Condor's Nest

I guess I got suckered by the trailer. I kept thinking it has to get better but it only got worse. If it was supposed to be a serious drama, it wasn't. If a comedy, there was absolutely nothing funny. If it was to have been historically accurate it completely missed the mark.

Bad dialogue, acting that wasn't convincing, cinematography that was embarrassingly poor and the best editing that could have been done was to cut all of it and throw it away.

When compared to so many of the movies that were produced by Amazon I just don't get why this got the green light.

I definitely wasted my time watching this terrible excuse for a movie.

No spoilers. This movie open was so much promise. The first half of the movie is excellent. The protagonist is ruthless and it's consistent with the character. However, the second half of the movie the protagonist turns into a beta male, the girl boss shows up and saves the day, and, the scenes with the Nazis are played to whimsical tone. That's almost a separate movie from the first half. Really disappointing that the movie didn't hold it serious tone throughout the movie. What opened as a movie about Obsession and ruthlessness, degrades into standard adventure, fair and inappropriate whimsical scenes that are not consistent with first half of the movie.

CONDOR'S NEST follows the vengeance quest of an American pilot who watched his crew get murdered by a Nazi and travels through South America killing tons of crazy Nazis to find him. There, that's the plot, and, basically, the entire movie. You're welcome.

THE GOOD: Character actors abound in this one, and they save what otherwise might be a particularly grim affair; every Nazi of significance is played by some talented folks ranging from Jackson Rathbone to Bruce Davison, providing a splash of color to the story.

THE BAD: Lead actor Jacob Keohane does a fine enough job, but finds himself buried by the personalities around him. There's no room for him to breathe emotionally, and we end up with a competent actor playing a one-note character.

THE UGLY: This is, very obviously, not shot in South America.

CONCLUSION: it's fairly entertaining, but if you're looking for Ben Hur you're going to wind up disappointed.

Just like his previous film, Blattenberger has put together something that looks like it was filmed on a sony handy cam, littered with actors from his local improv class. Unfortunately, it looks like most of the budget was spent on casting Vosloo, Jorge Garcia, and Bruce Davison, and because of that it's cast a large, permanent stain on all of their acting careers. To go from an Oscar nomination, to playing any part in this abomination is nothing short of career ending for Bruce Davison, no matter how well he portrayed his own character.

The pacing is slow, the acting is awful, and the image quality, grading, editing, etc all looks very amatuer. If you go into this expecting what it is at face value, you may enjoy it. And what it is at face value is an extremely low budget, high school film class project. If you expect anything further than that, especially after seeing the 3 previously mentioned actors on the cast, you will be horribly disappointed.

I'd skip this film, as well as Point Man, and opt for something by a reputable director, and studio, if you value your time.

If Paramount Pictures places a movie in theaters there's some expectation of size and scale, especially for a movie that bills itself an action-thriller, but Condor's Nest falls short.

Story: 6/10. Nothing original here, a very standard revenge story that gets a few extra points for surprising me at times.

Performances: 7/10. This is the movie's strong point. Arnold Vosloo makes a great baddie. Newcomers Al Pagano and Corinne Britti bring deeply-needed color to an otherwise grim spectacle. Michael Ironside and Jorge Garcia have surprise cameos that drive the story along even if they aren't particularly memorable.

Production: 3/10. Perhaps expectations were too high, but I had a hard time believing the car chase was real, that the plane was really crashing, that we were really in the 1950s. The cinematography is on point but even that can't save it from low-budget malaise.

Final score 5/10.