Malarkey

Owen Wilson as a serial killer? Excuse me? It must be said that he’s at least somewhat convincing. But unfortunately, in a completely forgettable, slow and unimaginative movie that is about as exciting as watching paint dry.

It’s amazing as an insight into a community and has an amazing informative value. But as far as the movie goes, you have to decide for yourselves whether you’re willing to spend 80 minutes of your life peeking into a culture you otherwise wouldn’t get to witness, because that’s basically all this is.

I had initially thought that the gorgeous Penélope Cruz and the Italian film making craft would come up with a better movie. But it’s a completely botched romantic drama that profits off scenes filmed in beautiful Sarajevo. The story is divided into two parts, the past and the present. I liked the past better, it was more interesting, but I feel like it’s only made the movie inconguous.

The fact that Tom Tykwer is one of the most interesting (not only German) directors of this era is proven over and over in every scene of this movie. The long shots look better the higher they’ve been filmed from. The issue is that though Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi have good roles, it won’t save a movie that’s boring apart from the visuals and that drags on forever. And don’t even get me started on the ending. It complements the entire movie – in that it is empty and falls completely flat.

Interesting in its premise, bashful in conveying it. A thriller about the handicapped Gina who is blind but an operation keeps her hopeful, at least as one eye goes. I personally admire every movie with a handicapped lead. It’s just a shame that the rest looks like it’s patched up from romance novels and Fifty Shades of Grey. Unnecessary amount of sex scenes, not enough suspension, far too many relationship twists and turns and a claustrophobic feeling attempting to completely ruin the movie for you. A shame, because visually, it had some nice moments.

After a long time, they made a bad, even substandard episode. The production was completely amateur. At first, the title enticed me. I had hoped that the episode could be fun since it’s about a professional critic, who are rarely any decent, but the murder was inferior. It seems like everybody wanted the critic dead and that everybody had something to do with. The plotline was far too Agatha Christie. Then when you come to the unravelling, you realize it’s exactly like Agatha Christie’s. It’s a shame that the only fun thing about it comes with a side character connected to the murder. She’s a cook (and a porn star, too) and Ben eats absolutely everything she cooks. His appetite is probably the only funny thing. This is the last episode with Sabrina before she got replaced with a different investigator by the ORF TV station. She wanted fame equal to Benno and his character’s mom and so she was removed.

After watching this Mission: Impossible movie, I had to go back and read my reviews of the previous instalments. I found out that it basically was what it always has been; an incredibly high-quality action thrill ride with Tom Cruise. I think he’s currently the only actor who works this hard for action movies. There’s barely any CGI in the movie. Not only do most of the scenes feel real, they also are. It’s apparent that Tom gave it all he’s got and when you watch him jump off a plane nearly 4 miles above the ground, you can see all of the hundred plus jumps he had to do for this scene to work. He’s a champ. Nobody in Hollywood even compares to him nowadays. Everybody’s hiding behind a green screen and the only extra thing they might do is go to a gym after shooting so that they can show off their muscles. As far as the actual movie goes, I got what I wanted – the best action scenes of this year, Tom in a million different ways and his gang that radiates charisma. And unfortunately maybe a little bit of confusion because of the script, but that’s always the case with Mission Impossible movies. Anyhow, it gets very decent four stars from me and I’m convinced that the name Mission Impossible means more in 2018 than people could have hoped for some 20 years ago.

I have to give it to Guy Ritchie – his movies have style. Whatever he films ends up fantastic. But I can’t shake the feeling that some of the scenes tend to go over the top. The beginning was amazing. The very first scene was gripping, it tells Arthur’s story since early childhood until the age where the rest of the story begins. It’s original, quick, entertaining… for about an hour. Then the ideas thin out and the whole thing gets repetitive. That’s when it loses its magic and becomes a classic Guy Ritchie movie. I can’t say he’s not being inventive, but my initial excitement has quickly grown cold. And even though I admire the effort to shoot a King Arthur fantasy from a different angle, I still couldn’t piece the story together and all I could do was to watch some CGI hocus pocus.

The Canadians have never been too good with art. The music isn’t any good, except for a few exceptions. The movies aren’t any good, except for a few exceptions. And this movie certainly isn’t that exception. It was a drama that copied whatever it could and did it poorly.

It’s about the premise, the filmmaking craft, the absolutely claustrophobic atmosphere of a call center. Sure, there’s a whole lot of illogical situations, but I don’t really care. I sat there at the edge of my seat for 85 minutes, completely glued to the screen with suspense. The Guilty has amazed me with great dialogues, a flawed main character and moments that really made me feel something. Another minimalistic but memorable, high-quality piece.