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Reviews
Game Over, Man! (2018)
A film so bad you'll cheer for the villain
There's nothing wrong with "written by and starring" films as a whole, but this one is a very good example of where they can go off the rails. The plot is entirely predictable but okay(ish), the direction is also just about okay(ish), dialogue is feeble/poor, but... the film depends for any interest and comedy on the chemistry between the three amigos, our games-developer protagonists, and of that chemistry there is precisely zilch. At least zilch that is even remotely believable. So no interest and no comedy. Writer Adam DeVine plays an insufferable, superficial, self-absorbed idiot just as he did in The Intern, but worse. Then the other writer Anders Holm brings the exactly same charisma-free presence to this film that *he* contributed to The Intern. And there's Blake Anderson. None of the three is likeable, nor sympathetic, nor interesting; none has an iota of screen presence; they all behave throughout like squabbling, indulged infants. It's not "zany", it's not funny, it's just tedious. The "oh my God, despite all our differences we make a great team" (the great bromance premise) moments are so clumsy and forced as to be embarrassing. Sadly (spoiler) all of these characters survive to the end of the film.
Suits (2011)
Do not employ this firm
A series in which a "top" legal firm largely comprised of emotionally immature, ego-driven, insecure, willy-waving, vindictive, rash, untrustworthy, rude, temperamental and aggressive partners and senior staff unable to properly separate their work and private lives firefight crisis after crisis largely created by their own inability to listen, instinct to pick a fight first and ask questions later, tendency to take everything personally and inexcusably macho over-confidence. It may all make for "drama" but it's a case study in how not to run a business. It gets old very quickly.
Red Notice (2021)
Runs out of steam early
So, chalk-and-cheese bad/good "frenemies" unwillingly paired by circumstances, done on screen a hundred times, usually much better than this. Red Notice adds nothing new, in fact seems to have lifted plot, characters and settings wholesale from dozens of earlier movies, Lara Croft and Indiana Jones being just two. Dialogue is tired (eg the "we had a thing there" sequence) and spark-free, Johnson seems to have gone back to being wooden again, and Reynolds seems to give up the heavy comedic lifting after half an hour. Plot devices (eg helicopter) are signalled so obviously they might as well have arrows pointing to them. Red Notice is not thrilling, not funny, not engaging, not convincing, just an entirely predictable (one of the bad/good guys isn't what they seem - golly, who could have seen that coming?) romp.
The ending suggests that another one of these will follow. Unfortunately.
Gumbeobnamnyeo (2018)
A good premise ruined by a ridiculous script
This is (at least, it's supposed to be) a procedural drama - the procedures being those of the Forensic Service and the Prosecution Service. So it is not unreasonable to expect that while the cast may break the rules from time to time, they do at least know what the rules are supposed to be. Forensics-wise that works okay - procedures are followed and explained, and the science is (more or less) respected. That said, I suspect a half-decent defence lawyer could shred them on cross-contamination of DNA evidence.
Where the drama falls down almost to slapstick is with the Prosecutors, especially the heroine. Every one of them is corrupt, lazy, personally over-involved with a case, highly partial or/and incompetent. Our newbie Prosecutor heroine at her first crime - Moves. The. Body (I mean, come on!) for no particular reason, and contaminates the scene by not wearing protective clothing. She routinely rushes from one half-formed conclusion to another as new pieces of evidence arrive, acts on hunches, and constantly gets over-emotional when she should be calm. In one episode she tests the thesis that a boy had over-dosed by taking an overdose of the same pills herself - when on her own! No-one to observe or help if anything goes wrong - and then "proves" his state of mind based on the hallucinations she experiences. It's ludicrous. We are supposed to believe she is the top product of years of legal training to reach her position - did they teach her nothing? Frankly, her behaviour is just ditzy and worse than amateurish.
Now, pitting an uber-rational Forensic scientist against an over-emotional Prosecutor is where the dramatic tension is supposed to come from. But when, as here, the Prosecutor is made not just over-emotional but dangerously unmoored from due (and basic common-sense) professional process, the tension fizzles out very quickly, to be replaced by OFFS irritation. The result is not an exciting match of mutual respect between two professionals each with their own different approach, but between someone who is good at his job and someone who is downright at hers.
Poor.
Miss Panda & Hedgehog/Pan-da-yang-gwa Go-seum-do-chi (2012)
Poor everything
Terrible script, wooden acting, slow pacing, poor directing, this really is a shockingly badly made series, with an over-familiar setting, trite characters and a tired plot. Avoid.
Seutateueob (2020)
Enjoyable but not perfect
Strongly cast, well acted and with a very credible hi-tech start-up setting and storyline, this is a thoroughly enjoyable, engaging and intelligent drama. There are several very thoughtful and unusual storylines opened up within the overall narrative. The central romantic triangle is not so convincingly developed, however, and the degree to which the tensions of personal relationships routinely put business interests in jeopardy and vice versa is if anything an object lesson on why never to mix the two. The frequency with which this happens during the story does several times endanger the hard-earned credibility of the plot-line. [Seriously, the inexperienced start-up Samsan team sign a major international acquisition contract worth billions without even informing, let alone consulting with or involving their business mentor Han Ji-Pyeong, because he and IT-genius CTO Nam Do-San are competing for CEO Seo Dal-Mi? Really??? I mean, come on.] But then, drama is drama, and the inevitable resulting ups and downs have to keep us going for 16 episodes, and they certainly do. Given the suspension of disbelief required for many K-dramas, it's a sign of how credible this one is overall that its occasional lapses stand out as they do.
Where this series fell down was in its finale, when what had been a very successful multi-layered ensemble story-line left too many interesting threads dangling in order to focus on the "main" characters only. We don't see Won In-Jae's step-father and -brother who have played the evil deus ex machina role throughout really get the come-uppance they (and their hacker stooges) deserve. The romance between Lee Chul-San and Jung Sa-Ha which we've watched develop is dropped unceremoniously. And the very thin revenge plotline, which has been the only dramatic contribution of Kim Yong-San, peters out weakly. We don't even get to share the triumph(?) of the huge business bid which has been the central story of the final few episodes. And the big "why?" question asked by Yoon Sun-Hak at the heart of the Sandbox venture (how can/should IT create value for society rather than financial return?) and one of this drama's most interesting lines of thought, is allowed to drift away as well.
So, well made and very enjoyable, but opportunities missed to be truly great.
Geunyeoneun yeppeodda (2015)
Enjoyable nonsense
Well, this is fun, but the ludicrous plot-line means that truly industrial-spec levels of suspension of disbelief are required throughout. The main plot premise is the old The Truth About Cats And Dogs routine: Girl A thinks she won't measure up to Boy A's expectations so asks beautiful best friend Girl B to stand in and then has to look on as the two of them hit it off. For a one-off blind date with a complete stranger, yes maybe; for a reunion with your long-lost best-ever pal from childhood to catch up with old memories, which the best friend can't possibly have, and that somehow has to be sustained for 20 episodes, no, it's a complete nonsense.
And of course her boss at her new job on a fashion magazine turns out to be, yes, Boy A who is now handsome but also a bit of a major jerk. And believing her to be just another office junior (and one with clumsy tendencies anyway) he shows his worst side as a rude boss. Meanwhile into her life comes Boy B, also working on the magazine but secretly a best-selling author. Who is funny, generous, outgoing, caring and wise, and likes her - and eventually falls in love with her - For Herself (ie not as a childhood memory). As a character he is altogether much more engaging than Boy A. And this second love triangle could have thrown up some interesting and dramatic thoughts and conflicts about the choice Girl A should make between the two. But it doesn't, because throughout she is entirely and rather monotonously fixated on Boy A.
And eventually she and Boy A do end up together and live happily ever after. Boy B, by far the strongest and most likeable character in the show, ends up very much where he started, relegated to "just friends" with our heroine. Which rather sums up the waste of this strong character by the writer. Why not at least have given him writer's block or something, which Girl A could have bust him out of, so that at he/his art had gained something meaningful from the relationship?
So, a story of beautiful people confronting all-too-implausible situations entirely of their own making, and endlessly deferring doing the one thing that would sort matters out. Things are finally resolved not by honest admission but by chance discovery of the lie. It's all thoroughly enjoyable, but spoiled by sheer implausibility, and an awareness of what might have been a really much more dramatic and meaningful story.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)
A small story beautifully told
Melissa McCarthy shines here as the abrasive, selfish, unlikable, alcoholic and broke writer Lee Israel whose books are no longer selling, and who stumbles on an increasingly profitable alternative source of income forging literary memorabilia. That McCarthy can compete to-toe with Richard E Grant at his most effortlessly Withnail and I flamboyant and not be outshone is a tribute to just how good a dramatic actor she turns out to be. I thought she was good in St Vincent, but she's far far better here.
This is a surprisingly uplifting, touching and tender film, with the two main characters, both unsurprisingly outsiders, finding a form of precious bond even as they bring each other down. The script is witty, the acting consistently good, the cinematography perfect, and there are some beautiful tiny moments to treasure throughout. The final scene with the Dorothy Parker letter in the shop window is a little story-telling masterpiece.
Highly recommended. What real movie-making used to be like before Marvel came along.
Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)
Utter waste of talent, story and the audience's time.
In any horror story we have to care about what happens to the main characters, don't we? We have to be rooting for them to win through? Even in a horror comedy, surely? Not in this film, it seems. The characterisation is so poor (even when it consists largely of cartoon stereotypes and knowing cinematic references), the story arc is so weak, the hero's journey is so unmarked by transitions from one state of mind to another, the pacing so slow, the directing so sloppy, confused and inefficient, the editing so slapdash, that the only feeling of relief at the story's end is that the whole thing is finished, not that anyone survived. This is film-making at its laziest, feeblest, and least self-critical, and whatever it might make at the box office, a few of those concerned should take a hard look at just how really poor this end-product is and tell themselves to do better next time. Desperately disappointing.
Burn After Reading (2008)
Has not aged well.
Insubstantial, uninvolving (there's only one character for whom one feels any sympathy), poorly developed in plot and character, badly paced, unbelievable, and worst of all Not Funny. Not at all. How some people ever found this a "laugh-out-loud film is beyond me. This probably was the top of the slide that led the Coens down to the nadir of Hail, Caesar. If you didn't "get" this film, don't feel bad; there is/was literally nothing to get. Farce needs very careful handling to succeed or it can just be a shambles. Point proved.
Tian jiang xiong shi (2015)
Horribly miscast, badly acted, poorly directed, what a waste of an interesting concept
Where to start? Jackie Chan just can't carry the lead role here - he entirely lacks the stature in every sense. John Cusack as a Roman General - whose idea was that? Because it really, really doesn't work. Neither character is remotely credible from start to finish. The chemistry between these two leads is entirely unconvincing, as much because the character development is so poor, and the dialogue and acting hopelessly wooden. A potentially interesting story badly told. Adrien Brody, though, makes a great villain.
The Intern (2015)
Tries to do too much and fails
A film that is trying to tell too many stories simultaneously, with the result that none is properly explored, or worse, really makes us care about that much. This is a movie about a retired widower coming back to work as an intern in a hip fashion house and the comedy that arises from his old-school low-tech been-there approach to life and the web-wise younger generation colleagues who think they know it all but really have a lot to learn. And, it's a movie about a woman who's built up from scratch a really successful company but is struggling to create the right balance between work and family, her one-time high-flyer house- husband is playing around, her business funders are concerned about the company's rapid pace of growth, and she's considering big conflict choices between what's best for the business and what's best for the family. It's a film about trust, and the need we all have for someone to whom we can open our hearts, on whom we can lean and depend with total confidence that they will never let us down. And it's a film about love and loss and forgiveness and loving again. Yes, it's all of these things and more, and yet not one of them really takes centre stage, the characters never grow credible in any of these scenarios and plot lines; the whole thing is a jumble.
And it's riddled with absurdities and clichés that remove any hope of believability or realism. Surprise surprise, this hip company turns out to occupy part of the exact same office building that Robert De Niro once used to work in. Coincidence, eh? The "reward" massage that first introduces the Rene Russo character to Robert De Niro is, depending on your point of view, either offensive (male teenage fantasies aside, just imagine if the genders were reversed) or totally implausible. The cheating husband is both a casting bloomer and an almost wholly unbelievable character all the way through. The heart-to-heart chat in the hotel room after the fire - so clunky it really struggles. And the "funders want to bring in a CEO" plot device! I mean, is there anyone who knows a thing about business who wasn't shouting "a COO, not a CEO, a COO is what you need" at the screen?
Could have been great, but really trying to do far too much. And failing.
We Still Kill the Old Way (2014)
Poorly written, poorly acted, poorly directed
Well, this really was a complete waste of time. Dialogue and plot clunkier than Long John Silver's wooden leg, embarrassingly poor acting from everyone, a script full of holes and coming across like an old Etonian's never-been-there view of London street gangs, lor-luv-a-duck East Enders, and retired gangsters. Not a single character is believable, deep or sympathetic, let alone menacing. Not a single cliché is too trite to escape. The film can't make up its mind whether it wants to be grittily violent or wryly humorous, and as a result misses both by a mile. Ian Ogilvy simply hasn't got what is needed to carry the main role, and the rest are frankly just walking through their lines. The gunfight in the hospital at the end is hopelessly badly directed, slow when it should be fast and vice versa. Sadly inept.