Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. As usual, I didn’t know anything about this movie before watching it but I think it made the whole thing slightly more enjoyable this way. Anyway, it turned out to be an endless shoot-out, seriously, it took about 2/3 of the running time and, as a result, it is apparently the longest gunfight ever filmed. Basically, you get to see a bunch of shady figures gathering in some random warehouse and they start to shoot at each other for some random reason until the very end. Sure, you could argue that what’s John Wick has been doing for already 4 movies but the difference here was that it was taking place only at a single location, a location which wasn’t really fascinating, to be honest. By the way, I wonder if it was such a great idea to bring so many people to a weapon deal. I counted them, they were 10 people, without the couple of snipers, which is kind of ridiculous but I get that, without this number of people involved, how could they sustain such an extensive shoot-out? Anyway, even though I did like the mood and even though I do think that Ben Wheatley made the most of this material, it was still pretty damned repetitive. Eventually, it’s pretty obvious that Wheatley got inspired by Quentin Tarantino’s work, especially ‘Reservoir Dogs’ but in Tarantino’s classic, the characters were very well developed and the flashbacks were crucial. Wheatley’s commitment to show only what happened in this warehouse was commendable but, as a result, you learned pretty much nothing about the characters, except that most of them were apparently some lousy shot. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, at least, if you like the genre. 

To be honest, due to some personal issues, I have to admit that had some trouble to really focus on this movie. Eventually, it was probably a good thing that we didn’t see ‘Beau is Afraid’ (a movie I was more eager to watch), because it was lasting a whopping 3 hrs and I was already struggling to not fall asleep with this movie which did last around only 90 mins. Anyway, even if everyone else in my film club seemed to have really enjoyed it, as far as I was concerned, the story was just too simplistic and predictable. In the same fashion, all the characters involved were all rather one-note with not much depth whatsoever. It's interesting that, from a personal experience, I actually know that, if a child went through some tough situations during their childhood, to put them within the nicest environment possible might not result in a such a seemingly perfect outcome. Still, I have to admit that this movie was well made and very often quite beautiful to look at. On top of that, Catherine Clinch who played the lead character was just so charismatic and was quite pitch-perfect for her very first performance. Eventually, the whole thing only grabbed me when this poor little girl had to leave this very nice couple to go back to her dreadful family. As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t focus at all through the whole duration, as a result, I didn’t get that her moving to live with this couple was something only temporary and it really broke my heart when this seemingly perfect family unit had to be broken down. Anyway, to conclude, if  I had watched it under some better circumstances, maybe I would have been more able to really enjoy it but, even so, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Mark Wahlberg and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. I have to admit that I didn’t know the details about this true story and, at first, I was slightly confused that Jadin was actually involved since I was pretty sure that one of his sons actually died (was it then the little brother who actually died?). However, it turned out that they went for the gimmick of pretending for a while that Jadin actually didn’t die and was walking through the US with his father. Sure, it wasn’t really original and it wasn’t very well developed but it didn’t bother me that much. However, a much bigger issue was the use of a scrambled chronology though. Indeed, it is in general an overused and, above all, really useless gimmick which has no really added value and it was definitely the case with this movie. Still, the story was not bad at all and it was nice to see Wahlberg trying something more dramatic than his usual action flicks. Still, even though it was an decent effort from Wahlberg, at the end of the day, it felt as if he only scratched the surface on what could be done with such an interesting and complex character. On top of that, it didn’t help that he was often upstaged by Reid Miller who managed to make his character so strong and quite fascinating to behold even if he was not even actually the lead. Eventually, even though the movie was supposed to be about Joe Bell, you might wonder if a movie focusing instead on Jadin Bell would not have been more interesting after all. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by Alain Resnais and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, after all these years, I have to admit that I’m still not familiar with this director’s work but, even though I have seen only 6 of his movies so far, I’m already impressed by his versatility as all his movies were so completely different from one and another. In this case, the material was interesting but, to be honest, the movie itself was not really impressive though. The main issue was that the story was rather disjointed. Serge Alexandre Stavisky was apparently a notorious con artist in France back in the 30’s who might have had some political connections. However, instead of showing these actual connections, they gave us some scenes involving Leon Trotsky’s exile in France where he lived for 2 years which was rather bewildering since Stavisky and Trotsky never had any contact for real or during this movie. Another issue was that, even though Anny Duperey and Charles Boyer were fine, they were given just too little to do. At least, Jean-Paul Belmondo was even better and a perfect choice to play the lead character. Eventually, Stavisky was basically displayed as a massive bipolar, it was mentioned a couple of times that he struggled with bouts of depression and the best moments where when he seemed to be doubting but this most interesting aspect of the character was barely developed after all. Instead, you get to see him going from one meeting to another, always playing the coolest cat in the room, which felt rather redundant at some point. Another even weaker narrative gimmick was when they gave us the supporting characters testifying about him during some commission. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Alain Resnais’s work.