Rampage - Sniper en liberté

The only movie I had seen from Boll was House Of The Dead. It was a lot of fun because it was so bad. I read reviews of other movies he made, and I suspect they weren't much better. I was infuriated with what he did with the Alone In The Dark franchise, with guns and bimbo scientist and all.

I went to see Rampage (at the L'Etrange Festival) with a smirk on my face. I missed the 15 first minutes and I'm almost glad I did: the lousy messages, the jump cuts, the ad lib dialogue were about to get me out of here. But the actors weren't bad, things kept moving, so I played along.

Then started the said "rampage". There is not much to tell about it. It feels like Boll wanted to stick the nose of GTA players into their own *bip*, asking "So you thinks that's funny? See what it's like, is that so much fun anymore?" The movie gets better every minute. By the end of it I also wondered if the beginning was playing on the fact that we expect something stupid, illogical and aimless from his movies.

The logic is not without faults, but nothing that couldn't be discussed, the humour is great, scarce and surprisingly witty, overall, for me it was a success. If you get a chance to watch it, stick with it, at the end you might find yourself surprised at how it got there, from where it started.

As a side comment I would like to add that Mr Boll is a very nice person, on the first day of the festival he stood in the middle of the multiplex for hours (without boxing gloves) just to talk with people. I'm familiar with festivals and you don't see a lot of directors doing that.

I would have to say first off, I'm not a Uwe Boll fan of any kind, the only watchable film of his was Tunnel Rats. But I have to say this movie actually surprised the hell out of me. Some of the acting was a little bit sub-par but as for Brendan Fletcher, he's got some acting chops. Only thing I saw him in before was Jason Vs Freddy but he carried the lead very well in this (loved the bingo hall scene). Second thing is I really didn't think the violence was that over the top. All in all if you hate Uwe Boll films, you might actually like this one. As far as character development and plot, maybe not the best but it was worth watching. Bottom line if it was at a movie theater where I live I would have paid the ten bucks to go see it.

The ratings would be much higher, if this movie had another directors name on it. But since it's a Boll-Movie, it can't be good, right? Rampage is basically a movie about a guy on a killing spree, but Boll really managed to add depth to it. Believe it or not: this is a pretty clever flick. There is no black and white, no good or bad. Society is just f****d up in general and everybody seems to deal with that differently.

So it's not a nihilistic vision of our society. It's not dragging you down like a depressing Larry Clark- or Lars Von Trier-flick. It's not torture porn and it's not pseudo-artsy. It's simply a good movie, with great actors and a surprising twist in the end.

The editing and the cinematography were a bit wonky, though.

I saw this at the Candian premiere at DEDfest and honest to god vowed to sit through some of Uwe Boll's other atrocious films to try and catch the exact moment when he became competent. From House of the Dead to Seed to Rampage his next film could well be a bona fide masterpiece! Granted there were some problems but most films have problems and compared to the complete trash he's produced in years past this was his Shawshank Redemption. Brendan Fletcher really keeps this movie up and his eerily dopey presence adds all the more to the ensuing violence. Smart but not too smart somewhat believable. One scene however stands heads and shoulders above the rest and it involves old people and bingo. enough said. Thoroughly enjoyable not too much film school editing and slick over all. If you only ever watch one Boll film let it be Rampage.

I've read the criticisms of Uwe Boll, heck I've seen House of the Dead and it was brutally bad. This movie, on the other hand, was all too good. Uwe Boll shoots and scores on this movie.

I'm not a camera guru, but the movie is shot with a home video feel to it. The picture was a touch grainy and not all that crisp like you'd expect from a feature film. That didn't detract from the movie at all.

Rampage is, unfortunately, a very familiar story in this day and age. From Columbine to Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook and, as of a few weeks ago, Isla Vista, and as of a few days ago, Seattle. A young man, just out of high school, is fed up with his life and people in general. So, he deals with it the way some young people have decided to do in recent history; he goes on a shooting spree.

The movie does a brilliant job to tear at you much like the movie Falling Down. In other words, in no way would the average person condone random killings, but you are shown the frustrating events that occur to the young man to put him in a violent frame of mind. Ultimately, you can draw your own conclusions about the young man. Maybe some are enthralled by his actions while I know many would be absolutely mortified by his actions. The excellence of this movie was in the developing of this young man/monster.