Line of Duty (2019)

Sometimes browsing Netflix isnt the smartest thing to do because whilst trying to find something to watch, I stumbled across ‘In the Line of Duty’ and after reading the synopsis on IMDB, I thought I would give it a go. In the Line of Duty is the UK because there is already a BBC show called Line of Duty so here we have the longer title.

Aaron Eckhart plays a cop called Frank who at the beginning of the film is involved in a chase as this person knows the whereabouts of another cops daughter who has been taken. The cop disobeyed an order to stop the pursuit so is basically fired but he decides to try and locate the missing girl. Meanwhile, there are two called Ava and Clover who from the moment they appear on screen are completely annoying and they come across as rather self-righteous. As time progresses, Ava becomes a bit more likeable because the attitude has gone a bit but Clover is all high and mighty until things get a bit out of hand and Ava wants to carry on helping.

To say that this film is stupid is an understatement. The main issue is that it tries to be so straight faced that you cant take anything series. Everything that happens in this film is met with either eye rolling or a heavy sigh. Ava then becomes Frank’s partner and within minutes the live feed of her Instagram video or whatever it is is being broadcast live on local news. As the film progresses we learn that Frank and Volk (the missing daughter’s father) had a dodgy past which at least explains why the criminals are doing what they are doing but at this point I just didn’t care.

There is a scene where Frank realises the girl is buried at the cemetery and convinces the helicopter to take him there and as he and Ava are trying to dig her out, other people rush to help and I laughed a lot. I had fairly low expectations and they were just about met. The plot is stupid, the performances range from woeful to adequate and it’s a film that is stupid but not in a fun way. Some people may find enjoyment out of this but I didn’t and thought that it was one of the weakest films I have seen this year.

The Gentlemen (2019)

Guy Ritchie is a strange director. He can do films like the Sherlock Holmes films and The Man from U.N.C.L.E which whilst not well received I thought was quite good. Then he does films like Rocknrolla and Castaway. Guy Ritchie started his career with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and it feels like he’s returning to his roots with this film. The set up is that Matthew McConaughey plays Michael Pearson who is selling his Weed empire for £400 million but before the titles start rolling, it’s suggested that he is killed and the story is then told in flashback with Fletcher (Hugh Grant) telling a story to Charlie Hunnam.

Hugh Grant is almost unrecognisable in this film. I don’t think I have seen Grant play this sort of roll and it seems like he decided that he was just going to turn the silliness up to 11. He was my favourite part of this film. Matthew McConaughey is the big headline name but I never really got the feeling that he had the most important character because he’s not in it anywhere as much as Charlie Hunnam’s. I thought it was quite a good idea to have an American in this very British setting. He is always dependable and does seem to be having fun in this film. Michelle Dockery plays Rosalind and Kate Beckinsale was due to play the role but I think that Dockery was quite good. The character is a bit clichéd really and has a few good moments but was never treated very well in the film. Colin Farrell is in this film as Coach and his first scene did remind me a bit of the fight scene in Kingsman when Colin Firth is beating the chavs. He was quite good but could have done with being in the film more.

Charlie Hunnam is perhaps the weak link of the group of significant characters. I first saw in ‘Sons of Anarchy’ and since then he seems to have attached himself to projects which don’t do that well such as King Arthur. Oddly enough I found his accent distracting because even though he’s British, he didn’t sound it. He did seem to become the lead but I just thought he didn’t have much to him and think that he’s one of those actors hired purely because of his looks and he was once in a hit U.S drama.

There are some moments which are quite brutal/grim. One moment includes someone plummeting to the ground but only being hidden by a car. The biggest example includes a moment where an newspaper journalist has had sex with a pig which suggests that Guy Ritchie saw the episode of Black Mirror where the Prime Minister has to have sex with a pig online. When I saw the pig I genuinely thought I would have to turn this film off because pig sex is where I draw the line but not only did we not see it (mercifully) but we don’t really hear anything.

There is a fun moment at the end when Fletcher is pitching his idea for a film at Miramax and right behind him is a poster for ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E’ which did make me smile. The Gentlemen is a flashy film but it didn’t work for me. These guns and geezer type films arent my cup of tea and whilst I cant compare it to his other guns and geezer films, compared to Sherlock this film this looked good but didn’t have the characters or a meaningful plot. Not one of Guy Ritchie’s best but nowhere near his worst.

Lost Bullet (2020)

Lost Bullet (or Balle Perdue to give it its original French title) sees a criminal turned mechanic called Lino (played by Alban Lenoir) who is framed for the murder of his cop mentor Charas (played by Ramzy Bedia) by dirty cops. It’s a straight forward plot which is sort of needed when it’s a foreign language film because trying to focus on what’s going on and read all the subtitles can be quite a juggling act. The thing about Lino is that he doesn’t look like the sort of person who could fight off several cops in a police station but he does and does it convincingly. If there were a fight between Lenoir and Vin Diesel then on the face of it Vin Diesel would win but after watching this film, I think it might be a close contest.

As the lead, Alban Lenoir does his best. I don’t think he’s a brilliant actor but he does what is needed in the film. Julia is the main person who is on Lino’s side and the smart thing the film does is that it takes a while for her to fully trust what Lino is saying. I do think that one of the issues with the film is that she doesn’t really interact that much with Lino and I thought that she was slightly underwritten.

Lino has modified Charas’ car and the bit where he rams the police car, rips the rear off and uses to ram a police blockade is one of the best moments in the film. He then drives his car which at this point is partly on fire and manages to drive it back to the garage just in time. For some reason I quite liked this but had this happened in a Vin Diesel film (Bloodshot for example) then I would have found it silly but for some reason it just works in this film. I think they knew that the there wasn’t much of a plot so they knew that they had to through very silly set pieces and they are stupid but I think that this film does stupid in an entertaining way and I never got bored at any point during this film.
I watched the trailer for this along with Wasp Network and thought that this would be fun whereas Wasp Network would have the better plot. This film won on both counts. I thought that the plot whilst not original was done superbly and the pace was spot on and the running time was just right. It’s not going to win many awards but I thought for a Netflix film it was one of their strongest films in quite a while.

Bloodshot (2020)

Bloodshot is Vin Diesel’s attempt to appear in a successful franchise that doesn’t feature Dwayne Johnson. The film is based on a series of comics which I haven’t read and sees Vin Diesel play a soldier that is killed and through some convoluted plot narrative finds that he has become a sort of un-killable fighter. Directed by Dave Wilson who is mainly known for visual effects on video games and the screenplay was co-written by Jeff Wadlow who directed the boring Truth or Dare and the awful Fantasy Island. So I must confess that I didn’t have the highest of expectations when I started watching this film.

The film is stupid from the very beginning but the first big sign of this is when the film decides he can fly a private jet. Stupid films can be fun. Extraction is a stupid film but it has fun doing it and that can save a film but to be honest this film isn’t fun. Even with Vin Diesel shooting things and beating people up, it just doesn’t have the same effect as when Chris Hemsworth was doing it in Extraction. Hemsworth has charisma and a personality that Vin Diesel quite frankly doesn’t have. Another problem the film has is that it goes to the trouble of making Bloodshot seem indestructible like a rubbish Captain Scarlett then it does make it seem less likely that he can be defeated.
The film progresses into a Groundhog Day parody with Emil Harting (Guy Pearce) going through a script and the same scenario. The problem with the film as it goes into the second half is that the film starts to get a bit dull. None of the action scenes have any weight to them. What does look good however are the special effects and considering that Wilson has a visual background it shouldn’t be a surprise that the computer graphics are the best aspect of the film.

After the scene where Bloodshot meets his wife at around the 70 minute mark, the setting is supposed to be in the UK but its clearly not and they have done such a bad job that I cant believe that they didn’t try and fix it in the script and move the action to Spain or wherever they filmed it because was definitely not in the UK. Living in the UK the most obvious sign that this isnt the UK is that the licence plates on UK cars are yellow on the reverse and white on the front not white on the back like in this film.

Eiza Gonzalez is the eye candy for the film and is never really given anything substantial to do apart from being the new love interest for Bloodshot. She’s the one female character in the film (after Gina is killed) and yet she is wasted. Guy Pearce’s first scene is delivering a ton of exposition and then become a rather clichéd villain. Manipulating Bloodshot is about all that he does which is a shame because Pearce is one of those actors that can usually be relied upon to deliver a good performance but is limited in this role.

Bloodshot is a mess of a film with a weak plot but let down mainly by a lead that was clearly drawn to the project with the possibility that it could be a new franchise for him but sadly it won’t be and I cant see any more films in the series. Back to Fast and the Furious for Vin Diesel.

Wasp Network (2020)

Couple of things worried me when I started watching this movie. Firstly it was produced by Orange Studios and that’s the world we live in now when a phone company are making films (I know Apple are making films as well). Another thing was when it says at the beginning ‘Based on a True Story’ which means the people are real and the main bullet points are real but everything else is made up for dramatic purposes. There is a plot but to be honest I found it rather confusing and so cant be bothered to type it.

Edgar Ramirez is the lead in this film which was another reason why I was slightly worried because the last thing I saw him in was another Netflix film ‘The Last Days of American Crime’ and so got worried but then thought he couldn’t be any worse. In this film he plays Rene Gonzalez who is the first pilot to defect from Cuba. To be fair he’s much better than that film but I just find him to be a bit tough to like. It’s like he trying to be the next Gerard Butler but doesn’t quite have the charm and so its hard to really like his character. Penelope Cruz is Olga who is the wife of Rene and is sort of side-lined for the first half of the movie but becomes more central when Olga and her daughter travel to America. I think she’s wasted in this film because when she does get something to do in the second half of the film, it just shows how wasted she was.

Wagner Moura appears in this film as Juan Pabloe Roque and I instantly recognised him from his brilliant performance as Pablo Escobar in the Netflix show Narcos and I genuinely don’t know how he’s not a bigger star because he was great in that show and I liked him in this. He’s got that smile that make him seem like hes listening to you and figuring out ways to kill you. Ana de Armas is another familiar face in this film having seen her in Knives Out. Here she is the partner of Roque and starts off well but sadly doesn’t last until the end of the film when she gets replaced by Penelope Cruz in narrative terms.

The problems with this film are in its execution. It suffers from the problem that a lot of films recently have had and that’s a longer than necessary running time. It’s an hour before the name Wasp Network is even mentioned and it’s another ten minutes before the real plot kicks in by which point I’ve sort of lost interest. Despite some good performances, the film has a rather convoluted narrative. It’s a shame that this wasn’t turned into a series because I think with a bit of time, you could spread the story out and allow things to breathe and make sense. The inconsistent run of Netflix films continue. Whoever makes the decision what films to finance needs to start thinking because the films have either been very enjoyable (Da 5 Bloods & Extraction) or very poor (The Last Days of American Crime & Open House). Quality control is needed.

The Last Days of American Crime (2020)

The Last Days of American Crime is a film that had a certain amount of notoriety before I even started watching it as it has a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes from 21 reviews and it has a 3.7 on IMDB which is one of the lowest ratings I have seen for a new film since Cats which even now some sixth months after its release is still only on 2.7. This film is directed by Olivier Megaton who directed Taken 2 and 3 which were both fairly terrible although the second one is more watchable than the third. The setup of the film is simple. It sees a time in the future when to try and curb crime a signal is broadcast which makes it impossible for people to commit crimes.

It took me 20 minutes to decide that this film was terrible. At this point NOTHING had happened and I didn’t know what was going on and then Michael Pitt turns up who I last saw in Boardwalk Empire and was one of the few people I knew. The other was Sharlto Copley who I didn’t recognise at first but was easily the best thing in this film and that’s not really saying very much. There were times when a barstool could have been the best actor in this film. Ultimately the acting is terrible because no one is given any good dialogue and this is based on a graphic novel which I haven’t read so I don’t know how faithful this film is to the original source but I cant believe that the graphic novel is this bad. Megaton’s previous films shows that whilst they aren’t great, he can at least his films have chaotic action set pieces that are fun to watch. Here, nothing is grabbing my attention and when things do go bang, I don’t care and if there is no emotional connection then the film isnt worth your time.

Does this film deserve the 3.7 that it currently has? Yes. This is without doubt one of the worst films I have seen on Netflix for quite sometime and one of the worst films of 2020. It made Fantasy Island look entertaining. As I am writing this now, I still don’t know why the film was nearly 2 and a half hours long because this is a 90 minute movie at best. It is by far the worst film that I have reviewed in the 16 months that I have run this blog.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

Sonic the Hedgehog is one of those films that had a certain amount of notoriety before it was even released. When the trailer was released the biggest issue was that Sonic looked terrible and the fall out was on the same scale that Cats received however unlike Cats, this film went back to the drawing board (or computer screen) and improve his look.

I played Sonic on the Sega Mega Drive as it was called in the UK and I’m amazed that it took until now for a film to be made. I can’t really review this film like I would other films because its aimed more at kids than for 37 year olds like me. The setup of the film is that Sonic arrived on Earth and is trying to stay hidden but when he gets discovered by Tom he has to contend with avoiding Dr Robotnik and finding the gold coins that get transported to San Francisco where Tom is about to move to. That’s all you really need in a Sonic film as the success of this film comes from the tone of the film. It never felt like they were going to just please the kids and pander to the sort of things they like. Ok its clichéd and there are a couple of poop gags, its felt like it was a film designed to be enjoyed as a family.

Remember when Jim Carrey used to be good in films? I would argue that he’s only been good once in the last twenty years when he appeared in Dumb and Dumber To. There was a period of time when it seemed like Carrey didn’t really care about the roles he was in. Within a few moments that he appears on screen it seemed like he was trying to capture the magic of his heyday and that was nice to see. Yes he was a bit OTT at times but it was just nice to see him funny. Robotnik might not physically resemble the video game version but I think he looks good and suits the style of the film. It’s not until the very end that he starts to look like the original Robotnik with the bald head and the exaggerated moustache. Aside from Carrey, the human characters were all good. I thought that James Marsden was good as Tom and Adam Pally was quite funny as Wade.

I don’t normally mention product placement in my reviews because normally its not that noticeable that it bothered me yet it did here. There are a couple of companies that get mentioned but Olive Garden was the worst offender. We don’t have Olive Garden in the UK so even if we were to give in to the product placement like they want us to, I’d have to get on a plane and visit the US. I don’t think it’s bothered me this much since the Dunkin Donuts Power Rangers movie.

I honestly didn’t think that I would like this film. I think that if you put the plot or certain things under too much scrutiny then the film falls apart. Admittedly my expectations were low but I thought that the film worked because it had a good story, the jokes were funny and the performances worked. This is a rarity in films as it’s a computer game that’s good. We have come a long way since Super Mario Bros. and Resident Evil.

Da 5 Bloods (2020)

There are certain directors that you know what you are going to get and you are never going to get a middle of the road film from Spike Lee. I only really know based on what I’ve read about his films and heard on YouTube videos but the only film of his I have seen is Inside Man which I enjoyed. This is a very different film but still impressive. The setup of the film is we follow four African-American war veterans as they return to Vietnam where they are after the remains of their fallen Squad Leader and also locate the gold that he helped hide.

There is a nice thing that Lee does which is that the film is widescreen and then changes to show when the story is in a different time period. I thought tit worked quite well and didn’t detract me from the film despite it being quite noticeable. I also like the fact that they didn’t do the de-aging thing which is common in films nowadays.

I was worried about the running time because its not a short film and its only slightly longer than another Netflix film ‘The Last Days of American Crime’ but thankfully this film actually has a plot and manages to keep things moving along and it doesn’t feel like two and a half hours long. The film sets things up and it gets to a point where things are going too well. They have the gold and found their friend and there is just that nagging feeling that something is going to go wrong and it does when Eddie is blown up by a landmine.

I thought that the performances were quite good. Out of the group, the two that were the most interesting were Paul (played by Delroy Lindo) and Otis (played by Clarke Peters). I thought that Paul was very intense and never that far away from going off on one. There is a great scene where it looks like he is just rambling to himself and looking forward and then it becomes clear that he is talking to us and the speech gets more dramatic and impressive. I thought that Otis was the more level headed of the group and the one that seemed to be the leader of the group. It was inevitable that there would be a reversal at some point and it did happen but I thought they worked well together. Jean Reno pops up in this as Desroche. Presumably Spike Lee needed a well-known Frenchman and Reno was the first person he thought of. I haven’t seen Reno is a film in about 20 years so it was a shock to see him at first, once I realised it was him. He does seem to be playing a rather clichéd baddie which was a shame really because the whole story was working so well and would have been better without the character.

Another issue I have with the film apart from the character of Desroche is that there were little things that just didn’t work. Firstly I thought the whole thing with Otis finding out that he has a daughter from a one night stand when he was there before seemed like an unnecessary plot addition and didn’t really add anything to Otis. Then there was the revelation from Eddie before he got blown up that he is pretty much bankrupt only for him to be blown up a few minutes later didn’t really have any purpose. I also thought that it was about 15-20 minutes too long. It started to outstay its welcome towards the end but only just.

I enjoyed this film and thought that it dealt with the subject matter well and one of the best Netflix films I have seen this year.