On paper, The Caretaker certainly has an interesting premise about a ghost town’s recluse who wants to protect a young woman from a crime boss and his goons. The problem is the film’s execution, wooden acting, and clunky dialogue. This certainly isn’t the worst film out there, but it’s one to turn on as background noise or to have a laugh with friends over some of the absurd choices and dialogue delivery.
The movie stars Robert Bronzi as a character simply called “The Caretaker,” hence the film’s title. He doesn’t say very much and mostly lingers around his home in an empty town. Not long into the runtime, we learn that he’s tormented and haunted by the death of his daughter. He feels like he failed to save her. In one of the film’s few memorable scenes, he dozes off on his porch and dreams of his daughter with a gaping wound on her forehead and blood dripping down her face. It certainly underscores the lead’s trauma and loss.
The Caretaker’s quiet existence is suddenly disrupted when he gets caught up in a scheme to kill a crime boss’ daughter named Gina, played by Avaryana Rose. The big bad, Draco (Daniel Baldwin), wants her dead because of what she might have told authorities. Draco brags at one point about murdering his wife and how he wants to be the one to also kill his daughter. Meanwhile, Draco is on borrowed time, since he’s ill.
The rest of the characters, however, are largely forgettable. This includes Draco’s various henchmen that speak in cliches and have little to no depth. Rose, meanwhile, does give the film some grounding and realistic attributes, while Bronzi does alright playing the quiet type suddenly forced into action. Baldwin attempts to give the film some gravitas, but the script largely hampers him from doing so. His character Draco truly delivers some bizarre bits of dialogue. There’s even a scene where he rants about a time when he wanted to put down the family dog because it was his dog and no one else should have gotten that right.
As for the action, it’s not anything we haven’t seen before. Of course, there are shootouts and some clever ways that The Caretaker and his pal, a priest named Hudson (Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson), take out the bad guys. There’s also a whole lot of punching and grunting, especially when Hudson is involved. And of course, Gina eventually confronts Draco, which results in a rather ho-hum fight.
At the very least, The Caretaker may earn some laughs due some of the bizarre narrative turns, weird dialogue, and stiff acting. Overall, this is a largely forgettable action movie. It’s good enough to play in the background, but nothing that requires a whole lot of attention.
