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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, April 4, 2003

Vin Diesel tries to cement action star status in 'A Man Apart'

By Marshall Fine
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

A MAN APART (Rated R) Two Stars (Fair)

A DEA agent goes to war against a drug lord after the agent's wife is murdered, in this thundering, tension-free revenge thriller. Starring Vin Diesel, Larenz Tate, Timothy Olyphant. Directed by F. Gary Gray. New Line Cinema, 109 minutes.

"A Man Apart" is "Traffic"-Lite, substituting Vin Diesel's sensibility for Steven Soderbergh's.

Diesel didn't actually direct this film, but this revenge drama wants little else except to further establish Diesel as an action icon.

He may be one of the few faces of the next generation who might have a shot at longer-term success. But he needs to work for better directors than F. Gary Gray, whose louder-faster ethic can't elevate a cliche-strewn script by Christian Gudegast and Paul Scheuring.

In "A Man Apart," Diesel plays Sean Vetter, a DEA agent who is first seen bringing down Memo Lucero (Geno Silva), the biggest drug lord in northern Mexico, sending him to a double life term in an American penitentiary. Before Sean has much chance to celebrate this latest victory in the war on drugs, there's a new drug lord in town calling himself Diablo, out to prove he is even more ruthless than Lucero.

How much more ruthless? Diablo sends killers to shoot Sean and his wife (Jacqueline Obradors) while they're asleep in their apartment. His wife is killed, but Sean survives and begins a crusade against Diablo, fired by his personal tragedy.

There's meant to be a great deal of mystery about Diablo's identity, but Diesel seems to be the only one fooled. He strides purposefully forward, flummoxed by the question of who he'll find at the end of the trail he so violently follows. Diesel has undeniable screen presence, a pleasant self-deprecating quality and, apparently, some range (though not as much as he thinks, in the scenes involving Sean's wife's death).

In "The Negotiator," director Gray displayed very little feel for action choreography and he hasn't improved with this film. There is a lot of graphic violence in "A Man Apart," but there is little with the super-charged tension Gray strives for.

Rated R (profanity, nudity, graphic violence).