War on Everyone

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

Alexander Skarsgård and Theo James performed fairly decent, but Michael Peña seemed bored and too monotonic in his role. Interesting story, but weirdly played out. Directing and cinematography was decent. IMO, this film failed to deliver with such a great cast. 6/10 from me.

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.

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!