Bruce Willis spends half of the movie sitting.

Really sad to see that

Following the announcement of his retirement due to his health condition, Bruce Willis left behind many films he had already shot.

One of them, "Breakthrough Program", is coming up in Israel and provides an illustration that the star has already struggled to function in the twilight of his career

Avner Shavit

01/06/2022

Wednesday, 01 June 2022, 01:05 Updated: Friday, 01 July 2022, 01:04

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Trailer for the movie "Hacking Plan" (United King and Trail Movies)

Star rating for movies - 2 stars (Photo: Image Processing,.)

Three months ago, Bruce Willis' family announced that the actor had to retire due to his health condition - he suffers from a neurological disorder called aphasia, which impairs his cognitive abilities.

To the general public, this post fell like a thunderbolt on a clear day, but to those who have worked with it in recent years it did not surprise.

They have long understood that the star is not as it was yesterday and the day before yesterday, and have noticed its gradual retreat over the last half decade.

During this time, Willis was photographed for an astronomical amount of 22 films - most of them a Type B thriller.

Many of them have not yet been released.

And others are already available for viewing, having skipped halls in the United States and uploaded directly in home format.

One of these products is the "Fortress" program, which is actually distributed commercially in cinemas.

He came to them last weekend, about a year and a half after his rise on American VOD.

From an international point of view, there is no news here, but from an Israeli perspective - this is the first time that a film starring the veteran actor has come up here after the update on his health condition.

Let’s start with a dry description of the plot, as if it was just another film, and not a notable event in medical circumstances.

Willis plays a former special agent, a loner in a sort of remote guesthouse that houses retired agents like him.

The place is horribly loosely secured relative to its sensitivity, and the protagonist receives two visits.

The first and happiest is that of his estranged son, whose crypto business has run into difficulties and jumps to demand his safety in order to ask him for financial support.

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In America it went straight up on VOD, with us coming to the movies.

From "Burglary Plan" (Photo: United King and Trail Films)

The second and least gratifying visit is from whoever was the hero's nemesis.

The special agent, played by Willis, managed at the time to deceive him and stop his plots.

To restart them, and also to take revenge on the man of the law, the arch-villain breaks into the place with a violent gang that does not resort to any means and leaves behind a trail of corpses - a relatively short trail, because "burglary plan" is not "dead to live."

Its budget is limited and this is evident in the production values ​​and the small number of extras.

The script, written by Alan Horsnail, of course presents a host of other plot twists, which we will not discover.

They are not particularly surprising, but also not too absurd.

Here and there it is evident that the anonymous screenwriter is apparently striving to write for higher level projects in the future.

In the dialogues he wrote for "Breakthrough Program" there are a few winks, for example a dialogue that mentions the classic "Lethal Mission", as well as philosophies.

The arch-villain, for example, enjoys drilling into the brain, and among other things repeats Kierkegaard's saying that "

Even the "hacking program" can only be understood backwards - after reading stories behind the scenes, and learning that in recent years there have been directors who have had to reduce as much as possible the volume of Willis' roles and his screen time.

Now that we already know what his condition was like during the filming, it is clear to us why he does not have a lot of action scenes here, why his speech is slow and why he spends most of the film sitting.

It's heartbreaking to see this, and the only consolation is that the actor proves that he does not have to stand to fight the bad guys - in the climactic moment of this action thriller, the agent manages to neutralize one of the other characters without getting up from the chair.

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One can only understand backwards.

From "Burglary Plan" (Photo: United King and Trail Films)

Aside from Willis' presence, there are a few other interesting names in the film under unfavorable circumstances.

The director is James Cullen Bersk, an American-Jewish director who previously said he was a "victim of antisemitic crime."

In 2013, he directed a film called "Hate Crime," about a gang of neo-Nazis who abuse a Jewish family, and the result was so violent and graphic that the British Isles banned its screening in cinemas.

A "hacking plan" is not particularly violent and is not unusual in any way.

This is a minimal and functional action thriller.

There are thousands like him, and we would not be talking about him without the identity of his star.

In addition to Willis, Shannon Doherty, who plays the directors of the special facility, also appears here.

The actress, as is well known, also photographed him in a difficult medical situation - she has been battling cancer in advanced stages in recent years.

"Breakthrough Program" is currently the latest feature film to be available for viewing, but it has starred in more films to be released in the near future.

From the movie "Burglary Plan" (Photo: United King and Trail Movies)

On the Doherty side, a rather anonymous actress named Kelly Grayson also appears here.

All the way through, the film forces her to walk around half-naked, in a way that emphasizes her impressive physical figures, and even though all the other characters are dressed of course.

In one scene, the protagonist's son stumbles and grabs her breasts so as not to fall.

Both when it comes to questions of representation and in many other respects, a "hacking plan" seems to have been done in the 1990s.

Only the plot line dealing with crypto and Willis' situation are a reminder that we are in 2022.

Another clue to this is the structure of the film, which as is customary today turns out to be nothing more than a preparation for the sequels.

The second episode aired on VOD in the United States about two months ago.

Willis, due to his rapidly deteriorating abilities, was already barely able to function in his filming and was barely present in it, because at this point apparently even giving blows in the yeshiva was already big on him.

And what about the third chapter?

It is not clear if they will bother to complete its production and sign the trilogy, but even if they do, the actor will probably no longer be in the picture.

A sad ending to a glorious career.

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