Of course I opted to sit down and watch "MR-9: Do or Die", as I happened to stumble upon it by random luck here in 2024. It was an action thriller with Frank Grillo and Michael Jai White on the cast list, so of course I sat down to watch it. Sure, I had never heard about the movie before, but that hardly mattered.
The storyline in "MR-9: Do or Die" wasn't exactly interesting or captivating. And it was a constant struggle to maintain interest in the movie, because it made very little sense, and there just wasn't anything overly enjoyable happening throughout the course of the mundane and long 106 minutes that the movie trotted on for.
It was rather impressive that a collective three writers could manage to conjure up something this weak and disappointing. Writers Asif Akbar, Nazim Ud Daula and Abdul Aziz delivered something that felt like something that would happen if you ordered James Bond from Wish.
The acting performances in the movie were, for the most part, rather rigid and devoid of life and emotion, and that made sitting through the movie all the more painful. And I have to say that this movie was definitely not the finest moments in the careers of Frank Grillo and Michael Jai White, the only two familiar faces on the cast list. Grillo and White were like fish out of water in this movie. Leading actor Abm Sumon, playing MR-9 Masud Rana, was not a particularly good actor, and that sort of shunted the movie.
The music in the movie was so over-dramatic that is quickly became a nuisance to listen to. And I really wish that I had the option to turn off the music, because it was seriously ruining the movie.
The blood effects from the gunshots was just laughably bad to look at. No one buys into those God awful sprays of red CGI mist as being blood from gunshot wounds. It just looking atrocious and gave a low budget and amateurish atmosphere to the movie.
"MR-9: Do or Die" is definitely not a movie that I would recommend you waste 106 minutes of your life on watching. Some of us suffered through it and took one for the team, so you don't have to; you're quite welcome. Nor is it a movie that will ever find its way back to my screen a second time, as it was difficult enough to sit through it the first time.
My rating of director Asif Akbar's 2023 action thriller "MR-9: Do or Die" lands on a very, very generous three out of ten stars.
