War on Everyone

I agree with the review "Unstructured Mess," by Greg from Ontario.

Except I come to a much different conclusion: This is simply cinema showing us the utter meaninglessness of it all -- not necessarily a point I agree or disagree with. So we must endure it all, strange, bizarre, baffling, stupid, ridiculous, and so on, all in the midst of an utter wasteland. As such, we can only live in the present moment, the best we can.

The soundtrack is over the top, with its Latino/Rock/Glen Campbell mix. The music makes the meaninglessness bearable!

So as Greg from Ontario writes, it's pure, unstructured mess.

In my opinion, that gives you two choices:

Take it or leave it!

So we had two movies about an investigating couple in 2016. The other one was Shane Blacks "Nice guys". They weren't cops there, like they are here. But then again, these cops right here, you won't find too many of them around. It's obvious this is anything but politically correct. So if you don't like humor off the rails and off the norm, you probably should not watch this.

If you on the other hand like your comedies to be crazy and all over the place, you should give this a chance. It's actually pretty funny and the two buddies on the front are doing a great job with their characters. Completely crazy and without any morality center they take whatever they like and do not care. You could argue that this makes them despicable persons, but remember this is a movie and a comedy. Don't be offended by it, it takes away all the fun you could have

This week's Odeon's Screen Unseen was my highly anticipated War On Everyone, highly anticipated for a number of reasons. Firstly, I really enjoyed John Michael McDonagh's Calvary with Brendan Gleeson, both written and directed by McDonagh, just like this film. Secondly, Michael Peña being one of my favourite actors since the film Crash and have liked him in everything since. Thirdly, this year's Tarzan, Alexander Skarsgård, having enjoyed his John Clayton/Tarzan I was eager to see what else he can offer.

Peña and Skargård play Bob and Terry, two corrupt cops who wreck havoc across New Mexico taking and doing whatever they want under the protection of their badge and guns, roughing up criminals in their unorthodox policing methods, who are unfortunately enough to get in their way. Skargård's Terry being the hulking, unhinged, drunkard that swaggers about punching most people in the face; a lot, and Peña's Bob is the intellect of the two, smart-talking and quick-thinking being his forte, throwing out quirky philosophical comments at any given moment. The chemistry between the two is highly entertaining, provoking you to want to know what they're going to do next.

The two of them rampage about town in Terry's indestructible 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo and no one is safe, apart from the meek, so justice is on the agenda, just not the kind of justice the precinct would warrant, especially their Lieutenant, played by Paul Reiser. Their shake downs of crims eventually leads them to smug, rich Brit, crime-Lord James Mangan, who is just wrong, very wrong indeed but played well by Divergent's Theo James, donning his home accent and wonderful tweed attire.

The film goes all over the place, (even to Iceland) and although not hard to follow, it feels like a mess, thinking I had missed something along the way. A lot happens in the 98min runtime but I can't say it's fast pace, it felt unbalanced quite a few times during the movie but the events that do unfold are dark and brutal if not amusing.

There's quite an assortment of characters besides the key players, notably the absconding informant, Reggie, the squirmy, feminine Birdwell, Paddy Power, Pádraic and the stunning Jackie Hollis, played by Creed's Tessa Thompson. With all the colourful characters it made the story feel like a disjointed, poor version of a Tarantino movie but and lacked a great soundtrack, apart from the Glen Campbell that seems to be playing most of the time during the film.

It's a rough, tough buddy-cop movie like no other, could well have been written by Elmore Leonard whilst on LSD. It's very much a McDonagh's movie, being quite refreshing in effortless style, only Americanised and yet, there's great potential to improve on this film.

Running Time: 7 The Cast: 8 Performance: 8 Direction: 7 Story: 5 Script: 8 Creativity: 6 Soundtrack: 6 Job Description: 6 The Extra Bonus Points: 5 for being quite outrageous and offensive in parts.

66% 7/10

If I had to give this film a pass-or-fail grade I would give it a thumbs up, but not very enthusiastically. A lot of the elements of this movie I really like on their surface, but for some reason they don't all come together as a cohesive and coherent motion picture. On the plus side the acting is good and a lot of the sardonic humour played very well for me.

On the down side this movie just seemed to have a lack of direction and a real "point" it was driving toward. I've read other reviews here about how the lack of point itself may be the point, but I think that is letting the filmmaker off the hook. I don't think that's really what they were going for.

It feels like they wanted at times to make a very black comedy about power, corruption, and the pointlessness of it all (for some), but at other times it's more of a light-hearted and sarcastic "buddy cop" flick, and they two just don't quite gel.

Good acting, it looks great, and a lot of funny moments make this a worthwhile watch though.

Philosopher Thomas Hobbes foretold a future "War of All Against All" in his book Leviathan, published in 1651. In his political/philosophical novel, he wrote his masterpiece during the English Civil War, which occurred from 1642-1651, arguing that a state of sovereignty is the only which way a body of politics can operate, without interference for third party or outside sources and individuals. His "War of All Against All" is an idea that was derived from the 'state of nature argument', where government can only be successful if it is strong, undivided and unified.

Now, I'm not sure if writer/director John Michael McDonagh intentionally wrote a script and titled a picture that could (not only be) so relevant in the United States with regards to government and policing today, but also, be such a comical and cynical interpretation of the very brutalities happening within America involving its citizens and civilians with such bravado, and most of all… balls. One has to wonder, is McDonagh warning everyone, or just laughing at them, especially since it's titled is source from such a serious and foreboding doctrine.

McDonagh, who was born in London, England, but is most notably known for being a very predominant Irish citizen, and the older brother of Martin McDonagh (considered one of the greatest living Irish playwrights today) delved deep, back into crime comedy genre with War On Everyone after The Guard became the most successful Irish Independent film of all time. Similar to The Guard, which starred his frequent collaborator and muse Brendan Gleeson, McDonagh decided to shoot his third film in the United States for the first time, keeping away from his native Irish land, and uses the landscapes of Albuquerque, New Mexico as a hellish field of nightmares. Surrounding his narrative on two very intractable corrupt cops who makes it their mission in life, and in their careers, to make every scumbag and criminal who crosses their path, as miserable and unfortunate as possible, War on Everyone is easily one of the most unsettling yet hard-hitting black comedies of 2016 that leaves all regard out the door.

While the premise and story of War is nothing to marvel at, the film itself, is easily one of the hardest films to look away from and not finish, thanks to the outlandish and quite unexpected direction McDonagh decided to take his story and characters on. Luckily for us, McDonagh decided to venture off with new actors to play the role of intimidating asshole cops on crack, to a new level.

With Peña, an actor who isn't unfamiliar with playing policemen or governing officials in the past, thanks to roles in Babel, Observe and Report, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, Gangster Squad, Vacation, the upcoming CHIPS and of course, one of my favourite of Peña's roles, Mike Zavala in David Ayer's masterpiece End of Watch, Peña could practically get a job as a cop with all his experience in the role. As Peña's partner, McDonagh choose someone who has never played a cop before. Luckily for us, actor Alexander Skarsgård literally stumbled upon the role from a video that went viral, showcasing the actor at a soccer match, drunkenly rooting for his team, leading a chant, and being completely and utterly intoxicated, making not only a huge fool of himself, but showing director McDonagh everything he needed to see for his beloved Terry character. Thanks for Skarsgård behaviour during his intense period of inebriation, the video secured the role for the towering actor, whose character Terry is an un-wreckable force of chaos and brutality with no brake or lever for control, a role Skarsgård completely punches and bruises into us without apology. Skarsgård is absolutely, unapolgetically, relentlessly perfect as Terry.

While every citizen in The United States are well aware of their rights, including the right to remain silent, War is a film that really doesn't say too much, other than offer an unlimited sources of one- liners and crass, crude jokes, heavy racial slander and bizarre perspective of criminals, but also allows the action seen on screen to speak for itself. Certain scenes in the film play off as set pieces in a play, where the intention and purpose of meaning is never really understood or comprehended, showing off personalities of certain characters and their interaction with one another, as well as bizarre interpretation of the coming to reality of a scorn and doomed society. One of these very characters is the introduction of Jackie Harris (Tessa Thompson), who plays Terry's love interest, and inevitable life-partner. The two share very awkward tonal scenes that resemble instances of a musical, a horror and a romantic comedy, yet, Jackie's relationship with Terry reveals absolutely nothing about him, other than his inconsistent ability to enforce ethics and morals to people, without ever compromising his own corrupt personality and desire and obsession with greed.

While Terry and Bob set fire to the world around them, including their own personal and family lives, the two indulge in the perks of having a badge, which include consuming countless narcotics that that they confiscate, including a large portion of cocaine from a mime-on-the-run (do mimes make a noise when you run over them?), large quantities of cash that they use for their own personal use, and beat up physically, verbally and mentally civilian that crosses their path. Luckily for the audience, everyone within the War world has as much as quick witted, vulgar tongue to argue back with are two unluckily antiheroes, that the dialogue is a measure of how far McDonagh's script actually pushing the boundaries. Luckily, no secondary characters are truly able to deliver comebacks that compare to the joint efforts of the corrupt duo. With no regard for women, race, culture or social status, the levels of offence and discrimination are pushed in each and every scene and word that comes out of Bob and Terry's mouths.