As Vigilantes

This movie popped up on my Instagram feed and I wanted to check it out. Kiersey Clemons, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexandra Shipp, Ezra Miller. This was a stellar cast in my book, so for that I wanted to see what it was about.

It was good intent, good actors, and I loved the messaged. I'm a believer of vengeance and this movie is perfect for that. Not really a good idea to do what these ladies did but it may help if you watch them do it (Very Batman)

Its delivery does not click like I should. All the actors give a good performance but it's not coming together. It gets to a point where I start to lose interest.

But I still liked it.

As a contributor to female education around the world & other human rights issues I found this vigilante movie to be dishonest. Very stereotypical generalizations that are seriously misleading if not plain wrong. We have mostly Black female vigilantes fighting back at white males who are shown as female subjugators, rapists, female genocide perpetrators, and police (all white) as rights' abusers. Black males were shown as female rights' protectors. White male quote while firing his gun at target: "Every species on the planet does it. The male exerts dominance over the female." White males form a MFM (Men's First Movement) organization to "fight" for control. Cheaply made production dominated by numerous & pointless scene disrupting photo flashing montages.

Eamon O'Rourke directed this and then showed his true colors by beating a trans women at Clara's in Brooklyn, so I guess this movie really was just a virtue signal to boost his career.

I've seen many movies similar to this - the biggest and most popular recent one being Promising Young Woman - that have invoked the modern day revamp of rape-revenge flicks. Sometimes focusing on teenagers, Sometimes young women.

The film uses plot points from the ABC series Dietland, the more lighthearted feminist queer comedy Itty Bitty Titty Commitee and the heightened world of PYW.

And have made an unoriginal, piss-poor attempt at creating something interesting and thought-provoking.

The characters here are wafer thin cardboard cutouts and box checkers designed to make you feel sympathy for them, cheer for them or at the least find them charming and inspirational. That promise is not delivered.

Mark Vanderhill whines about women and minorities being "superstars by default" Sadly, that's exactly whom you're supposed to root for. POC protagonists who should indeed bring an interesting depth, yet are thinly layered, along with the main antagonists.

It basically boils down to: men are bad, toxic assholes and the women are traumatised angry victims who resort to violence and intimidation.

What's upsetting is that these things are really happening to women all over the world. To see these complex issues watered down yet again is disappointing.

It's no good to just shut down sexist behaviour as soon as you see it. There has to be an exploration as to why these men are the way they and try to prevent it in future.

Right, well the cover for this 2021 thriller from writer and director Eamon O'Rourke is what lured me into watching it. Had I heard about "Asking for It" prior to watching it? No. So I wasn't sure what I was in for here, but the cover was interesting and thus I opted to watch it.

And you can't judge a movie by its cover. While "Asking for It" is labeled as a thriller, this was more of a female-empowered revenge movie. Not much of a thriller, and this is where writer and director Eamon O'Rourke lost me along the way. I was expecting a rather different type of movie, and was instead served a cold dish of movie that didn't fall into my flavor.

The storyline in "Asking for It" was a swing and a miss in terms of providing me with any sense of entertainment or enjoyment. It was a mixture and combination of slow narrative and lack of anything interesting that killed off the movie for me, so it never really had a snowballs chance in Hell. And this is certainly not a movie that I would recommend anyone run out and waste their money, time or effort on.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "Asking for It", and that is usually something I like when I watch movies. But since the cast virtually had nothing worthwhile or interesting to work with here in terms of script, characters, dialogue or action, then the movie was just a dud. I am sure that the acting performances were fair enough, I just didn't have an interest in it.

Sadly, then the movie's cover was the most exciting and interesting thing about this entire ordeal.

My rating of the 2021 movie "Asking for It" lands on a two out of ten stars.