Reviews

Before recent rogue foreign asset Orange Puppet, this was a movie casting the government leadership as heavy-handed regarding WMD cover-up and collusion/entrapment of intelligence community being fractured between National Security interests vs propaganda for padded government contracts (Blkwater, Halliburton etc) that could be manifested by embellishment and deception.

In moved Fancy Bear Programme where Tea Party formation used by Putin to slice and dice Americans by brainwashing Americans waving flags and holding England's obsolete scripture upside down so long they created a cartoon version of Rambolina Jazzuzabus.

Intelligently, this solid film lays off who is who in the political arena and is well scripted enough to paint real world effects of Freedom Of The Press ...and what the results of propaganda truly are (real people getting really hurt, especially for doing the right thing and placing country before personal greed).

Government leadership engaged in quid pro quo cover-up deals spiral out of control incrementally, and greed is the most potent drug of all for the doomed souls unfortunately becoming too numerous. To answer Gordon Gecko's errant philosophical speech. That this movie shares many qualities with.

Here the greed is only inferred, to better highlight that our hero sacrificed everything so compromised whistleblowers in the future can hope to not be punished for being honest and moral.

The protagonist FBI agent is well done. Straight forward doing his job, serving as he's been hired to protect National Security. Not a pretty chore but necessary. And important to the plot that he wasn't muddled or mired in typical ways how 'the heavy' is portrayed as an 'oaf cop' or compromised in some corrupt dynamic. Well done Matt.

Then again, hard to like the law enforcement process...lacking the 'due' on topics of National Security...but what if it can stop another 9/11 to limit some privacy? True dilemma.

I would say my takeaway is if we do better cracking down on white collar crime and corruption of lobbyists and K Street and corporate attorneys, then less classified data happens to be hidden to put intelligence community at such risks when exposed.

We also have to do better - all of us - saying "all people of this country or that country 'good' or 'bad'" ... because basically there's a rotten 10-20% of people in most demographic groups everywhere on Earth. And to get your foot in the door to change anything, those corrupt attorneys are who handles the documents to get you paid. Quite a tap dance. Greed is the easier path for those unrestrained by moral and ethical standards.

The handful of moral and ethical attorneys are getting scarce, so it was nice to see Alan Alda in a role that felt authentic and I suspect he didn't have to stretch himself too far... One of the real good guys around I suspect who obviously puts other cast members into a zone of authenticity of character throughout the movie. One of the greats.

This has no big special effects. A gripping script made clear with solid acting performances, direction and edits. Sure some minor criticisms could be made, but gotta give props for tackling this script and resisting turning it into Dirty Harry meets Kill Bill, which neither are as adult and realistic as this quality production.

The cost of these scandals being covered up are manifesting in oil pipelines wars globally. How wealthy is wealthy enough? Why when someone attains a certain amount of wealth and power do they need to lie and engage in sex crimes and fake NDA contracts marriages? Don't they understand we are all onto it and laughing that all that wealth ... and they still have to buy companionship?

This movie gets you thinking about why certain groups need us divided on religious, political and scientific ideologies and trying to tell us we pay taxes so government has to help corporations be successful? It's no longer 'our government' when corporations and corrupt attorneys in the control room. That happened in Germany after WW1 to become WW2. And Putin got a guy to literally push Mein Kampf in plain sight 4 years!

Socialists want government to be Of The People, By The People, For The People...Per Thomas Jefferson, the dude who crafted Our Bill of Rights...so who needed to believe Putin vs Thomas Jefferson?

According to CONsevatives, "Socialism is Fascist Commie stuff, now where's my Social Security and Stimulus Check?!!"

This movie peels back a layer.

A Free Press is the only thing blocking Corporate Fascism from happening again to humanity, but too many on the right thought it was ok to get paid to recite corporate scripts The Orange One pulled from Adolf's pages.

Our government has to care about truth, because it cannot protect us from a foreign asset if the government itself sets the bad example Limbaugh and too many others endangered our intelligence community by peddling KGB GRU Mossad Cambridge Analytica scripts Ol Rupy Murdoch pushed to save The Last Of The Roman Empire England's Royal Monarchy... Orange Menace owned largely abroad since his Atlantic City Casino bankruptcy, we need CIA agents leaking in such National Security Constitutional crisis scenarios, which was for an opposite false flag at the time of this movie being made.

Oath to country within intelligence community is literally life or death. It's actually disappointing that more US Embassy personnel are tapped to serve over political bias and kickbacks... versus loyalty to country.

Senator McCain knew. Scalia knew. Both corrupt, but both warned Orange Menace was a walking, talking lying sellout.

Free Press will be dumping an avalanche of evidence for decades.

Sadly.

This movie only takes a side of 'truth'; something Devin Nunes in the same sentence... leaving 'truth' needing a long shower.

Great movie.

Don't want to spoil the movie, as even the character development is intentionally mysterious for a plot-driven reason.

In the aftermath, you'll think back on how cleverly some of the pieces were put in.

There's a couple of parts it flopped in 'movie ways', like running a mile barefooted in snow will send you to your grave or hospital with certainty if you started out hours in that cold to begin with... would have liked the director to think of a patch, but for continuity of action, these are things that happen.

The ending bothered me at the time, but it was actually clever and yes, it doesn't hand the explanation to you...but that's why it's good. If you watch it without distraction, you'll be thinking about it for a while afterwards.

To me, that is a sign usually of a strong movie.

One of the things that adds to the realness of the story aside from the fantastic scenes is like real life, the well-acted characters all have flaws. Like life is. It was a little frustrating not to have any real heroes in the equation, but cleverly done tidbit is the characters with no redeeming qualities pay the price.

Underrated for whatever reason. Perhaps because some of the actors aren't right wingers, it drags out trolls to slam something they wish they'd made.

It was 2008, and sure nailed the corrupt underbelly of Russian corruption (a government who doesn't care for Russian civilians' civil rights definitely is well portrayed, proven.). Such a shame that Russia wastes their potential by accepting corrupt police state that we here in America should take note of rogue cops run amok under ruse of government oppression; we are a mess in that department, but nothing as horrific as a police state under dictatorship.

Don't watch this if you're going to have distractions, as you'll get more out of it paying attention to details of complexities of each character as they develop.

I will watch it again in a couple of years without interruption because I didn't take my own advice until the movie pulled me away from what I was doing, because it was that good...it deserved full focus like any strong movie does.

Really nice job by all crew and actors. The conditions not an easy task, could have been done without the frigid weather, but those conditions are a character itself in the movie...well done!

Very raw script in terms of language showing depths of violence and bigotry among all players even rogue native American Indian peoples... Granted European & South American invaders give Our Native American Indian Tribal peoples an argument for simply defending their territories. Shame they had no functional central government before Europeans especially from England's Royal Monarchy Imperialism influences missed the opportunity for a more harmonious merger in our history. All Nation's beginnings have raw greed and fear feeding disastrous moments.

This film captures that the mental health problems of just a few always resulting in big wars.

The script and actors pulling off such a high quality effort ON FILM is something that could NOT be done today.

It's a bit plodding and complex, but truly ruthless human behavior that definitely would be how things were for many in rural settings.

Criminals if all skin tones were the biggest problem...no laws to adhere to, mass slaughter of herds for furs because textile fabrics from cotton picking hadn't been established yet nationally. Yes, Union Soldiers probably helped emancipate slaves wearing slave labor uniforms. Appropriately so, given the result, more reasons emancipation was mandatory. Only possible by a noble Central Government.

This film puts some things in historically accurate context in cultural meanness; how true lowlifes mixed with settlers - both Euro & Indian - played out in cruel ways when good tribes/settlers met up with criminal rogues away from the help of any type of government defense.

It definitely wasn't exactly as free as anyone wants to pretend.

No CGI. Sure it's odd as heck, pairing the top kitten of the period Farah Fawcett with an inappropriately older Dimple Douglas entering grampy phase. Still, the efforts made for set construction, stunts, props was definitely where production energy went. There are cerebral warnings of unrestrained Artificial Intelligence already broached by 2001 Space Odyssey - an untouchable masterpiece of analog film - and it can certainly be categorized as a ham fisted rip off of that masterpiece. But it does take Odyssey a step further into the space colonization dangers.

It's unfortunate the main characters cast were chosen for box office more than delivering a more serious product not too far away from being a respectable script, but can also argue 1980 big hair put into space exploration was both hilarious and clueless. But here 42 years later, it's both historically interesting in terms of movie cultural history ... And good for chuckles.

Imagine having an A. I. 'Big Brother Gone Awry' serious concept, and someone's shampoo sponsor defeated the credibility?!!

Yes, Farah was top hair care products model everywhere you looked from newsprint, magazines and TV to sweaty teens in bikinis mimicking Farah, that hair care sales industry influence defeated this director, which is really funny...so 80's!!!

With better casting, less 'Eighties Television Era' director flubs, sharpen script and some technical errors of space environs correction, it is obvious that the technicians working on set were more serious than directors and writers.

You could tell Grandpa Kirk was pretty happy to get liplocked with Farah, and I bet there's some seedy stories how old man Kirk got this gig.

Yes, it's probably a '2.5' out of 10 in 1980. But how a seemingly serious Artificial Intelligence serious effort project goes to a 'callous and sullied' project while set and studio technicians seem to regardless, take their part of the bargain seriously; you know those technicians were trying because of those very top names in 1980...top billing actors who happened to also ruin the movie.

If you were an ATF professor, this would make for an interesting assignment to discuss: The merits of having affordable, passionate actors and more flexible budgets to put out best movie possible...VS. : Burn budget on big name actors with less resources to turn out top quality film.

Keep in mind another influence was truly low standards of top TV shows of this era, mostly similar in these oversights on disregard for technical importance: Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman, Buck Rogers...shows so terrible they made Gilligan's Island well developed.

Sprinkle the excessive use of 80's synthesizer sound tracks, and the era definitely was showing-through, showing that cheesy Studio 54 snorting after effects and telltale overly applied synthesizer sound (instead of trying to be serious that action scenes and cutaways don't need soap opera soundtracks...how complicated would it be to just stick with keeping the audio as realistic as possible, like what you'd hear if in the moment? Most 80's production TV & movies had this bad habit, like it was making up for bad script, direction or acting when in truth it actually elevated all of the miscues).

So I'm padding my score by about 4-5 points because of interest in analysis, but yeah, it's a dog in 1980.

This is a full dialog, smartly written and performed retro historical view of Orson Welles' importance in driving aspiring actors and the manipulations of 'casting couch' coercion not limited to just women in an power structure sense.

Linklater deserves high marks for the final product painting an important part of history in an adult dialog presentation.

Low scores probably same folks giving Rambo 9 stars.

This is one of those Indy projects the 'in' crowd convinces each other they are hip to like. No fault of cast nor photographer team, as they are excellent.

But the thick cockney accents and jerky script scene direction shifts make it almost a professional effort to hone the ear to make any sense of each scene.

There are also excessive time spent showing primarily the main character typing on her laptop, and even on my 50" tv, nothing she's typing is big enough on the screen to be legible plus the fleeting views cut away so fast, even if it was legible, probably not enough time to make sense of entire screen...why so many scenes wasted on that?!

Most of the music is dour, drab like some of the scenes, and just adds to an agony about this effort...you want it to get good, make its points, but between so much disjointed scene transition and the hideous cockney chortle, it's only a film a fully cockney speaking person could keep up with. Not a fair score to some perhaps, but from most Americans' ear, the dialogue is only perhaps 50% decipherable as it's spoken, and that dynamic consumes your mental attention. It takes on a 'chore' mindset to catch a complete sentence, that combined with the poor directorial edits and scenes that don't mesh, it's a subdued mess.

It's a good film for those in filmmaking industry to see what can still go wrong with strong acting and photography that it's not enough to resonate.

Awards for this film are bizarre, as are high scores. Anyone giving this over a 6 are kidding themselves...the 8 & 9 scores, really?! That's simply dishonest sorry but take the top Michael Caine movies that truly earn an 8 or 9, or Nicholson etc...this movie isn't as good as even the WORST Caine or Nicholson movie to be honest. Bias aside, take your pick of Meryl Streep Betty Davis Heddy Lamar etc catalog, and someone scoring this like it's some 'timeless classic' ... It's alarming.

And dishonest.

It's a decent 'every married guy' flick with some good laughs and a good vibe overall. Some formula, but has it's own originality.

Resists the ruination by adding an obligatory gun exploitation scene (the lone gun reference is unseen and properly portrayed as something to fully avoid at all cost).

Not kid friendly, but not sleazy. Well done by entire cast.

Script was not kind to little blue pill industry, so they sent their trolls.

And there you have it (on the low score).

Chris Rock is an interesting comedian. The material from previous 4 years (it's 2021 at this review entry) too volatile to go on tour yet, but when it begins, movies in this genre will be seen more often.

Once back to normal minus the MagaCircus.

Good fun movie that will make you think what you do... and don't want.

Unpolished but decent script and direction, obviously rushed to hit budget, but real effort made and it shows.

Don't take it seriously and it's not bad at all despite it being cliche and formulaic, it is a competent effort on comedy throughout.

There are elements that probably wouldn't pass politically correct editors today, but that just adds to the film's odd niche.

All the formula jerks and creeps well casted and delivered in proper campy flawed characters.

Quite a few decent laughs. You can tell Porky's was somewhere in the foundation, which is to say oddly this guy in drag movie is more of a guy movie. Which is funny to think about.

Better than I expected.

I get that it's kitschy and quaint with Asian actor cameos not intended to be taken seriously.

But holy cattle... It's terrible!!!

Inexplicable.

Wanted to like it.

One star for the beautiful Asian women but only one because it hits all negative stereotypes of Asian women.

Can only imagine being a technician editing the film seeing the crap and this being what remains.

Cartoon gun panti stunts in repetition with at least 50 ridiculous gun wanker 'fantasy kills'.

If there's a script, it must have burnt in the early explosions.

Not a flick you'd take a chick.

Gunshaft stroking boyfriends is all that's happening in this one... deranged boy movie nothing more.

Lots of quality cast members... I just can't fathom what any were thinking.

If this is what Rodriguez did with El Mariachi breakout movie, it's just a shame the guy craps out junk when his platform means he can do important stuff, not Quentin Tarantino knockoff crud. Oh, Tarantino made similar missteps and also grossly overrated.

Needing obligatory and gratuitous gun violence to feel 'manly' instead of actually working on character development and great dialog, everything is one showdown, one shootout away from the next ridiculous body disposal moment.

It's embarrassingly terrible.

Nothing resembling reality but yet no good fantasy, no clever point to anything, just images of teenage boy hooked on first shooter video games view on life from his basement.

I'm truly sorry I tolerated it.

There may be a handful of legitimate situations, but it's obvious the cameras rolling, folks happy to generate some content for daily extra wages.

Their Wikipedia page is stark but they selected the word 'factual' to avoid that 'reality' tv category most of the content sure appears to be.

Kind of pathetic really.

Yet I mindlessly watch it to see who's in the script days before cameras rolling. There's probably one actual 'event' per episode, scripted padded bit actors with bad performances everything else.

Just another excessive compulsive shootout orgy but sort of interesting kitsch 'TV production trying a little harder' aura to it. Hilarious post-opening gungasm shootout, the lead character played by Walker admires a poorly painted vintage Schwinn bicycle with plastic seat, chrome handles with plastic grips...it was symbolic of inconsistencies throughout the movie, and this bicycle scene is asking the viewer to "ignore our freelancing on accuracy, we're just throwing props and ideas into the production on the fly, we got some good buds and we're needing anything we can find to put some life into this terrible script only matched by the terrible acting, terrible direction and hasty decisions." The really sorry message of it all is romancing the gun, as if your life without a gun is not manageable.

But it does have some interesting quirks and different than a typical Western. A Western with Vincent Price is going to definitely be quirky. Low expectations namely.

The potential was there, ruined by weak dialog formulas, poor character development using 80's cheesy hero meets heroine hard to get rot as something that adds cultural depth, really? Then it turns into a lacrosse movie with script and scenes clearly someone lacking sports background of any kind, felt like one of those terrible after school specials of 1980's.

If you can survive the terrible direction, script & dialog, some good touchstones of Native American Indian Tribal Peoples are within, but felt belittled by unfocused script, unforced errors, and poor acting/direction by the 2 primary love interest characters especially (never saw either before nor since, so must not have been just me).

Of all people politically of Our Founding Fathers and early days referenced, choosing Ben Franklin to make 'the Bogey Man' of whites shows intent with the producers and/or director... Ben Franklin wanted to coexist with Native American Indian Tribal Peoples, not be at war at all... in part, his desire to make the turkey a focal point in colonial communities was to domestically cultivate turkey like chickens to take focus off killing bison, which involved violating Native American Indian Tribal Land Boundaries...Turkey cultivation would alleviate the pressure on white men hunting illegally on tribal lands, helping to keep the peace.

So omitting such fools as Custer and Andrew Jackson as easy and actual Bogey Men may seem 'edgy' to pick on Ben Franklin, but it revealed the hand of influence on script and final product had a propaganda agenda more than making a quality movie as their priority.

Sadly the fact throughout, painting Native American Indian Tribal Peoples as emotionally and intellectually stunted, prone to war and poorly educated subliminally in half the scenes (80's movies especially did that narrating white suburban teens and young adults, hyping cultural identity clashes, but a 2012 movie should know better than to paint a tribal communities as a monolith of immature malcontents and poorly informed as a whole, needing a half white metrosexual oiled male model to save their village?

I'm white, and that's a subliminal formula that whites are the saviors... Gandhi, Tutu, Mandela, Confucius, Douglas, MLK...long list of non-white amazing noble & benevolent humans that stood up to England's Royal Family, The Last of the Roman Empire...who Our Founding Fathers only defeated BECAUSE OF Ben Franklin.

It was England's failed policies regarding Native American Indian Tribal peoples in the first place that caused the problems, seeing the indigenous peoples as "non-human" without Magna Carta rights, so no, if Ben Franklin remained loyal to Royal Family, we were going to be a UK colony to this day (do your research; I'm not joking...WW Brand, The First American, explains quite well), in which case, our current caste system of implied race privilege would be fully anchored by CAUCASIAN Royal Family mandates, placing tribal communities as 'primates' per their terms, meaning NO LAND RIGHTS AT ALL, NO TREATIES.

So this Ben Franklin slip is reflective of that Rupert Murdoch Mossad subliminal messaging to keep America stumbling.

And it shows throughout, plodding through scenes of fabricated controversies that belittle the real controversies.

The reviews going more than 7 (if you're Native American Indian AND love lacrosse, your personal connection might cause momentary lapse of reason to be generous, but even with such deep connection, no way a sane human goes 8+ on this trainwreck, and a 10?! There are a few '10' movies, perhaps 200 tops '10' ranked flicks ever made. They are the litmus.

This movie is well below half of a '10' score, and I'm being generous for mostly just recognition of Native American Indian Tribal Peoples.

I'm just not so sure bad movies about important topics help, so 4 feels generous to be honest.

It's like if you run a real business in the real world, then go home watching American Apprentice TV show... Dump's Tv show had very little resemblance to reality how business works.. being further evidence they knew nothing about the subject matter (the premise of looking for 'who to fire!' until you're down to just one means your company is by design happy about high turnover so a megalomaniac narcissist can fire employees would result in a company resembling the magaclown show we just witnessed still hanging around like a bad wart that won't go away.).

Just too many mistakes by choice on script and dialogue to go higher for me.

Decent script, relevant ideological warning of well armed lunatics posing as 'End of Times' self-dubbed 'Chosen Ones'... Not a terrible cast.

Clearly terrible acting to weave gun panti relevance in implausible situations and ridiculous shootouts not necessary to the story at all.

Another Brink In The Wall to normalize gun violence, it is fully gratuitous to the script, added by mentally lazy imbeciles.

But probably good to watch to get our priorities straight given the chance to turn the page in 2021.

Good enough script to try it professionally again someday to improve on this campy flick perhaps, but the actors and poor direction (low budget?), feels like they were taking any scene everyone nailed their lines, no matter how terribly spoken...it was going in the can..."next scene...roll em, and action!"... plodding forward on a deadline instead of going for any meaningful performance.

Fair to say direction & production style meant nobody looked like they spent much time on knowing lines and scene choreography.

That said, I've seen plenty worse flicks of this genre, if it's any consolation.

The list of actors and actresses names for a time traveling themed movie is the producers admitting they aren't taking themselves too seriously in my opinion, admitting low budget but having a sense of humor recruiting stage names that are in and of themselves campy and fitting.

It's interesting the ending... Definitely intended to have more to say.

Obfuscate, say anything to pretend Edward Snowden and Dullphart Breitbart GRU Fancy Bear Programme is helping America by dividing Americans while pumping guns into every household...on behalf of nations like Russia, Israel and England, where they have extremely strict gun control (Israel's problem is only Israeli civilians can have guns, not Palestinians, but for some creepy reason, NRA loves AIPAC and vice versa)... You clearly see this Perloff fruit is expending much effort to avoid mentioning the johns' names from Epstein's 2007 case discovery, which had come under investigation around 2005, but by 2007, with Trump the then Democrat helping Hillary Clinton against then Senator Obama, Trump & Hillary had dire desperation to cover-up the case discovery in Epstein's 2007 trial.

About to become public information in 2021.

This is just more rot to tippy toes around it for Murdoch, Robert Maxwell's successor.

Marking lower than it might deserve, but once again, just so many lame gun & explosion rot in the script, and Hugh Jackman as some 110wpm hacker with abs is seriously getting into TrumpTardia way too deep to admit I watched it fully end to end.. and wasn't bored.

Halle in her bikini probably was one of the most perfect women in history at this time... that scene alone helped add a star.

Travolta plays a creepy guy, and I'm starting to wonder if it's not a real stretch.

All in all, if I have this cast and this budget, I'm real positive I myself have 3 memorable scripts that could result in something more refined and of human worth.

But if that's what they had to do just to get Halle in a bikini and they admit it, I will forgive them... slightly.

Really tired of glorification of guns and explosions to carry a movie... the heist of digital bank accounts requiring hostages with explosives strapped to them is just pathetic... Did the software give into the demands? I mean, you got this Jackman hacker guy with abs and Halle in a bikini, and you still needed gun panti, explosions and carnage?

Weak.

There is so much wrong going on here it's yet another time you know with this cast and budget, there's 10,000+ scripts better suited to waste time on...so it wouldn't be wasting time.

Like this movie. Truly complete waste of time.

A hodgepodge of other movies/scripts/special effects/formula scenes, with the added negative that the disconnected boring scenes setting up the plot are made even more difficult by bad soundtrack, shifting back and forth English to Spanish, subtitles to English... I'm betting half the reviewers here could take this budget, same cast, and make a decent flick easily better than this lump.

Baffling. Hopefully everyone was well paid who allowed their name to be strapped on this trumptanic.

Helps if you love basketball, but not a prerequisite. America was actually very much this. Oh, some minor sanitization here, but some of us are old enough to understand the weapons proliferation and bigotry has gone the wrong direction since this fine show. Everyone who worked on this show should feel smugly proud. Also occasionally fun to see the cars of the era. Lots of episodes show the cars of the era and while it makes me feel old seeing scenes of my high school days, also a nostalgic comfort remembering here in Texas, Trump had an accurate reputation as a creepy frat city punk with a reputation for whining. Same lowlife rejected then, became a foreign asset, and propaganda changed America to go down to his level. White Shadow is a comfort knowing it isn't me who went against this show's once accurate version of America. Hope we get some version of this again. Minus the short gym shorts...those were seriously terrible LOL!

Obviously not much any actor could do with a dog script like this. It only gets stars at all for having some decent photography and special effects, but the gun twinky boi stunts are clearly geared towards the kid in the basement hooked on video games imagining killers with guns get chicks even though everyone knows at best only the young feller is aroused by such nonsense. Sad for anyone who had to try to lie about this one. Please learn a lesson and stop making 'mommies basement boys' movies like this...2 hours of turds with wings falling into your soup would defeat rot like this.

Shane is a good host, even though the Joshua Macias Hummer is kinda weird, and sometimes he ventures into MAGAtwink land, he also does give press to diversity and intellectualism. Always hoping that Shane isn't a Ted Cruz weirdie because he's pretty good host and has a wide angle lens of what he finds interesting. Covid hurting some dynamics of his foodie travels, but it's a good idea of what we want to get back to in some form or fashion. Just wish we could have evolved without past 4 years of Dirtbag Donni. But Texas Bucket List is a nice little show.