Operation: Endgame

"You think it's easy to look like a bearded tampon?"

What a weird, odd, and ultimately underwhelming mixture Operation: Endgame ended up being. 

I was expecting a bloody action comedy with several really hot women and a couple of funny/interesting actors playing rival assassins who are out for blood, but instead I got a predictable, poorly scripted, ham-fisted critique on Bush-era intelligence operations. The great cast was really the only thing that made this movie somewhat worth my time. We've got Odette Yustman, Zach Galifiankis, Maggie Q, Rob Corddry, Adam Scott, Brandon T. Jackson, Emilie de Ravin, Ving Rhames, Jeffrey Tambor...it's like someone asked me personally about all the actors I'd like to see in a movie. Yet, they're utterly wasted on characters that are terribly written. It shouldn't be possible to make a mediocre movie with a cast this great, but whoever wrote the script certainly pulled it off.

The majority of the jokes are unfunny (Corddry does get a few gems, though), the fight choreography is unimpressive, and the movie as a whole would have been better without the looping real-life footage of President Obama's inauguration and the lame attempts to ground the story in some kind of political statement. I'm all for messages in movies, but Operation: Endgame goes about it without any subtlety or wit, and seemed a muddled mess as a result.  

I'm giving this a high score than it deserves because I got some enjoyment just from the opportunity to see a few of the actors I'm quite fond of (good Lord, Odette Yustman looks fantastic in a tank top), but I feel pretty comfortable advising others to just skip it, entirely. It's a shame that a movie with such potential ended up stumbling in the execution.

When I sat down to watch "Operation: Endgame" (aka "Rogues Gallery") I had no idea at all what the movie was about. The reason why I wanted to watch it was because of the people on the cast list.

I found out that this was an action comedy, although I will admit that the movie is more lenient towards the action as it towards comedy. The comedy is there, yes, but it is fairly subtle but straight to the point.

The story is about a group of government assassins who work in a secret underground compound. The assassins are known only by the names from the Tarot card deck. And when new assassin, The Fool, arrives for his first work day, the boss of the operation is killed and operation: endgame is initiated, giving the assassins only limited time to escape the compound. But some assassins have been given secret targets to kill, and with nowhere to run, whom can you trust? I will say that the storyline was entertaining, albeit a bit silly.

There is nothing in the movie to make you buy into it, and as such it does come off as a comedy on the action genre. The storyline is simplistic and easy to follow, requiring you to disable your brain and just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Although working with fairly two-dimensional characters, there was an impressive list of people to be found on the cast list here.

For a comedy, then "Operation: Endgame" didn't really deliver that much impact, and if you enjoy these type of covert government operation comedies, then there are some better choices available. But still, "Operation: Endgame" is worth a watch for about 87 minutes worth of entertainment that doesn't require you to bring along your brain.

Somewhere beneath Washington, D.C., an intense rivalry is heating up between two opposing teams of government assassins. The hired killers in the organizations take their names from Tarot cards. The Fool (Joe Anderson) is the latest recruit. Reporting for his first day on the job, The Fool is shocked to find that his boss is dead, and the office is on lockdown. To make matters worse, the building has been rigged with explosives, and it's going to blow soon. Now, in order to get out alive, The Fool will have to root out the killer in his midst, and make a quick escape before his co-workers catch him in their crosshairs.

Operation Endgame, a satirical workplace comedy with a slick action twist is not without it's flaws. The plot is convoluted, most of the dialog is incredibly silly and the whole thing isn't that funny. Having said that, the film is damn entertaining. The cast is composed, among others, by Zach Galifianakis, Emilie de Ravin, Maggie Q, Rob Corddry, Ellen Barkin,Bob Odenkirk, Ving Rhames. There's plenty of star power here but, while some of the actors were delightful, others were completely underused. Being a battle royale of sorts, the deaths kept piling up and therefor some brilliant actors like Bob Odenkirk (who has been phenomenal in the TV show Breaking Bad) had very little screen time.

In the end, it's all about what you're expecting. Operation Endgame is no Oscar contender. This is mindless fun with a bit of action and gore in the middle and the film clearly doesn't take itself too serious and in my opinion it succeeded in what it intended to do which is, to entertain.

6/10

Every now and then there comes a movie that makes me want to write a review on; just to do the world a favor and help people save their money and time.

Do not bother with this one. It's got a good cast which tricked me into watching it. But when you take a good cast and hand it over to a developmentally retarded director, you get a movie called 'Operation endgame' The director clearly didn't know what he wanted. It was a wannabe comedy mixed with a wannabe action flick, that has no humor, little action and a wee bit of gore. It was a mess. It was so bad, that i don't even want to finish this review.

so i'll make it very simple; acting - bad, character development - there WAS none! cohesiveness - wasn't there, action - OK i suppose, comedy - bad, script - bad, plot - wtf?! overall - 2/10; only because i'm a nice guy:)

I watched this movie purely for Emilie De Ravin as Hierophant, but let me tell you, I was pleasantly amused! I'm not a big fan of violent comedies, but if you view this as more or less an assassin parody, it's a million times better. What really makes it is the security men up watching them all kill each other and reacting the same way I did, complete with shouts of "GET HIM!" and gagging. The cast is fun, the script expectantly awful in all the right ways, but this is NOT a movie to take seriously. Watch it when you have nothing better to do and have a good laugh. The twists and turns are fun and the score is pretty easy listening as well.