Do you like Gerard Butler and have you always been up for a 90-minute genre film anyway? Then “Chase – Nothing Stops Him” might be something for you, which is celebrating its free TV premiere today.
In addition to the usual suspects like Dwayne Johnson (“San Andreas”), Jason Statham (“The Transporter”) or Liam Neeson (“96 Hours”), Gerard Butler (“Olympus Has Fallen”) is also one of THE action stars of today. While the first three stars like to appear in blockbusters, the Scottish actor is now a man for the harsh, somewhat less high-budget B-movie cinema. With “Plane”, Butler was recently able to bring a real action highlight to the screen, in which he also delivers one of his best performances, as you can see in the official FILMSTARTS review.
The same cannot be said about “Chase – Nothing Stops Him”. The action thriller by Brian Goodman (“Boston Streets”) was not only completely lost in September 2022 when it was released in German cinemas. In addition, the reviews weren’t particularly inspiring – the official FILMSTARTS review only gave the film a measly 1.5 out of 5 possible stars. Gerard Butler fans will of course still be interested and can satisfy their interest now, because today, November 4th, the film celebrates its free TV premiere on ZDF from 10:15 p.m. Without advertising!
That’s what “Chase” is about
Will (Gerard Butler) and his wife (Jaimie Alexander) are in the middle of a marital crisis. The couple is currently on the way to Lisa’s parents because Will’s wife needs some distance and wants to use the next time to finally clear her head. As the couple rests at a gas station, Lisa suddenly disappears from the face of the earth without a trace. Will panics, which is why he alerts the police, but they don’t see any signs of a crime due to a lack of leads.
Eventually even Will comes under suspicion of having something to do with his wife’s disappearance. Now he is forced to take matters into his own hands and organizes surveillance footage of the gas station. To his surprise, a man can be seen there who speaks to Lisa. What follows is a race against time to find his wife alive while still being the police’s prime suspect.
That’s why “Chase” is a failure
Does the premise of “Chase” sound familiar? No wonder, because back in 1988 George Sluizer used the starting point for his incredibly mean “Gone Without a Trace” and thereby created a masterpiece of profound thriller cinema. Five years later he even personally shot an American remake, “Spurless,” which boasted big stars like Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland and Sandra Bullock, but no longer unleashed the same toxic ruthlessness as the original.
“Gone without a trace” on Amazon*
In “Chase,” Gerard Butler is allowed to search for his wife after she disappears at a gas station. It actually sounds like a very useful basis for creating fast-paced genre cinema. But that doesn’t work, because in this case it’s easy no tension-filled drop height is created. Where the protagonist in “Disappeared Without a Trace” spends three years of his life to find his wife (until he comes across the first clues), in “Chase” it only takes a few hours – and Butler is allowed to ensure justice with a crowbar and a shooting iron.
That wouldn’t be a problem if director Brian Goodman managed to ignite some dynamism or urgency in the action. Instead, the production is sometimes not even at the Direct-To-DVD average level. The only special thing – which the film doesn’t make anything of – is that Gerard Butler was the only one to improvise his part of the dialogue, while the other actors worked with given texts. The conclusion of the FILMSTARTS review is therefore negative:
“The American Brian Goodman unabashedly twists ideas from George Sluizer’s masterpiece ‘Gone Without a Trace’ and chases Gerard Butler through one as a shooting avenger partly unintentionally funny action thriller without any trace of sophistication or intelligence. I have no idea why such a bland production dares to do such an out-of-the-box improv experiment like this one with the main actor’s spontaneously thrown-out dialogues.”
You can find out which film Gerard Butler had to prepare really hard for and eat steak every evening in the following article:
“I had to eat steaks every night”: Gerard Butler changed so drastically for one of his best action films
This is an updated republication of an article that previously appeared on FILMSTARTS.
