Tag: Thriller

My quest to watch all the Ryan Gosling movies has lead me down interesting paths. It turns out he has been in multiple thriller / almost horror films, but none of them are any sort of standard slasher film. Stay ended up just being strange the entire time, with Gosling as a minor character. But with All Good Things, it is a mystery/thriller, with Gosling at the helm! And he maybe kills someone!

But no. It is still weird and different.

This is the best part of the movie. Gosling as an old man in lady clothes.

All Good Things is based on a true story, kind of. It is based on a guy named Robert Dunst. In fact, it is based on the most famous unsolved murder case in NYC history. But is it interesting?

David Marks (Gosling, aka Robert Dunst, but the name was changed?) is a real estate guy. Making dat money. He didn’t want to though. So he found Katie (Kirsten Dunst) and married all up in her. His dad (Frank Langella) didn’t approve of it.

Well, they move away to Vermont, open up a nice health food store, but still take in money from the family business to subsidize it all. Either way, times are tough, eventually he has to go back to NYC to join the job, make real money. He has to do some shady shit though, causing his mood to change, and become a lot more angry and bitter of a man.

But Katie stands by her man. And eventually dies. But was it David? WAS IT?

Hey, Kristen Wiig is running around. ALSO. There is a clean shaven Nick Offerman, but I can’t find good proof of it on the internet. But it is mindblowing. My second favorite part after the first picture.

Just, imagine him with even less stubble and even more humility.

Whew. What a story. Wait, no. I mean, what a bore-y. I am bored. It is all sorts of boring.

Another moment where acting is pretty darn fine and consistent, but no one cares. Shit, it was hard enough to keep up with the story, having different court room procedures interrupt the story, making it all feel out of order. But the only reason why I know how it ends is thanks to the words they threw at the ending, to tell me where the characters are today.

Whether they are still dead and not sure who killed it, or hiding in drag, or what.

I guess part of the problem with doing a movie about an unsolved case, is not actually knowing what happened. Like the rest of the world. So it is a bunch of bullshit anyways.

Apparently Robert Durst liked the movie? That’s fine. Don’t care. Sucks to be him if he didn’t do it and everyone assumes he did though. Just. Just no.

1 out of 4.

Stoker is a movie I had to wait four months to see. It didn’t come to the local theaters, not even the ones an hour away. I was pretty disappointed, because the trailer not only looked really friggan awesome, but it was an original story. That’s right. It was not based on a book, a play, a short, nothing. Just an original movie that looked creepy and sexy.

I wanted it so bad. But I had to wait for the DVD release date. I also wanted to see it on Blu-Ray, but I missed out on that opportunity as well. Damn.

I couldn’t find the better shot where you could see her eye through the scope. I have failed the internet.

Death death death! The movie begins with the death of a father. Car crash, a few states away, burning to death. Very gruesome, very tragic. India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) just turned 18 as well, and is kind of all sorts of distraught. She is like, seriously fucked up over this. Big sad times.

Her mom Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) is a dirty little whore. Okay, that is harsh. But still, her husband just died, who she hasn’t been intimate in awhile, and after the funeral she invites the mysterious brother, Charles Stoker (Matthew Goode) to live with them. That is pretty soon, you are a widow, you should be grieving.

Well, Charles is kind of a creepy guy. He stares a lot, right into your soul basically. He stares so fucking hard. India is uncomfortable around him too, and for good reason. Charles has many secrets of his own. But maybe India will like his secrets once he makes his intentions clear?

Also, Alden Ehrenreich has a small ish role in this movie, and he is basically the opposite of his role in Beautiful Creatures. It made me hate him a lot.

I guess, to be fair, she stares just as creepily as he does.

Woo! What a sexy movie, in a creepy way. Let me reiterate how disappointed I am that I didn’t get to see this movie on Blu-Ray, it would have been even sexier looking. The cinematography is fantastic in this film, in all ways. Camera angles, the way the camera moves around the scene, and the way scenes morphed from scene to scene. There was a scene that had a close up of Kidman’s red hair, that transformed into a grassy field, and I almost flipped a shit. It was such a good transition.

The acting is great in this film too, with only a few characters it is not too hard. Nicole Kidman’s character was just ridiculously flustered the whole time, Matthew Goode and Mia Wasikowska were both different levels of creepy.

I do think this film lacked a little bit. It was slow at parts, and not as life changing as I would hope. It was incredibly well done, but not over the top well done that I set it up for. So maybe that was my fault. But I don’t think if I went in completely blind it would be a 4 out of 4, still a 3 out of 4.

Too much talk, not enough ending to the review. Check it out. But it is obviously a dark movie. I loved the ending too.

3 out of 4.

Originally, I felt that the ad campaign for The Purge came a bit later than most movies. I didn’t hear about it or see the trailer until Evil Dead, which was in March!

But they really ramped up the ad campaign in the last few weeks, almost to annoyance. Needless to say (because I am a coward), the trailer frightened me, and gave me great hope that this movie would provide scares along with philosophical debates about ethics, morals, and the human spirit.

The year is 2022 and America is a peaceful country! Unemployment is less than 1%, and there is basically no crime. Why? Because we have changed the way America works! Every year, for 12 hours, everything is legal in the United States. Murder, theft, you name it. No police or firefighters will be on duty, everything is fair game. It lets people vent out their frustrations, and become wild animals if they so choose.

A lot of rich people choose to stay inside with fancy security systems. Like James Sandin (Ethan Hawke), a fancy security systems salesman. He has the fanciest securest house on the block, because of his profitable year, so his wife (Lena Headey) and two kids (Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane) are set!

But once The Purge begins, the son sees a homeless man (Edwin Hodge) running down the street. He noobs it up, opens the door, and lets the homeless man in. This opens an unfortunate can of worms when an unruly mob of masked college students clamor outside of their villa, wanting to get their purge on. The polite leader (Rhys Wakefield) gives them the chance to turn the homeless man in, and they won’t attack the family. But if they wait too long, they will tear down their walls and kill everyone inside. Oh snap.

Looks like we have quite an ethical conundrum on our hands. Can they willingly send out a homeless man to his death? Can James willingly let a man die, if the life of his family is potentially on the line?

I mean, he looks trustworthy, that polite leader. The first thing I noticed about The Purge is that it is almost painfully short. 85 minutes in length! That is usually a warning sign. That means the plot doesn’t last long enough to fill a full movie. Or they realize the idea gets old really quick.

But the length was really appropriate for the plot, and I never felt like it dragged too much. There was some long scenes that were just heavy in suspense, but when you are wandering around your house in the dark, looking for strangers, you aren’t just going to run around every corner.

It was somewhat predictable, with the plotlines, yet equally surprising. I loved watching Ethan Hawke go on a kill streak to save his house. I would have stood up and cheered, if I didn’t respect normal movie watching practices.

It could have delved more into the ethical nature of the entire Purge, but I liked that it used subtle features to tell us the backgrounds of various characters, without outright saying them to our face. I do think they harped on the idea of murder too much, when other laws, like downloading music and stealing a car are just as legal. Time to get the misses some new bling, I say.

The movie is full of jump scares with only a few scenes that made me leave my seat, but I think it still is an interesting addition to the horror genre.

3 out of 4.

I am watching The Iceman on the recommendation from someone who hasn’t even seen the dang thing. They just heard it was good from other people. Thankfully, I am glad I took that advice.

The opening of this movie starts with a really awkward coffee date between Richard “Richie” Kuklinksi (Michael Shannon) and Deb (Winona Ryder) that doesn’t seem to be going well. She’s telling him how she thinks he’s not talking enough and then makes a comment about his creepy tattoo. Because of this, he gets visibly offended and she apologizes profusely. However, two scenes and several years later they’re married and having a baby!

That tells us one of two things: Either bad first dates could end up well, or their bad decision making has been consistent.

Ray Liotta is in a film about mob guys? Who saw that coming?
After Richie’s job with a Disney cartoon dubbing *cough*porn*cough* studio gets eliminated, Richie is offered a job by the mob boss as a hit man.  Turns out, Richie is already pretty cold-hearted dude, due to some serious childhood issues, so he has no problems gracefully accepting the position. After all, he’s got a wife and a kid and apparently she’s spending her days looking at expensive houses instead of quietly cleaning the one she has. That bitch.

After years spent as a contract killer picking off everybody, including business associates and long time friends, it’s clear that the only people he cares about are his wife and kids. He doesn’t care about them enough to tell him the truth or get a real job or anything, no, but he will kill anyone that gets in the way of him supporting his family.

“Tax man? Dead! School Principal? Dead! Door to door salesman? Dead! Lazy crosswalk guard? Double dead!”Due to the fact that this is based on real events (and there was a documentary about it roughly 20 years ago) it’s not much of a spoiler to say “Hey! The police caught him!”  The finale includes a really crazy monologue from Richie, and according to the history books he never saw his family again.

What really gets me about this film is that it’s so intense but void of a lot of high powered action. You are only going to get one car chase, and it is not as you would expect. No one is going to fight on top of a train, but I feel like that’s better reserved for Bond.

Also, I was incredibly fascinated by the casting choices for Richie and Deb. Shannon is such a HUGE guy and Ryder is this tiny little thing and every time he embraces her or even just stands next to her it looks like she’s going to disappear into him.

Overall it was a really captivating movie and I’d put this on my “watch again” list.

4/5
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I’ve reviewed this on Criticker!

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Some people think Jim Carrey is just a slapstick comedian way past his prime. But those who defend him always note that he doesn’t only do silly and zany movies. The two people talk about the most are The Majestic and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and to a lesser extent The Truman Show. (I am not saying The Truman Show is bad, just that it is still kind of silly. I love it!). But if they want to go a darker path, they will bring up The Number 23, the only “horror”-esque movie he has done. Horror is a very strong term, it is clearly just an eerie thriller.

But after hearing people bring it up, I knew it was my duty to watch it. One day (yesterday). Is it worthy of the praise of the other two films.

Let’s face it, you’d rather watch the movie over read the book right?

Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) is a pretty normal guy. Has a wife (Virginia Madsen) and kid (Logan Lerman). He is an animal control officer, basically the coolest job ever (outside of putting down animals sometimes. And the fact that it sucks).

Yep. His life is good. His wife finds the book The Number 23 in the book store, likes it herself, and gives it to her husband as a gift. Which is when things start to get weird for him.

He notices similarities between the main characters childhood and his own. Neighbors were described the name, his mother died the same time as another character in the story. His wife thinks he is reaching of course, because he is nothing like the main character, Detective Fingerling. (Heh). He doesn’t play the sax, doesn’t solve crime, and isn’t a detective. But once they introduce the number 23, and how a character in it becomes obsessed with the number, finding it everywhere in their lives, he too start to find it everywhere in his life. He even begins to dream of killing his wife, scaring him so much he gets a hotel to finish the novel and figure out why it is so dang similar.

Too bad the novel ends at chapter 22, with the detective about to take his own life. What a shame. Maybe the novel is a confession and he just has to figure out who the murderer actually is, not some silly pseudonym?

Who ruins a good wall like that? Bunch of savages in this town.

Well, for those people who point to this film to prove that Jim can be a great actor, I suggest they stop. They are doing a disservice to Jim. After all, he CAN be a great actor. Hell, even Mr. Popper’s Penguins wasn’t complete horseshit thanks to Jim. He has gotten older, and he is kicking ass when he wants to, but The Number 23 is not his best work.

Jim gets to play both Walter and his visions of the Detective in the movie, believing he truly is the star of the book despite the differences. The book is in a dark noir style, but skips around a lot, and basically involves him go crazy, while Walter goes crazy in real life (and drags his son into it). But the number 23 thing, the main plot of the film and title, is really the most important thing. I bet if I looked it up, I would find a lot of factual errors in terms of the facts they gave and what equaled 23. I heard a few in their quick ramblings that just werent true, which is annoying. Did they fact check their facts? (Or is to show that the characters were reaching for more 23s and making up things? How meta).

Either way, it is a strange movie that didn’t improve my life in any way. The only trivia question I can see in it is “What number does Jim Carrey become obsessed with in film?” Ah. 23. Done.

1 out of 4.

Robert Redford is starring in a movie!

That should be the first thing out of your mouth, seeing The Company You Keep. The other thing you will notice is it has quite a hefty list of famous actors thrown into the mix. Robert Redford doesn’t act much anymore, but when he does, he calls out all the stops.

See? This is him literally calling out all the stops.From watching movies, I have learned that the 1960’s were a terrible time. But hey, terrible times lead to great movies about how terrible it all was. War, protests, the whole shabang. Some protesters couldn’t stand being peaceful though, like the Weather Underground movement. These group of youngsters thought they saw their government committing terrible crimes, so they wanted to get their attention back at home by blowing stuff up, and maybe even murder.

They also were never caught in the act and prosticuted. Until now.

Sharon (Susan Sarandon) has just been picked up by the cops, wanted in the murder of a cop from the ’60s. They have everything on her and all of her phone logs. Thanks to some reporter with gusto, (Shia LaBeouf), an article was published linking lawyer Jim Grant (Robert Redford) to the crimes and a nationwide manhunt for his arrest. Hooray! Take that violent political activist from the ’60s!

But did he really do the crimes he is being accused of? If he is innocent, why would he run? After all, the FBI (Terrence Howard) and newspaper editors (Stanley Tucci) all seem to think he’s guilty. Yet for some reason, he is being erratic, and looking really hard for one Mimi Lurie (Julie Christie). Hmm, I wonder what she has to do with all of this mess.

There are far too many famous (and famous-ish) actors to just throw their name casually in the plot, so I will just list them all here: Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Brendan Gleeson, Brit Marling, Sam Elliott, Stephen Root, Nick Nolte and Chris Cooper.

Stephen Root is standing next to lettuce. Yep, nothing to see here.The first thing I noticed is that Robert Redford no longer looks identical to Brad Pitt. But hey, now we know what Brad Pitt will look like in about 20 years.

Looking at Redford’s work schedule, he hasn’t been in a movie since 2007, but he has at least two more on the pipeline. The more notable one is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Even better, the reason he is in the Marvel Sequel is just because he hasn’t ever played a role like it and thought it would be fun. I love it when actors tell the truth.

As for The Company You Keep, it has an interesting story behind it, but in the end it is just okay. It takes a little bit to get going, and kind of fuddled up in the middle, but it all makes a lot of sense by the end. Not that I actually liked the ending, as I thought there were multiple cop outs from various characters in the film. Acting was fine, just like Lawless, I didn’t hate Shia by the end of it, but he wasn’t exceptional in it either. Seeing him with facial hair (well, the small amount he could pull off) was an interesting change at least!

In other news, watch it only if you are missing Robert Redford in your normal life and like slow moving political-ish thrillers.

2 out of 4.

As you all know, I am a patriotic American, so if there is a movie out there that will increase my patriotism, by golly, I will see it!

Not that I needed any more convincing to see Olympus Has Fallen. I love a lot of the actors in this movie, even though certain male leads may be pushing out a lot of crap in a row. But hey, this looks like Die Hard meets the White House! That is especially good news given out A Good Day To Die Hard turned out.

Arguably, both this and Die Hard 5 are going to be political. Probably. Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) used to be the best secret service agent there was, working for President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart). Unfortunately, after leaving Camp David on a snowy night, his limo hits a bridge and they are only able to save the President, not his wife. Mike didn’t do anything wrong, but the President just doesn’t want to be reminded of his dead wife every time he sees him.

Few years later, he now is stuck with some desk job. Can’t shoot anyone in the office (legally), damn it! He still relives that night, and his long term lady friend (Radha Mitchell) can’t seem to help him.

But unfortunately today is a day where everything will hit the fan. A fighter plane is able to make it into the DC airspace, and begins to open fire on the white house while the President has the South Korean Prime Minister under his care. But in the panic room, it turns out not everything is as expected. Surprise, North Korea is behind all of this! Not only have they locked the President and Vice President in the panic room, but they have taken over the building as well, and have pretty egregious demands for the country that they are holding hostage. Clearly only one man is good enough to save the day here.

Featuring Rick Yune as the bad guy, Morgan Freeman as the Speaker of the House and now acting president, Melissa Leo and Angela Bassett as government women, and Dylan McDermott as an also former secret service agent.

 

Honestly, to me this looks like they are just dancing. Sometimes you can get an idea that is so crazy, so wild, that it works on some grandiose scale, and I believe that is what is happening with Olympus Has Fallen. It is action packed (after the icy intro and set up) and entertaining. Sure, you can probably figure out how everything is going to end before its through, but that doesn’t even matter in this movie.

That’s right, no real big surprise twists! I think if the entire point of a movie is a twist at the end, it really loses its potential to watch it again for fun (unless you are watching with new people). That means Olympus Has Fallen is rewatchable!

Now there are some pretty dumb characters. I think the President is a moron, but at least he is a bit hard assed. Part of the conflict involves getting three passwords from three individuals, through torture! The President has the last password, and orders the other two to give up their own because there is “no way” he would ever give his up. You know, to stop their torture. Gee, I guess he didn’t realize that they will probably just torture his friends to get the password out of him, since it basically worked two times in a row.

But this movie is about Gerard Butler kicking ass, and damn it, he does. Nice fights, guns, explosions, and a high body count. This movie was so great that I am no longer looking forward to White House Down. When there are two similar movies within a few months of each other, one of them will always outshine the other. I don’t think there has ever been a situation where both have been amazing, but at least the other one has Jaime Foxx playing the President.

3 out of 4.

The Call, The Call. What can I really say about this movie that the 2.5 minute trailer didn’t already say for me? Shit. I have talked about bad trailers before, but this one is high on the totem pole. Listen people. If a trailer tells everything that happens in your movie, there is no need to watch the movie. Why have 118 more minutes of filler?

Fuck you The Call trailer. It is why I put off watching it for so long, just because I felt like I already watched it.

Well, maybe The Call will be bigger than the trailer itself, and more exciting?

The hair is certainly bigger.

Jordan Turner (Halle Berry) works at an LA Call Center, and it is one of the busiest. Which is why everyone there gets futuristic looking desks and command centers I guess. Either way, it can be stressful, and she gets a call from a scared teenage girl. Someone is breaking into the house! But thanks to her information, she is able to successfully hide the girl before authorities can arrive and the guy leaves. But the phone gets disconnected, she mistakenly redials, and the girl answers. Oh surprise, she is still there. Way to give away her position Jordan!

Needless to say, abduction happens, and Jordan feels like shit.

Six months later, she is teaching now, afraid of her job. But hey look, another girl got kidnapped. Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin). She is in the back of a car going somewhere. I wonder if its the same dude (Michael Eklund). No that couldn’t be.

Well surely her communication powers and street smarts are going to save this girl this time, even if it involves going off on her own to find him herself. Great strategy. Also featuring Morris Chestnut as her cop boyfriend, and David Otunga as other cop.

I think of this scene as a rebirthing.

It turns out the suspense in the film wasn’t half bad. In fact, maybe even enjoyable. If any of it would have surprised me in the slightest. Good old trailer, even spoiling the gasoline seen. Heck, the only thing that the trailer made me wonder is why the hell is Michael Imperioli in this film? You may remember him from the one season of Detroit 1-8-7 or six seasons of The Sopranos. He has one scene flashed in the trailer, despite being a relatively major character to the story. Fuck these trailer makers so hard.

Unfortunately, the ending of this movie absolutely ruins it for me. Here we have this guy, who clearly has some deep seeded mental illness and psychological issues about his past. He needs help. He has done some bad things. But when the good guys have the chance to do the right thing, they of course don’t. They go for revenge. Not a normal revenge, a super bad torture revenge. Fuck that. You are the good guys. Their idea is horrible in that A) it isn’t guaranteed to work, and B) their alibi is completely bat shit stupid. I thought it would be okay if the ending wasn’t so dumb.

But really, the thrills are okay. It might be a lot better if you don’t know more than I told you going in. Just. Fuck that ending.

1 out of 4.

If you saw the trailer for Side Effects, you probably found yourself confused. It tells you practically nothing; something about pills, a doctor/therapist/pharmacist getting in trouble, and maybe someone dying. There really isn’t enough here to convince the average person to check out the film. But what if “mysterious” is what the movie was going for? A trailer for a few weeks many months away, then nothing, and let the lack of any ads drive people in droves to figure it all out.

Yeah. That’s a terrible strategy.

No amount of thinking will make this a good strategy, Jude.

Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) is a lonely woman. She used to suffer pretty hard from depression. Why? Because her husband (Channing Tatum) was sent off to jail for four years for insider trading.

Well he is finally back and they can get their life back on track and everything will be great again! Right?! Wrong! Bam, Emily crashes her car on purpose and sent to the hospital. There she meets Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), who reluctantly lets her back home despite the attempt on her own life, but only if she will come to therapy sessions a few days a week and take some anti-depression pills.

But every pill has its own side effects associated with it, which could lead to irrational behavior and other strange issues. Also featuring Vinessa Shaw as girlfriend of Dr. Banks, and Catherine Zeta-Jones as her former psychiatrist.

“I just don’t understand doc, what’s wrong with sticking your dick in crazy?”

Hopefully you noticed I still tried to keep the plot description vague, because frankly, it helps. Going in to see this movie, I knew nothing, which is how I prefer to watch films anyways. I am glad the trailer was vague and didn’t give the entire movie away. So I tried to keep the favor for you readers, but give you a bit more detail to hopefully spark some interest. Because, as it turns out, Side Effects is pretty darn good!

Not only is it directed by Steven Soderbergh (Who has given us the Ocean’s Trilogy, The Informant!“, and “Magic Mike“. Okay, one of those doesn’t belong), but it is apparently going to be his last film for awhile. Officially, he is retiring, but I am sure that within a decade he will be back.  The only person to successfully quit the film industry has been Rick Moranis.

Side Effects is more than a simple “Who Dunnit” story by focusing more on the why and the how. Throw in some ethical debates about the role of doctors and medicine, and you might also earn a minor in philosophy by the time the movie is through. While watching the movie, I found myself getting angry in the best way possible. I was mad at the events happening on screen, at the loopholes and the needs for a scapegoat, but most importantly I was mad that it was incredibly realistic. The actual events in the movie I don’t think would ever happen in real life, but the reactions to those events were so spot on, I almost did a little “This is what’s wrong with the country!” rant in my head.

If you want to have some emotion evoked in your movie watching experience, I suggest checking out Side Effects. Give Steven Sonderbergh a reason to come back to film in a few years.

3 out of 4.

Who doesn’t have fond memories playing Paperboy as a kid?

Oh wait, shit, I don’t. Huh. I never had that game. Ever. Or tried to play it. I think it involved throwing newspapers in mailboxes or porches, getting chased by assholes and dogs. Sounds about right. Either way, my intro has failed me.

Oh right, The Paperboy. some movie, based on a fictional book, and maybe creepy.

Zac Efron doing his best to not get type-casted is pretty dang creepy.

In this movie, there was a racist and bad sheriff, who got murdered. No one really liked him, but Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack) was sent to prison regardless.

Years later, a local paper is trying to prove his innocence. We have the brothers, Ward (Matthew McConaughey) and Jack Jansen (Zac Efron) and a black British man, Yardley Acheman (David Oyelowo), all working on the case! I should probably mention this is also during the civil rights movement during the 1960s, which is why his Britishness matters.

But they have an additional ally. Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman), Hillary’s wife. Yes, Hillary is a man. Kidman is white trash, yes, but she can let them get to Hillary, who for some reason doesn’t give a shit that he is in prison. Minus the fact that he misses dat body.

Either way, lots of dramatic shit happens, they might succeed, and other bad things might happen as well. Of course Jack also falls in love with Charlotte. Because that leads to drama. Oh, Macy Gray is also the narrator and a maid.

‘Fierce’ – A new perfume by Kidman

Well, this movie probably gets my “Weird movie of the week” award. It was eerie and strange to watch it, but it was hard to actually point out why.

Definitely a slow going movie, where everything is done for a reason. I found it a bit hard to follow the story, was a bit disjointed in the beginning. John Cusack definitely played a role like I have never seen before. Like a deranged Earl.

The real star of this movie is Nicole Kidman. She acted the fuck out of this movie, and she is the best part. But the eeriness and strange story kind of put me off, not to mention the slow moving plot points. Eventually on youtube will be a compilation of Kidman’s best scenes from the movie, and you should watch that. The actual movie itself? Up for debate, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

1 out of 4.