O Assassino Americano

Granted, I had never heard about writer and director Kirk Caouette's 2021 action thriller "American Badger" prior to now in 2022, as I had the opportunity to sit down and watch it. So I had no expectations to the movie, nor did I know what I was in for here, aside from it being a movie that I hadn't already seen.

And when you notice that the lead actor is also the director and writer, then I have to say that I am starting to doubt a project. And thus it was with "American Badger", but I opted to watch it, especially since the movie had been given a 7.8 rating here on IMDb - in this very writing moment.

But I have to say that "American Badger" was not as great as the rating would otherwise indicate. Sure, the action sequences were fairly nice and definitely carried the movie a great long way, but the storyline was just bland. And I have to say that "American Badger" felt like a somewhat watered down version of "John Wick". So yeah, there was that whole thing here.

The storyline didn't have much appeal to me, and it was somewhat of a drag to sit through "American Badger", I have to be bluntly honest. And while the action sequences were good, then they could only do so much for a movie with an inferior script and storyline, and not really having much of an interesting character gallery.

I wasn't familiar with the cast in "American Badger", and that is something I enjoy in movies, even in "American Badger", despite the fact that the movie was not particularly outstanding. Well, I did recognize Zak Santiago, though.

My rating of "American Badger" lands on a four out of ten stars. There are far better and more memorable action thrillers out there.

The director - scenarist - main actor is as bad as the movie. 80 minutes wasted 👎👎👎

Vanity projects seldom work even with Hollywood A-listers. When you have a Z-list director/actor doing his own voice-over on an ultra-low-budget indie ... well, let's just say the odds of a successful project are slim and none. And Slim just left town. Every low-budget fail is right there on the screen .. poor lighting, a sound track based on random noises from an electronic keyboard, terrible editing, and an incoherent script. Even the much-touted fight scenes are just a blur, a smudge, of motion that the viewer can barely see.

Feebile dialogue. Limp acting. Uninspiring story. Lacklustre setting and scenery. The only thing this movie has going for it, is the title, which draws you in with an expectation of something but you have to watch the film to find out, but even that failed and found myself bored senseless.

Stuntman and cancer survivor (his bio is very interesting) turned novice filmmaker Kirk Caouette stars, directs, wrote, produced, stunt coordinated, and composed the music for this low budget Indie B film, and it was actually not bad - all things considered.

Sure, the story is nothing new, and has been told many times before, but it was still enjoyable right to the end. I feel there needed to be more/better editing. Too many unnecessary shots, and the slow-mo was overused. The normally comfortable 82 mins felt longer with all those useless shots. Then there's the more cigarettes smoked than words spoken issue. I'm guessing all this was to make this a sort of art-house film. The score was actually very fitting for a B film. Although I wasn't impressed with the shaky-cam and poorly filmed first action scene, every other action scene was good, a few impressively John Wick-ish.

Caouette took many risks wearing so many hats, but at the end, I feel they paid off. Like I said, nothing new or extraordinary, but for a newb filmmaker on a tight budget, it's an enjoyable film. Props to Caouette for pulling it off.