Long Gone Heroes

Melissa Leo and Andy Garcia must have been doing a friends kid a favor. This wasn't terrible but certainly could have been better. A bit of a lazy, cliche script/plot, but not badly acted. A few other familiar faces that performed well with what they were given. The action is okay, at times as unbelievable as any other hero rescue film, but overall okay. I guess these kinds of movies need to exist, and people in the industry need work. Every film doesn't have to be Oscar worthy.

What was the point of this movie? It's something that's been done hundreds of times and all much better. The directing and editing were terrible, and it took two writers to come up with every predictable cliche and a lackluster story that made the dragged poorly paced two hour runtime feel much longer. Most of the action scenes were poorly filmed and choreographed.

The casting was great, although some actors needed better cast direction, and Frank Grillo as usual carried this movie. He's an underrated actor who deserves bigger and better roles. And although casting Andy Garcia may be a draw to see this movie, his max 5 min screen time didn't add any value to the movie, and it felt like he just called his lines in. It's a generous 4/10 all going to Grillo and the decent cinematography and location sets.

So ridiculously formulaic. Special forces go in. Get into trouble. An unarmed fist fight which the hero wins. All ends well.

No wonder Americans think that their military is the best in the world.

Then there's the robotic script, wooden acting and the ending, the very definition implausibility.

Nonsense on film.

The only good part of the movie is when they speak really bad about the political situation in Venezuela and the government. After that, the movie is too bad, non of the landscapes are from Venezuela, they didn't make an effort staging Caracas, and come on... Colombian accents in every actor who speak spanish? We have good actors such as Edgar Ramirez, Wilmer Valderrama, etc..., and if you want a cheaper actor, please contact me, I could teach you all about my culture, how the military are, the expresions for high and low class people, even the cars and bikes are too wrong. Have they ever been to Venezuela? Or perhaps seen a yt video of the country? It wasn't that hard, was it?

The movie's cover was actually interesting enough for me to pick it up. And seeing that it was a movie that I hadn't already seen with Andy Garcia and Frank Grillo on the cast list, of course I opted to check it out.

The storyline in "Long Gone Heroes", as written by John Swab and Santiago Manes Moreno, was watchable, but hardly an outstanding foray into the action thriller genre. I can't claim that I was overly impressed with the narrative that they churned out, and it was somewhat slow paced and devoid of much of action scenes.

There are some familiar talents on the cast list, such as Andy Garcia, Frank Grillo, Mekhi Phifer, Josh Hutcherson, Beau Knapp and Melissa Leo. Needless to say that the acting performances in the movie were good.

The action scenes that were in the movie were good, but they were too few and far in between.

If you enjoy action thrillers, perhaps you should check out this 2024 movie, you might actually enjoy it more than I did as a casual viewer. I can honestly say that I am never sitting down to watch this movie a second time.

My rating of director John Swab's 2024 movie "Long Gone Heroes" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.