No, this isn’t the sleazy B-movie classic starring the Coreys in which Nicole Eggert fulfilled a lot of adolescents’ fantasies by playing a manipulative psycho rich girl who gets naked a lot. This Blown Away stars Jeff Bridges as a Boston bomb disposal technician with a dark past that comes a’callin’ when his old mentor, a freelance terrorist and explosives expert (Tommy Lee Jones), escapes from prison and seeks revenge on his former protege, whom he believes is responsible for his incarceration and the death of his sister. No one manages to pull off a very good Irish accent in this, but at least there are a few U2 songs on the soundtrack to make up for it; that quibble aside, Blown Away is a sometimes absurd but often unbearably intense Irish ditty, quickly establishing a dangerous world where a bomb could just go off at any second, making for an unnerving viewing experience where you’re always on guard for something to go ka-boom. Bridges’ real-life father, Lloyd, plays his character’s uncle, who dies a particularly brutal death (for an old man, anyway); Forest Whitaker manages to come off best as the officer investigating the link between Bridges and Jones. Jeff would cover this kind of territory somewhat more successfully a few years later with Arlington Road, but Blown Away remains an unfairly overlooked thriller for those who like having their nerves shattered.
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New On Netflix: Blown Away