It feels strange to see a film like The Enforcer on the big screen. This scrappy neo-noir thriller is the kind of stripped-down action fluff that tends to pop up on streaming and then vanish without a trace. Perhaps it’s a continuing quirk of the pandemic that led to similar throwbacks like the enjoyable Russell Crowe vehicle Unhinged finding their way into cinemas due to a dearth of other options. Perhaps it’s the studio putting out some lower-ranked titles while Avatar: The Way of Water washes away all before it. Either way, this muddled but full-blooded directorial debut from Richard Hughes isn’t entirely free of some schlocky pleasures, not least an enjoyably taciturn, glowering turn from the eternally watchable Antonio Banderas.

Banderas is Cuda, an aging enforcer for Miami-based crime boss Estelle (Kate Bosworth). Just out of prison, he finds himself an unwilling mentor to Stray (Mojean Aria), a streetfighter that Estelle recruits into her organisation. The career criminal is also rebuffed by his teenaged daughter (Vivian Milkova) when he tries to make amends. This leads to a show of compassion for orphan Billy (Zolee Griggs), a girl the same age. After befriending the girl, he pays for a motel room for Billy and gives her some money, only for her to be kidnapped and forced into an underground cybersex prostitution ring with which Estelle is involved.

The narrative of a jaded hardman given a last chance at redemption is hardly a new one, and when examples like the effortlessly brilliant The Man from Nowhere exist, or a visionary like Lynne Ramsay can spin such a yarn into something almost arthouse with You Were Never Really Here, The Enforcer‘s generic genes are painfully visible. There is little in Point Break writer’s W. Peter Iliff‘s script that isn’t redolent of a million other pulp thrillers, and the visuals are glossy enough, but again echo emptily in the vast void of the mediocre. Hughes fails to bring its two main plot strands together cohesively. It’s not certain whether the focus should be on Cuda’s redemptive arc, or on the younger Stray’s attempts to leave the road to oblivion he’s currently on. Is it a particularly humourless odd-couple buddy movie, or a Taken-style ‘geriactioner‘? Nobody involved seems to know.

But for all its many issues, when Banderas is onscreen he remains a dynamic and charismatic figure. Versatile enough to be a convincing avatar for none other than Pedro Almodóvar in the reflective Pain and Glory, and yet completely believable here as someone who can take apart a goon’s head with a golf club with nary a shrug, he’s easily the main reason to ride out the numerous cliches. Mojean Aria also brings a jittery, Aaron Paul-like energy to the pair’s scenes together; a twitchy counterpoint to Cuda’s gorgon-strength glare. The production designer of the sex dungeon also deserves credit. A more nightmarish, stygian dive has rarely been seen since the Rectum in Irréversible. It lends the final act a sense of an Orphic quest to the underworld which the rest of the film sorely lacks.

The Enforcer is not really a disappointment when one expected nothing in the first instance. The trailer promised little and the film duly delivers. Its attempts to add a meditative quality to its depiction of the life of a gangster fail messily, and the inclusion of the sex trafficking angle is more in-keeping with an update on the old-fashioned exploitation flick, than with meaningful take on the subject. Its flaws are myriad, yet just occasionally, especially with Banderas ramping up the intensity to levels above and beyond what it deserves, its pleasures become visible.

Available in cinemas nationwide now