Efeito Paradoxo

This movie is, clearly, a grade B movie, and that's fine. We all know that directors/writers have to walk before they can run. Every great writer had to start somwhere, and a person's first attempt at writing or directing a movie, isn't likely to win any awards. However, it's downright shameful to pay for good reviews, and I can't help but think that that's what's going on here. Either the creaters, of this movie, are paying for good reviews, or the good reviews are from friends, family members, etc. Don't believe me? Just try watching the movie, and you'll understand what I mean.

This is a bad movie. I tolerated about twenty minutes before choosing to turn it off. Like I've said, it's grade B, and I wasn't in the mood to watch a grade B movie. So, I turned it off.

By far, the biggest problem, with this movie, is the writing. It's extremely amateur. It's not hard to tell, based on the dialog, as well as how unrealistic everything is; pertaining to the events that take place. It seems as if it were written by someone who's in high school. Perhaps the writer wrote it, while in high school, and then, years later, got enough money to actualy produce it. However, the source material was never critiqued and re-written, and the project was never reassessed. Otherwise, a choice probably wouldn't have been made to move forward with production.

I'm writing this review in order to provide honesty. It's what reviews are supposed to be about. I'm giving my honest review, so that moviegoers can know the truth about this film, and can assess whether or not they want to invest any time watching it.

If you're looking for a grade B movie, then this may be what you're looking for. However, if you're looking for polished entertainment --the kind of stuff that we're used to, then I don't recommend wasting your time with this movie. You'll, likely, be disappointed.

I had not heard about this 2023 action thriller titled "Paradox Effect" from director Scott Weintrob prior to sitting down here in 2024 to watch it. But I figured that I would give it a go, since the cover looked interesting enough, and the movie had Harvey Keitel on the cast list.

Samuel Bartlett, Ferdinando Dell'Omo and Andrea Iervolino wrote a script and storyline that started out okay, but then fell into a slump about halfway through and never recovered. The movie trotted on in a monotonous pacing without really going anywhere. And it felt like I was sitting through a long sequence of filler to make the movie run for 87 minutes. There wasn't much story progression to the narrative in general, and that made sitting through "Paradox Effect" rather tedious and boring actually.

And you don't really care much about the characters in the movie either, as the character gallery is flaccid and one-dimensional.

While Harvey Keitel is on the movie's cover, he is but a name to lure in the audience, as he is not in the movie all that much. I am not particularly much a fan of Olga Kurylenko, but she actually carried the movie well enough, make it a bit more bearable to sit through the monotonous narrative.

I found "Paradox Effect" to be a disappointing movie, and it is definitely not a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time. There are far better action thrillers out there, but if you enjoy the genre perhaps give director Scott Weintrob's 2024 movie a chance.

Sitting through the 87 minutes was a bit of a test, as there wasn't all that much story progression, and without much of anything overly interesting happening, it just wasn't anything to write home about.

My rating of "Paradox Effect" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.

I was excited to see Olga Kurylenko in the cast. But the real Olga Kurylenko would have ended Kovec, and this tiresome excuse for an action film right along with him, in the first 10 minutes. Kovec was in such pain he couldn't see straight, his Beretta was lying on the table in easy reach, there was absolutely no chemistry between them, so there was nothing to prevent the real Olga from picking up the piece and putting an end to all our agony.

So, please call me, Olga, and I will personally write you a decent action movie script. One where no one dares utter the cliché, "no! YOU drop it." Because everyone knows the real Olga Kurylenko would take the shot in a heartbeat, and waste the cowardly bad guy hiding behind his quivering hostage with deadly accuracy.

Ok, I didn't fall asleep, but this was painful to watch. Another reviewer said it felt long despite being 88 minutes and I have to say, I was convinced this was 2 hours or more.

I'm American and tend to only like American films, but I saw The Courier a year or two ago and Olga was great and the film was far better than it should have been. Gary Oldman brought his game and I thought Harvey would do the same here.

The plot was weak and I found it hard to care about any of it or the people involved and of course, everybody was stupid and made the wrong choice leading to the overall mess that this movie was.

No idea what the budget was, but this movie was so bad, Matt Damon couldn't have saved it.

Disappointing.

First, let's discuss the title. At no point is there an actual paradox of any sort or any related "effects" of said nonexistent paradox.

I've been "in love" with Olga for several years. I don't know if she is no longer being offered good roles or if she is making really poor choices but this one is bad either way.

Harvey Keitel used to be pretty cool. His zenith was obviously as Winston, aka the Wolf in Pulp Fiction. This role is both minor and lame. How far has his career fallen that he would consider taking this role in such a stupidly written movie?

One of his many poorly written lines goes something like "in life you are given three choices. Two are made for you." Pure stupidity. If the choice has been made for you, it isn't a choice. Never mind that what follows is both stupid and unnecessary, the statement is idiotic to begin with.

All around, this movie fails on so many levels. I'm not sure why I even give it 5 stars.