I can admit my bias. I don't like Shia LeBeouf. I find him annoying. He plays the exact same character in every movie I've ever seen him in. He's whiny. He's dumb. He's that guy you know got picked on in high school but was such a douche you quietly didn't mind. He's like the Frank Burns of modern cinema. Oh yeah. I'm biased. If Shia LeBeouf is in the movie, it already has one strike against it.
I'd like to think I'm biased, but I'm fair.
So, when I tell you this movie is bad, trust me when I say it wasn't all because of Shia LeBeouf. Guy Pierce couldn't have chewed any more scenery. He plays Charley Rakes like he is the most slimy, disgusting prick that ever lived. He's cold and sadistic. At least he is in the beginning. More on him when I get to the spoilers.
By far the best part of the movie was the performance by Tom Hardy. This guy took a one dimensional character and gave it life. So much so, that I think the movie should've featured him and his character (Forrest Bondurant) much more than Shia LeBeouf (Jake Bondurant). And may I say Jessica Chastain was perfect. And hella beautiful. And a real trooper for going topless for this piece of crap movie. She made me hate her so much in The Help, she sucked me in with The Debt, and made me love her so much in this. She might be the best actress you've never heard of.
The problem with this movie is NOT the acting.
What did I hate so much? Well right now I have to get into spoilers. If you don't want the movie spoiled, don't read further. Just know it is every dramatic cliche from every movie you've ever seen. The symbolism is forced, the humor is blunt, and quite frankly the movie is following the wrong character as the protagonist. It's not so much bad as it is just dull. Great performances by the actors are just wasted here because it never gets that feeling of "genuineness" you'd expect from a supposedly true story.
Here's one example of what I mean by forced symbolism. In the beginning of the movie a young Jake bondurant has a gun and he's supposed to shoot a pig. He can't do it and so his brother does it for him. Well, fast forward about an hour later and Jake has Deputy Rakes on the ground and is about to shoot him. But can't. Get it? He couldn't shoot a pig, and later he couldn't shoot that pig. Yeah. Lame. I know.
The running joke through the whole movie is that the Bondurant's think they are immortal. And I'm not kidding. They never let it go as some kind of family quirk. Forrest nearly gets his head cut off... he's fine. Forrest gets shot three times... he's fine. And every time we think he's dead, he's fine. No rhyme or reason for it. He's just fine. He falls in a frozen lake during winter... he's fine. Funny? No. Not really. I think the funniest scene in the whole movie was watching Gary Oldman hit some dumbass upside the head with a shovel.
I'll give you an example of what I mean by cliche. Let me set the stage and let you guess what happens. There's a little boy named Rickett. He had ricketts when he was little and now he's got crooked legs. He's our protagonist's (Jake Bondurant) best friend. And on top of that, he's a mechanical genius. He knows how to engineer the still and can even fine tune cars into a screaming machine.
What happens to Rickett?
A) learns to swim
B) wins the nobel peace prize
C) Invents a machine that turns lead into gold.
D) Gets his neck snapped like a twig by Deputy Rakes
The answer should've been obvious before I even made it multiple choice.
But what had to ruin the whole movie was the ending. They did the Training Day ending. If you ever saw the end of Training Day, it's Denzel Washington screaming like he lost his damn mind until whole town rallies behind the hero. What's different here is that it's less Denzel and more like Guy Pierce channeling his inner Daffy Duck. He's screaming, he's flapping his arms around like he's drunk, and he's swearing up a storm until Jake Bondurant finally got up the nerve to shoot him a few times. Then his brother shoved a knife up his butt and made his butthole about two feet longer.
I guess I've seen worse movies. But overall I'd wait for a rental on this. It's really not that entertaining.
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