Peter Five Eight

Up to 2017, Kevin Spacey at the world at his feet in the movies, theatre and television. A multiple award winner, he was in demand.

Then after some sexual assault allegations. It all went sour. His turn in the movie, All the Money in the World saw his performance reedited at the last minute by director Ridley Scott. His replacement Christopher Plummer got an Oscar nomination.

Peter Five Eight is Spacey's first starring role in seven years. This is a low budget independent feature. Major movie companies will still not touch him.

Spacey gives a loud broad performance as charismatic hitman with the codename Peter Five Eight. Hired by Lock (Jake Weber) to find real estate agent named Sam (Jet Jandreau) who is running away from her past.

In order to find her, he charms Brenda (Rebecca De Mornay) to find out just who is who in a town full of eccentrics, yokels and hicks.

Peter Five Eight is an absurd noirish crime film. It went straight to streaming and outside of Spacey, there is little to recommend it. The acting and story is all over the place.

Peter 5:8 KJV: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour"

It kicks off like amateur hour. Affectation creeps in as if someone is trying to sell something cheap as much more valuable. At one point it looks like it is going to turn into a David Lynch film. Something big seems to be going on, with millions of dollars being transferred to the Kevin Spacey character. In the end, it's all just pointless: the Bible quote, the devil, the guilt, the hitman. Nothing adds up. There is no thrill, no intrigue, no action, no (dark) humor. The bloated Kevin Spacey is quite unappealing. Actually going with the idea that this is just a parable, with Spacey as the devil, will make the whole film look even more ridiculous.

Hope. What can get you through this movie is hope. The hope that it will turn into something better. The love for Kevin Spacey, Rebecca De Mornay or Jet Jandreau. A deep faith in religious movies. But first and foremost hope.

Apparently this isn't the director's first movie. Which is bad because that's the only thing that would excuse this amateurish nonsense. Actors are bad, editing is *really* bad, camera is bad, dialogue is bad, and I am not sure I can watch enough of this to see if the story is equally as bad. I laughed more in the first seven minutes of this than in some comedies, it is so ridiculous. And this isn't even taking into account that Kevin Spacey is in this dreck. I almost felt sorry for him (but not really, obviously). I hope the director goes to film school or something next. I have seen movies with far smaller budgets that were first time projects that had so much more talent and ideas and knowledge. This is just laughably bad.

Sam (Jet Jandreau) is a professional realty agent working under Brenda (Rebecca De Mornay). Her home life is a drunken mess with a drunken loser husband. Out of blue, Peter (Kevin Spacey) starts investigating and interfering in her life. She has a dark secret past with Lock (Jake Weber).

This is strictly a B-movie with pretentions of being a noir story. The dialogue has some clunky lines. The concept is fine but nothing too special. The filmmaking is not that good. This does have three veteran actors, but the rest are poor. I don't know anything about Jet. She's not good. Some of the minor actors are much worst. As for Spacey, he's trying to add some comedic touches and they don't always fit. I can't say that I love seeing him anyways. It all adds up to a weird B-movie viewing experience.

About seven or eight years have passed since the shameful history with Spacey, different "teams" attributing the shame to vastly different things, when he was still close to the peak of his career. To see him relegated to playing in films like this is beyond sad. No one should be given the power to so thoroughly destroy a man's career, life and legacy except in very clear cut cases where it is beyond a doubt that man did something worse than ruining another person.

But enough about Spacey. When the film started I expected it to be a scene from an in-movie production, waited for the director to shout "Cut!" and fire the writer who would write such things and the actress reading them so laughably bad. And yet, no, that's the film. It continues like that.

When Spacey enters the scene, he makes a silly face which is meant to be threatening. I didn't recognize him. He went old and bloated - again, refer to paragraph 1. And then, after coming out of the car with the hat on, he throws the hat into the car! It was his car hat! The dialogue that follows is only funny when heavily inebriated.

In summary, the only part of the film that is worth it is to hear the man read the lines: "With little regard for idle pleasures, I was doomed to play the villain's part. Here I am, a rail town amongst the vulgar and profane. In the depths of Hell". Quite true, Mr. Spacey, quite true.