James Franco Vs. Jason Statham On The HOMEFRONT

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Well, you gotta hand it to Sylvester Stallone: He’s a worker.  By the time Rocky V came out, the writing was on the wall.  Flicks like Oscar or Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot didn’t help matters.  He tried to make a go at this “acting” craze in the late ’90s with Cop Land, which to his credit wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.  So after that, it was beginning to look like he was headed in the same direction so many of his imitators had taken: straight-to-video.

But then about six years ago, a funny little voice piped up in Sly’s head.  And in its slippery, thick New-Yorkese, it said, “‘Ey, y’know, it’s, like, the 21st century now.  Y’know, you, Sly, are like some kinda post-ironic figurehead of Regan-era machismo and stuff, and uh, like, a lotta kids grew up watchin’ your stuff are now hipstas in their mid-30s, and y’know, brble buhnuh munanana na…” and then it sorta trailed off, and then ended with, “Y’know?”  And it had a point.

Sixteen years after the last gasp of the once-vital Rocky series came Rocky Balboa.  And I’ll be damned, people went to see it.  Sly quickly rallied from what must have been his own personal shock and cranked out another Rambo movie, which also performed well at the office of box.  Now with the action-movie fantasy-camp franchise of The Expendables more or less working under its own power, Stallone seems to be taking a stab at action-filmmaking that might be of its own time again.

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, James Franco has joined up with the actioner Homefront, where he’ll be playing opposite Jason Statham.  The flick is based off the book of the same name by Chuck Logan, with the screenplay by Stallone himself.  Sly is also taking a producing credit.  The plot revolves around Statham’s character, an ex-DEA agent, who moves his family to a small town, only to find the town is run by Gator, a meth kingpin played by Franco.  It sounds tremendously goofy, and I have little reason to think it won’t be.  But at least it’ll stand and/or fall on its own goofiness, not Stallone’s recent m.o. of “Hey, remember when I used to be a big deal?”  And to me, anyways, that’s a good thing.

Good work, Sly.  I still want the lunch money back that I spent to get into Oscar, though.