Malarkey

The first ten minutes are so pimped out that they couldn’t possibly have been pimped out more. The atmosphere is loaded with suspense, the camera is shaking, but the whole thing is so stylish that you won’t feel it’s bad even for a second. All the more surprising for a movie from South Africa. But what follows after the beginning is a classical cop movie. The cop doesn’t get the credit he deserves, so he decides to act on his own. The nasty South African setting gets reflected in the story as well – you can’t really say it is full of corruption, it’s rather that it has very little to do with a decent human community. I was also pretty annoyed with that weird pseudo-English that everybody in the movie spoke. However, the action was on par and that’s despite the fact that at times the camera was a bit more shaky than necessary. All in all, I have to admit that I hadn’t expected this action-filled surprise.

At the beginning, I was a bit uncertain. Aaltra was black-and-white and essentially pretty quiet. But after about twenty minutes, the story told me exactly where it was headed to and I started laughing at moments where I would normally have cried tears of sorrow. The directors, who also portrayed the two guys in the wheelchairs, did such a good job that I don’t think anybody else could have been this good. The premise is such that it won’t offend anybody and the jokes will make everybody laugh, especially those who like unorthodox humor at least a little bit. And the last twenty minutes in Finland are out of this world. Aki Kaurismäki knows very well what works for Finland, so he puts in an ultimate performance and he won me over in his five minutes on the screen to such extent that in the upcoming weeks I will try to watch all the movies he has made so far.

I do respect the idea that Loft is based on. It was actually the reason why I decided to watch the movie in the first place. But the problem starts already in the first minute when you get to meet a succession of several characters who aren’t very likeable. I wasn’t able to get used to any of them, so there was nothing left for me but emotionlessly watch shot after shot in this increasingly intricate thriller. The final unravelling is much more complicated than anybody would have thought and the result is such that it wouldn’t have been expected even by a guy in his 50’s who got punched by life so many times that it’s a surprise he’s still alive in the first place and that he didn’t opt for premature retirement to go contemplate things somewhere in Tibet.

A pretty pleasant and chill flick that will neither offend nor excite you. In terms of atmosphere, it felt the closest to Gilmore Girls. You simply sit down on the bar stool, have a cup of coffee and chill while watching TV. What else do you need when you get back from home totally exhausted but a movie that is based on life and that will provide you with pleasant entertainment?

I’d been looking forward to Fury for a long time. I’d been looking forward to this new movie by David Ayer, whose movies have convinced me what a good director he is and that we will be remembering him in the future. No movies have been made on WW2 in a long time, so I didn’t hesitate and headed out to the cinema. For an hour and a half, I got to enjoy one of the rawest WW2 movies in the past twenty years. I especially liked the ideas with the individual shots, which surprised me in Band of Brothers or in the ancient Russian movie Come and See. One shot was enough to make you feel sick. And it didn’t even involve anything too bloody. From this perspective, the movie aced it. However, a problem occurs at the end, which Brad Pitt decides to handle in his own way – in a stupid and illogical way that makes the movie end exactly the way I thought it would. The ending is heroic and very American, which pissed me off and the movie fell from five stars to four. And if it weren’t for the really good first half, it would have dropped even lower. It would’ve been best if the director had cut the movie 35 minutes shorter.

It says drama, but I feel it’s more of a comedy. I mean so many coincidences at once would mess up pretty much anybody. Speaking for myself, I can say that this comedy really surprised me at uneasy times and some of its scenes really helped improve my mood. If I’d been in a good mood to start with, I guess I would have given the movie a four-star review. The movie was absurd enough for that. So maybe next time.

I’d never encountered the Howard Brothers and at the same time, I have to say that their 1920s humor doesn’t really work for me. What also didn’t really work for me was the way in which the story was told in this film. I think anybody could have shot the individual scenes, but without endowing the story with emotions or a semblance of order, it doesn’t really work.

He’s not a woman, but he’s a flight attendant. She’s a woman and she’s bisexual at the same time. The result was that I didn’t laugh even at the beginning, which was at least a bit absurd. The rest was pretty boring.

This is getting embarrassing. But if it keeps making money, I get it.

After I saw this film, I thought I was going to give it a four-star review. But it was enough for the user emma53 to write a single sentence to me and I realized that even though this thriller is good, the ending ruins the movie. You see, the whole thing is trying to look quite realistic. The 991 hotline, where emergency calls are answered by Halle Berry, was quite tense. But later, where Halle switches from providing help through a headset to actually helping specific people, the movie gets quite schematic, and it wasn’t very realistic. And the ending crowned everything. Anyways, when it comes to good thrillers, this one is still definitely worth watching.