Tin Soldier

When I stumbled upon this I didn't even think it was real, but it is! A movie with Jamie Foxx AND Robert DeNiro and not one trailer? Why are they not promoting this? I soon found out...This is one of the silliest things I have ever seen.

There are three main problems. First is the story itself. The narrative choice they made to tell the story in voiceover, flashbacks and then back to present day in a way that makes the timeline really confusing. Did this happen ten years ago or five? When did the character make this decision? How long were they together vs apart? How long did they know where a certain character was? Made it really hard to be invested in the character relationships that we are presented with. Also the cult titles/honorifics- Shinja, Bokushi? Pure lol wtf.

Second is Jamie Foxx as the villain. He's got this crazy wig and beard, straight hamming it up. I just couldn't take him seriously in what's supposed to be a deathly serious role.

The third and biggest problem is Scott Eastwood as the protagonist. I don't know why they keep asking him to carry lead roles. He is textbook nepo baby. He's got the looks and the name but he lacks the presence/gravitas of a leading man. There's an ironic scene close to the end where the villain PERFECTLY describes who Eastwood is in real life: a guy who always comes up short because he just doesn't have the mettle.

What about DeNiro? Well, he's in this for like, five minutes tops. They could have got any old character actor to do what he did, which wasn't much.

One star for Jamie Foxx looking crazy which is the only entertainment value. Real waste of time and talent.

I watched this with a couple people but if alone wouldn't have bothered after 15 minutes. I guess I expected more with the sectors involved and director but wow this is not watchable. It's boring and everyone watching spent most of the time just playing around on their phones. Hollywood writers are nothing but disappointing most of the time these days and actors aren't even trying it seems. They just want a pay check. The plot was an ok premise but poor execution. The character development just didn't make sense and you didn't care about any of them. Hard choices easy life, easy choices hard life. It's not a hard choice not to watch this movie.

A movie filled with a bunch of quazi-religious overtones with some sprinkled in semi-narcissistic half-baked para-bu(ll)shido made up sort-of-kinda japanese sounding titles/words and a whole slew of useless filters on top of slow-mo and a seemingly acid-tripping editor trying to bring his LSD-visions onto the screen between the dark scenes with blinking lights and WAY too many close-up shots jockeying back and forth between faces and people.

Story was bad and barely made sense, the actors were probably (?) doing their best and failing at it, leaving the result a mess of a movie, a waste of money and about an hour and 5 mins - as I FFWed several times to skip the most annoying scenes of grand-standing monologuing and preaching - of my life I'll never get back.

It had about NOTHING to do with PTSD besides mentioning it in passing and the best thing about this movie was the people behind the scenes that were paid to work on it. And I'm not counting the actors in front of the camera into the crew here.

Lineup consisted or Jamie Foxx, Robert De Niro and John Leguizamo. Within the first ten minutes Rita Ora was hanging from the gateway. This is the moment I should have turned it off. The storyline was ok but the execution and cinematography were awful, at one point I was considering booking an appointment at Specsavers because the screen was blurred and shaking. Sadly Scott Eastman isn't his dad and blurred and shaky screen tried to make up for woeful acting and zero charisma. DeNiro is one of my favourite actors but this is a bit part for a pay day. My advice is to stay clear of this dreadful film.

This film is one of those examples for film students on how one should Not utilize flash backs as a substitute for terrible script writing.

Be prepared for 90% horrible flash backs and it's not brilliant like Memento and feels like Demento.

It's hard to believe considering this director did great films like The Infiltrator.

This film is a horrible attempt at dealing with a sensitive subject like ptsd but mixed it with a silly Jones cult story that is lost in translation and unfortunately does a hatchet job in both execution and editing that it ends up turning into a tossed messed up salad that makes one wonder if the writer and director suffer also from ptsd.

What a sad waste of top talent of Deniro whose lame character 6 mins is not justified and Scott Eastwood ( who seems to have a knack for picking lemons - even though he tries his best in this silly film), and the funniest best razzie of the year award is Jamie Foxx - starring as a cross of Carrot Head meets 70s Shaft with the worst hair wig ever.

This film is a thankfully only 75 minute disaster that if one removes the top cast it is a B film that Steven Siegel would be perfect except I read somewhere the budget was $39m so maybe it was a huge payday for Deniro and Jamie Fox.

Watch with low expectations

3 stars.