jtindahouse

Wow. This film was quite something. Back in the day this is the kind of film Chris Stuckmann would've done a Hilariocity review about. There's just so many unintentionally funny things throughout the film that you can't help but wonder at a point if it was intentional. Sadly, I don't think it was.

I could write paragraph after paragraph criticising this film, but it isn't serious enough to be worthy of doing that. The opening scene is terrible, the poker scene was laughable and insulting (and made no sense?), asking us to believe Liam Hemsworth is the same age as Russell Crowe was insulting, the story they went with was about the least interesting one they could possibly have done considering the set up, the acting was terrible and exposition was painfully in your face.

If you can get past all that you might just enjoy it. A generous 4/10 for throwing absolutely everything it could at the wall - even if none of it stuck.

Having Cillian Murphy as the lead of your movie is a bit of a double edged sword. On the one hand, you're going to get an incredible performance. He is a phenomenal actor, no one can deny that, and he is a large part of what keeps this film watchable. On the other hand though, you know you are signing up for a very sombre performance and likely the entire movie will be that way. He really doesn't do much else.

I had trouble connecting with this film. I thought it was a little odd to have a movie about the suffering of woman in the church system - and make it all about a man and his depressing struggles. It just seemed like an insensitive angle to approach it from.

This movie is based on a book and I can't help feeling it would work far better in that format. To get into his head and actually understand what he is feeling and thinking would be infinitely more interesting. A generous 5/10.

I like movies about really smart people. I like revenge movies. I like Rami Malek. I like movies where people are killed in creative ways. This movie had everything going for it before it even began. And it was good. But it could've been a lot better.

Where it let itself for me was that it was too polished and safe. I would've loved for it go in a much grittier direction. A movie like this should never be PG-13. It's wrong. Have a shocking scene or two. Give the audience something to talk about on the way home and think about the next day.

The concept is so strong though that it almost doesn't matter. You can just sit down, enjoy the ride, and then likely forget the film ever existed. 7/10.