The Prince

The action thriller The Prince is so bad that the most noteworthy thing about it is that the opening credits list 19 executive producers. Nineteen! Jason Patric stars as Paul, a hit man–turned–auto mechanic searching for his daughter, Beth (Gia Mantegna), who has disappeared from college. Paul turns to his daughter's flirty classmate (Jessica Lowndes), who reports that the heroin-addicted Beth went to New Orleans with her drug-lord boyfriend (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson), who in turn is under the thumb of a crime boss known as Omar (cameo slut Bruce Willis), who just happens to hate Paul for (accidentally) killing his wife and daughter back in the day.

Despite a cast that includes John Cusack as Paul's pal, and the charismatic Korean pop star Jung Ji-hoon as Omar's chief henchman, screenwriters Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore fail to conjure a single witty line. Nor is there any finesse to be found in director Brian A. Miller's inept staging of car chases and shoot-outs. If filmmakers were put on trial for hackery, a good prosecutor might ask director Miller why The Prince contains no discernible prince but does feature a closing-credit shout-out to "Prince Yoohanhwesa." That name stumped Google, but who knows? Maybe he's the generous uncle to those 19 executive producers.