rangeriderr Reviews

The Marksman (2021)

One of dumbest movies I've seen in a long time

[3/10 · 15 June 2022]

I figure this movie was probably written when the author was half drunk snd half asleep each night over the course of a week.

The character played by Liam Neeson has an I. Q. of about 75. He continually leaves a knapsack filled with thousands of dollars on the floor of his truck and doesn't bother locking the doors of the truck, or take any of the cash to pay for gas or food. Instead he uses his credit cards which enables the bad guys to track him down.

The 11 year old boy isn't much brighter, and the very ending which I won't disclose is about as dumb as the rest of the picture. I watched the first third and when the movie never improved I then jumped to the last ten minutes.

Ridley Road (2021)

Halfway thru 2nd episode, gross stupidity

[5/10 · 2 June 2022]

I quit watching halfway thru episode 2. Why? I always ask myself why practically every thriller movie has gross stupidity in the story line.

I was really enjoying this movie - an excellent caste, especially the star heroine. She is a 23 year old beautiful very smart Jewish single woman who has moved from Manchester to London and is pretending to be Christian in order to infiltrate a Neo-Nazi organization in the 1960s.

She rents a room from an elderly anti-semitic landlady, who enters her room one afternoon and discovers a Hebrew Bible. Now, would anyone taking on this role keep a Hebrew Bible with her?

I happen to like drama movies, but I have just grown tired of heroes who demonstrate gross stupidity because the script writers are so lazy that they create artificial tension. I have no idea how the rest of the movie turns out.

A Different Loyalty (2004)

Moderately Interesting

[5/10 · 8 December 2021]

This movie has very good acting. The core story line is a good one. The primary reason I gave it only 5 stars like many other people is because the story moves very slowly and is totally repetitious, again and again.

The whole story could have been told in 45 minutes and it could have been a little exciting which the plot calls for but fails to achieve. If you want a nice quiet story to fall asleep to this one fits the bill.

Bent (I) (2018)

A Really S-L-O-W Moving Movie

[4/10 · 20 July 2018]

This film should have been called "The Caterpillar Cop" it moves so slowly. I was surprised that I watched the whole movie. The beginning key scenes which are critical to the logic of the hour and a half (+/-) subsequent revenge plot happen so fast that you barely catch onto who has done what to whom. You then have the stolid good guy cop who emerges from jail after three years who seeks revenge for the killing of his partner whom he thought was a clean, good guy, but turns out wasn't. The lead character of Danny Gallagher played by Karl Urban who has only one expression and spends most of his time sitting and watching, wearing the same leather jacket 90% of the time, occasionally grunting a few lines. You are hoping to see a lot more of gorgeous Sofia Vergara, but she hardly appears in the movie, and definitely not in any gorgeous, sexy outfits that I remember. It's tough to believe that she was paid $190,000 per episode of the TV series Modern Family. One can only wonder what the budget for this caterpillar film was, and how it ever got financed. Go watch a couple of episodes of Blue Bloods on Netflix instead of spending time on this slow moving film.

Allied (2016)

Excellently Directed with a Stupid Storyline

[4/10 · 18 November 2017]

I watched the first hour of this movie, and although it was beautifully photographed and well-directed, it seemed to move very slowly for an espionage movie. Something about it didn't ring true, so I read the summary and quit watching the rest.

The first tip-off is the surname given to Brad Pitt: "Vatan". This movie is set during WWII. How many wing commanders in 1942 would have had a Turkish or Iranian name in England at that time? The name given to the co- star in the film is "Beausejour" meaning "beautiful stay". I ask, "Did the writers intend that this name should have some significance?" I couldn't figure it out.

As other reviews may tell you, a totally obnoxious executive from the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) tells Vatan that his wife is a German spy. And if Vatan is not prepared to expose his wife, we see the SOE guy open a drawer with a gun in it, implying that he was prepared to kill Vatan on the spot. Here comes the illogical part, as I give away the essence of the end of the film.

Vatan and Beausejour are now living in London and they have a one year old daughter, Anna. It turns out that the Germans threatened Beausejour with harming their daughter if she didn't spy for them. She kept this a secret from her husband, and the movie proceeds from there to its depressing conclusion.

Now, I ask you, "What would happen logically in real life?" The wife would tell her husband of the German threat who would then relate this to his superior, and they all would wind up working with the SOE on how to have Beausejour fool the Germans with meaningless British "intelligence". (Another issue was raised to which I did not find the answer. SOE claimed that Vatan's wife wasn't the real Beausejour.)

The excitement in a more logical movie would revolve around the issue of "How long can the British continue to fool the Germans and not have something dire happen to the child, Anna?" I think that could be a much more intelligent movie which would move along at a faster pace.

Thorne: Scaredycat (2010)

Probably one of the stupidest mystery stories I've seen

[2/10 · 27 November 2014]

Let's first ignore the fact that you have flashbacks from a suspect, and you can't determine if the suspect is really guilty of murder or just covering up for some buddy from his childhood. The chief character is detective constable Thorne who operates on the basis of instincts and is always arguing with his obnoxious, naturally stupid superiors.

Then there are his two subordinates, of which one is a an Asian woman who is a cocaine addict who does lines every chance she gets. The other subordinate is an African-Brit and when they have a free half-hour in the middle of the night, they have a go at some sex. After the sex, he then goes to the bathroom where he finds her doing lines and her response is, "Don't you knock before opening a bathroom door?" That's the end of that scene.

Later that evening she is supposed to be guarding the key witness, who might be a killer (since no one has established clear evidence, but he confesses to killings presumably because he wants protection from his buddy from 10 years ago who might be the killer of women.) She sends another cop who is to help her guard the suspect for coffee, and while he's gone, she ducks into the bathroom for some more coke. She then hears noises coming from the bedroom and is terrified. Since she's not a judo expert, she tries to escape through a window or door, neither of which will open, and whispers into a cellphone for help which does arrive.

Of course, this being Britain, even cops protecting someone from a killer don't carry guns. I guess that, in the UK, when a killer points a gun at a cop, he or she is supposed to do a flying tackle and hope that the criminal drops the gun. At this point, I couldn't stand the stupidity and confusion any longer and shut it off.

Torn Curtain (1966)

Possibly one of Hitchock's most boring films

[4/10 · 1 September 2014]

Take two outstanding stars; add a handful of top notch character actors; a celebrated director, and you should have a first rate film. Instead, you have wooden performances by Newman and Andrews. Add to it backgrounds that are so unrealistic looking that they are obviously Hollywood stages with artificial lighting and uncreative photography.

Worst of all is the plot. The so-called excitement or tension predominantly arises from an unbelievably stupid slip-up by Newman. He draws the mathematical symbol for Pi in the sand of a farmhouse to indicate to a non-English speaking German woman the purpose of his visit. She then introduces him to his contact, but he doesn't erase the symbol with his foot, which any idiot would do, no less a supposedly brilliant scientist.

As a result, the East German surveillance bad guy sees the symbol, so he has to be bumped off, and all the subsequent chases derive from this single piece of Newman's stupidity. I would have thought that a film late in Hitchcock's career would have had more substance, and from all standpoints, been creatively better. I skimmed through parts of it, since the dialogue was pretty uninspired and there wasn't much to miss.

Wallander: One Step Behind (2008) Season 1, Episode 3

Very Well Acted & Well-Directed, but Story line has real weaknesses

[4/10 · 24 June 2012]

The setting in Ystad is superb, and Kenneth Branagh is his usual excellent self, but from a story standpoint, if compared with loads of other British series such as P.D.James, Sherlock Holmes, Midsommer Murders, Foyle's War, or Inspector Morse, Wallander is probably the dumbest cop on television. In more than one story, he leaves key witnesses unguarded who are subsequently murdered. And then he gets to feel guilty. In order to create what I term "artificial tension" in the last five minutes of this story, he misses a totally obvious clue to any viewer. One of his assistant detectives is even dumber and doesn't want to work very hard. Then, if you compare Wallander with American TV such as NCIS, NCIS LA, or Criminal Minds, the sense of "family" amongst the four detectives is very weak. There is no charm between them. So, you are ultimately left with Branagh doing an excellent job of sulking for 90 minutes, with his beautiful daughter trying to get him out of his continual funk. Unless I'm watching some action film (like James Bond) or the stupendous computer feats of NCIS, in which I do not expect realism, I ultimately have a problem with stories where tension is created because Wallander does stupid things like letting the key suspect walk out the back door of a restaurant on the pretext of going to the restroom while he just stands at the bar, and belatedly realizes what he has allowed to happen. Finally, the series is filmed with a Red One digital camera which compresses the image and does not restore it to its original full image.

In the Electric Mist (2009)

Excellently cast; and well-acted, directed, and photographed

[8/10 · 8 April 2012]

There aren't too many movies where you find that each and every actor seems realistic, without overplaying his or her part. I definitely have a bias towards moody, dark Louisiana movies with psychotic killers and corruption. This movie has all the virtues of that genre. Tommy Lee Jones is excellent as a worn-out, aging, alcoholic detective (on the wagon) who has a strong moral sense, but cuts corners when he deems it necessary.

John Goodman is so versatile that I didn't recognize him as the same actor who was in The Big Lebowski which I had watched only the day before. The script was so adept that they handled the issues of race relations in what I considered a realistic manner without any preaching. The settings, whether swamps at night, Southern mansions, broken down shacks, or merely country scenery all seemed highly realistic. The editing was excellent. Thus, the timing of most scenes was just right, so there wasn't the problem of boredom.

The only reason I gave the movie an 8 rather than a 10 is that it suffered from too much mumbled dialogue, so you have to be willing to live with about 25% of dialogue shooting past you (unless perhaps you are from "Loozyana"), and perhaps missing some of the relationships between people early on. However, while this meant that you might miss out on some of the subtleties, the story is not that fast moving and complex that it warrants bypassing the movie, given all its virtues.

Operation Amsterdam (1959)

One of the Most Exciting WWII Espionage Movies - 10 Stars

[10/10 · 7 April 2011]

I had never heard of this movie until I stumbled across it on Instant Netflix. I just loved it and found it to be more exciting than I could expect. It was extremely realistic and had many strong aspects.

The B&W photography was perfect. It totally captured the despondent feeling of the day, between the deserted city streets and the road to the harbor packed with refugees -- old & young. The scenes with boats in the water clearly looked like film stages, but the street scenes looked very realistic. One reviewer seemed to imply that they were actual streets.

The editing was extremely tight, perhaps just a little too tight, as some other reviewers have commented, since it wasn't totally clear why there were Dutch soldiers fighting the "good guys". Yes, there was the comment that you couldn't tell who the fifth columnists were, but one does not expect the fifth columnists to be soldiers in Dutch uniforms.

The music fit the film perfectly -- between the street organ and the snare drums. But what especially contributed to the suspense were the times when the film was virtually silent and the camera switched from one face with tension to another. One reviewer commented on how little Alexander Knox had to say, but his expressions, along with his silence, actually added to the tension. Overall, the casting was perfect.

Eva Bartok was superb. I can't recall ever having seen an actress who was so beautiful seem so realistic. (If you read her biography at this site, you can understand why she played her role so convincingly. She had already suffered considerably, being forced to marry a Nazi officer at age 15 who continually raped her.) Nothing was overplayed by her or by anyone. As opposed to all the James Bond type movies these days, this was far more realistic, and the tension was palpable.

I've now started to watch the film a second time (about 20 minutes so far), which I think this movie lends itself to doing. When you watch it the second time, you pick up many clues that become important as the story unfolds, such as the Dutch soldiers who are, indeed, Nazi sympathizers, and the policeman on the dock, in an early scene, who thinks that the spies are additional Germans in disguise, like the parachutists dressed in civilian clothes, whom he had already shot.

The terse dialogue and context for many of these opening scenes may be missed the first time around. Also, when watching it again, one has the opportunity to catch more of the details and verisimilitude of the film.

Sweet Land (2005)

A Film Truly for Adults

[10/10 · 7 December 2010]

This film is most absorbing, but you have to be willing to watch a film that unfolds slowly. It is magnificently acted with two young actors -- Elizabeth Reaser and Tim Guinee as the leads. There is relatively little dialogue, and much of it is in German or Norwegian with no subtitles, which conveys to the audience the difficulty that they have communicating with each other.

The two leads are heavily dependent upon the expressiveness of their eyes, which they do with great delicacy. The film is well-paced and beautifully photographed. The only difficulty I had was catching on that the action took place in three time periods, not just two. You had 1920 when Inge, a mail order bride comes to rural Minnesota. (The scenery looked authentic, and since some of the credits are for institutions in Montevideo, MN, a town to which I once traveled, I can understand the veracity of the setting.)

The second time period, which is not so clear, is when Olaf, Inge's husband has passed away, and the third time period is more or less the present when Inge's grandson is faced with a decision of whether or not to sell the farm. There are some visual clues to separate the second and third time periods, but they are quite subtle.

The second is probably around 1960, marked by the glasses frames that Inge, as an old woman is wearing; and the third, by a jacket that her great-granddaughter is wearing. Otherwise, the time differences are not totally clear, particularly at the beginning of the film, where you have flashbacks.

The film struck me with its apparent accuracy. Twenty years ago, I knew an elderly Norwegian immigrant who had been the wife of a North Dakota farmer, and she had told me stories of farm life in the 1920s and 1930s. It required about 15 people to operate a steam threshing machine, and she told me about preparing lunch each day during the harvest season for 20 men; and about reading by candlelight at night; using an indoor pump at the sink; and seeking to keep warm during the brutal North Dakota winters.

I visited the woman and her daughters and grand-daughter in her modern apartment which was a far cry from life during her youth. It blows me away to think about the change in this one woman's singular life from her youth to her later years -- greater changes than in any prior period in history. (In 1946, there were still more horse drawn tractors than mechanized ones in use in the U.S., and there wasn't much electricity in rural areas until the New Deal.)

Although I may have missed some, I perceived no wrong notes in the film which added to the enjoyment of watching it. A most charming film from beginning to end.

From Paris with Love (2010)

A Movie for 12 Year Olds

[1/10 · 13 November 2010]

This is a video game with live (probably overpaid) actors. Luc Beson has worked on screenplays for movies I've enjoyed, including La Femme Nikita, The Transporter, and especially Leon the Professional. But not this one. This is surely one of the most juvenile movies I can remember. I've watched many John Travolta movies, some good, some mediocre, but this is at the bottom of the list.

Within 15 minutes after John Travolta shows up in the plot, he shoots, perhaps 50 Chinese, in Paris single-handedly, and mano-a-mano knocks out some seven gang members. I'm not necessarily looking for realism in action movies, but this is nothing but a shoot-em up video game with actors. If this is what you want, go watch it. After 40 minutes, I stuck the DVD back in its envelope, and I often do watch, even sub-par movies to the end.

Sherlock: The Blind Banker (2010) Season 1, Episode 2

Dumbest Sherlock I've Ever Seen

[3/10 · 31 October 2010]

SPOILERS FOLLOW AFTER FIRST PARAGRAPH

The first episode of this modern series, "A Study in Pink" was absolutely terrific. After watching it, I said to myself, "This series has real promise. Too bad, it's only three episodes." But after this second episode, I couldn't believe that I was watching the same production.

In this drama, Sherlock breaks into a dangerous house unaccompanied by Watson, and is so obsessive-compulsive that he leaves Watson outside. In the house, he is partially strangled, but left alive. Later on, shots are taken at Sherlock, Watson, and Soo Lin Yao, a young woman whom they then leave alone as they both chase after the potential killer. When the killer seems to escape, they just stand around looking like lost souls. Guess what happens next.

Later on, Sherlock, Watson, and Sarah (a new girlfriend of Watson's) are in an obviously dangerous environment, but Sherlock compulsively chases off by himself and Watson & Sarah are abducted. We then have a scene out of a Dr. Fu Manchu movie, with Watson & Sarah tied up in an underground tunnel with a cartoonish villainous woman and her thugs.

Somehow Sherlock magically (but we have no idea, or at least I may have looked away for a minute and have no idea) finds where they are being held. In a scene reminiscent of every deus ex machina you've ever seen, Watson & Sarah are saved at the last second (okay, three seconds), and Sherlock isn't killed either. (Those devilish Chinese have forgotten how to shoot and have suddenly lost their martial arts skills). In the last scene, we have an updated version of a scene from the movie, From Russia With Love, with a Chinese woman in the role originally played by Lotte Lenya who failed in her mission. Better watch out when you fail the Tong.

Well photographed, good music, but juvenile writing, and high school acting. Try the scene where Sarah is grinning like a schoolgirl as she watches the Chinese magicians.