By
Sam Barsanti
Published Feb 9, 2026, 7:03 PM EST
Sam Barsanti has written about pop-culture for 10 years, and his work has appeared at The A.V. Club, Primetimer, IGN, and Collider. He has also contributed to the popular daily Hustle newsletter, which covers tech and startup news.
He'll happily talk to anyone about comic book movies (he thinks the MCU peaked with Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and giant robots (he thinks some of the Transformers movies are good), and he canonically exists in The CW's "Arrowverse" series of superhero shows.
Sam is also a published poet and horror writer, and his fiction work has appeared on The No Sleep Podcast.
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An underrated advantage of the vast libraries of content on the various streaming platforms is that sometimes a movie that nobody remembers will resurface and get a new life. You’ll see a movie title you don’t recognize, with stars you do recognize, and you’ll wonder why you never heard of it. That’s apparently what a lot of people went through on Netflix this weekend, with a 2013 action thriller called Homefront leaping up to number three on the platform’s top 10 list.
Homefront has just a 42 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, but it has a respectable 61 percent from audiences — which typically means that it’s not necessarily clever or unique, but that it does have a certain amount of crowd-pleasing appeal. And it’s pretty easy to see why based on the cast alone: Jason Statham, Winona Ryder, Kate Bosworth, and James Franco (who plays a small-time meth lord named Gator, which is the kind of role he was born to play). Also, it was written by none other than Sylvester Stallone.
What Is Sylvester Stallone’s Connection to ‘Homefront’?
Sylvester Stallone in RamboImage via Orion and Tristar Pictures
Stallone, who is a somewhat frequent screenwriter, initially wrote Homefront as a movie for himself to star in. It was potentially going to be a Rambo movie, which makes a fair bit of sense, because it does have some conceptual similarities to 2019’s Rambo: Last Blood. It maintains that movie’s “rampage against drug dealers” setup, but Homefront lacks the off-putting grudge against Mexico that Last Blood had.
Stallone reportedly handed Homefront over to Statham personally, which must’ve been a nice vote of confidence in his Expendables co-star. Of course, he is weirdly one of the youngest guys in all of those movies, so it’s not like Stallone was going to pass the torch to, say, Dolph Lundgren or “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. (Terry Crews is younger than Statham, and he also would’ve been cool in Homefront as a Rambo-type dude.)
What Is Jason Statham’s ‘Homefront’ About?
Jason Statham and his daughter ride horses in the woods in HomefrontImage via Open Road Films
Based on the book of the same name by Chuck Logan, Homefront stars Statham as a DEA agent named Phil Broker who retired from the agency after the son of a notorious meth dealer was killed during a raid. He moves to a small town with his daughter and accidentally displays his badass fighting skills against the parents of a school bully. The bully’s uncle happens to be Gator, the local drug dealer, and he and his girlfriend (Winona Ryder) decide to take out Broker so they can curry favor with the old meth boss and his meth empire.
Of course, they fail to take into account that Phil Broker is Jason Statham and that the character was originally written to be played by Sylvester Stallone, so it’s not like he goes down without a fight. Still, the movie isn’t a nonstop bloody murder marathon, as there’s also some stuff about family and not doing evil things when your kids are watching. That’s a good message, and one that the Rambo movies can’t really pull off. People want to see Rambo kill the bad guys, not sympathize with them because they have families.
CL Report: Subscribe and never miss what matters
Dive into the world of entertainment with Collider, delivering the latest news, reviews, and exclusive updates from movies, TV, and pop culture Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.Homefront is currently on Netflix.
Homefront
Like Follow Followed R Action Thriller Release Date November 27, 2013 Runtime 100 minutes Director Gary FlederCast
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Jason Statham
Phil Broker
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James Franco
Morgan 'Gator' Bodine
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Izabela Vidovic
Maddy Broker
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Winona Ryder
Sheryl Marie Mott
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Jason Statham
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Homefront
CL Report: Subscribe and never miss what matters
Dive into the world of entertainment with Collider, delivering the latest news, reviews, and exclusive updates from movies, TV, and pop culture Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.What To Watch
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