Burning Palms

Burning Palms (2010) is a satirical thriller movie written and directed by Christopher Landon and it was very mediocre.

Positives for Burning Palms (2010): It was interesting for me to see Christopher Landon directing a movie that isn't horror. The movie has an insanely awesome ensemble cast including Adriana Barraza, Lake Bell, Jamie Chung, Shannen Doherty, Robert Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Peter Macdissi, Dylan McDermott, Anson Mount, Jon Polito, Zoe Saldana, Nick Stahl and Paz Vega. The five short stories are interesting for their stories and what they were saying. And finally, I liked the comic book style transitions to each story.

Negatives for Burning Palms (2010): There are spots in these stories that are a little bit dumb to watch. I didn't care about a lot of these damn characters. Some of them kind of act like dirt bags. And finally, the endings to these stores with the exception of the second one were really dumb.

Overall, Burning Palms (2010) is an interesting if not messy satirical thriller movie by Christopher Landon and it marked the beginning of a very successful and promising career for the guy.

I am not sure if this was meant to be ironic, subversive or surreal, but it failed on every level. Framed as stories in some demented comic book, it isn't presented as 'different' enough to be believable as a comic story. It comes off as racist, sexist and just generally unpleasant. The actions of the characters are so unbelievable and irrational as to drive me to distraction. The acting is just awful in most cases. It is supposed to be some comment on Los Angeles, yet it is just absurd. There was potential for this to be insightful, witty or interesting, yet that was all frittered away with shock value and the extreme unbelievability of the characters. And because it was presented in a normal world, this makes it all the frustrating. It was just unrelentingly bad.

If you have a dark humor, and speak cynicism fluently - this movie definitely worths your time. Usually when a movie depicts a couple of different stories with a common denominator, shown one following the other, not interlacing, it is used in order to show "a bigger picture", which brings me to one of the two only issues with this film (in my opinion): there is no bigger picture. If you're looking for a final scene that will connect all the dots together, you should know there isn't any. It's just not this kind of movie, nothing to be disappointed about.

The other thing that might bother you, is the lack of "tightness" in the plots. This becomes very apparent in the different endings - as if the writer had an excellent idea for five sketches, but not a movie.

However, "Burning Palms" is a very good movie indeed. It could score a solid 8 (not kidding!) if there would have been some small modification in the screenplay, but as it is it's still captivating - go watch it.

If you can stomach/appreciate dark humor in the line of Louie C.K. and Jimmy Carr, this movie will entertain.

There are five stories, simple pulp fiction type tales without significant character development, but still resembling Aesops fables - only for adults.

Stripping off the cozy duvet of political correctness some of the tales will disgust and others will amuse, but buttons will be pushed for most.

By grossly exaggerating the little neuroses most people in modern society happily allow themselves and tolerate in others. The movie quickly reveals how seriously we take ourselves and our stereotypes, and how fragile these ego shells are when exposed to ridicule or scrutiny.

If you're unused to questioning motives, be it your own or those of others, and firmly believe there is such a thing as a "victim" - steer clear. Otherwise allow yourself to be shocked, it won't kill you and you may be healthily disillusioned (to be deprived of illusions).

As far as the acting, some support actors seemed to enjoy their mostly satirical roles - e.g. Shannen Doherty's accent and Paz Vega's emoting (worthy of the telenovela playing in the background), helped to lighten the fairly dark subject matter.

Oh, the segment "Buyers Remorse" is a must see for those looking to adopt.. If you spot ANY of those traits, please don't.

So because this movie is basically 5 seperate small movies in one. I decided to rate each indivually and the average of that would be my overall rating for the film.

1.) Green eyed monster- 9/10

This in my opinion was the best by far out of all them. I honestly could've watched full length movie on this. It was very taboo, dramatic, and tension filled. The acting also was done very well by all parties.

2.)This little piggy-7/10

This one had good amount of humor in it and it was while pretty silly and kind of cheesy interesting for the most part.

3.)Buyers Remorse-1/10

This one was by far the worst out of all them. I literally hated it with passion. Dry humor, very disgusting scenes, draggy, and virtually had no payoff in the end.

4.)Kangaroo Court-6/10

This one was okay for the most part. I diddn't enjoy Lake Bell at all (I usually like her in everything else), the kid actors were pretty annoying, but the thing that had me convinced to not give it bad rating was the climax was very wild and something would never saw coming.

5.)Maneater-8/10

I can imagine this final scene must of had tremendous out of controversy and if it was released in 2020. I personally think this movie would got shelved immediately. With that said this scene by far had the best acting. Zoe Saldana was excellent and very believeble. It was wild/unexpected spin on something so very vile that you can't help but look away from the scene.

Overall after averaging these scores on it left me with final score of a 6 out of 10. Which I think is pretty fair for entire movie. Was it masterpiece? No. Will it be massive cult film? Def not. But it is solid watch if its weekend and you have nothing better to do just please make sure you know what you're getting into as this movie isn't for everyone.