Most of this sucks.
But I did sincerely have a few decent laughs around the 50% mark. Not a ton! But enough that I don't really regret watching it.
Most of this sucks.
But I did sincerely have a few decent laughs around the 50% mark. Not a ton! But enough that I don't really regret watching it.
"You live by the A24, you die by the A24."
I'd heard this was just Tom Hardy talking on the phone in a car, and that's exactly what it was, so this is completely on me. He gives a good performance, yes, but I found the overall effect to be quite dull. Can you imaging how much better this would have been as a short film?
"What were you fucking expecting?
If you're rating this for its influence over the future of cinema, it's an obvious hard 5☆.
But that's just not the only metric. The film has some flaws.
The childhood scenes are very "aww gee shucks mister," and it was impossible to take any of them seriously. The teenage versions of the brothers have a pretty slick action scene for the time, but otherwise the presentation feels just a little too precious.
Cagney is great, but the other performances…
What a weird combination of a film. Part dead serious drama (e.g. threats of putting a little girl into rape-based prostitution). Part torture porn (not my microgenre, but I can tolerate the better entries). Part... intentionally silly action scenes?
Who the fuck greenlit this?
Seriously, action scenes borrowed from Big Trouble in Little China alternate with a cancer-serious Salma Hayek screaming about protecting her daughter.
This sucks.