Vandal (2019) Poster

(2019)

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3/10
Great Production Values, Terrible Protagonist
joe_elliott_7719 November 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I have mixed feelings about this movie. It looks like a competent well shot expose of the underground graffiti scene in Miami, but on closer inspection it reveals a tale of a sociopathic narccasit who makes all people's lives who come in contact with him significantly worse..

There is no better representation of the word "cringe" than the main protagonist of this movie. He is a self important meme machine who lives in a dimension we can all hope never to exist in. From the squinty eye look to the all too cool delivery, he is so consumed by his own ego it is beyond believable that any other character would give him the time of day, let alone be associated with him..

Our hero has the well worn ethos of the artist who is "keeping it real" and not selling out. How he manages to afford to live in a multi million dollar town house with a custome spray can wall is never explained.

I could write endlessly about the prodigal graffiti guy who we never see produce anything, the laughable villan who can't speak due to his lame "grills", the super serious Feds who have dedicated their lives to busting graffiti gangs... But what's the point!

This is the fast and the furious for spray can gangs and on that level it actually works.

I look forward too the inevitable "Vandlas 9- too toxic, too many fumes" when we debate wether tagging the international space station means the series jumped the shark.

3 starts for effort.
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2/10
Trying too hard to be deep
Kube_9 January 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Vandal felt like a bunch of "cool" scenes smashed together to try and tell the story of an artist who doesn't want to sell out.

I get the idea behind why Damage doesn't want to become a "Street Artist" this kind of thinking lives amongst many creatives be it music, movies or art. Many wrestle with selling out in some way. The protagonist "Damage" just seems very arrogant & hard headed about it all & without a good reason at all. He is even asked why does he keep doing Graffiti & not become a street artist by the troubled kids he is meant to inspire. He gives no answer, the movie cuts to the next scene & we are left wondering why?

The villian/antagonist Sizmik feels like a pantomime of what a successful Street Artist is, with his entourage & terrible grills. Everything he did made him look like an imposter or a poser in the Graffiti world which i feel is what the filmmakers were going for? Whenever he was on screen it felt like he was being bad for the sake of being bad & had no real motivation to be bad just like our protagonist gave us no motivation to why he doesn't want to be a Street Artist.

The movie felt like it had actually ended once they had done the Piece for Pharo. Our protagonist wanted to get permission to legally Graffiti a wall, the man who could make that happen said do this thing for me, he spoke to the kids & blam got to graffiti the wall. Everything after that felt like oh no the movie is only 30 minutes long...let's fill it with stuff that really has no weight. The Stakes were not high enough & the protagonists hair was too messy & dirty (seriously what was with that). Again the movie was trying to be too deep with him not being a street artist that he couldn't even explain why he didn't but everyone around him said he should, instead he get's them killed, molested & get's himself thrown in jail... but he becomes a street artist in the end he goes legit & does it for pharo & his friend who got killed for doing illegal things...
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