The Cold Light of Day Review

 

Hey there, my Squirrel friends! I’ve got another Henry Cavill film to share with you: The Cold Light of Day. This is one of those movies that probably went straight to DVD, and I hadn’t heard of it until now. The plot follows a young man on a family trip who discovers his family has been kidnapped by foreign agents searching for a briefcase stolen by his father. Not the most thrilling premise, but hey, it’s Henry Cavill, so I gave it a shot.

Will Shaw (Henry Cavill) runs a consultancy business in San Francisco that’s on the brink of collapse. His family insists he joins them on vacation in Spain, despite his strained relationship with his father, Martin (Bruce Willis). Will’s constant phone use annoys his father, leading to a sailing accident. Will tries to save his brother’s girlfriend from being hit by the yacht’s boom but fails, and she gets injured.

In a fit of anger, Martin throws Will’s phone into the ocean. Will swims away to cool off and fetch medical supplies, only to return and find the yacht moved and his family missing. He goes to the police, who lead him to Zahir, a man who supposedly knows where his family is. Sensing something is off, Will tries to escape, and suddenly, Martin appears, helping Will by taking down the officers.

Martin reveals a shocking truth to his son: he’s a CIA agent. The kidnappers who targeted their family are after a mysterious briefcase he acquired during an assignment. In Madrid, Martin meets his CIA team leader, Jean Carrack (played by Sigourney Weaver), who claims she no longer possesses the briefcase. But can Will trust her? Not really. Even I, a non-CIA agent, found her less than convincing.

When Martin returns to his car, a sniper kills him. Will retrieves Martin’s phone as the sniper shoots at him. Will escapes and takes a call from the kidnappers who want to speak with “Tom.” Who the heck is “Tom”? Oh, it’s Martin’s alias. They give a 21-hour deadline for a meeting to swap his family for the briefcase.

Desperate, Will reaches out to the US embassy, but they offer no assistance. Carrack swoops in to pick him up, but trust wavers. Will fakes illness. Carrack isn’t thrilled about potential car sickness. Will seizes the opportunity to escape.

Instead of meeting his father’s friend Diego, Will encounters Lucia—the receptionist and Diego’s niece. Their meeting takes an unexpected turn, and Lucia drops a bombshell: she’s Will’s half-sister. 

The movie’s ending—well, it could’ve been more thrilling. I might’ve been folding laundry by then, but I soldiered on. There’s a gunfight, Lucia gets hit, a car crash, and another death. Somehow, Will and Lucia survive. They team up as amateur investigators, tracking down the elusive briefcase. Eventually, they recover it, and Will’s family is released.

Will is offered a CIA job. Does he take it? We’ll never know. Overall, it’s pretty clear why this film went straight to DVD—it’s not your typical Bruce Willis flick. This barely held my attention. It’s a basic cat-and-mouse spy thriller. I give this movie 2 out of 5 acorns.