"Calvary" writer & director John Michael McDonagh's "War on Everyone" is a quirky, Tarantinoesque, crime thriller about a couple of Albuquerque, New Mexico, police detectives whose broad interpretation of the law keeps their superiors on their backs. The buddy-buddy relationship between Terry Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård of "Straw Dogs") and Bob Bolaño (Michael Peña of "Chips") echoes the likes of Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) in the "Lethal Weapon" movies. Our protagonists are subversive in every sense of the word, and director John Michael McDonagh has a blast skewering the clichés of the genre. Wow do these cops do whatever that pleases them. Skarsgård and Peña aren't Paul Newman and Robert Redford, but they have some charismatic moments in this off-kilter law & order epic. Monroe is almost off the rails. He is clearly an alcoholic and his idea of parking is ramming another parked card. Bolaño has a wife and two little boys. The little things-the nuances-in McDonagh screenplay provide some insight into the characters. Monroe craves the music of Glenn Campbell. Bolaño loves to complicate everything with philosophical questions. These cops aren't afraid to charge into any predicament and damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. Their long-suffering superior, Lieutenant Gerry Stanton (Paul Reiser of "Beverly Hills Cop"), takes a load of crap from them. Predictably, because "War on Everyone" coasts on clichés during its awkward spots, the two detectives are asked to hand in their badges. The villain drool fiendishly for the opportunity to take them down, but they get the surprise of their lives. You know a movie is definitely weird when it opens with two suit & tie detectives pursuing a mime. They smash in him and appropriate what he was carrying. "Does a mime make a sound when you hit him," Bolaño asks his friend before they ram him and send his body tumbling up their hood, over the roof, and down to the asphalt behind them. Unfortunately, McDonagh cannot maintain those maniac moments when our heroes are at the top of their game. Theo James makes a formidable villain with British aristocracy in his background, and his right-hand man, Russell Birdwell (Caleb Landry Jones of "American Made"), makes a truly despicable villain who like to flaunt a straight-razor. The venerable bulletproof jacket scene is so lame, too. "War on Everyone" is an indie-themed film that fearlessly rushes in where mainstream films fear to go.
Review of War on Everyone
