Condor's Nest

If Paramount Pictures places a movie in theaters there's some expectation of size and scale, especially for a movie that bills itself an action-thriller, but Condor's Nest falls short.

Story: 6/10. Nothing original here, a very standard revenge story that gets a few extra points for surprising me at times.

Performances: 7/10. This is the movie's strong point. Arnold Vosloo makes a great baddie. Newcomers Al Pagano and Corinne Britti bring deeply-needed color to an otherwise grim spectacle. Michael Ironside and Jorge Garcia have surprise cameos that drive the story along even if they aren't particularly memorable.

Production: 3/10. Perhaps expectations were too high, but I had a hard time believing the car chase was real, that the plane was really crashing, that we were really in the 1950s. The cinematography is on point but even that can't save it from low-budget malaise.

Final score 5/10.

CONDOR'S NEST follows the vengeance quest of an American pilot who watched his crew get murdered by a Nazi and travels through South America killing tons of crazy Nazis to find him. There, that's the plot, and, basically, the entire movie. You're welcome.

THE GOOD: Character actors abound in this one, and they save what otherwise might be a particularly grim affair; every Nazi of significance is played by some talented folks ranging from Jackson Rathbone to Bruce Davison, providing a splash of color to the story.

THE BAD: Lead actor Jacob Keohane does a fine enough job, but finds himself buried by the personalities around him. There's no room for him to breathe emotionally, and we end up with a competent actor playing a one-note character.

THE UGLY: This is, very obviously, not shot in South America.

CONCLUSION: it's fairly entertaining, but if you're looking for Ben Hur you're going to wind up disappointed.

Condor's Nest promises us a trip across South America on an old-fashioned Nazi-hunting adventure and in spite of some deficiencies it delivers.

We're thrown into war-torn Europe in the film's opening scene, as the story's protagonist, Will Spalding, watches German colonel Martin Bach (Arnold Vosloo, more on that in a moment) gun down his entire platoon. Through an act of cowardice, Will alone survives.

Jump ten years later to Argentina and Will's killing runaway Nazis left and right, all in pursuit of that same Martin Bach. Enter an Israeli spy and a two-faced atomic scientist and things get complicated quick, a shaky alliance between the three culminating in a raid on a neo-Nazi fortress know as the Condor's Nest.

There's a lot of good things about this movie. It's well-paced, visually expansive, and its various arcs are compelling, if uninventive. There's even a few great things about it: its lead ensemble (Jacob Keohane, Al Pagano, Corinne Britti) is an absolute joy to watch, and Arnold Vosloo brings an incredible amount of presence to the role of the heavy. Add to that the movie's many notable character actors, from Michael Ironside to James Urbaniak, who help drive along the plot.

The bad? Well, it just wasn't terribly inventive. It's a stylized thriller that doesn't attempt to break any new ground. It could've been an 80's World War Two movie. And that's not a bad thing - in fact, I believe it's a strength - but if you're looking for something totally original you won't find it here.

I'll start on a couple of positive notes.

There are two good things about this movie: 1) It's in color, and 2) It ended.

I'd say about 33% of this film is people being held at gunpoint, 33% is people being shot in the head, and the final third is people yelling at each other.

There's one long stretch with Heinrich Himmler (who here looks like a dead ringer for Hitler, which he wasn't in real life) heading up a meeting of 10 or so old Nazis (all speaking German so you have to read the subtitles throughout, whereas it would have been a good place for them to just slip into English with a German accent.

There's a long opening scene in which, after the Americans' bomber crashes near the "front lines" in France but most of the crew survives, a really bad SS guy (you'll recognize him from one of the Mummy movies) shows up, holds the crew at gunpoint, then eventually shoots all of them in the head just for giggles. It sets the thematic tone for the whole movie.

And did I mention poor acting throughout the film? Yeah, it's there and it's pretty consistent.

I dunno - maybe 2 stars is a bit generous for this one.

I guess I got suckered by the trailer. I kept thinking it has to get better but it only got worse. If it was supposed to be a serious drama, it wasn't. If a comedy, there was absolutely nothing funny. If it was to have been historically accurate it completely missed the mark.

Bad dialogue, acting that wasn't convincing, cinematography that was embarrassingly poor and the best editing that could have been done was to cut all of it and throw it away.

When compared to so many of the movies that were produced by Amazon I just don't get why this got the green light.

I definitely wasted my time watching this terrible excuse for a movie.