Sin escapatoria

Because of movies like this, it's a shame there's no zero rating.

We've become accustomed in expecting a sub-par B-grade film when Bruce Willis (PLEASE retire!) is cast, but this one is by far one of the worst.

I get that director Mike Burns and writer Bill Lawrence are newb filmmakers, but this felt like a failed high school drama class production.

The dialogue was atrocious. Literally the entire first half of the film could've been cut down to 10 mins max. The scenes were too long, and/or unnecessary, and most were just plain ridiculous. There was a hefty lack of logic, with major plot and technical issues, and you'll find yourself either laughing or cringing at most scenes.

The pacing was horrible, and with the majority of the story being cheesy af, the normally comfortable 95 min runtime felt like 3+ hours. You'll be tempted to fast forward much of the film, and trust me, you wont miss much. Only the last 15 mins of the film felt like an adequate film production with good continuity in the scenes, and some decent drama and suspense, albeit predictable.

And what was Burns thinking with probably the worst cinematography I've seen in a long time? Were blue and earth-tones the only color filter palette choices? There's a scene when Willis arrives and greets his niece at the cabin, and all that stands out is her bright blue jeans in the entire scene. And the constant distant shots of the skyline, valleys and hills got very tiring fast.

The acting for the most part was bad and unconvincing - I'm sure in part due to Burns' inexperience in directing his cast, and Willis was his usual drab "I'm only here for the paycheck". Only Jaime King's performance was good and convincing throughout, and she basically carried the entire film.

The only decent component in this production was the score, which although still the typical B-film loud and overbearing score, it at least was somewhat fitting and wasn't playing through-out the entire 95 mins. But then again, this is Burns' main field of expertise in the film industry - music director, so had he messed that up, he'd have some 'splaining to do. The soundtrack was also fairly decent, although it played in many scenes that didn't really need loud country/rock music playing in the background.

It's a very generous 3/10 from me, mostly for King's performance, and also cutting the newb filmmakers some slack. Hopefully they learn from their mistakes.

This is without a doubt one of the worst movies I have seen with some sort of Hollywood has-been in it. The acting is so bad, it looks like some sort of student project. The scenes are totally detached from one another and the entire thing makes little to no sense. Bruce Willis appears out of nowhere, then is absent for 10 minutes, then reappears as if he's been waiting behind camera. The dialogue is atrocious and makes one wonder if whoever wrote it is sane or lives in a cabin in the woods without any real contact with other human beings. The direction can give headaches even to a roller-coaster enthusiast!

This movie is in a word, awful. The acting, editing and story are all amateur. If that's not enough, you have the pleasure of seeing Lala Kent (yes that's a first name) and Kelly Greyson who have botoxed faces and injected lips. Yay, love looking at that.

The storyline itself not only has been done before, but is so shallow you already know what's going to happen in the first 10 minutes. Aside from the typical dumb mistakes you always see characters making in poorly written movies, often you can't help wondering why you're still watching the same scene. That's because the editing was just as amateur as the story writer.

If that's not enough, this morass of bungled scenes is complimented by a soundtrack so shoddy and unskilled you'll be looking around the room to see if this is truly happening. Together, it was truly an unbearable movie to watch.

Then there's Bruce Willis, who's selling out to anyone as fast as Nicholas Cage. Is the guy broke or what? Otherwise, he sure must need to act so bad that he's willing to participate in this garbage. It's easy to point at "A Good Day to Die Hard" as the beginning of his demise, but it actually dates all the way back to Hudson Hawk.

It wasn't just that the feature film cost $70M to make and only grossed $17M, but how Willis took over the movie project with his ego running amok. In short, Willis drove it into the ground. The movie was so bad that during the screening, Andi McDowell was concerned if she'd ever work again.

After the critics completely roasted it, Willis went back to his trusted formula of "Die-Hard everyman". What's more, as he fell off the A-list actor list, he not only doubled-down on the same John McClane personna, but he prolifered the same worn shallow image across myriad artless films, like this one.

Lastly, I guess director Mike Burns believe that because has experience as Music Supervisor on several movies, he can direct. Same for writer Bill Lawrence who only has one movie to his credit. And while R. J. Cooper does have a fair amount of editing experience, it certainly didn't reflect well in this movie given how many scenes were overshot. Same for Burn's participation in the soundtrack which as 'amateur hour' as anything else.

Hard to understand what possesses these people to think they can make even reasonable movies. The fact they pick botox stars probably reflects their entire overall judgment. End result is a great example of pure garbage.

You are welcome to look for yourselves, but I'm sure that everyone will agree with me. This is a monumentally horrible movie from start to finish, from the flashbacks at the very beginning of the movie-yes, at the beginning. What are you flashing back to? The movie hasn't even begun. It's like they only did it to remind the audience that Bruce Willis is going to be in it. Once you see him, you may want to reevaluate your relationship with the former star who looks to be about a month away from buying one of those rascal scooters.

Even the title is awful.

There's a lot more bad to come, like the horrible music sequences, which also start at the opening credits. Then there's the bottom-of-the-barrel acting crew who they seem to have hired at a Home Depot parking lot, although I always blame bad acting on the bad director.

On one side of the equation, we have a group of criminals who are "intellectually and developmentally disabled," at least that's what I was coached to say because, evidently, it isn't cool these days to call them morons or half-wits so as not to cause offense.

Storyline: A corrupt Sheriff's department in a rural mountain town comes undone when an unintended witness throws a wrench into their shady operation.

This seems to have been the entire script and everything in the movie was simply ad-libbed by the "actors." The dialogue was pure boilerplate writing and clichés you've heard a millions times in every lousy movie of this genre.

The "action" scenes are hopelessly stupid and very poorly choreographed, but why bother with logic when everything else is such a disaster? And what do you expect from villains when one of them is called Billie, which I assume is short for hillbilly. And you can just forget about character development as that wasn't in the budget, but they got Bruce Willis, , man.

"...due to COVID-19 shutdowns, Willis could only be on set for one day. Therefore, they filmed all of his scenes in a single day."

Unfortunately, for half of Bruce's work day he seemed to be taking his nap. It looks like the entire movie was made in one day from the script to the final edits.

I'd estimate that Bruce is at least thirty years past his expiration date as an action hero. Maybe he is opening up an entirely new genre at the cinema: action grandpa. Or how about an action hero grandpa with Alzheimer's? For this, all they would have had to do was dress Bruce in pajamas for his stroll in the woods.