainly is one with some fine elements and offers promise for new director Andy Cheng in his stepped up role. Yes, it is a bit predictable until the end, but it is a far better film than many of the movies that had the experience of a theatrical run (this one went straight to DVD!). Worth an evening's watching. Grady Harp

IN THE LINE OF FIRE is given the BOURNE treatment in this stylish, action-packed thriller which sees security agent Cuba Gooding Jr. uncovering a conspiracy plot behind a presidential assassination. Along the way, he pairs up with irritating female reporter Angie Harmon and comes up against underrated movie villain Peter Greene (UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY).

END GAME is an entirely familiar beast and indeed almost everything that plays out can be easily predicted by the seasoned viewer. Indeed, as soon as I saw one character I said to myself "yep, he's the villain'" and sure enough my suspicions were realised come the end. Nevetheless, this proves to be a more than adequate piece of entertainment, thanks to decent pacing and lots of tense, taut moments.

Much of the action pays the inevitable debt to Paul Greengrass by incorporating super-fast editing and cross-cutting between characters, although there's a bizarre homage to John Woo about halfway through during the factory shoot-out which comes about ten years too late.

Gooding Jr. makes for an able protagonist and the likes of James Woods, Anne Archer and Jack Scalia flesh out decent character roles, although thankfully Burt Reynolds and his distracting face-lift are kept to a minimum of screen time. END GAME will win no awards for originality, but I've seen worse, including the same year's much bigger-budgeted THE SENTINEL with Michael Douglas.

End Game certainly has a star studded cast with Cuba Gooding Jr, James Woods and Burt Reynolds. Thankfully for your eyesight Reynolds is only in for a few scenes because he looks awful with his plastic surgery and bad wig.

Gooding is a secret service agent who was injured as the President was assassinated. A pushy journalist uncovers a conspiracy and people start dying. She teams up with Cuba and discover that there are CIA black ops people involved and people close to the President might have been involved in the assassination.

End Game is never going to rival Three days of the Condor or The Parallax View. The writing is no great shakes, the photography looks cheap. Yet the cast actually make it watchable. Its rather a decent time waster. The film drops a few clues as it goes along and there is some nice action sequences.