Tag: Thriller

This is part of Fantasy and Sci-Fi Week at Gorgon Reviews!

Look, I am a big fan of all of these classic board games being turned into movies. Clue is the golden standard, and that was over thirty years ago. So why not a movie about the board game Life?

The good news about Life is that it is so expansive of a game, you can basically make it about anything, as along as it involves growing up, getting a job and family, a career, and eventually retiring. Anything could happen to you in between that. You could win a Nobel Prize! You could play the stock market. You could just not at all do anything worth while.

As long as you don’t set it in a fantasy realm, or in outer space, or anything like that, it could count as a movie about the board game.

What the fuck is this? Is this in Millionaire Estates?

Aboard the ISS, we got a lovely crew of people, crewing around, doing science, being astronauts. They grab a probe returning from Mars, hoping to analyze some soil and maybe see if they can find life. And guess what! They do! A tiny tiny microorganism, but it is life not from Earth. Hooray science!

Everyone is stoked, the world is stoked, some kid wins a contest and names it Calvin, big celebration, we are not alone! But maybe w should be alone?

Things start to go wrong on the space station. Calvin starts to grow, Calvin starts to show intelligence, and Calvin needs to eat to survive whatever he can on the ship. And you know who that means.

It means these people! Hiroyuki Sanada, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ariyon Bakare, Olga Dihovichnaya, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ryan Reynolds.

The poor ISS gets destroyed and fucked up in so many different movies.

Obviously this has nothing to do with the board game, that is just a joke, but this film still has a shitty title. Life is too vague, has certainly been a title before, and isn’t as ominous as they had hoped.

I first avoided this film because it came out on my birthday, and everyone knew that Power Rangers was the bigger story there. Also despite having actors I knew in it, I thought there was not way it would be a good film.

And guess what? I actually did enjoy it. Sure, on the surface, it is basically just the movie Alien, but with a different Alien and not in deep space. Actually, it is extremely similar to Alien, including having people ignoring quarantine rules in order to doom everyone. However, we don’t get a badass female protagonist, we just get people continually sacrificing themselves for the greater good of humanity.

Despite its lack of originality, I still enjoyed it. The ending had me very tense and on the edge of my seat. The acting from Gyllenhaal and Ferguson was decent enough, and Sanada’s character made me feel incredibly sad.

I would say objectively it is not a bad thriller/horror film at all. It does get a bit messy at points, a little bit confusing not being familiar with the layout or everything they are talking about. There are plenty of worse films out there that won’t scare you, so might as well give Life a shot.

Look, it is July, and here is a review of a foreign movie! Usually these reviews happen really late or really early in the year, and usually for award reasons. It is hard for me to go out of my way normally, unless something really captivates me, or I hear good things, or I am in the right mood.

And then I found Cave, which really fits none of these categories. But it was under an hour and a half, on Netflix, and about a subject that had some interest to me.

This movie out of Norway has only a handful of actors and the description implies a lot of thrills, so it seemed like an easy no-brainer for the site. However, going into it I want it to be warned: Despite being a Norwegian film and the language being Norwegian, this movie is in English dubbed. Or Spanish! Netflix didn’t have the original language as an option with subtitles.

Fuck, from this image, this movie might as well be French.

Time for a reunion for three friends, Charlie (Heidi Toini) (a girl), Adrian (Mads Sjøgård Pettersen), and Viktor (Benjamin Helstad). They are all war veterans and have been friends longer than before that.

In fact, Viktor and Charlie used to be a couple. Now, ten years later, it turns out that Charlie and Adrian are a couple. Only awkward if you make it awkward.

They decide to go cave diving together as a sort of reunion, to reconnect, because it has been some time. They are going into a cave where the exit has not been mapped out yet in its waterways, so as adventurers, they are going to check it out and try to be daring! Hooray!

And then some bad stuff happens, some dark secrets in those dark caves. Oooh, scary.

Also starring Ingar Helge Gimle as another extremely minor character.

This is not a spoiler because you can’t fucking tell what is happening.

Although normally I am a component for dubbed films and don’t care about the dubbed vs subtitled debate, this film suffered more from dubbing. We got three middle aged, probably in their 40’s old war people going cave diving in the middle of nowhere. They are gruff and experienced. And the two guys sounded like surfer dudes in their 20’s. Even if the film on its own was decent plot wise (it wasn’t), I couldn’t take anything they were doing seriously.

Nothing screams out real when surfer guys talk about the war and how serious being in a cave is. So much early just felt like a sarcastic joke, that the film felt like it was dragging despite its incredibly small run time.

The plot itself is pretty bad. It has appropriate foreshadowing to figure it all out, but it never really feels tense. You just feel that the characters aren’t actually as smart or believable as they say they are. I don’t know a lot about going into caves or cave diving, but I am pretty certain they make a lot of obvious mistakes and don’t look like professionals.

More importantly, there is a lot that goes unexplained in the film. Maybe they were hoping for a sequel. (Oh hey look, Cave 2 on IMDB, and one of the actors is listed again but with a new character name. What?) Maybe they were hoping we would draw our own conclusions, which I thankfully did do. A conclusion that said that this Cave movie stunk.

Oh you didn’t hear about the super new, ultra fresh, Netflix Original movie everyone is talking about? No, I’m not talking about Okja, I’m talking about You Get Me!

You Get Me was released on Netflix on 06-28-17, which happened to be the same day they also released Okja. And I was very excited to watch Okja on that day, I had it all planned out, and when I got to the computer around 7:30am, Okja wasn’t there. I looked it up, and it just said the release date (which was the right day!) and no link to the movie. Oh no!

So instead I said fuck it, I came to watch a movie and a movie would be watched. And advertised in front of me was You Get Me, a movie where I might not even know most of the people involved, but it was new, and it needed someone to watch it. So why not make that someone me?

I believe this was a ploy by Netflix to get me to watch a bad movie instead. You get me, Netflix.

Tyler Hanson (Taylor John Smith) is a high school boy who wants one thing. Sex. And attention. And love. And a stable home life. Okay that is a lot. He is about to be a senior, his dad is dead, and his mom travels a lot, so he sort of takes care of his younger sister on his own. Sort of weird.

He has a girlfriend, Ali (Halston Sage), whom he loves a lot, but they don’t do the sex. And it turns out, before she moved there she had a lot of sex and drinking. Hopefully that wasn’t that long ago because you know, high school. Tyler gets upset, they fight, they break up. Tyler meets Holly (Bella Thorne). She likes to party, likes Tyler, they have a weekend of hanging out and fun and yes, the sexy time.

But it is just a small fling, she is just here for the summer, and he ends up reconnecting with Ali and they fix their relationship. Hooray! Of course, it turns out Holly is now here at the school for real, she has moved here with her mom. It makes things awkward, but to make it less awkward, Tyler doesn’t tell the secret, and Holly befriends the fuck out of Ali. Like quick, BFFs. Ah joy.

She comes into the friends circle, she starts getting angry that her love is not being fulfilled, and oh yeah, we got a jealous angry ex movie.

Also starring Nash Grier and Anna Akana as other best friend characters.

“Oh. My. God. I am so annoyed at everyone right now.”

It is a bit weird to see a sexual thriller from a still in high school perspective. But not too weird, because high schoolers have sex. What is weird is its rating. I don’t know if it officially has a rating, but it is clearly just a PG-13 movie, so a sexual thriller about teenagers, for teenagers, that doesn’t go as far as most movies in the genre. This is a gateway film for young adults to get into sexual thrillers, a niche film you didn’t know needed to exist.

My thoughts on Thorne are all over the place. She is in so many movies and things, at the time of writing 65 acting credits despite being 19 years old. At this point, if there is a movie with high school students, I assume she will be in it, even if she doesn’t have a big role. Sometimes she is a bitch, sometimes nice, but if you have seen enough of these films, you realize her range isn’t really there.

So to have her as this main antagonist, this deranged character, who gets all revengey and wants to hurt a boy who has wronger her. And you know what, he kind of did. He pushed her away after a good weekend. So she has a reason to be angry, not a reason to get all close to killing, but still angry.

This is a predictable film. If you’ve seen one sexual thriller, you’ve seen this one. And this is a bad one, in a genre that generally is pretty bad.

Holy shit, it is finally here, the Universal Monsters Movie Franchise! Or Dark Universe, as it is going to be called. And this is for real!

Yeah yeah, you heard it was going to start so long ago, but with less buzz, with The Wolfman, But nope. And you were super seriously sure it was starting with Dracula Untold (because they said so), but apparently they changed their mind. They changed their mind DESPITE the ending taking place in modern day, clearly being ready for the Dark Universe.

So this time it is real. They have a name for the franchise. They have photos with actors in it. They have bigger names.

And you thought my intro to The Mummy would just be talking about the last Mummy Franchise? Well, you’re also right. I really enjoyed The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. The third one sucked, besides some yetis. The Scorpion King was fine, its sequels are bad. And I expect this movie to be NOTHING like the previous iteration, so I won’t really compare them.

The main difference is wanting to make this Mummy sexier.

Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) is in the military, or some subset of their intelligence. But he is a bit of a rebel. He has taken his underling, Chris Vail (Jake Johnson), to a completely different area of Iraq where he believes there is some sweet buried treasure that they can sell on the black market. They are supposed to be 100 miles away on a basic scouting mission, so they kind of are really big jerks here.

And sure enough, there is a goddamn hidden pit/tomb thing here, Egyptian made, despite Iraq being decently far away from Egypt. Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), an Egyptian Archaeologist, believes that there was a Pharaoh princess written out of the records due to shenanigans and this might be her resting place.

Speaking of this princess, Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) lived a long time ago. She was going to be the new Pharaoh when her dad died, and then despite her older, ready age, he went and had another child, a boy. And there went her hopes and dreams. So she made a deal with Set, got all demonic, killed them all and was about to bring Set into the world when she was mummified while alive (kind of BS) and you know, imprisoned far away and for ever.

Ah yes, the plot of the movie. This sounds like a lot, but honestly, this is all the beginning of the movie. What follows including death, destruction, magic shit, mummy curses, the dead rising, jokes, and a whole lot of other mysterious allusions to monsters. All in two hours!

Starring Courtney B. Vance as a general, Marwan Kenzari as a bodyguard, and Russell Crowe as a mysterious doctor dude and sometimes narrator.

This may look like a romantic moment, but that bitch is about to get sucked out of a plane OMG

I have FAR MORE to talk about with this movie than I had possibly imagined before viewing. There is a lot going on, possibly to its own detriment, certainly that is a negative a lot of people are pointing out. Because it is the first film in this universe (Of which Dark Universe was given its own big logo right after Universal) it has to give a complete film and tease out the future. All without an after credit scene to help them either.

A lot of the film can be described as messy. It jumps across genres in a bad way, it decides to describe the entire mummy backstory through exposition out of nowhere. A poor decision. We also get a bit TOO much teasing of the future. Another character that is relevant to the films appears and does a bit more appearing than I wanted. I wished they teased him more out and didn’t go full on monster so early in this franchise.

And the ending? Well, it puts the film and the universe in an interesting place. But at that point it didn’t go strong enough and didn’t seem to match really what was being built.

But despite all this, I still had a lot of fun. It had a real adventurous feel throughout it. The Mummy was straight up scary at points, raising her own undead army to get some shit done. It wasn’t campy throughout, but there was still some camp. Some of the stunts from Cruise were of course amazing, and just, I am excited for more. I really am.

Oh, less Jake Johnson would have been nice. They really don’t need him in future films. Alas.

Every year, the world is seemingly blown away by a new art-house horror film that really drives into our subconcious. Every year there are arguments about this new art-house film actually being a horror film, or some sort of thriller drama instead. And every year, I write a review of one of these films, and have to talk about the films of the previous years that fit that bill.

But I will save you some time. Last year we had The Witch and I LOVED The Witch. It felt evil to the core, it felt authentic, and it drove the genre to new places.

And now, It Comes At Night is hoping to be the new art-house horror that everyone is talking about. So what do you think? Do you think it will truly be a horror, or more of a dramatic thriller? Do you think it will have a lot of critical acclaim but no one will watch it? Will the meaning behind the whole thing cause internet debates for a long time?

Yeah, probably.

Ah cool, a mask man and some duct tape. Horror staples, for sure.

Set in a year that is like our own, in the future or the past, lives a family, on the edge of disaster. The world is different now, there isn’t any technology that is not battery powered. And the family is about to bury the grandfather (David Pendleton). Paul (Joel Edgerton), his wife Sarah (Carmen Ejogo), and their 17 year old son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) are survivors in a world with not a lot of people. Their grandfather has the disease, so he has to be put down, burned, and buried to protect their lives.

They live in a boarded up house in the woods with a lot of strict rules, and their dog, Stanley. But soon after the death, a stranger comes to their door in the middle of the night. His name is Will (Christopher Abbott), who claims he was only doing it thinking the home was abandoned. He needs water for his wife (Riley Keough) and child (Griffin Robert Faulkner), who are many miles away, waiting for his return. And Will says they have food, animals for eggs and milk, to trade for water.

Or it is all a lie, and he wants to kill them. Who knows.

Sarah wants to bring the family to their house, have more people to defend the place, live in harmony. It is a big trust exercise. What with the virus, the creepiness at night time, and people who just make their world a brutal place to live in.

Travis just wants to stop having nightmares and waking up in the middle of the night.

Sometimes they call the entrance to their house L Street.

Oh I feel so terrible, so dead, on the inside. I rarely due this, but here is an exact quote for what I put on my comment card. They have us fill out quick thoughts so the studios can get initial reactions before longer reviews come out.

“I feel so empty inside 🙁
Great acting, great story, and a never ending sense of dread. Fuck”

And that is still how I feel, days later writing this review. Are there scary moments? Yeah, a few. But most of the horror comes from a personal level, deep deep down inside of you. You know what is PROBABLY going to happen, so there isn’t a lot of surprises. But still, to watch it unfold in front of you just builds the tension and of course, the dread.

Dread is this movie’s official review word. If you don’t want to feel dread for prolonged periods of times, then don’t watch this movie. If you want an emotional experience that will rock you to your core? Then watch It Comes At Night.

Buster’s Mal Heart is by far one of the most interesting seeming movies I have ever been excited to see thanks to the trailers. That’s right, trailers, I saw more than one.

The first one I saw, it was short, full of intriguing scenes and I had no fucking clue what it was about. The second one I saw, it was longer, a completely different tone from the first, newer scenes and I still had no fucking clue what it was about.

So that is great! Trailers that don’t spoil the film and only make me need to see it even harder.

And you know what is even better? The title! On it’s own, it too, is mysterious. It sort of reminds me of Fight Club, the “I am Jack’s Complete Lack of Surprise” additions and all. I am Buster’s Mal Heart.

I am Buster’s Dirty Beard.

Jonah (Rami Malek) is a man working an overnight shift at a hotel near a resort town. He has a wife (Kate Lyn Sheil) and a small baby girl, but he cannot see them a lot because of his shift schedule, making him extremely tired while they are awake. Sleep? Who needs sleep?

Sometimes, sometimes though he is Buster. Buster is a man living in the mountains, who is known for staying in vacation homes while the owners are away, eating their food, using their showers, and giving not a fuck. The cops are looking out for him.

And even sometimes after that? Sometimes he is a dude on the boat, seemingly on a vast endless ocean.

Buster/Jonah is a lot of things, and often at the same time. But one thing for sure is that a mysterious man (DJ Qualls) keeps visiting him at night, wanting to pay with cash to stay in rooms, talking about a tech uprising, living life off of the grid, and how the government fucking sucks.

Life is hard for Jonah. Life is unique for Buster. And life is who knows what the fuck for the guy on that ocean.

Holy shit, is he also sometimes Lurch from The Addams Family?

Buster’s Mal Heart is a mysterious whirlwind that seemingly goes back and forth through time about some guy who is clearly having a breakdown. A very long, life changing, breakdown.

Malek is so damn perfect in this role, and honestly, I know very little about him as an actor. He has had many forgettable roles in his past, but his recent claim to fame has been Mr. Robot. I only got a few episodes in to the series before I knew it was something that wasn’t for me, but that same detached from reality feeling is all over this movie, almost as if this role was specifically made for him.

Despite the shenanigans and the twists, I do think this film was was a bit ambitious with its overarching plot, where I will admit I ended up reading the Wikipedia plot description to see if it would help. It did. It also make me shrug, kind of mumble to myself “okay” and just accept it, although I didn’t really necessarily get the same reaction out of it. It would be one thing if I interpreted the film in a different direction and had something to debate about. But instead the issue is I didn’t interpret it in ANY direction and really just needed help figuring out what the heck it is I just watched.

Buster’s Mal Heart is an artsy film. It explores some weird shit. It has some great lead acting by Rami Malek. But at the end of the day, I could barely tell someone what it was about.

2017 is the year of the wall.

Jokes about the president, blah blah. But we already got The Great Wall earlier this year. And now we have The Wall? I guess this wall isn’t as awesome as the previous wall. But The Great Wall was just an okay movie. If this movie has a lesser sized wall, will that mean the movie is also not as okay?

I don’t know. But I hope there is a movie even later in the year just called Wall. Or maybe The Wa. I could go either way with my dreams.

Not picture: Any goddamn wall.

Set in 2007, we are in Iraq, after the war was “won” with a dead Saddam Hussein and all. But we still have troops there, to help clean things up, transition, whatever.

And we have Sergeant Allen Issac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Staff Sergeant Shane Matthews (John Cena) who are a sniper pair. They have been watching a site for about 22 hours now where an ambush took place. Well, maybe an ambush, maybe an enemy sniper. But there are a few dead bodies, a broken wall and some trucks. But after 22 hours, they have to assume whoever or whatever did all of this has gone by now as they have seen no movement.

So they decide to call it. Matthews heads down to investigate knowing that they are safe, with Issac watching from above, still playing it safe. And then, Matthews gets shot.

Fuck. There is an enemy sniper here. A real professional. And now they are caught in his trap, with a small tiny wall protecting them. He is even on their radio frequency (voiced by Laith Nakli). And he wants to talk.

Wall so small, not in this picture either.

Doug Liman is the director of The Wall and he is an interesting dude. From Swingers and Go, to Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Edge of Tomorrow, he has been all over the map. If you look at his producing credits, he has a ton more action movies. But from what I can tell, he isn’t super heavy on the horror/thriller aspects, which is sort of how this movie plays out.

It is a short movie, about 80 minutes, and it plays out entirely in one location. It is more dramatic/thriller than horror, but it really could have gone either way based on the sniper character. Since they were able to communicate with radio, they could have made him down right horror villain. Thankfully they went the smarter, more realistic way, and made the sniper a compelling person with his own reasons for doing what he did.

Now, I will admit, they did make him a bit too powerful. Our soldiers 100% believed they were in the clear for good reason. But this guy is super human. He is a super soldier and he hits his mark, apparently. I would have liked it if they made him a bit more believable in those aspects.

But The Wall was tense, and the whole thing basically rested on the arms of of Taylor-Johnson giving an impressive and physical performance, which he did. Not a bad way to spend under 90 minutes and another film that talks about the real tolls of war without glorifying anything.

We here at Gorgon Reviews are not easily offended. Sure, I have still not seen A Serbian Film and my Human Centipede reviews are sort of my holy grails because of how much I wanted to avoid them, but language, violence, all of that is not offensive to us. That is why I can use “fuck” in my reviews.

I went and saw Offensive at WorldFest because the topic interested me the most of other movies at that time. I wanted to see a low budget thriller.

But I am glad I saw this film for another reason. During the screening a few audience members were talking, quite a few times, so the director Jonathan Ford ran down the aisle, not sure who exactly was talking, and quite sternly yelled “Whoever it is talking will you shut the fuck up!” It is great to see someone so passionate about their work, and a bit of a fantasy as a movie watcher who hates talkers.

Either way, they shut up, and hopefully left seeing Offensive slightly offended by their own actions.

“Offended at Offensive? That’s quite an offense.”

Bernard (Russell Floyd) and Helen Martin (Lisa Eichhorn) are moving to a small town in France! An old friend of Bernard’s dad died recently and because he had no family of his own, he left his estate and wealth to the Martins. However, there is a small caveat that Bernard and Helen must live there for at least a year first in order to receive the whole thing. They can’t just sell it and continue to live their normal lives.

And sure. They decide why not. They are old, a change can be good, fresh countryside air, a small quaint community. They move to the farm, appreciate the space they have, and hey, they even have an nice neighbor (Timothy Morand) who knew Bernard’s father and what his father did for their community. (It involved Nazis and World War II). Bernard’s dad once SAVED the community from tyranny!

Speaking of bad things, there is a group of kids who roam this community. About seven or eight teenagers, probably 14-19. They have cell phones, atrocious giggles, and a bad attitude. How bad? Well, they like to prank the community, which can get people hurt. They will set fires, throw bricks onto driving cars, push people around, verbally abuse, and more. All while recording it to share with each other and laugh about how pathetic everyone else apparently is. And guess what? The local police community does absolutely nothing about them. They are allowed to basically run this town into their own abuse filled playground!

And you know what? Bernard eventually gets pushed around too much. Especially when they go after his wife. And it looks like he needs to be a savior to this town again, just like his father was decades before.

Also starring Fred Adenis as corrupt cop, and Etienne Fouillade and Anaïs Parello as the head teenage shitheads.

This is how it feels when asshole teenagers get on their cell phones in a movie theater.

The idea behind Offensive is a pretty good one. Revenge tales make audiences feel good, sometimes queasy, and they let the audience live in a fantasy that they might wish they would do, but probably never do. Because people are afraid of breaking from the mold. Offensive takes that idea and gives us that fantasy against teenagers, a bit of a taboo subject because, you know, killing kids is frowned upon with their hormones and growing minds and all.

But they made these kids so incredibly annoying. Their group laugh is just one that will make you cringe every time, and you know what? Their laugh alone makes it worth it. Sure, maybe also the stealing, the setting of fires, the deaths they caused and regular physical violence. They made these kids uncaring assholes who just really needed to be violently destroyed so that everyone can chill.

Story was fine and dandy, but the overall acting had a lot to be desired. Floyd and Eichhorn just did not feel believable at all, which is a shame given they are the leads. They were fine at the moments when actual violence was involved, but in the regular general concern for their safety? Meh. And they didn’t even feel like a couple, let alone a pair that had been married for decades before that point.

The narrative itself also speeds up certain events for convenience, but are pretty implausible in a mostly possible story. Our old man has incredible endurance apparently, able to dig multiple graves on his own at night in a relatively short time, and make it look like it wasn’t just dug up earth. It is one thing that sticks out because of how impossibly hard that task actually is, but the film presents it as a great solution to where the bodies need to go.

Offensive is a good story, but hurt by weak acting performances. Still a unique concept on the indie thriller genre.

I am starting to reach the bottom of my barrel in terms of content, and that is exactly where I want to be. Who the hell has even heard about Always Shine, let alone seen it? I am sure very few, if any of you. And that is where I want to be on my reviews.

I picked this movie to review because I knew one of the leads involved and liked her work. But I also liked how it was not even rated and barely released anywhere. Just a small town indie film that no one knows about, and a thriller at that.

There have been a lot of really good small budget thrillers with a small cast. They can do a whole lot with it. So even though I don’t get the title and expect nothing, I can still hope for the best.

Like every morning when I wake up in the middle of the forest. I hope for the best.

Always Shine is about two somewhat friends. They used to be super friends, but their friendship has waned. Beth (Caitlin FitzGerald) is an aspiring actress. She has been in some commercials before. She has been in a few B-Movies. She has an agent! And she is going to try to star in a new horror flick about rocks, but she will be the main female lead, a big step up for her.

Anna (Mackenzie Davis), is also an aspiring actress. But she doesn’t have commercials, she doesn’t have parts in films coming up, she has nothing. And damn it, she is a better actress than Beth. But her life sucks.

Despite their differences, they want to reconnect and have a getaway in the mountains, where the signal sucks, in a nice place owned by Anna’s family. Now they have to deal with each other, go out drinking and meeting people together, and get on each other’s nerves. In fact, Anna is basically starting to hate Beth, because Anna believes Beth is actively trying to crush Anna’s career before it can get started.

Things are not looking good for Beth.

Also starring Lawrence Michael Levine and Khan Baykal.

“It is called acting, bitch, and I’ve been in a movie with Zac Efron!”

I have seen Mackenzie Davis in only a handful of films, with only That Awkward Moment and Freaks of Nature having a major part. And honestly, I thought she did great and should be in more movies. I haven’t seen FitzGerald in anything.

Potential biases, Davis is definitely the stand out here, as she is the one pissed off, she is the one who has to carry the end of the movie, and she is just so damn intense. FitzGerald has to play a meek character, who has only one real decent scene on a panicked phone call to her boyfriend.

But a few good scenes does not make the movie. The entire final act is just slow and dreadful. It seems to serve no purpose. They play it out like a mystery, but I wasn’t sure which parts were supposed to be mysterious. And then it ends with the big obvious reveal, leaving me just annoyed at the previous half hour of movie.

Seriously, the ending is just so bad. It is supposed to be some sort of mental break down. But it is tame (and maybe realistic?) and makes for very unexciting film.

Also, I still have no damn clue what the title alludes to.

I don’t really get Peter Berg. He is such an interesting person, but I don’t get him.

He gave us the Friday Night Lights TV series, and for that, I can thank him. Despite problems during the writer’s strike, we still got an overall solid project that came from a solid film.

And then he did Hancock, which had a bad second half. Then he did Battleship. The real low point. After that, he began to have his Marky Mark obsession, as Patriots Day is the third “real story” film he has done with the singer turned actor in a row. I liked Lone Soldier. I was disappointed with Deepwater Horizon. And Patriots Day seemed like something that was coming out way too soon after the events.

And somehow these last two movies have come out within just a few months of each other. Calm down Berg!

This time Mark has an average amount of guns, right in between the other two films.

Patriot’s Day of course is a film, detailing the events of the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013, about three and a half years old when the film about it came out. Our main character is Sergeant Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg), a police cop who is just returning to the force and has an easy first job back. Finish line at the marathon. Aw, how sweet.

Well, unfortunately, a bomb or two goes off, and a lot of people get injured and a police hunt takes off. And through the smoke, the fire, the wreckage, a lot of local heroes come out to help those wounded. But this is about the cops. And unfortunately, the cops do not find them right away.

Blah blah, the real story shows that they eventually get two suspects, in Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff). With a city on lock down, they try to escape, and eventually get caught. Or, well, one of them does.

Featuring a lot of big time actors, like J.K Simmons, Kevin Bacon, and John Goodman. Also Melissa Benoist, Vincent Curatola, Michelle Monaghan, and Jimmy O. Yang.

Not really a good image, so not really a place for me to make a joke.

After finally watching Patriots Day, I still only feel that this movie came out too soon.

First of all, it was apparently filmed on location. Where the guy hid in the boat? That was most likely the exact same neighborhood as it actually happened. Like those poor people need to relive those experiences so soon. A lot of footage from the film might also have been actual footage, I have no idea. Footage from police cams, or security cams. Either they made it all look as real as possible, or just used the real stuff, and either way I am uncomfortable.

The ending was the best part as, surprise!, it actually did switch to the real people involved. A real tribute to the cops at a baseball game after the fact, then brief interviews with some of the main people the film touch upon. Very brief, the whole thing takes just a few minuets before the credits. And holy shit, this is what the movie NEEDED to be.

In case you didn’t figure it out, it should have been a DOCUMENTARY! That is something truly respectable, something that doesn’t have actor cops and agents running around pretending a terrorist is loose again in your neighborhood, or recreating other painful memeories so soon after they happen. Fuck.

I know people complain about Hollywood being unoriginal, sequels, reboots, yadda yadda. But trying to rush out true stories to keep them relevant is the biggest scandal out of all of those. Most of the true story films that I enjoy end up being the ones I never heard about, where I learn something. I would imagine most people who saw Patriots Day were also glued to their TVs over these few days and even saw the guy get arrested in the boat. I didn’t learn much and it just felt…exploitative.

There should probably be a limit of at least 5-8 years before you film true events, just to give the world some breathing room.