ericwoltersnz
Joined Mar 2018
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Reviews23
ericwoltersnz's rating
Cage plays the vigilante police officer who takes down the four young men who gang raped a single mother in the presence of her 12-yo daughter.
Cage sleepwalks his way through this one, with wooden acting, fixed facial expressions, one sentence lines and very little character development to engage the viewer. The closest he came to rage was a clenched fist while sitting in an empty courtroom.
Formulaic plot that should have been hard for the writers to muck up - but they did. I don't think they had ever set foot in a criminal proceeding for example. No credible judge would allow what transpired in the courtroom scene.
Thankfully the two female leads shined as mother and daughter and rescued this from being a B grade snoozer. Both were sensational.
Warning to viewers - there was no nudity in this but the rape scene was long, intense and disturbing. The daughter's anguish was palpable, as was the mother's suffering. Not for the squeamish.
Cage sleepwalks his way through this one, with wooden acting, fixed facial expressions, one sentence lines and very little character development to engage the viewer. The closest he came to rage was a clenched fist while sitting in an empty courtroom.
Formulaic plot that should have been hard for the writers to muck up - but they did. I don't think they had ever set foot in a criminal proceeding for example. No credible judge would allow what transpired in the courtroom scene.
Thankfully the two female leads shined as mother and daughter and rescued this from being a B grade snoozer. Both were sensational.
Warning to viewers - there was no nudity in this but the rape scene was long, intense and disturbing. The daughter's anguish was palpable, as was the mother's suffering. Not for the squeamish.
Dev Patel does a decent job of portraying an orphaned son seeking to avenge his mother's death. Along the way, the movie makes a statement about the corrupt relationship between government and religion in confiscating land occupied by lower castes.
The fight scenes were drawn out, brutal and realistic. They did remind me of the lengthy John Wick fight scenes in which countless multitudes of the enemy were shot, stabbed, beaten and whacked, without much damage being incurred by the hero!
On the minus side, Monkey Man has some unlikely help from a troop of armed transvestites, and the dreamy flashbacks to the circumstances surrounding Patel's mother's death are drawn out and a bit boring. My wife and I left the theatre not so much unsatisfied as feeling like we had been force-fed unpalatable food. The character never reached the threshold of being a hero in our eyes.
The fight scenes were drawn out, brutal and realistic. They did remind me of the lengthy John Wick fight scenes in which countless multitudes of the enemy were shot, stabbed, beaten and whacked, without much damage being incurred by the hero!
On the minus side, Monkey Man has some unlikely help from a troop of armed transvestites, and the dreamy flashbacks to the circumstances surrounding Patel's mother's death are drawn out and a bit boring. My wife and I left the theatre not so much unsatisfied as feeling like we had been force-fed unpalatable food. The character never reached the threshold of being a hero in our eyes.
Alice (Pugh) starts to have doubts about the utopia she lives in with her husband. The reason for those doubts becomes clear as the movie progresses but, my word, it takes a long time to get there.
There were repeated, interminable dream shots taken from above of burlesque dancers doing synchronised aerobics on the floor (and I still don't understand the significance of those scenes).
Decent enough plot, but developed far too slowly to maintain audience interest. I saw a lot of restless shuffling in the theatre seats around me. Thank goodness for Pugh, whose gifted acting held it all together.
There were repeated, interminable dream shots taken from above of burlesque dancers doing synchronised aerobics on the floor (and I still don't understand the significance of those scenes).
Decent enough plot, but developed far too slowly to maintain audience interest. I saw a lot of restless shuffling in the theatre seats around me. Thank goodness for Pugh, whose gifted acting held it all together.