The Adventures of Beatle

Review: What a boring, uninteresting movie! The movie seemed cheap and the storyline was awful. With a title like, Guns For Hire, I was expecting some form of action, especially as Jeffrey Dean Morgan is holding a gun on the cover but there's no action at all. Its about a suicidal blonde, Athena (Ever Carradine), who hires a tow truck driver/assassin, Beatle (Michele Hicks) to kill her. As Athena has no money, she signs over an insurance policy to Beatle, which will pay for the assassination. While there waiting for the paperwork to come through, Athena moves in with Beatle and they start to become close, even though the situation is slightly warped. Beatle regularly sees a psychiatrist, Dr. Vanderark (Orlando Jones), who thinks that her whole assassin story is in her mind and she has a strange relationship with a hooker/stripper, Carla (Sarah Shahi), who actually has feelings for her. They also have a brutal hit-man on there tail, Bruce (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who is hired by Athena's crooked previous employer, Kyle (Ben Mendelsohn). On top of that, Detective Holt, Raffaello Degruttola is following Athena and Beatles every move and he builds a case to try and stop Beatle in her tracks. Sounds exciting but it really wasn't. Most of the footage is about Athena and Beatles relationship, which is quite boring but the major twist at the end was surprising. I personally did lose interest after a while and the acting was quite bad from the two leading characters. I was expecting more from Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Ben Mendelsohn, who usually put in decent performances but the awful script didn't bring the best out of them. I couldn't really see the comedy side of the movie because there wasn't any wit in the script at all but I did stick with the plot because I really couldn't see were the film was going. When all was revealed I still wasn't that impressed so it has to get the thumbs down from me. Disappointing! 

Round-Up: This is the first and only movie directed and written by Donna Robinson, who really didn't do a good job with this film. There's a few unnecessary lesbian scenes and there wasn't much depth to any of the characters, which made if feel like this movie was made without much thought. There were some good actors on board, who really got wasted because of the awful storyline, so it has to go down as a bad day at the office.

I recommend this movie to people who are into their drama/thriller/comedies starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Ben Mendelsohn, Tony Shalhoub, Orlando Jones, Ever Carradine, Michele Hicks, Sarah Shahi and Ivvana Milicevic. 2/10

Beware of writer/directors. Makes you wonder how people get finance. But that's the movie business, folks!

The title is a total misnomer although the original title, The Adventures of Beatle, is no better. There's no action, just some gratuitous lesbian sex and torture scenes, although not at the same time.

The disjointed 'story/plot' is told in flashback and, yes, you might want to know how the characters and their relationship pan out but you'll never know. There is a very subtle hint (although it could go either way) at the end but you'll have probably walked out or switched off before you get that far.

Although if you do stay the course - brave soul - you won't see the ending coming - it's so far left field - but it does nothing to bring any of the story threads to a conclusion.

IMDb's current 5+ score is generously high.

Wow.

From awkward over gesturing not matching emphasis or tone, to children's diagrams in the background of the detective office (like you need a diagram to visually map out the relationships between 3 people), to the poorly worded phrases like "in your infinitely wise logic that i'm too cabbage headed to grasp..." and peppered over a lesbian undertone for absolutely no reason.

This is quite possibly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It is actually bad enough to be funny if you're in good company and the right mood enhancers...

There's an attempt to create a smart exchange of wit and bullets here, although the material lacks the depth for assembly of rogue gallery. Sadly, it doesn't deliver in term of style as well, since it spends too much time portraying the struggle with overreaching extravagance. Furthering the awkward nature is the dubious script which sounds like poor interpretation of Mexican low grade action movies' one liner.

It follows the strange lead female as she's thrown in noir web of assassination and conspiracy, the only consistent part is next subplot will be more ridiculous than before. For most parts, acting is mediocre, the actors can't cover the silliness of it all. Their dialogues are highly surreal, not in preferable over-the-top manner either. At one point, they really appear to be throwing rejected catchphrases from 80s to each other.

The surprising thing is the movie manages to present Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Orlando Jones. However, they can't carry the movie with the material given to them, it's not that one or two decent performances could overcome the campy unrealistic nature anyway. The movie also tries to shoehorn some fanservice, but this just makes the entire scheme more muddled as it tries to produce level of polish it can't afford.

Action department is also subpar. In some other movies like Smokin' Aces or Shoot 'Em Up, they do all sorts of ridiculous stunts, this movie barely has anything resembling high octane choreography. Perhaps, the whole thing is more intended to be a parody, yet the shifting tone is jarring. Not to mention, it's not exactly humorous.

With a mess of awful logic in the plot, shifty acting and lack of solid direction, this one is not a decent hire.

This is definitely an indie film. It doesn't have any bells or whistles and it has some production quality issues that go along with low budget films. The cast is stellar. While this is not the best film I have ever seen, it made a cold winter's day pass entertainingly. It's clearly a tongue in check dark comedy, which other might have missed or will miss. For what it's worth it kept me entertained and is pretty short. The story while confusing at times came together for me at the end. Jeffrey Morgan was great, though not in it as much as I would have liked. I am guessing this will be one of those films that people will either get and like or not and hate. for me I liked it.