franklindf

This show portrays a couple who are making a TV show about real estate investing with a philanthropic angle. Essentially the couple is trying to gentrify an area in New Mexico that is economically depressed. You could say they are trying to turn the area into "Portlandia" by attracting those type of people and ideas. So they buy distressed properties and then upgrade them into politically correct, eco-sensitive, carbon neutral homes and attempt to sell them for profit. The humor comes out in the fact that the couple is absolutely terrible at dealing with people and real estate. It's always a misfire when they attempt to convey their vision and ideas - which turns into a great setup for comedy. The filming is somewhat similar to 'The Office', as if it's sort of documentary. Very original and genuinely funny.

I can't say much good about this. The supposed premise is the main characters grew up in families that were connected to various drug cartels. In reality, only one of the characters has an established link to actual cartels. In places like the Bronx, just about anyone there knows someone dealing drugs and the drugs do originate from organized crime - so it's pretty easy for anyone to claim they are linked to the cartel - and the links in this show are just about that tenuous. So what we have here is a bunch of young people trying to make a name for themselves and get famous but they don't really have a lot going for them. Mostly they are just ordinary people you'd encounter in fringe/hood areas without any special designation. The whole cartel thing is mostly a crock and it's not really cool how it gets weirdly glorified in this show by what seem like posers.

The main point of interest for me in this movie was to see Vietnam. The movie itself in terms of plot is fairly light and predictable. But having traveled to Vietnam myself, I enjoyed seeing the country and culture. The scenery is fairly accurate and resembled my own experience. I would say though that they portray things in a somewhat rosy way. It wasn't highly exaggerated but things were a bit less gritty and more clean than I remembered so they do cast things in a more favorable light than I experienced. It's not a dramatic exaggeration because my experience in Vietnam was very good and there definitely is a lot of beauty there to behold. Vietnam is a wonderful place to visit and the movie does reflect that. But were it not for the Vietnam aspect, this would be a fairly forgettable movie. It's not a bad movie but it's mostly a fluff piece aside from seeing Vietnam.