Reviews

I've been watching movies for a long time, and I should have trusted my instincts on this movie. 10 minutes in, the desire to turn it off kicked in, but I ignored it. "It's going to get better," I told myself.

It didn't.

The movie rambled on, jumping from time to time with no rhyme or reason. It couldn't seem to make any choice on whether it wanted to be a true crime thriller (it didn't hit that mark), a heist flick (another miss), or a con flick, (and a third miss). I've seen people saying it is a great character study, but it felt so incredibly one dimensional that it makes me question those people's character.

It was slow, and plodding, and just didn't make any effort to connect the audience to anyone in the movie whatsoever. His big crime is an armored truck robbery which isn't even mentioned until halfway through the movie. It is called "American Murderer" and didn't show any murder until the last 20 minutes of the movie. It is implied he killed his dad at one point, but other than that, just the armored car driver.

I understand it is based on a true to life story, and that is what happened... By maybe just call it "American Douchenozzle" then. Even if the dude was constantly jumping from con to con, maybe show us more about that if you want to work that up. Is he a hardened criminal, lets see that... He seems to have been a garden variety party boy con-man, which could have been a really interesting story, but they just couldn't pick a thing to focus on.

It's not the actors fault I don't think. They all worked with what they had. The director wasn't working to pull the deepest performances out of them, and the writing was sub par.

I would pass on this one if I could. It murdered 2 hours of my life.

OK, Let's start this out honest. This wound up in my wife's Netflix queue, and neither of us remembered putting it their. Had 90 minutes to kill, figured, "Whats the worst that happens?" It starts out with "The guy from Burlesque" as my wife referenced Cam Gigandet. Talk about a hackneyed setup... Black ops guy in a bar with a stuffed animal for his daughter that he hasn't seen in a long time. Thugs get angry cause bartender is flirting with him, fight ensues. Somehow we instantly go from parking lot murder fight, to Jake (Burlesque guy) in a black site prison, with open bars where everyone can talk.... And talk they do. We get a stilted introduction for all of our main players in some really bad exposition. It's a black site. No one knows where exactly. Everyone is really bad. Suddenly, some English military guy is leading a raid on the place, and winds up breaking into this base. He comes to the prison, and we find out (Shocking) he and Jake have backstory. For all his bluster about how these warriors were being treated... English military guy leaves everyone locked up. We now have some contrivance about this being a black site, and that the CRT is over two hours away, so our prisoners who have now gotten out of their cells on their own, decide to help thwart the terrorist assault.

I'm not going to pick apart everything that is wrong with this movie from here on. Let's say production quality was on the low side. I can live with that. I don't need a ton of CGI to make me happy, in fact, sometimes no CGI is better. There are some continuity/consistency issues that are really hard to ignore. Our sniper has picked up a miracle sniper rifle with unlimited ammo. It is pretty glaring, honestly. The other biggest inconsistency is there is a plot contrivance to hold our protagonists in place for 30 minutes while a drone is flown towards it's closest landing place in Florida. It can not be crashed,or even able to fly below 20,000 feet without a landing facility... But a couple button pushes when it is literally on descent in Florida, and less than 5 minutes later it is outside NYC... And folks who can barely crawl from a gunshot, getting into a fist fight, and then getting shot 3 more times, and it seems to not even slow them down. Inconsistent is all I'm saying here. A continuity editor paying attention would have been really helpful to this movie.

Now, for the acting. Across the board, it is not too bad. Sure, everyone is basically playing a caricature, but that is something that was expected here. I can't even blame the actors for that, since it appears to be the way they were written, and directed. No ones acting really jumped me out of the movie as bad. The General though, he was really bad. I don't know if the director told him to act like that, but he was the stand out not really believable character and actor.

This could make a great drinking game though, as it was fun to bitch at, and not bad in general.

Name: Willis Vibe: Disgruntled Fun Fact: Disgruntled is actually his occupation Life Expectancy: Depends on the ammo

this movie rocked. It could be this generations Tremors. When Tremors came out, there was a similar controversy, did it rock, or suck. Lots of arguing about it. This is a similar movie, but enough of a different take, that it does stand on it's own as not a rip off.

The gore is fairly decent, they even splash the camera with blood at one point. The humor is mostly dry, and situation oriented. Not a ton of quotable quotes in it. If I were to try and compare it to anything, I would say somewhere around a really well done mash-up of Tremors, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Night f The Living Dead. It has some original elements of course, the bio's are an excellent device for sure. It's an action packed 80 minutes, that probably won't let you down. If you prefer stuffy movies, don't waste your time... But if you have ever cheered for Bruce Campbell, this will make you laugh out loud and jump and yell. The only downfall is it's lack of Bruce Campbell. He would have made an excellent addition to the cast, but might have been just a little too much. One of the most awesome parts of this flick was definitely when you yell at the movie, and they seem to listen to you. The director has anticipated what any sane person would do in such a situation.

definitely a must watch for any horror fan.

what we have here is another example of an extremely rare phenomenon. some call it the terminator syndrome. it is when a sequel not only surpasses the original, but leaves it smoldering in the dust.

house of 1000 corpses is a great movie, so long as you consider it a 2 hour music video.

the devils rejects however, is a cinematic delight of it's on. be forewarned, this is definitely one of the goriest movies you will ever watch in your entire life (unless there is a serious change in Hollywood sometime soon, or you are a cradle of filth fan). If blood, gore, and sincere violence turn you off, do NOT rent this movie, you ill HATE it.

HOWEVER, if you liked the original Texas chainsaw masacre, or any of the other renegade gore flicks from the 70's, this movie ill be your video aphrodisiac. Zombie does an amazing job of mesmerising you with an intensely powerful recreation of the film quality of the old school gorefest movies. this is everything you could have wanted from a gore flick, and then some.

the effects are definitely great, and quite realistic. the scene on the highway was immaculate... the personification of gore, and shock. true, for some reason you just see what is about to come, but it still just makes you want to back it up, nd watch the frame by frame (flawless effect by the way)

it comes down to this. if you want an extremely violent, and profane movie. extremely adult in nature, and extraordinarily gory in nature. there are intense scenes of sexual violence (epecially in the special features). if all of this sounds like something you would want to watch, then by all means, go for it. but if your squeamish, you should walk right past it. and don't judge it against the previous installment, house of 1000 corpses. the to share only a few characters, and little else. the method of storytelling, the writing, and th whole concepts behind them are completely separate.

so let me get this straight... these 4 guys from philly "all" bang their rowing instructor... OK, i can buy that, it's pretty believable. when they find out, one calls her a slut (even though he was involved in another relationship, and cheated with her, but then, i think she new he had a long term live-in girlfriend when she slept with him), and the other guy tries to break his face for it, because he's sure he is in love with her. spoiler---- the other two didn't even actually have sex with her, though one thought he did, and the other is just so damned gentle, sweet, and nice, he pretended to have done it, to make his friends feel better, since he was so damned superior to them... then they all decide to be there for her, support her through the pregnancy, and play daddy... no one even asked for a DNA test? righhhhht and of course it turns out to be the guy who loves her who is the father, because good things happen to pretty girls in movies.

we're totally glossing over the part where they won a row race with only the scantest bits of training...

OK, so the plot is really not truly set in this world... so what, it's a movie. the settings are excellent, and made me super homesick for philly (probably because they avoided showing how damn dirty most of the city is) the casting truly wasn't bad, nor the acting as bad as some people on here are accusing it of having been. Jason Lewis portrayed old philly money perfectly, as did the folks who played his parents. Sean Astin was a perfect rendition of at least a half a dozen guys i knew from back home...

so the plot didn't sell me, the acting wasn't too bad...

guys, there could be worse movies to get stuck watching with your girl...