guido-fuortes

The worst of this movie is the cast. Not for being bad actors, but for not showing what we call 'chemistry' and the roles they are called to play. This refers especially to Pedro Pascal, usually a credible actor, but here in a role that seems risible, even to him (in some scene he shows an incipient, unjustified smile).

Dakota Johnson is called to reinterpret her role in Fifty Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015), but this time in a family movie: no explicit sex, no nudity, no offensive language. She is a very naïve thirty-something woman incomprehensibly attracted to Harry (Pedro Pascal), an (apparently) senior man.

Chris Evans plays his role of spare fiancé, with a very undefined character, without any depth (but it's not his fault), and plays it role satisfactorily.

Dialogues are a quid pro quo, but instead are long and boring monologues, the script is poor, with no bright moments, the set is at least sloppy. Just to make an example, the luxury apartment of Harry (Pedro Pascal) seems the result of a confused staging of a second-class real estate agent, not a twelve million flat, as he confesses.

To cut it short: the only justification for watching this movie could only be a strong fascination for one or both interpreters. No story, no depth, no dialogues. A well deserved 3 out of 10.

No surprise. The usual ingredients: a redeemed violent character, now working in a honest job, with a beloved young daughter in disputed custody with the mother, and a young girl, a family friend, rapted by Russian mafia represented by tatooed and completely dumb gangsters.

The commonplace of the ingredients is not what makes the movie poor. The same idea of a 'retired' killer who goes back to action can give birth to excellent films. An example for all, The Limey (Steven Soderbergh, 1999).

But is the cocktail of the low quality ingredients that make this film poor. It's the simplicity, the rude and artless staging and acting, added to a script by Sylvester Stallone, that make the film poor. It's not even worth for a rainy Saturday afternoon.

A short film by a Spanish director from Extremadura, also responsible of the original script. The short pretends to mimic film noir aesthetics and mood, with an extremely simple structure: four actors in 2 locations. According to the official leaflet, the idea originated during a journey to Barcelona that the director made with his wife very long ago, with no clue of the relevance of this information, if any. Twenty-two years after, Juan Carlos Macias shot the movie (why such an enormous lapse of tiem? Again, no clue). We do not know how long the shooting took, nothing about tech specifications, means, budget, distribution and what one could expect visiting IMDB database.

'Ego' seems to pay more attention to the mood rather that to the coherence (a glitch in the short might mislead spectators' understanding), but the general intention is achieved with a more than acceptable photography, acting editing and soundtrack.

The best: it's really short. The worst: is dull.