User Reviews

Josh Duhamel certainly carried this film the best he could with what he had to work with, but he needed better backing to be the action lead star he deserves to be. The writing and directing was that of a 1980's amateur-hour film. Constant cheesy slow-mo shots with the most tedious cat and mouse game ever - don't even get me started on the ridiculous dialogue.

Actor turned filmmaker Sam Macaroni, who has an astonishing 89 directing credits - all mostly short films and TV movies, still hasn't learned how to properly fill in any runtime that's over an hour long. Along with the Blue Bloods series and a handful of short films writer Van B. Nguyen, they stretched out every scene to the max with little meat in the story that had long dragged out scenes and mostly unnecessary dialogue.

The action shots were all boilerplate cliched, and all the back and forth cat and mouse narrative became very annoying fast. An example is when Omar Chaparro's character Eddie wasted 5 minutes of film talking to the doctor to get Cain to remember; ok we get it, just say "get it done or else". You'll see that issue of squeezing every scene to its fullest throughout the entire normally comfortable 91 min runtime, of which felt much longer due to the lack of any real captivating narrative. And that's not including the many cheesy slow-mo's that added another wasted 10-15 mins of runtime for no reason.

It's all a boilerplate by the numbers story that's mainly filler with very little substance. All the attempts at any twists in the story were predictable and also cliched. This entire mess should've been cut down to a 1 hour TV movie length at best, if not into a short film.

The only redeeming qualities this film had was the acting, some decent action choreography by Duhamel, and an adequate score - for a B film. It was great to see the legendary Nolte, but even he needed better cast direction to speed up his slow and slurred dialogue, because one can only take so much before they start yelling "spit it out already".

Had the writer and director at least consulted a seasoned filmmaker for some much needed changes, this film would've been much more watchable. But as is, it's a very generous 5/10, all going to the underrated Duhamel for another convincing lead performance (he was a great lead in Bandit as well).

This movie caught my attention right up to the point where Duhamel was caught off guard by 2 thugs that opened fire with automatics and he someone manages to miss around 50 rounds while taking out the 2 in front of him. Then, immediately after that, 2 more thugs open up doors behind him and lay out ever more rounds in a hallway no wider than about 5 feet, yet he STILL manages to not get hit by one bullet. Stopped watching after that. Yikes is all I have to say. I really can't imagine how anyway can overlook this aspect as it doesn't even try to not look stupid. Hopefully others come to their senses and turn this off.

Totally rubbish movie: -music score repetative and annoying, its like the took it from an 80's video game and pasted it in this movie without caring if it fits or not -illogical plot with incosistent twists. Bad guys become good guys and vice versa without any good reason -bad action scenes with slow motion to fill the gaps, bad guys shot millions of bullets at close range bad manage to hit our nerves instead of the good guy -dialogues tha are gonna make you laugh with the cringynesss -movie fights that are badly edited and choreographed and totally ignore the laws of phisics.

-bad actor performance from all actors. Maybe they have not read the script before signing up or maybe they needed the check and they didn't care but they all seem like they are reading it from an auto-cue and they don't actually believe any of the words cvoming out of their mouths.

Now you may ask why I finished it? Well I was folding clothes for my wife which is boring and I thought that I need to do something more boring to feel better. Well mission accomplished!

Nothing about the Netflix thriller "Blackout" from its generic title to its amnesiac hero who dodges trigger-happy hordes of gunmen after him is remotely original. Typically, when people think about amnesia epics, Matt Damon's popular Jason Bourne film franchise comes to mind. Long before "The Bourne Identity" (2002) and its four sequels, filmmakers had been cranking out thrillers about heroes and heroines suffering from amnesia with pistol-packing killers at their heels. "Fear in the Night" (1946), "36 Hours" (1964), "The Man Called Noon" (1973), "Total Recall" (1990), "Clean Slate" (1994), "The Long Kiss Goodnight" (1996), "Memento" (2000), and "Mulholland Drive" (2001) rank as some of the best action-oriented amnesia epics. If you've seen any of these, not only are you acquainted with the premise but also the gauntlet of obstacles our protagonist must hurdle. Like most amnesiac heroes, John Cain (Josh Duhamel of "The Transformers" movies) awakens in "Blackout" to find himself sprawled on his back in a Mexican hospital bed, with his loyal wife, Anna (Abbie Cornish of "Sucker Punch"), hovering at his elbow. Our hero's adversaries are heavily armed henchmen who failed to liquidate him during a careening car chase that ended with Cain smashing up his vehicle, wiping his memory, and landing in a hospital. Neither "Guest House" director Sam Macaroni nor "Boyhood" scenarist Van B. Nguyen let the momentum slacken in this nimble, bullet-riddled actioneer that piles up a double-digit body count!

Hollywood makes two kinds of amnesia movies. The first kind are those where only the hero is in the dark. Memory loss plagues him. You know more about him than he remembers about himself. The second kind are those that keep both hero and audience in the dark. Everything is a mystery which must be unraveled. "Blackout" qualifies as the first kind. Macaroni and Nguyen share details with the audience about Cain's past. Moreover, the opening gambit in "Blackout" constitutes the set-up. Cain has fled to his house in Arizona near the Mexican border. Cartel gunmen have trailed him. After arming an explosive gadget on his property, he escapes via a tunnel under his residence linked to a city electrical conduit tunnel. An explosion moments later destroys his house. The blast incinerates one of the intruders. Alas, this only slows down his enemies. Intercepting Cain on the highway, they devastate his car with a hail of machine gunfire. Cain loses control of the sedan, and the vehicle tumbles like a giant log. Suddenly, he finds himself wrestling with a hospital orderly. Cain's doctor, Dr. Garza (Jose Sefami of "Miss Bala"), assures Cain that he will recover his memory.

Meantime, in Arizona, at the site of Cain's demolished dwelling, a team of DEA agents led by Ethan McCoy (Nick Nolte of "Extreme Prejudice") rummage through the wreckage. We learn Cain has been AWOL for several days. Mind you, neither McCoy nor the DEA knew about Cain's secret underground passage. McCoy assembles a team to rescue Cain. Eventually, we learn Cain had infiltrated a cartel. Cain's long-time partner Eddie (Omar Chaparro of "Aztec Warrior") arrives at the hospital. He suspects that Cain may have double-crossed him because the latter stole $20 million. Before he can kill his old partner, Eddie must know where Cain stashed a suitcase. This particular suitcase is reminiscent of the attaché case in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" (1994). It contains a Pandora's box of cartel secrets. Eddie locks the hospital down to prevent Cain from escaping. He deploys his henchmen to prowl the premises like predators.

Virtually the entire film occurs in the single setting of the hospital. Nevertheless, "Blackout" is far from claustrophobic. Skillfully, Macaroni and Nguyen parcel out details about Cain that shed light on his shady shenanigans with the Cartel as well as the DEA and CIA. The dialogue scenes propel the plot forward rather than slow it down. Macaroni stages both fireworks and fisticuffs scenes with flair and spontaneity. He lenses the hallway gunfights in graceful slow-motion. Spent shell casings somersault sideways from submachine gun ejection ports. Muzzle flashes erupt as adversaries trigger streams of bullets that ricochet noisily off metal surfaces. A knuckle-smashing clash in an elevator qualifies as one of the best elevator fights since the David Dave Bautista movie "Fina Score" (2018). Naturally, our hero and heroine fare better at hitting their targets than Eddie and his killers. Rather than looking clean-cut, Duhamel resembles the Marvel Comics' character Reed Richards, with his grizzled temples and piratical beard. Nick Nolte spends most of his time chewing out his subordinates. The twist ending is a neat touch as the filmmakers bring everything full circle. As villains go, Eddie is far more charming than cruel. However, nothing is a cake walk for Cain in "Blackout." Clocking in at 81 agile minutes, ten of which the end credits take up, "Blackout" emerges as a suspenseful cat & mouse melodrama with Cain, Eddie, and Anna swapping lead with each other.

Bad writing, dialogue & acting. Only the main character is the only good actor in this film... so many things that don't make any sense in this film such as: #1 All this gun fighting going on inside a U. S. hospital yet where is the security or law enforcement!?! #2 Certain hospital wings have staff in the hallways yet others are completely empty. #3 The scene involving the DEA agent who sounds like he's straining every time he speaks stating in the conference room that "their on foreign soil" when it comes to implications to extracting the main character Cain & later on stating that to the main character is in a Mexican hospital when on the phone with him... wtf! Their in Tuscan AZ!

Its awaste of opportunity. The story line is not new, yes, even avengers are not new, but they bring something new into it with good storylines and etc. But this one is just plain dumb. The word "f@&k" is used just to keep a character or lines feel tough on a wrong timing and projected weakly instead. But the worst was, every shooting scene in the straight hallway which none of them managed to put a bullet through him, just threw me off..its plain terrible and not logical...the end scene, the guy just got shot at his arm..he could grab a gun from behind the car once the went out from the car, and shoot them from the back... and again, cuss words are used just to make the script fancy..

a failure attempt not becoz of the stars, but the fight scenes were whack and cinematography too.

...why did this movie get made? Who funded it? Was it some rich person's pet script that they desperately wanted to see get made?

The plot is the fairly standard cliche of someone having amnesia and trying to piece together who he is and why everyone is trying to kill him (eg Jason Bourne). It's a workable premise but that's the best thing I can say about this movie.

Josh Duhamel and Abbie Cornish are decent actors but I've never seen them in an action movie and it showed. Nick Nolte is brought out of retirement and should have been left to pasture. The rest are B-list including director Sam Macaroni who is apparently also known for different genres including National Lampoon and viral commercials.

The dialogue is terrible, the sets are low budget (the entire thing takes place in a hospital where multiple shootings take place yet everyone still just goes about their business like nothing is happening...oh and there is a drug lab in it too), the McGuffin that is the supposed focus of everyone's search is ridiculous, and the gunplay scenes are some of the worst ever shot. Bad guys with automatic weapons letting loose a hail of bullets from about 10 feet away from our hero, in a hallway, and nothing hits. Wow these guys are inaccurate.

I had to view it as satire just to make it through, but once I started to mock it and laugh it became more fun.

What are "those" movies? They seem to be the norm now, we've seen so many recently. Lots of shoot-em-up action with no real logic (the automatic weapons at point blank range totally missing their target) and then at the end.....no answers or real wrap-up. This movie leaves you somewhat hanging. The main characters just end up running down the street away from one SUV with DEA agents, even though there were 4 black SUV's that just pulled up plus a helicopter full of agents landing on the roof. Another lame movie, not worth the time invested. Who is making these movies these days? Next generation? If so.....we're in big trouble for entertainment value. And does Netflix only purchase poorly rate movies because they're cheaper? So disappointed.