Tag: 3 out of 4

Tai Chi Zero

I don’t remember /why/ I know about Tai Chi Zero, but damn was I interested. It said steampunk and martial arts! Why not! Seems cool! I like some of those things.

Especially since currently, martial art movies seem to have left realism behind to focus on better things. More exciting things. Like unrealism. Yes. The best type of fights are unreal, we all know that. I assume that every fight type has already happened, so we have to start bending physics to make it interesting again.

This has nothing to do with this movie.

Thwap
But I am glad that it features Thwaps!

So this takes place sometime in the past in China, like normal. Our main character is a freak. Really. That is his nickname The Freak (Yuan Xiaochao). That is because when he was born he had a tiny mini-horn on his head. He grew up wanting to learn how to fight, but no one took him seriously. That is until he beat up a bunch of kids his age after they hit him in his horn. Once he gets hit in the horn, he goes all demonic on people, gaining skill and destroying everyone.

Well, long story short, his town gets destroyed when he is older and his former master tells him to go learn the Chen Kung Fu, in a town on a mountain outside of civilization. But when he finally gets there, no one will teach him because he is an outsider! Some old laborer (Tony Leung Ka Fai) tries to help him learn it anyway, through repitition. Yay fake Kung Fu Styles!

But the plot comes when a former townsfolk guy Fang Zi Jing (Eddie Peng) has returned from college! He wants to bring the railroad to their town and increase profits. The town doesn’t like electricity, they shun him, he gets mad, and vows vengeance. We also have Mandy Lieu as his white-ish girlfriend, and Angelababy as the future love interest of the Freak, who knows the Kung Fu Style!

Child
But first, he has to fight this little girl. True story.

That is about it plot wise! This stranger might be able to help save their town from the evil western capitalist machine ways! So the story might be super anti-America without explicitly saying it, but I am still fine with it as long as the fights are cool.

And they are cool! But they are also amusing. Easiest way to describe amusing fight to me is a Jackie Chan fight, but they take amusing fight in a new way. Through specia effects! Like some video game shit. Stage 1, Stage 2 stuff. It helps invigorate the experience!. Tons of tiny additional features to add that add to the fights, and well, they are hard to explain, and I find it funny.

What I found annoying? He went Freak mode in the first scene in the movie, before the plot, and never did the rest of the movie. Huh. Why? This might be a planned trilogy, because it doesn’t end with the plot resolved, and the sequel, Tai Chi Hero, comes out to America in June. Also, I should note, that this movie is far from steampunk in any way or form. Even stranger, this movie has Tai Chi in the title, but of course, he has to go learn Kung Fu. Who am I to question that shit. Maybe they are all the same?

3 out of 4.

The Great Gatsby

If you frequent the internet, you will most likely hear about how rustled certain peoples jimmies are now that The Great Gatsby (Trailer) has been made into a movie. Again. For whatever reason, there is popular opinion that movies shouldn’t be made from popular novels, despite that is how its always been done.

People are also afraid of Baz Luhrmann. Okay, that is more understandable. Baz is a weird guy. Sometimes his films are too long. Sometimes they are just weird. But they can also be extraordinary.

So I will give it a shot. I know the imagery will be in your face, the music pumping, and probably a guy on a typewriter. The trailer features 2.5 minutes of in your face imagery and music, just to prepare you for this trip.

Fireworks
Ohh,, I forgot the fireworks. Fuck!
Despite guessing that everyone had to read “The Great Gatsby” in high school, here is the plot in a nut shell.

Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) has moved to New York to be a stock broker, since his writing career has failed. He has a small shack next to many large mansions, and is neighbors with Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), but he is a recluse who know one really knows. Gatsby is a man of many secrets, but one of his biggest is his crush on Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), Nick’s cousin, and married to Tom (Joel Edgerton).

Aww snap. Tom is also unfaithful though, cheating on his wife with the wife (Isla Fisher) of a gas station attendant (Jason Clarke).

Basically, everyone in New York is an asshole and a liar. Except for Gatsby of course! Sure, his secrets involve him working with a man who fixed the 1919 World Series (Amitabh Bachchan), but at least he doesn’t hide who he is. Much. Alright, he is a liar too. Also featuring Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan Baker, a friend of the Buchanans and Gatsby, and might be the only other sane person after Nick.

Dat wolfshark
Because who wears that much clothing in a club? Need to take stuff on, not add more layers.
Just as expected, this movie was pretty crazy, in more ways than one! There are some minor changes from the book, to set up the story, but of course that isn’t really important.

Early in the movie, I was getting kind of sick of it all though. I was overwhelmed by too much, too soon, just like the beginning of Moulin Rouge!. But eventually in the story, the parties die down, and all of the problems with the characters come to the forefront hard and fast, and to me it is when this movie gets exceptional. From the first time Gatsby and Daisy meet in the present, to the discovery of all the lies, to the final conflict, The Great Gatsby provides a whirlwind of emotion. Well acted emotion at that.

I think everyone was on their A-game during the filming and despite already knowing the story, it seemed like I was being told the story from the first time.

So while not perfect, I definitely loved the second half. Everything seemed so genuine and real, despite the CGI heavy backgrounds. If there is one thing I could have less of, it would be the green light. Definitely over used in my eyes, but I could just be jealous of the green light. That and the phrase “old sport” which I hope to never hear again.

Although I know for certain this movie won’t be DiCaprio’s Oscar winner, he still was a fantastic Gatsby and brought the character great justice.

3 out of 4.

V/H/S

I really really am not qualified to review horror films. How are they supposed to be judged? I don’t know. I either tend to love or hate them. Doubt I have any 2 out of 4 horror films. What is average?

Basically, they either creep me out (scare me) or they bore me. Occasionally, I like some for their plot, but those are rare.

For V/H/S, I’d put it in the creepy column.

Eyes
Her? Well, there is a fine line between hot and creepy apparently.

Alright, I might not actually be sure what the “actual” plot of the movie is. I think its about a group of asshole kids, who fuck shit up, and film it on their cameras for others to see. Also assault women, making “Reality porn”. Not the nicest bunch. Well, these asshole kids get hired to steal a video tape from someone, it is valuable. But maybe the video tape is actually a collection of other fucked up events happening, and potentially haunted itself?

Not actually sure. But the main film is spliced with five short stories (although, they are about as long as the main story too, which is just split up). I can’t even tag any people from them or really describe them without giving away too much. But the titles do a fair enough job on their own!

Tape 56.
Amateur Night.
Second Honeymoon.
Tuesday The 17th.
The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger.
10/31/98.

You can make your own guesses with some of these. But there is a lot of themes present in the movie. Succubus. Woods. Ghost Hands. Cults. Ex Lovers. Zombies. Aliens. You name it.

Skype
I hope you tried to move the mouse in the picture.

Honestly, I found this terrifying. Not just because it involved such old technology (Kids won’t know what V/H/S tapes are!). It was interesting watching a movie about V/H/S tapes on Blu-Ray.

Not every short film is great. I didn’t really like the Emily one, or the main storyline that much. But Amateur Night was a great side story to start the films off right. It really was able to draw you in and then fuck with your mind some at the end, even if the end you saw coming (a little).

I think overall it was creatively done, even if there are things in it you have seen from other movies (as seen in picture 2 and Paranormal Activity 4). Having a different director for each short film keeps it fresh, and potentially interesting to watch multiple times.

3 out of 4

Iron Man 3

The sheer existence of Iron Man 3 puts us in a difficult situation. For super hero trilogies, we often see the first film have high reviews, the second film overlap the first, and the third one disappoint. However, in this case, Iron Man 2 was clearly the inferior film to Iron Man!

Basically, I don’t know what to expect. I know I always try to keep the source material out of my reviews, but with superhero movies it is much harder, because I tend to be familiar with the comics. I am overly pumped that we are getting The Mandarin as the enemy, his own personal Dr. Doom. Marvel was afraid to add him earlier, because he is a magic guy, and they have tried to keep their movies (pre-Avengers) separate thematically. That is why Iron Man always had to face tech based threats, the Hulk faced other genetically altered villains, etc. Well, I for one and ready for the theme shift!

Sexytime
This is a completely new way to interpret “I want to be in you”.
Iron Man 3 takes place after The Avengers (you saw that film right? And the first two Iron Man movies? They would help). There is no giant threat to Earth currently, so its mightiest heroes are back working by themselves, personally dealing with those events. Well, Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) almost died in another dimension, so he is freaking out emotionally. He is having problems sleeping, so he fills his nights building more and more iron suits; always improving, always testing new theories.

This has put quite a toll on his loved ones, including his girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), friend James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), and even body guard (Jon Favreau).

Not to mention the FUCKING MANDARIN (Ben Kingsley) is out and about, terrorizing America. There are bombings and threatening videos over television networks! Egads!

But what does The Mandarin have to do with the AIM corporation, led by a now charismatic Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), with ‘botanist’ Maya Hensen (Rebecca Hall), and his super weird body guard (James Badge Dale). Regenerating plant tissue sounds cool, but not something I’d invest in.

Mananandarn
Ah, he is so fucking chill. Taking over the world, fucking up the Iron Men. You know.
It is hard to write this review. It really is. I have conflicting ideas with how I felt about the movie. I realize that twists and turns are expected in a movie, and that saying there is a twist is a spoiler on its own, but I have to talk about the big one in vague terms.

It is shocking. It is unexpected. It is completely out of left field.

And I don’t know why it is in the movie.On one side, it pisses off fans of the comics, and on the other side, it won’t have a lasting effect on those who aren’t comic fans. There really is only two categories, and it seems weird to alienate the fans without having anything to gain. From the movie point of view, it is kind of awesome. It just shits pretty heavily on the source material.

I think the one real complaint I have with the movie is the director seems to really hate Iron Man. The armor breaks a lot, almost constantly, leaving us with a Tony Stark movie more so than Iron Man. So much for the “invincible” title that is generally associated with his name. It is almost sad how little time he is spent in the suit kicking bad guy butt.  Yet somehow, it is still action packed and crazy. There is plot reasons why the suits may have been weak, but I am not sure if I buy them.

The ending itself is also a bit unexpected. Many questions will arise from it and the future of the franchise. After The Avengers 2, Iron Man might not get a fourth film, and instead become part of other characters movies. Pepper Potts also ends up in a strange place at the end of the film, which should be fully explored later, but I fear it wont.

But you know? Despite all of that, I really think I loved the movie. It was funny, the action was great, and it was entertaining as fuck. Sure, there are some plot hols, but you will survive. It is clear, however, that Disney had extended their reach deep into the film. They introduced a kid character and his role definitely overstays its welcome. Go away kid.

I think Tony agrees with me there.

3 out of 4.

The Details

The Details I must say is a random grab for me. I saw the cover, I noticed how bad it looked, and that hey, I know all the people in it. Fuck it. Give it a shot.

It did just come out on DVD/Blu-Ray, but I know it was finished in 2011. Lot of post production hell, but the wiki page wont tell me anything. Oh well!

Family fun
But clearly this will offer nothing but good clean family fun.

Jeff Lang (Tobey Maguire) is a simple man, with a simple wife (Elizabeth Banks) and a simple child. He is a doctor, loving life. He is trying to do the good breadwinner thing and expand his house for his growing family. But this fucking raccoon keeps messing up his lawn. This pisses him off so much that he decides the best way to fix it is to poison that raccoon.

Things go all down hill from there.

Not wanting to give away the plot, but he also has a noisy cat lady neighbor in Laura Linney, a best friend doctor in Kerry Washington, her husband is Ray Liotta, and a strange best friend confidant in Dennis Haysbert.

That is it. People also die, there is that. And cursing. Not at all a family film!

Piee
Just look at that pie. Oh yes, I love pie.

Shit, this movie was hysterical. I didn’t even know it was a dark comedy going in, it kind of sprang up out of no where, but it was definitely odd and campy early on.

Surprisingly, Ray Liotta had my favorite scene in this movie, a certain encounter with him and Tobey Maguire on a bridge. It blew my mind how well dialogue-d it was.

Not to take anything away from Tobey, as he floated through his life. Some of his actions didn’t seem to make any sense, but must have been part of his midlife crisis, trying to fix the wrongs he found himself buried in. Not to mention Laura Linney was strangely really hot as the “crazy cat lady”.

I’d say that The Details is a surprisingly well done dark comedy, a genre sorely unrepresented in most new films. Well, ever. I want more, damn it!

3 out of 4.

The Big Wedding

The Big Wedding. Oh goodness me.

The trailer tells the story pretty clear.

The filmmakers are a bunch of racists.

What? How did I get that out of the trailer? Well, the plot is about a family who adopted a kid, who is finally about to get married. His mom is coming to visit, but his adopted family is divorced, and she wouldn’t be able to understand that because she is super Catholic. So they just have to pretend to be married!

The trailer then shows off the giant cast and tells us who everyone is, except for said guy getting married. WHAT? So here’s to you, Ben Barnes. You get a spot up top, and the first picture.

Who is that
But you have to share it with Amanda Seyfried, because these are my rules, damn it.

Ah shit, I just explained the plot in like, two sentences. Whoops. Well the good news is, the divorce wasn’t bad. Sure, Don (Robert De Niro) might have cheated on Elle (Diane Keaton), but they agreed it was for the best, still raised wonderful kids, and still loved each other. Sure, it was Elle’s best friend who did it too, Bebe (Susan Sarandon), and that they have been together for over a decade, but it isn’t weird.

But hey, Alejandro (Ben Barnes) isn’t the only child causing problems. They have two actual children of their own, Lyla (Katherine Heigl) and Jared (Topher Grace). The former, a lawyer in Chicago, going through a tough time with her long term boyfriend, hates her dad for cheating, and can’t have kids. Jared, a baby doctor, who is still a virgin to save himself from marriage, but totally willing to lose it should the right woman arrive.

Yeah, basically a giant shit storm. That isn’t the half of it. I just don’t want to spoil it all. Robin Williams plays the priest, because why not, and Ana Ayora gets naked. These are important things to note, because you know, it is rated R.

Nero

Rated R you say? Yeah, Robert does R rated films a lot! So that isn’t surprising. This isn’t your daddy’s wedding movie. Unless you are 2-3 years old, then it is likely that your dad is the target audience. Also, get off this website, there is fucking language and talk of naked ladies.

Here comes the shock of the century week. I enjoyed this movie. Like, a decent amount. I laughed, I loved the twists, it didn’t feel forced, and the chemistry between this giant group of actors was great. Shit, everyone seemed to be having such a great time with the movie, and weren’t disappointed to be stuck with some lame new movie about marriage. Obviously, yes, it looks like shit, but I think it has a lot of heart.

This isn’t the kind of movie I could watch again and again, but I am pleased with how it all turned out and think worth a gander. Well, depends on what a gander is. I think some sort of bird.

3 out of 4.

Oblivion

Not going to lie. I was not at all interested in seeing Oblivion this week. Unfortunately I have taken to following other reviewers, although I hate knowing what other people think of a movie before I see it. But they all hated it. I disliked the preview. Everything looked pretty darn obvious to me from them. I also disliked just how many previews I had to see of it, without ever changing. I also disliked that the main characters name was Jack, but I will get into that later. But finally the title. When I first heard about it, I assumed it was some movie about the video game. Nope. Future and aliens.

That’s a lot of bad things to go against movie. You unfortunately have a biased, uphill battle to climb!

Cruzzy
Thankfully they put quite a bit of money into the graphics department. Oooh, my eyes are happy.

It is about 60 years in the future. An alien race called scavengers came down and fucked up all of our shit. Turns out humans are stubborn and won’t just let our stuff get messed up, even if they took out our moon (causing earthquakes and tidal waves), so we nuked the fuck out of them. Hooray! We won! Small packs of scavengers roam the landscape, but they totally lost overall. Too bad the Earth is basically a barren wasteland at this point. Areas of high radiation, lot of dead. So the humans evacuated, and GTFO first to a big space station in the sky, then on ships en route to Titan, a moon of Saturn.

Only two people are left on the world, Jack (Tom Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). Jack is a tech guy, repairing drones that cover their perimeter and protect them from scavengers. Once the plants suck up the last of the sea water (which can be used for energy later?), they can return to the space station, and head off to Titan in two weeks! Woo!

Too bad those fucking scavengers keep messing up their shit and make their last two weeks hell. Not to mention an old space ship crash lands on Earth, with the drones attacking the human survivors, including a woman (Olga Kurylenko) who has been haunting his dreams! What in the hell is going on!?

Also featuring Morgan Freeman and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as mysterious humans, and Melissa Leo as their space communications rep.

Freeman Is So in this movie
The internet is making wild claims that Morgan is barely in this movie, only 15 minutes max. Psha, I clocked him in at about 19.

Well, fuck me. I found Oblivion entertaining.

Yep, despite the negativity and the huge climb, I walked out happy, nay, excited. I had to quickly talk about it with others who saw it, about the ending, the twists and turns.

You see, it is pretty dang obvious from the trailer that certain things will happen. They are obvious twists in the movie that won’t come to be a surprise at all. That is what I thought the film would give me, and I was ready to be bored. But you know what Oblivion did? Sure, it might have had those “twists”. But the twists came in unexpected ways and then layered on more turns that I was not expecting after that.

Too many twists can ruin a movie, because then you just get tired of it all, and refuse to pay attention until the end. Like Trespass. The barren Earth they created is also hauntingly gorgeous, just like the CGI as well. I generally don’t like Tom Cruise as much when he is in his serious action roles, like this, but I didn’t mind this one.

The acting was okay, the plot overall could have been better, and I might have disliked the last scene in the end, but overall, pretty interesting.

If I actually went in with an open mind, it might have been a 2, but this is what exceeding expectations does to ratings!

3 out of 4.

The King’s Speech

“What the hell is this shit? It is 2013 and you are just now reviewing the Best Picture winner from 2010? No one cares anymore! We already know its good!”

I have the meanest readers some times. Yes, I am a bit embarrassed that I am just now reviewing The King’s Speech. I just kept putting it off. I did see it a long time ago, but before I reviewed it, I felt like I should probably…you know…re watch it on Blu-Ray. Yeah, technology!

Enough excuses.

Mic Yo
After all, did King George VI ever make excuses? All the time? Well damn.

Before King George VI was King George VI (Colin Firth), he was just the son of King George V (Michael Gambon). His older brother, King Edward VII (Guy Pearce) (“Hey, why is everyone a King?” Shhh) is set to be King before him, which is great, because George6 has a problem.

He sucks at talking. He has a terribad stutter, and it is frankly down right embarrassing. He is royalty, and he muffles all of his words! No one can take him seriously if he cannot give a simple command. They tried everything, including throwing money at the problem, but nothing seems to work.

So his wife (Helena Bonham Carter) decides, against his knowledge, to go off the beaten path to look for help. He has basically given up hope and doesn’t care anymore. He would just rather hide instead. As it is with movies, the man she finds is named Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) and quite unconventional. He wants to get into psychology, and determine why people may stutter. That is personal shit, a bit too personal for a potential king.

OH NO. CERTAIN HISTORICAL EVENTS HAPPEN AND KING GEORGE VI BECOMES KING GEORGE VI. Fuck. Now he has to talk. He really needs to fix dat stutter and fast. But can he? Can he do it?

Aids
Just like any problem, all the king really needed was helpful aides.

There is a reason this movie won Best Picture, and it lies almost 100% with Colin Firth, who also won Best Actor. I know I’ve used this phrase before, but it is really the only thing fitting of this situation. Colin Firth acted the fuck out of this role, and there is no touching him in this movie. Stuttering is not too hard to pull off, if you want to mock a person and be an asshole. But to pull off I guess a “sincere” stutter, throughout an entire movie? And have it all look completely real and natural? Damn, maybe he just has a strong jaw and tongue! It is just insane how great he is at this role.

I tried to tip my movie after I saw it because I had such a great time. Oh yeah.

Everyone else is good too, notably Mr. Rush, as always. Not sure why Helena was nominated for her role, she is barely in this movie. But hey, congrats to her a anyways!

The story itself is not one I can see myself watching again and again, after all, there are some boring parts. But for the topic at hand, it made a seemingly “Who Gives A Fuck?” topic a star experience and helped everyone care about a now dead British King.

3 out of 4.

42

First off, I am a bit disappointed. The movie 42 doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out the question of life, the universe, and everything.

Unless that question is baseball related. That’s right, 42 isn’t about The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but instead baseball, go figure. Not just any baseball story, like the forgettable Trouble With The Curve. This is baseball history! The story of Jackie Robinson, the first black MLB player. Well, technically the first black MLB player in modern, post World War II baseball. After all, Moses Fleetwood Walker played in the MLB for a season in 1884. But after that, sixty years is a pretty long time, with “Negro Leagues” put in place, so Jackie Robinson still turned heads in his debut.

Mirror
Despite the turned heads, he still didn’t help us answer that dang question…
42 doesn’t focus on Jackie Robinson’s (Chadwick Boseman) entire life, but instead about 2.5 years of it. But before we get to Jackie, we first get to learn about Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers. If we listen to his reasoning at the beginning, he wants to try something crazy. That’s right, a black man on the Dodgers! Why not, that should increase ticket sales, and he will also do whatever he can to get his team a pennant.

So he picks Jackie from the pile, gets him on their minor league team, and hopes he can kick enough ass to make it on the MLB team, while holding back his anger enough to not let the rampant racism get to him.

This is a true story, we all know he makes it to the team after a year in the minors, and the rest, really is history. We also see a little bit into his relationship with his wife (Nicole Beharie), and I do just mean a little bit. There are other members of his team who all embrace in him different ways, some with petitions (Ryan Merriman), some with open arms (Lucas Black). Some managers didn’t give a shit (Christopher Meloni), and some made it their mission to make his life a living hell (The Phillies) (Alan Tudyk). But that is to be expected from a Philadelphia based team I guess.

This also has the smaller, yet still important, story of Wendell Smith (Andre Holland). He was the the first black member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, but first had to travel with the teams for two years, writing articles about Jackie and his struggles. That means Jackie Robinson was influential on more than just the baseball level, he just chose to end racism through beating the other team’s pitchers and stealing bases.

Oh there is also a John C. McGinley cameo as the radio announcer, dropping classic line after classic line of old timey talk.

Gang up
Jackie probably thinks I am talking far too much about white people in this review.
Speaking of white people, I guess Branch Rickey was pretty dang important to this story, but no one really talks about him in popular culture. The filmmaker makes sure you know how much of this all falls on his shoulders, and how it would not have happened (so soon) without him. Yep, this just ends up being another civil rights movie where white people are the saviors. Just like The Help and The Secret Life Of Bees. This literally keeps happening in film, and it is kind of annoying.

Even though in this example it might be true, it is still frustrating to see that it is focused on so heavily just to sell more tickets.

I loved Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson. I am glad they went with a relatively unknown actor for the role, because that was one of my bigger problems with the movie Ali.

Overall, 42 is a feel good inspirational movie and it succeeds at that level. There is some intense emotion in here, but it still ends with everyone smiling by the end. It could have dealt with a lot more of his life, but hey, after his first year, he wasn’t the only guy able to make the switch. He was a great athlete, and this is an acceptable (if not entirely accurate) portrayal of his life. I personally still left the theater happy, despite any real issues.

 

3 out of 4.

Gone Baby Gone

I feel like a bad Ben Affleck fan. Here I am, talking about his greatness, despite having finally seen Pearl Harbor, but I have not seen a third of the movies he has directed. That means the first movie he directed, Gone Baby Gone. I might not have really known it existed. Whoops. Of course he has his brother in it, but it is nice to know his first work that lead up to Argo, right?

Damn straight. Forgive me Affleck Fans 4 Lyfe, my former Myspace group that I was in. I have redeemed myself in your eyes I hope.

Couple
But maybe not in the eyes of Ben’s brother.

Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) is a private investigator, with his long term serious girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan). On the news, there is a story of Helene (Amy Ryan) who’s child has been abducted, and she is pleading for the police to find her quickly! The police chief (Morgan Freeman) is super sympathetic to the cause, because he has lost a child himself, and has made child protection his number one goal as head of the department.

The next day, Patrick and Angie get a visit from Beatrice (Amy Madigan), the sister of Helene, wanting to hire them to find the child. This is a special case, they do specialize in finding missing people, but that means people on the run, not people who have been kidnapped. The last thing they want to do is find the child in a ditch somewhere, kind of ruins the mood. Eventually, they agree to help Beatrice, Helene, and Beatrice’s husband Lionel (Titus Welliver), while also trying to not get in the way or ruin the police investigation at the same time.

What follows is the dark paths their investigation take them on, the reprecussions that follow, and the many months of aftermath of uncertainty and grieving. You know, without giving too much away. Ed Harris and John Ashton play cop guys, and Michael Kenneth Williams is of course a drug dealer.

Gone Baby Blloooood
OH GOD I HAVE SPOILED THAT THERE IS BLOOD IN THIS MOVIE. MY BAD.

To fully enjoy Gone Baby Gone, you definitely can’t multi task through it. There is a lot going on in this thriller, with many layers of information coming in at different rates. But it is also not your typical mystery to figure out the ending, because it is actually the last thought on your mind while watching it.

Nay, loyal readers, the main point of this is the characters themselves, and their lives as they are all affected by this simple child abduction story.

But then again, personally, I did think it was going a bit slow early on, after they agreed to take the case. You know, because clues are hard to find then. I just didn’t expect so much of the movie to take place after the case had been “solved”. Solved in quotation marks can mean lots of things, so stop guessing!

Either way, it is a well acted drama/crime movie, I just think it could have been a little bit more entertaining (or quicker?) with certain developments.

3 out of 4.