Treasure Raiders

After seeing the first scenes of this film I thought I made a new discovery, but my disappointment settled early on. I didn't expect anything special, and so it wasn't. This movie has some of the most unrealistic and wannabe acting I've seen. The characters are false, and the interaction between them is like in a cheap soap opera. The situations created are far from being credible and with a mixture of some superficial special effects, some scenes look really funny, far from their original purpose. Overall it's one of those bad movies in which you have the idea that you know all the way what's gonna happen, and it happens. It has many dead scenes, the plot is too predictable, and the important moments have quite typical solutions. I had the patience to see it until the end, with all of these, and there's no wonder if I won't hear much of it in the future. What surprised me was David Carradine accepting this role, but maybe I haven't seen more of his movies. I gave it a 3/10 for the effort, and I'm not sure it deserves as much.

Alexander Nevsky - Actor - Action Hero – star of Treasure Raiders

I can't believe I'm writing about this guy. I do so because in my boredom here I had the terrible misfortune to sit through one of the worst films ever made; Treasure Raiders, and Nevsky is the star. It's like a mixture of National Treasure and The DaVinci Code starring the retarded child of of some action-hero sperm donor. I was glued to the screen it was that bad. The movie also features some skeletal Carradine brother and that woman from Twin Peaks who never really died, more's the pity.

The movie's set in Russia and the supporting cast is shocking. The script is autistic. The camera-work is infantile and even the end credits don't save it. The movie was made in 2007 and had a budget of $10 million. Ten million!

Imagine how much good one could do with that much money! You, like me, will want to lay waste to the collection of idiots responsible for the imbecilic, talentless, celluloid turd that is Treasure Raiders - if you ever have the misfortune to see it that is.

And so to Nevsky, the lead actor. I'm talking about the kind of bad acting we could only aspire to had we been swung by the legs as babies and had our heads repeatedly cracked against door jambs.

Imagine the fattest Seagal with the stupidest Stallone with the most wooden Van Damme and then add a pinch of Arnie's awful accent. Yeah, it's really that bad. David Caruso would look like a Shakespearean actor beside this guy and anyone who makes Caruso look good must be a royal, acting spastic don't you agree? Watching Treasure Raiders I wanted to beat Nevsky to death with his own foot.

Nevsky, like Arnie, has a bodybuilding background. After years spent winning everything in Moscow he then published bestselling fitness books…yadda yadda yadda until eventually…………wait for it……..he ended up in the Lee Strasberg Acting School.

The Lee Strasberg Acting School!!!! The same Lee Strasberg School that trained DeNiro and Pacino and Keitel and Hoffman and Marlon Brando.

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's an interesting fact. Jack Nicholson had to audition five times to get into Strasberg's Acting School. Yup, five times. And that was a very young and hungry Nicholson too. Hoffman auditioned six times….Harvey Keitel eleven times. That school had standards man!

One year, out of 2,000 candidates for places at Strasberg, only two were accepted….Martin Landau and Steve McQueen. Understand? See what I'm saying? And they let Nevsky in! What is the world coming to? Next they'll be telling us Drew Barrymore has talent.

Yikes!

PLOT:

Historian who likes racing meets his racing nemesis and oh ….they share a common interest in treasure hunting! They hunt for treasure. There is a baddie.

END PLOT:

That's Treasure Raiders folks and believe it or not, Nevsky wrote it!

Not with joined up letters I bet.

I can still taste the bile in my throat. You know I think the storyboard was probably finger-painted by a child.

And I get angrier and angrier at crap like this when I see how real artists struggle to make essential viewing like City of God or Das Boot or The Lives of Others; films that simply screamed to be made and must be seen whatever the cost. Movies like these save an industry that is awash with talentless Nevskys.

Movies like Treasure Raiders are proof positive that the mainstream movie industry is drowning in a pool of its own prawn-cocktail urine. Shame on the misfits who have anything to do with this rubbish. History will be much more unkind to them than I could ever be here.

As for Nevsky, he'll no doubt end up kicking the life out of some famous wrestler one of these action-movie days. He will be rich. His career will no doubt span ten years. Our lives will be no better or worse for it but our intelligences will be deeply offended. And the most maddening thing of all is that Nevsky shares his name with one of the most important Russians in history, a medieval warrior, beatified and once voted the greatest Russian ever!

By the way, read this from an actual sperm-bank website… Los Angeles California Cryobank sperm donors will be reimbursed up to $100 per donation and up to $1200 a month by donating 3 times a week. We periodically offer incentives such as movie tickets or gift certificates for extra time and effort expended by participating sperm donors.

What the hell is extra time and effort? Is that like having a slow rather than a fast one? Is that like making two consecutive deposits? Are they paying by the fluid ounce??? I wonder if you have to work a week in hand.

I was going to invest in this clinic but I pulled out at the last minute!

Just as you leave the clinic, do they thank you for coming?

Okay okay...I'm done now...

...or should I say spent?

I watched this film mainly because it has received such a high IMDb rating (7.8 when I saw it) and some very positive viewer comments. I decided to overlook the dodgy sounding plot (a hard working academic by day, and a racy car driver by night, seeks unspecified "treasure" through the streets of Moscow), and give it a go. How I wish I hadn't...

The main problems with this film are as follows: (1) the plot is ridiculous, utter nonsense. You can actually here the script writers in their meeting with the studios, gulping their mineral water and saying "it's Indiana Jones meets The Fast and the Furious meets The Da Vinci Code!" Well it is in that elements have been blatantly copied... sorry I mean influenced... by those films, but unfortunately none of the humour, excitement or intellectual interest has made it into this particular piece of cinematic history.

(2) The acting. This is probably the best thing about the film, because it is just unintentionally hilarious. Who knew there were so many bad actors working in Hollywood? Their timing and delivery is atrocious. And don't get me started on their "Russian" accents. I had no idea Moscow had such a prominent French-German population. Some money might have been best spent on a dialect coach, or at least helping this poor habitually out-of-work (for a reason, some might say) actors learn that not all Europeans speak in the same accent. And Sherilynn Fenn - have times got so bad for you, my love? You should be ashamed!

(3) The direction. I know very little about film making, but this is so bad that it jars even if you are an average Joe with no idea about movie-making. My favourite bit of direction was the cut to a large dead animal on the wall of a bar, that jerked me out of my clunky-dialogue induced reverie and at least provided me with another piece of unexpected mirth.

(4) The script. Don't ask. Just don't.

So all in all this film MIGHT (and I stress might) appeal to 13 year old boys whose ideal film is Indian Jones meets The Fast and the Furious meets... oh you get the picture. However if said 13 year old boys have a little more intelligence and taste than perhaps that group generally get credit for, then they might also run screaming from this monstrosity.

I'd say to all involved in the making of this film - don't give up your day job. And if this is your day job? God help us all.

I love junky action flicks. I don't mind low budget films. If a movie is entertaining and that was it's purpose, it's cool. However, this movie, eh where does one begin? It's like three guys with different ideas got together and decided they could make indiana jones, the fast and the furious, national treasure, james bond, speed racer, the transporter, davinci code and several other movies in one including all of their 'plot ideas' with a 5 year old as the script writer, in Moscow. I know sounds exciting or at least amusing right? Not so much. The whole time you're waiting for characters from all of those movies to burst in and beat everyone up for doing what they are doing. The pacing destroys any chance there may have been at creating a cohesive movie. The acting was terrible even beyond accents. The direction must have been consistently bad or non existent. The characters weren't believable from any stand point and at no point did the movie even get you into the 'story'. Constant gaping holes make you regularly ask the movie to let you in on the joke, the plot 'twist' or whatever it failed to tie in. It's like an in motion story board of round one 'brainstorming', if you can called blatant ... emulation, shall we say,... that. So, don't waste your money or even your time with this one. It's not really even one of those 'so bad it's good/funny' movies. It's just eh? what? You can find better stuff on Youtube or the bin at the dollar store, which is where this belongs.

I gave it a try, stayed with it for about an hour, but I had to give up. It beat me. Although there was an effort, as one other reviewer noted, it appeared the producers figured they had to dumb it down for the masses. Editing was weak. At one point, the police get a call of a disturbance so they decide to go investigate. Next scene, the disturbance begins! No respect for the viewer. And the clichés - Lord, I lost count. From your typical fight at the bar to the comment, "If I tell you, I'll have to kill you." I can see middle school kids being entertained, but certainly not grown adults. Although I must say, the character of "Wolf" had the best Schwarzenegger impersonation I've ever heard!