C'era una volta a Los Angeles

Star power is not what it used to be, I guess.

Little surprised this movie did not get a bigger released. Bruce Willis stars with a few other well-known folks, well known enough to get a bigger release than it did. The movie is OK at best granted, but I've seen worse films with a similar set of names get a bigger release.

Loved Bruce Willis in it. Very fun and vibrant not phoning it in even though this is a phone it in Movie. Jason Momoa is in it, and it feels like you'd want to see Momoa and Willis in an action movie together (Even though it could turn out like Mona in a film with Stallone(Bullet to the Head ), but Momoa was attempting more comedy in this action comedy. He wanted to do something funny and he was funny, or rather had a lot of funny moments. Oh and I should mention John Goodman is in this. Cause who wouldn't want to see a flick with Goodman in it right?

Overall, saying it's a good movie is too much. It's OK. I'd expect more from a movie Willis actually put some effort into rather than just making an over gloried cameo for a check like I've seen him do in movies of this stature before, but I did love him in it and it is very good for some solid laughs.

So, not a waste of time at all.

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"Never f*ck with a man's dog."

Either Venice Beach in L.A. is a tiny place at the ocean. Or Bruce Willis knows how to move around with incredibly speed. Because the pace at which he pops up in different places is impressive. Fortunately, it's not full naked on a skateboard the whole time, because that wasn't a pretty sight. Just like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Aftermath", you can see that aging is getting to Bruce Willis. The result is a set of not so tight buttocks. But they are still muscular enough to clamp a revolver in between.

"Once upon a time in Venice" is a fairly chaotic story where Steve Ford (Bruce Willis), a private detective who solves ludicrous cases most of the time, gets into a lot of trouble when his dog is being stolen by a local gang. Well, John Wick also shot a bunch of gangsters, after they've killed his cute little dog. Proof that you should be careful with dog owners. Before Steve realizes it, he needs to fulfill a few assignments to get his dog back. And trust me, a few of those clients look and act absolutely weird.

Despite the satirical mood and some highly amusing characters, the whole story isn't so impressive. Perhaps it was their intention to make an action comedy, but unfortunately the humorous section was quite disappointing and the action part was limited to a number of skirmishes in the end. To be honest, for once, it's the enthusiasm of Bruce Willis's acting that surprised me. In this movie he doesn't have that uninterested, tired look and nonchalant attitude as he demonstrated before in a few meaningless films. No, once again you could see him appear with his sympathetic, cheerful look while quoting a few one-liners (though they weren't really witty). This time it felt as if the paycheck wasn't the main reason for him to participate in this film. The movie poster reminded me immediately of "The Last Boy Scout". Come to think of it. Wasn't he planning to buy a dog for his wife in that movie as well? In all probability a coincidence, I guess.

Personally I thought John Goodman (Did he loose weight?) stole the show as Steve's sidekick. His character looks as if he came straight out of "The Big Lebowski". A peculiar person and owner of a surf shop whose life is riding a fatalistic roller-coaster because of a messy divorce. But the moment he takes part in the action, as Steve's partner, he's as happy as a pig in shoes. The surprised look on his face when he sees Steve's weapon arsenal, is comparable to his overall performance. It's as if John Goodman didn't really know why he was in this movie in the first place. Which made it even more funny. Also Jason Momoa (last seen in "Bad Batch" playing an interesting role) did a great job. On the one hand, a lame persiflage-like part. But because it was greatly exaggerated, it became funny as well. And in between, you'll see a Jewish real estate owner called "Lew the Jew" (Adam Goldberg), who's troubled by a fanatic graffiti artist who paints explicit pornographic artwork on his buildings.

I often felt embarrassed about certain scenes while watching this movie. On the one hand, it was fun to see Bruce Willis acting with visible pleasure and without scruples. On the other hand, there were also some awkward performances to admire and the humorous level wasn't comparable to what Willis had done in the past. Perhaps it was a movie unworthy of such an actor as Bruce Willis, but compared to the other monstrosities he appeared in in the recent past, this comedy/action movie was still a little bit of an improvement.

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I went into this one not exactly sure what I was going to get, considering Bruce Willis has churned out a phenomenal amount of bad movies at an astounding pace in recent years.

What I watched was, to myself at least, a movie that kept me laughing throughout as things just kept getting more and more complicated for Willis' character.

I must warn that if you are to watch this, don't expect the action star Bruce Willis, go in expecting something akin to Hudson Hawk, which is a guilty pleasure of mine that always gets me mocked by my friends.

Good comedic moments and fairly good acting for what it is.

Recommended.

An ex-Los Angeles detective turned PI seeks out the ruthless gang that stole his dog.

Director, writer Mark Cullen's entertaining beach bum action caper which sees Bruce Willis as Steve Ford return to centre stage instead of small cameos. Thankfully Willis isn't just there to just pick up a pay cheque, its very much his own film, and he's as cheeky and charming as ever.

The on location feel captures the heat of Venice Beach and Cullen offers plenty of colourful locale visuals. The characters are all quirky and larger than life including humorous Jason Momoa as mumbling gangster Spider and Steve's heartfelt troubled friend Dave (excellent John Goodman). Things get more and more outlandish as Steve tries to solve a number of weird cases. Sadly, Famke Janssen is wasted as Katey Ford.

With echoes of the recent The Nice Guys (2016) there's a few shoot outs and double crosses with hints of watered down Tarantino thrown in for good measure, Cullen like the moments of comedy set these up with perfect timing thanks to some effective staging and Matt Deizel fine editing.

Overall, while not Willis' best it's an almost return to likes of Last Boy Scout form rather than Die Hard, still it's good fun and worth a viewing.

I will not said it was good neither bad , it's watchable, some moments were funny and some weren't. the story was (ok) !! , the acting was ok too !! but this kind of movies, you only gonna watch it just to kill time , nothing else ,nothing special.

5/10