Long Gone Heroes

I am a big Grillo fan , a fan of Beau Knapp and either actor will make me want to see a movie they are in. Both in one picture with strong performances from Melissa Leo, Eden Brolin , Josh Hutcherson, George Carroll and Juan Pablo Raba, it was surprising how good this was. All of these actors really shined in their roles, most likely because this movie actually had a real script with character development. The writer took the time to give this a story where I could actually understand what was going on and these actors brought the story to life. Is this a big budget Hollywood production, obviously not, but in my mind that is a plus. Grillo makes movies I want to see. He's incredible and he's backed up here by a fine cast and a movie with some real tension and some horrific scenes. My only complaint would be while there is a fair amount of action, I would have liked a bit more. On the other hand, by the end of this movie I really cared about the characters and I've seen so many poor movies lately where everyone is the bad guy so you end up rooting for no one. This was very good. A character driven thriller.

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.

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?

What drew me to the film was seeing well known actor Mekhi Phifer in a scene with the venerated Andy Garcia. It's safe to say that both their screen times were very inadequate as their character development was shown poorly. Frank Grillo as the main protagonist was decent in his role and undoubtedly took the reigns the entire way. The dialogue was slowly dragging in most scenes and the action took too long to develop even though it was okay, very poor directing on both regards. I'm quite glad I didn't buy it, I strongly suggest that the viewer rent it instead, they'll be the better for it. This could've been way better than what it is. I'm only giving it 3 stars because of three things; Frank Grillo, the excellent shots that were taken throughout the film, and the action.

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.