Reviews

This movie has a brilliant cast, excellent acting, good direction and is beautifully shot. The script is a problem that cannot be overcome, regardless of these efforts.

So there's this drug deal wrapped around a love story. The details of both are intentionally vague. The story isn't really about how clever drug dealers do their thing, or about how two people in love do that thing. Rather this film connects showpiece moments between varying levels of pontificating, sanctimonious or self pitying drug dealers.

Michael Fassbender is a lawyer who wants to have even more money (to delight his bride to be, apparently) and decides to engage in a 20 million dollar drug deal. Forget, for the moment, why it is that drug dealers would choose to share their plans and schemes, much less their profits, with a would-be drug dealer. He has no experience and no money. Why would they talk to him, much less share with him? It is necessary for the plot, so we ignore this omission.

Our Counselor visits first this one then that one, each preaching to him about the dangers, cautioning him against becoming an upper end drug smuggler making millions in profits. Granted, all the arguments are overtly hollow and halfhearted as these are drug dealers speaking them. Clearly they have chosen this path for themselves.

The plot is carried out in a series of anonymous criminal activities, never directly tied to any of the main characters. So guys load drugs into a truck and drive the truck. Some other guys steal the truck. There is some shooting and some other guys (maybe the first guys?) steal the truck back.

But really, all the action (what there is of it) is a backdrop to move forward the pontificating dialogue. First whether or not to become a drug dealer, Mr Counselor, then very quickly what to do about the plan that has gone so very wrong, Mr Counselor. That the Counselor is never actually tied to anything having gone wrong is another "don't look at this part that makes no sense" part of the plot.

At the end of the film we are treated to an overture from a Colombian drug lord, who explains that The Counselor has already made his decisions, that he is far too far passed having made them to change course now. Then he talks about his favorite poet and how horrible grief is.

So, back in reality, drug dealers don't have favorite poets. The don't speculate as to whether or not they want the money, all those millions I mean, and they don't waste time monologue-ing to would be dealers about the pro's and con's of being in the drug smuggling business. Drug dealers know they want the money, they know they will kill, and they aren't generally a chatty bunch, feeling the need to explain themselves.

With this cast, and the skill shown in shooting the film, it's unfortunate that they chose to waste all that skill on a script that should have stayed a book.

This review contains spoilers.

The movie starts with senseless murder - not necessarily bad for a horror movie ...but they keep right on with that as the theme into the second act. One house, then the second. Pointless slaughter.

Someone outside the house is shooting at your dinner party? It should take half the film to realize you can close the curtains, shut off the lights, or wow, just "stay low".

And really, how disaffected is your character that she chews gum at the dinner table while eating dinner? That's just stupid. (The blatant eye rolling would have sufficed.) We eventually learn there is a point, and that works out okay. But the writing and directing while waiting to get there is pretty hard to take. "Oh no, we're under attack! I hated you when we were younger!" and "I'm going to take mom upstairs to get a nap" are just not reasonable reactions for characters who are being killed.

The killers wear masks which would make a terror spree hard to manage, and the reason for the masks is not ever explained. Could have gone for ski masks or hockey masks, maybe cameo paint, but no, bunny and wolf masks are in vogue, apparently, even if you can't see anything.

One of the victims (and really, only one) has a brain - our hero. She fights and kills with a savagery that puts here a level above the killers. She gets a quality kill with a blender that makes my decision to not walk out, to see the end of the film, all worthwhile.

A better script would have saved this movie. Make some references to other horror films. Give the characters brains - they are fighting for their lives, so they might actually try to work as a group. Allow for the random "victim runs into killer" scene where neither was prepared. DO SOMETHING that isn't boring.

I like horror movies. i even like BAD horror movies. But this is just too stupid.

We're handed a premise: The US has adopted a single night per year when murder and rape and all manner of evil are not only allowed, they are legal and encouraged.

No sooner than this bizarre premise is introduced than does the plot help us, the poor, stupid viewers, to understand how wrong we were. Yes, in fact, the idea of a purge night is a stupid, stupid idea. The son gets it, the daughter gets it. The mother and father get it, too. But since all the characters and all the viewers understand that purge night is a stupid, stupid idea, that makes it a stupid, stupid idea for a movie. Right? I could review the acting and directing, but really, what would be the point? Please don't waste your time and money.

Newsflash for the writers, producer and director: The Viewers have to embrace your ridiculous premise before you make them realize it was stupid of them to do so. You can't jump right to the part where "we should have known better".

Yeah, so I have it a 2 not a 1 - credit to the actors for attempting to make this believable.

Seth Rogan has always brought the 'modern day slacker' to the screen, as thoughtful, introspective characters capable of seeing beyond the marijuana smoke and eventually doing the right thing. This works in most cases, but as a super hero it doesn't.

The character is rather unbelievable as someone who would want to risk his life to defeat bad guys. His motivation for this is overtly an inadvertent rescue of a couple being mugged, but more deeply a failure to ever accomplish anything significant that would have mattered to his father. The problem is that this is the ONLY facet of the character that changes with his father's death. Other than the whole "go become a secret hero posing as a villain" thing, he remains a juvenile delinquent approaching his thirties.

It doesn't really work as an action movie, it doesn't work as a comedy, it almost works as a Seth Rogan 'bromance' with Kato, where the two find true friendship despite all else. But I paid for a superhero action adventure, not the next installment of "Seth Rogan fails to evolve but that's really okay because we now understand that he is an acceptably good person in his unevolved state".

Fails to convince. Has entertaining moments, but never gets passed suspension of disbelief.

I think we'd have been better served with a script by Kevin Smith, doctored by big-budget screen writers and directed by a veteran action movie director.

Awful. Bad. Stupid.

First, using the 'shaking camera' thing is effective when people are running, falling, fighting, etc. Using the amazing shaking camera when people are sitting and chatting, it's just stupid.

Second, this movie pretends to be an alien invasion movie, but it's not. Actually, it's about this really great guy Rob or Tom or something and he had sex with this one girl Beth, and like, totally no one at the party knew that they had had sex, so now that an alien giant monster is attacking Manhattan, it's really important for Rob or Tom to go find Beth.

Ya'see, "Giant Alien Attacks Manhattan" is the headline. "Stupid boy seeks girl in monster stricken city" gets coverage on p18, right? You can't make the alien attack the 'back story'. It didn't work in War of the Worlds which was "really" about a divorcée trying to reconnect with his kids. It didn't work in Signs, which was "really" about a man's quest to recover his faith.

I'm all for Alien movies. I'm for love movies, divorcée movies and movies about recovering one's faith. I just don't like hyped up movies that pretend to be one thing but aren't. I mean, you don't even get to SEE the stupid alien. How dumb is that? Not to mention, an hour and a half of shaky cam and I literally went home and puked.

Terrible, awful, bad movie. I want my money back.

So, a movie about Jessie James that instead of being about gunfights and bank robberies is primarily about characters other than Jessie James, and the lies they tell each other.

It is a in depth character profile of far too many characters. The pacing of the movie is all wrong, leaving the viewer for half hour segments with nothing to watch but the actors chewing the scenery. If it weren't for the brilliant casting and the wonderful performances offered, this movie would be outright dreadful.

As it is, we're left with a director who apparently wanted to write an historical novel, not direct a movie, and a director of photography who is clearly in love with himself.

A good movie should be of interest even to those not interested in the subject. Instead, this movie is about what the actors and directors want to offer. Express yourselves on your own time, gentlemen! My nine bucks was for ME to be entertained, not you.

On the whole, a painfully slow and ridiculously long narrative about the James gang. Credit goes to the actors for making it tolerable, but a movie has to be more than just acting.

So a decent movie, intended for youngsters, very much in the Harry Potter category, though not as good.

A lot of comments have focused on comparing the movie to the book, but this isn't a book review, it's a movie review, and the movie is pretty okay.

Also, a lot have compared this to the movie Eragon, which is really unfair. Eragon's screenplay was poorly written and the lead actor was out of his league. In Keeper, the lead actor does a decent job, expressing the difficulties of being an early teen in difficult;t circumstances.

Anyway, a good movie, especially for kids, and better than the 5.1 rating it currently shows.

As a historical documentary on Theodore Roosevelt, this is a pretty good pair of DVDs. It's thorough, informative, and really captures the spirit of the age.

But the director of photography must have been suffering an inner ear disorder: every scene reflecting a still photograph (from the turn of the century)is displayed in a "slowly spinning" moving frame. One image turns to the right, the next to the left. As if at sea, the viewer rocks one way, then the other, as the screen alternates rotating views of what should have been stationary images.

For content? a 9 For seasickness? a 3 Averaged out to a 6.

This is exactly the movie we wanted - lots of action, with Bourne 2-3 steps ahead of his adversaries at every turn. It answered most of the questions from the first two in the series, but left plenty of room in case they want to make an ongoing series of Bourne films.

But, good grief, what's with the shaky cam? I mean, it was a great day when they invented the steady cam, as it allowed the director to control what scenes are steady and what scenes are chaotic. But this movie uses 'shaky cam chaos' to illustrate how intelligence analysts sitting at their desks are working really hard. These aren't action scenes - for these scenes we need the actors to act, not to be blurry.

So here's the deal: Directors can use shaky cam for fight scenes, car chases, explosions and any kind of stunt. Stationary people, sitting at desks? No! People sitting at a table arguing? No! Really, a great movie - a 9, except for the ridiculous overuse of shaky cam. STOP THE MADNESS.

I agree with most of the posted reviews - this movie is hilarious! Sasha Cohen's portrayal of Borat, a prejudiced, ignorant but well meaning Khasakstanian reporter is brilliant. He never loses the character, dealing with every situation as if such an absurd character could be real.

The strengths of the movie are the scenes where Borat's portrayed ignorance or prejudice combines with the hateful, stupid or ignorant reactions from the people he encounters. Sasha asks a gun dealer advice on a weapon 'good to kill a Jew' - the dealer suggests a 9mm. In another scene a rodeo cowboy agrees with Borat that homosexuals should be locked up and killed. Where Sasha brings out the ugly truth and combines it with his own comedy, he's at his best.

The weak scenes are when Borat is with people who are open and accepting of him as a foreigner, tolerant of his failures and attempting to help him. One scene has a dinner party host trying to instruct Borat on the use of a toilet; in another a group of black youths instruct Borat on how to look and talk like them. These scenes are funny, but funny at the expense of people helping a stranger. In one scene an angry feminist walks away from Borat - Sasha's attempts to goad her having failed. Borat's lines are funny, but the scene doesn't really work.

The movie is a series of independent scenes - each a new encounter for Sasha to showcase Borat's ignorance. While each scene is funny, as a whole there is no real progress - the end of the movie is no funnier for having watched the start. The plot happens, but really is included as a vehicle to change the locations of the scenes, not a means to evolve the characters.

It's great comedy, but a mediocre movie.

(contains spoilers) Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) is a television talk show host gone political candidate; a Jon Stewart type that takes the plunge into contributing rather than heckling. This part of the movie works. Dobbs is credible, serious, and uses humor not for substance but to mock the ridiculous nature of the current lobby-ridden two party system. The political solutions offered by Dobbs are the standard third party 'common sense, but not too deep' solutions. Tom Dobbs wins and becomes the President Elect.

But the movie is flawed with the 'other half'. Laura Linney portrays a computer programmer who discovers an error in the new, nationwide electronic voting system - one that caused Dobbs to win. She reports the error to her CEO ...who torpedoes her email, and then sets her up as a drug abusing burnout who may have caused the problem herself. Linney flies to Washington to inform Dobbs that the election was a sham - but them doesn't tell him.

That's right, a sharp left turn away from suspension of disbelief and straight on to 'beg pardon? Why?' It's clear that Linney's character understands that she MUST tell the truth, but for reasons we can only speculate, the writer chose to waste thirty minutes of screen time as she develops an emotional bond with Dobbs before telling him.

The movie would have been much better had Linney's character revealed the problem right away, and then collectively the 'good people' spent their time solving the problem. Instead, the 'good people' spend their time doubting each other (while we are left to doubt the script writer).

It's still enjoyable in parts, but maybe wait until DVD so you can skip the second act.

(Contains spoilers) This 'documentary' makes two main points: First, That the Federal Income Tax is invalid. This is based on the argument that the 16th amendment was not legally ratified, and that even if it was, the Supreme Court has overruled any provision within the 16th that allowed a tax on labor/wages. Unfortunately, the proof offered in the movie is not based on legal research, but rather on interviews with laymen and quotes from historical figures. One interview was presented with a former IRS Commissioner, but his explanation that the Supreme Court case referenced does not apply (does not apply in the way the movie's producers argue it does) was butchered.

(People - the truth is you have to pay your taxes. Please don't commit tax crimes because a half-baked docudrama said you should.)

The second main point is that the Federal Reserve bank exists as a form of secret conspiracy, envisioned by corrupt bankers and enacted by illegitimate means in 1913. The movie 'reveals' truths that the US no longer maintains a gold standard to back paper currency, and that the Fed is privately held. Neither point should be a news-flash for anyone. The Fed is intentionally separate from the government such that it can exist outside the petty and temporary squabbles of democratically elected officials. Let's face it, Congressmen who cannot manage a single year of a balanced budget should not be in charge of the entire banking system. While we may not like the private nature of the Fed, it has certainly proved itself a useful and demonstrably beneficial form of control. Aside from gaffs surrounding the depression, the Fed has done well for the US, bringing a fledgling nation to super-power status.

The film devolves into a series of petty complaints about other supposed atrocities: The government is secretly planning to implant tracking devices in all humans. The government's plan to roll out a national ID card is an attempt to establish a Gestapo-like control over everyone. That both the Republicans and Democrats are in cahoots to protect the status quo. That electronic voting is rigged.

Libertarian bunk.

Save your money - go to the library and read a book about economics instead. It will be more informative, and won't be the one-sided, rhetorical argument presented here.