I once reviewed a McDonald's in 2006 on Yelp purely for the novelty and newness of it. I haven't bothered to review anything on the internet since because the idea my opinion has value feels ridiculous, and generally the voice of the masses hits the mark. Until this movie.
Throughout the pandemic I've been working through my "Movies to Watch" list, usually indies with snappy trailers, or a premise I'd never seen before (this movie being one of the former). It's been a train of disappointment, because two minutes of good editing or a gonzo idea do not a good movie make. Based on the reviews I was bracing myself for yet another story to run in the background while I check it off my list, yet here I was, actually entertained. The cinematography is pretty damn good, along with the score, and decent enough acting. The pacing is a bit wonky, the dialogue strained, and Damian Lewis' fat suit is distractingly bad, but from a writer/director still getting their footing early in their career, it's not a bad effort. Hell, there's stuff out there from far more senior filmmakers that don't meet the bar of "Run This Town."
This movie is perfectly...fine. Great? No. Good even? Sure, maybe, why not? But these 1 and 2 star reviews make "Run This Town" seem unwatchable. I gave more attention to this movie than most of the dull fare that felt like a chore to get them out of my queue. In fact, here's a quick list (before I got bored with writing it) of movies far slower and less engaging than "Run This Town" that are better rated on IMDb:
The Lodge, Little Joe, It Comes at Night, Vivarium, Upstream Color, Mandy, Color Out of Space, The Brand New Testament, The Vast of Night, Seven Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss, Snowflake, Footnotes, The Fitzroy, Ad Astra, etc.
Similarly, I've gotten bored with writing this review and have realized I'm probably in the wrong if this many people dislike it this much. Give it a chance at least if it seemed interesting and the review scores drove you off though.
