I saw John Cusak, so I figured it would be worth a shot since he hits a winner about 75% of the time. Well--this was one of the 25%, but it was still an entertaining shoot-em-up sort of film. Bruce Willis must have needed the dough because his character could have been played by anybody; he didn't bring any "Bruce Willis" to it. 50-Cent was ridiculous as he is in any movie they stick him in. I don't know who told him he could act, but it was probably the same guy who told him he could rap. Jason Patric doesn't really have that leading man thing going on--he never has had it-- but he was pretty good in this film. The guy's a solid actor, just nothing to write home about. Overall, it was a good, mindless 90 minutes of entertainment with a sketchy plot and an unbelievable premise which means it was better than 80% of the crap coming out of Hollywood today.

Saw 'The Prince' because Bruce Willis has done good films and given good performances in the past, 'Die Hard' is a genre landmark and his performance is iconic in that. The title and poster also intrigued. Have an appreciation for action and the idea for the story sounded interesting. Expectations were not high though, because Willis has been past prime for a while (several bad films and has looked tired and disengaged a lot).

'The Prince' is not a good representation of him, if not as bad as the recent 'Reprisal'. 'The Prince' is a better film to that while having similar, actually even the same, faults. It fails in the action stakes, faring very unfavourably in relation to other films seen in the genre, and while anything involving abductions and rescues have been very engagingly done on film 'The Prince' manages to portray it with no thrills complete with dull pacing, lots of silliness and endless predictability. Not hating it with pleasure, it's my honest opinion and my negative feelings towards it are regrettable.

Will say that there are more visually amateurish films around, there are moments where there is slickness and style and the photography is nowhere near as disorganised as that for 'Reprisal'.

John Cusack and 50 Cent give the most engaged performances, even if Cusack has little to do.

However, for someone highly billed, Willis is used poorly, he looks tired and like he didn't want to be there. Jason Patric completely lacks intensity and even charisma, very anaemic. Everybody else is bland and annoying.

Visually, the film does lack cohesion. The music is too loud, should have been used far less and some of the placement is inappropriate. Brian A. Miller directs like he was inexperienced to directing when in reality he wasn't, there is just no energy, momentum or finesse and the non-action oriented parts are handled so indifferently.

Dialogue from the very start to the contrived climax is riddled with clichés and cheese and what little there is of the story has no surprises, fun or tension, is very pedestrian in pace and fails to make sense or have signs of maturity. Tension and suspense are non-existent. 'The Prince' goes overboard on the ridiculousness and lack of plausibility and at other points it takes itself too seriously. The action is clumsily choreographed, sloppily edited and not exciting or suspenseful at all, as well as looking at least twenty years out of date and relying far too heavily on convenience. The characters are not compelling or easy to get behind. Do not expect every character in every film to be likeable when characters in numerous films purposefully aren't, but it is an issue if there are characters meant to be rootable and 'The Prince' has that problem.

Concluding, weak but not a complete shambles. 3/10 Bethany Cox

THE PRINCE is yet another B-movie thriller advertised as a "Bruce Willis" movie that turns out to contain the actor for about a quarter of the running time, if that. Instead the main plot is about ageing action man Jason Patric on the trail of some gangsters who've kidnapped his daughter. It's the kind of film that's happy to go through the motions without ever offering much of note, other than some supporting roles for the likes of John Cusack, Rain, and 50 Cent, none of whom are given much to do. The action scenes are a bit too digital and overall there's little here that hasn't been done to death.