Operação Sofia

Just imagine a kid trying to make his first "foreign-place action movie" who has no idea about the world and cultures and has it all mixed up in his head and this is what you get. Amazingly inaccurate and confusing settings and like everyone said, dumb story. What does Bulgaria or Sofia have to do with this? And what time in the future or past is it taking place because that country and city have never looked or sounded like that. Why are American and British folks chilling in bellydancing and shisha bars?? If they said it was Turkey or middle east it would be slightly more accurate. All that arabic music in the background is hilarious! You don't hear arab music in Europe unless you go into an ethnic restaurant. So amazingly inaccurate. I can't believe there is an actual American director who mixed up cultures and countries like that. This is like making a movie in France but having Italian music in the background while people speak Spanish but actually looking like German. Total parody of a movie! Makes for decent laughs!

What I put on my fb wall to warn everyone:

Managed to watch only 20 minutes and nearly poured the salt in my eyes cause I was eating sweetcorn. The only reason I am alive is because I could not decide on the most painful way to commit suicide! My IQ has dropped by at least 100 points, I DO NOT KNOW HOW I am managing to write at all!

Produced by MUTRESSA MOVIES! THE HELL IS THAT! In Bulgarian, "mutressa" is what u call members of organised crime. They are renowned for being brutal, uneducated, corrupting and uncultured - this is the type of movie they would produce. I would not be surprised if the studios are used for money laundry.

As a Bulgarian I sometimes watch the horrible Stallone/Lundgren action flicks that get filmed in my country. I first saw the rock-bottom IMDb rating and reviews for this one, and prepared for one more night of cringing self-embarrassment. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised.

Sorry, guys, but no way you will ever get this movie. Hint: check the credits - it was primarily created by Bulgarians and half the time people in it speak in Bulgarian. This movie really was made for a Bulgarian audience and features all sorts of coy little inside jokes in the plot, poking with self-irony at bad American action films and cultural misunderstandings between our two nations. And, it actually paints a decent picture of Bulgaria and Sofia, our refined Oriental folk establishments and fine police force - sadly now we even have terrorists.

I am not saying it is a great film at all. It is at the level of good TV productions in Bulgaria and is actually very enjoyable to a Bulgarian who watches it as precisely that. How and why this was ever marketed to bloodthirsty action flick fans and sold overseas I can't say, but I kind of hope it diverted some cash from the awful Stallone stuff. Yet, you got your fair warning - just don't watch it.

A horrible film, definitely and I have to say that the main reason Christian Slater and Donald Sutherland signed the contracts to play these two roles in this film was that they not only got the money to play the parts, they also got a free tour to Bulgaria at the production companies' expense. Well, why not took the opportunity in between new movie projects and went to some foreign country, stayed in the 5-star hotel, all expenses including air fares covered. They didn't have to worry about if the screenplay was a lousy one, or the supporting actors good or bad, the director....and so on, they signed on, went there, shot the film and went back to where they used to reside.

I also noticed that the leading production company, Mutressa Movies, only produced 4 films so far, including this one, but all of them were low budgets B-level films, strictly released to DVD rental market. In the meantime, another new production company, Sofia Productions, was sucked in to do business with Mutressa Movies. I really don't know why they always and could only find lousy screenplays that only received the lowest reviews all the time. Christian Slater, well, I have to say that in recent years, he's already fallen into B-movie's first choice and that is not good, man. Because once you signed on those low budget B movies, your career is doomed to go down the hill.

Donald Sutherland played the role so mindlessly easy. He is very old but still very active. When there's money to make, traveling abroad, all expenses covered, why not?

I had high expectations for this movie because of the cast. However both Slater and Sutherland seem to be going in slow motion. Christian Slater's facial expressions, especially scenes with Timothy Spall, who is far too good for this-were of the school play ilk. All seems very amateurish and the acting from these great stars was extremely disappointing. Obviously the director who was also the author and female lead was very inexperienced and so the acting was very wooden. Bad direction, but good camera-work. The story and location were good but don't fulfill the potential. Such a shame that my wife and I wasted an evening on this. Not much more I can say just to fill my ten lines - Boring, Yawwwwwn!