Sophia Loren sees her husband's chemist lab blown to smithereens with him inside; turns out he was murdered after threatening to expose a case of contaminated pharmaceuticals that cause cancer to anyone taking them. She goes to the FBI, whose top operative hopes to lure bounty hunter/hit man James Coburn out of retirement to bring in a reclusive, crooked billionaire, while Sophia wants him to help avenge her husband's death; she may also have known Coburn intimately at one time...or is that his twin brother she once romanced? Director Michael Winner isn't very adept at working with actors, and yet at this point in his career he became very popular with passed-their-prime talents still looking to make a buck. Nobody involved in "Firepower" comes off looking good, particularly a bloat-bellied Coburn. Busy film jets across the globe in search of new plot points, but all of its action is stodgy or stilted. Too bad, this cast in these exotic locations might have made for a delicious, tawdry action-flick. Unfortunately, Winner (who also co-originated the story) doesn't have a sense of his own absurdity, and shows a robotic sense of humor. *1/2 from ****
Review of Firepower
