We were perusing the On Demand list, and saw this title, with Jeff & Lloyd Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones, and Forest Whitaker, and thought it sounded like a great movie. I should have been forewarned when I didn't recall ever having heard of it before. The opening segment in the prison, where the inmates speak Gaelic ( I believe) and is subtitled, allowed for a bit of confusion when Jones dispatches his cell mate, and says something over his body. Even with repeated viewings, none of us could make out what exactly he says, or even if it's in English. Was the murder done for a reason besides needing a bomb bunker, or was there a back story? Then to watch him assemble his bomb, using all kinds of devices including machine-threaded pipes, explosives, and other unusual items hat would seem to be a bit difficult to accrue in a max security prison, he blows a hole in the wall, and apparently makes his way from that desolate area without any problems, although they don't bother to show how. He next appears in Boston, living in a decrepit, rusty old boat on an abandoned pier, which miraculously not only has electricity, but also has cable TV ( as the orchestra promo mentions that it's on A&E, not an over the air channel). He also has unlimited funds to obtain everything he needs, from explosives, to electronics, to transportation to get around the Boston area. Bridges character, as we soon find out, is also a fugitive IRA guy, wanted by Interpol, yet he apparently had no problem getting past the Boston PD's background check to get hired under his phony identity. He also exhibits almost every Hollywood cliché about the maverick cop, riding a m/c to a bomb scene while smoking a butt and wearing a Hawaiian shirt to let us know how cool he is. He also ignores basic safety procedures while disarming bombs, even though he is supposedly the one who instructs everyone on EOD protocol. Jones also exhibits the troubling Hollywood syndrome of being able to single handedly surveill multiple people and locate their homes, even their vacation homes, and also gain employment with Boston PD as a janitor ( once again, bypassing the pesky background checks a large agency like BPD conducts even for civilians) with not a care in the world. They also never bothered to explain how Jones was able to get Lloyd Bridges from the bar bathroom out the door, and to the school yard , where he was able to secure him with an unbelievably complex device, without a single person noticing. Then of course there is the TV screen continuously showing Bridges wife in closeup even though she is just one person in the Boston Pops. The story just kept getting more and more ludicrous, and of course there had to be the obligatory Hollywood fight where the bad guy is almost indestructible, no matter what he is hit with. If you come across this, keep on going, it was 2 hours that I'll never get back. I can only imagine that the Dude and the rest were in a slump and needed a quick payday, without regards to the script. The only reason I gave it 2 stars was for the Boston scenery.
Review of Blown Away
