User Reviews

There were sad bits and there were funny bits too, but this is not a straight comedy. As someone who works in the aged care sector I was interested in what was being done by the staff in the home. The use of chemical restraints such as what the manager did to Bronson is something that the Royal Commission into Aged Care has highlighted as a serious issue. In the movie this form of restraint was used not for the benefit of the resident but for purposes of convenience for the home and in this movie, for vengeance. I found that disturbing, as well as the scene where they lit a fire to trigger an alarm so they could escape. After the Quakers Hill nursing home fire that really killed 14 people I would have thought that the makers of the movie would have thought that irresponsible and insensitive, but no, they filmed it anyway. I was also bemused by the use of what looked like pub bouncers as security staff. None of the homes run by the organisation I work for have any security staff at all so that seems to me to be way too strong and more a movie trope than reality, at least in government funded aged care. Apart from these scenes it was mostly quite good. Jackie Weaver did well with acting as someone in the early stages of dementia. There's been a couple of good movies released in recent years about elderly women with dementia, such as Elizabeth is Missing, and Still Alice.

The plot of this mess veers from lame comedy to idiotic drama trying for pathos. The basic plot is that a bunch of veterans from the Vietnam era are locked up in an Australian institution where they are medicated against their will, locked into their rooms, and roughed up by staff. The head of the institution is the daughter of a guard who was blamed for their escape from a war prison camp 50 years earlier. Oh please!

So the plot has the vindictive doctor mishandling senior citizens who only want to live out their days without being prisoners. Why they are prisoners is anyone's guess. The old "it's for your own good" is thrown in but it makes no sense. Apparently Australia has no laws that prevent the torture of patients in veterans' hospitals.

Into this mess comes the 50-year-old "love Story" between the American (James Cromwell) and the Australian woman (Jacki Weaver) who were parted all those decades ago. Now she has dementia, but he's determined to complete his romance by marrying her. But she's in a different institution, hence the several attempts to break out.

On the few occasions when the guys actually get out, they are chased and caught by the doctor and her goons. Apparently they have nothing else to do and don't bother calling the cops. Even when the cops are called to help round them up, this never gets any press attention. Their whole story takes place in a vacuum.

Each of the vets has a mission. Cromwell wants to marry Weaver. The wheel-chair bound vet (Roy Billing) wants a reunion with his estranged son. The dementia vet (Jack Thompson) wants to be remembered for his glory days as a soccer star. The dying vet (Dennis Waterman) wants to literally sail off into the sunset. Blah, blah, blah.

The actors try hard but this is a mess thanks to the writers and the director. The screaming and trite music blasts from the 60s and 70s doesn't help any.

The cast here is talented. There is some cute humor though some of the laughs come cheap from stereo type characters being given lines which make things seem stretched. While I liked the film, it was a trite too predictable.

For example, when a gun shows up, it is so easy to predict that it would soon be fired by accident and that happened in less than a minute after the gun appears, I do like the Aussie flavor this one gets from the filming locations.

The chemistry between the cast members is the strongest part of this film. The plot is sort of a sentimental reunion between 4 guys who have not seen each other in years since being prisoners of the Viet Cong. This reunion is bitter sweet. Sweet is the reunion of a man and woman who missed each other many years before when he left to serve his country.

It's focus on happy endings is trite and predictable. Still, if you want a sort of happy ending, it is here for you. Sadly the journey there needs some script tuning. A better script might have arrived from the men's room, but did not arrive on time.

James Bond is finally dead, long live James Bond. Who's idea was it to make the intro in a foreign language?

That has NEVER happened in the previous movies.

What happens to the viewers who will never get to see the movie in a cinema? When the subtitles will not work?

The longest Bond movie ever created, will become a dionsaur, all because some fool changed the opening sequence, using a language other than English.