death-hawk1

There's nothing inherently wrong, or bad, about this film. However the story has effectively already been told in The Big Short and Dumb Money is the poorer/weaker cousin of the pair.

The events are not the same. The 2008 Financial Crisis and the 2020 GameStop short squeeze are not the same - hence it's a slightly different story. But all the story beats are the same. Some plucky individual/s spot something Wall Street hasn't and 'bets' in the opposite direction. Wall Street hurts and the plucky individuals make money.

The difference is that Dumb Money lacks the spark or pizzazz of it's elder cousin. It really fits the mould of a Netflix film which was written and made quickly to keep up the churn rate of new movies from the streamer. The Big Short tells it's story more expertly, with more detail, more comedy even and a better cast. Dumb Money by comparison feels very much 'by the numbers' and thus disappoints in comparison.

As I've said above - there's nothing wrong with the film but it just doesn't add up enough for me to give it a high score. So I'm settling on the 5/10.

For all such heist films (and this is a heist film when you boil it down) you have to suspend disbelief somewhat. Usually there's too many moving parts for the plan to ever go as perfectly in real life as they do on the screen but that's okay because you're watching a movie and you're here for entertainment not realism. Triple Frontier however failed to draw me in far enough to suspend that disbelief and the primary reason is through some poor writing and plot points.

Triple Frontier's premise is sound enough for a heist/action film but the decisions the characters make throughout the film and their attitude toward their narrative situations make it impossible to believe the characters are the ex-elite military types they supposed to be. All the primary cast are competent enough actors to pull off playing an ex-elite US soldier character unfortunately they all phone it in so poorly that it's all too easy to see through them.

A solid premise for a 3/5 star film ruined by poor plotting and mediocre action takes it down to 1/5 from me. It's a turkey!

Blue Mountain State was a series that was absolutely hilarious, celebrating the college campus drinking culture of many US establishments of higher education, bro culture, near complete disregard of women beyond their physical attributes and despite purportedly being about a football team a single game was seen across 3 complete series. Backed up by a cast of 1 dimensional characters the TV show BMS was a hedonistic feast for male 13-20 something viewers everywhere.

The Rise of Thadland however did not capture this same magic in any respect. Although featuring that same cast of characters they seem slightly out of place in this new feature, hollow renditions of previously well loved caricatures. The plot of the film is simple enough and totally predictable in as many aspects of a traditional BMS episode. However where the TV show's plot lines were funny the film's felt as though a single BMS episode had been stretched to the 90 minute mark. Unfortunately such stretching left the film mostly mirthless and in many respects just plain sad as there weren't enough jokes to go around despite some brief moments of hilarity.

Overall I give credit to the showrunners in trying to milk what was a very entertaining golden calf. However they ended up merely flogging a dead horse.