Bruce Willis could easily have played the hero in this preposterous film, "Fire with Fire," from 2012. Instead, he takes phone calls while Josh Duhamel has all the fun.

Duhamel plays a firefighter, Jeremy Coleman, who witnesses a brutal double shooting in a convenience store. The killer is the notorious David Hagan (Vincent D'Onofrio),whom the police have been trying to get for years. He usually leaves a lot of dead bodies as witnesses. Since Jeremy escpaed, the police are desperate to have him testify. They put him in witness protection.

In witness protection, he falls in love with Talia (Rosario Dawson),one of the people in charge of him. Somehow his whereabouts are found, and the next step will be to separate him and Talia as both are in terrible danger.

As with many of these types of films, there's not much in the way of reality. Normally I don't care about that if it's fast-moving and exciting. But this really stretched the bounds of credibility and just wasn't that good. People involved in a horrible fire that is explosive, all encompassing, and three people are untouched? Rosario Dawson coughed once. It also was very upsetting as it looked like 9/11.

The other thing was Josh Duhamel, after being pummeled in every part of his body, pounded, and screaming in pain was able to walk around just fine - not even a limp. Didn't even move slowly. Insane.

Bruce Willis had nothing to do, so I can't comment on his acting. Josh Duhamel is a little too lightweight for me, although he's attractive and sincere. Vincent D'Onofrio has long been a fantastic actor. He's magnificent here, even though the bad guys in this film were so mean they were almost comic book types. No redeeming qualities. Julian McMahon from Nip/Tuck has a small role.

You can easily skip this one.

"Jeremy Coleman" (Josh Duhamel) is a dedicated fireman for the city of Long Beach who just happens to witness the cold-blooded murder of a convenience store clerk by a man named "David Hagan" (Vincent D'Onofiro) who is also the leader of an Aryan supremacist gang. Although he agrees to testify what he doesn't know is that David Hagan is more than eager to kill him to prevent that possibility. As a result Jeremy is put on the witness protection program and while in New Orleans falls in love with one of the marshals by the name of "Talia Durham" (Rosario Dawson). Unfortunately, this has severe consequences as David finds out and now has another bit of leverage to use against Jeremy. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that it started out pretty good. However the last 20 minutes or so was completely ridiculous and really ruined a fairly solid film. So much so that I feel compelled to rate this movie as slightly below average.

Bruce Willis, one of my main reasons for seeing it, 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 as did the story and a talented actor like Vincent D'Onofrio's involvement. Expectations were not high though, because Willis has been past prime for a while.

'Fire with Fire' was not a complete shambles but it was not a good film, is not a good representation of Willis and D'Onofrio is far above such wanting material. It fails in the action and manages to portray its concept with no thrills complete with dull pacing and nothing surprising or much interesting. Not hating it with pleasure, it's my honest opinion and my negative feelings towards it are regrettable.

Will say that the photography is has style and slickness and the film does begin quite promisingly.

Vincent D'Onofrio actually, especially compared to everybody else, acquits himself very well, having the right amount of intensity for the role. Thank goodness for him. He did deserve a far better film, this material does little for an actor of his amount of talent.

However, Willis for someone highly billed doesn't have anywhere near as much screen time as much as one would believe judging by the advertising, like he has been in many of his recent roles he looks like he has given up and in it for the money. Josh Duhamel is so characterless in the lead that he is lost amongst everything else while Vinnie Jones has nothing to work with and he looks as if he knew that. Rosario Dawson is wasted. Only D'Onofrio doesn't disgrace himself.

Visually, the film does lack cohesion on the whole, especially in the too frenetic editing. The music is too loud, should have been used far less and some of the placement is inappropriate. There is just no energy, momentum or finesse in the direction and the non-action oriented parts are handled so indifferently. The dialogue is cliché-ridden and makes one roll the eyes frequently, and the story has no surprises , is very pedestrian and gets muddled from trying to do too much.

Tension and suspense are non-existent. 'Fire with Fire' is throughout ridiculous and far-fetched and at other points it takes itself too seriously. The action-oriented scenes are clumsy, too reliant on convenience, easily foreseeable in outcome and not exciting or suspenseful at all. The characters are not compelling or easy to get behind, due to not being developed properly and the relationships being uninteresting. The romance is completely bland with no chemistry and the ending is predictable and rushed.

Overall, weak but not a must avoid, D'Onofrio saves it from total disaster. 3/10 Bethany Cox