Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, since I was slightly disappointed by ‘Pusher II’, I actually lowered my expectations for this 3^rd and last installment. On top of that, even though the DVD was brand-new, it seemed to be actually defect and, as a result, my DVD player was buzzing like a god-damned helicopter through the whole duration. I spent maybe 30 mins trying to fix this but I came to the conclusion that the DVD was just no good. So, it wasn’t really the best circumstances to watch the damned thing but, fortunately, the movie was actually pretty good. First of all, what I liked the most about this trilogy was that it didn’t focus on one character but instead move on from one character to another through the whole trilogy. This 2^nd sequel focused thus on Milo who was easily one of the most charismatic guys introduced in these movies. Eventually, the main issue with this flick was probably the fact that I followed too much the structure of its predecessors.  Indeed, even though Milo  didn’t seem to be such a huge f*ck-up like Frank and Tony, eventually, he still ended up getting involved in some rather messed up drug deal, trying in the process to figure out how he will come out of this situation unharmed. Furthermore, I’m not sure if it was really a good idea to have Milo trying to stay clean. Anyway, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Obviously, I wasn’t expecting much from this movie but since I have seen most of the movies directed by Roland Emmerich, I was still eager to check it out. Well, first of all, the whole thing was just seriously misguided. I mean, I have to admit it, ‘Independence Day’ was actually not bad but, contrary to ‘Jurassic Park’ or ‘Star Wars’, it never became such a classic that people would be eager to watch a sequel 20 years later and, of course, the damned thing turned out to be a flop. To make things worse, if ‘Independence Day’ was a silly but harmless Science-Fiction feature,  this sequel was however just a boring mess. First of all, even though it seemed to be a no-brainer, they eventually didn’t manage to get Will Smith on board and, instead, they gave us a seriously uncharismatic and boring actor to play his son. So, the biggest star from the previous installment wouldn’t show up but, somehow, they thought it would be a great idea to bring back a whole bunch of really minor characters from ‘Independence Day’. Seriously, during the whole thing, I was scratching my head wondering who the hell were some of this people and why would they come back for this new installment.  Of course, they also added some new characters who were all equally underwhelming and boring to follow and, as a result, they would constantly jump between all these characters, each with their own tedious sub-plot, resulting in a massive mess. Sure, it was visually decent enough but pretty much nothing else really worked with this movie. Anyway, to conclude, from the start, this sequel was a  bad idea and the end-result was even worse than I expected so I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

Recently, I have been discovering Alex van Warmerdan’s movies. So far, I had seen 4 of them but, even though I enjoyed all of them, there was always something missing to really blow me away. With this in mind, since this movie had a much lower rating than his previous movies, I had lower my expectations but, eventually, it turned out to be the best movie I have seen from this director so far. First of all, I always thought that van Warmerdan’s movies were quite funny but this one was just so hilarious and I’m pretty sure it is the most hilarious Dutch movie I have ever seen. Seriously, the first 20 minutes were just so funny, it was pretty much pitch-perfect. As usual with this director, the dialogues were pretty neat but, here, they were even better and pretty much always spot on. Concerning the story, sure, it was pretty random but I thought it worked really well. Basically, it was some kind of hyperlink feature with many small stories linked to some completely random dress but I thought it was much more enjoyable than the other abstract tales usually delivered by the Dutch director. To conclude, I always admired Alex van Warmerdan’s work, this time, the guy really blew me away and this movie is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Dutch movies. 

Since I kept hearing some pretty good things about this movie, I was quite eager to check it out. To be honest, I have to admit it that, before watching the damned thing, I had actually completely forgotten what it was actually about and, for some reason, I thought I heard somewhere that it would be dealing with some vampires. Anyway, I really loved the directing and editing which created a mysterious and mesmerizing mood and the cast was pretty strong as well (Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode). Unfortunately, the whole thing lost me towards the end. Eventually, it had obviously nothing to do with vampires but this conclusion, when they finally explained what was going with the mysterious Uncle Charlie, turned out to be rather disappointing. I mean, imagine if David Lynch would end up ‘Mulholland Dr.’ or ‘Eraresehead’ with a very concrete explanation, do you think it would be an improvement? It could have also to do with the fact that they removed 30 minutes of footage from the final cut but, eventually, they either said too much or too little in my opinion. I was also rather disappointed that Nicole Kidman’s character was so damned passive. Anyway, to conclude, even though it didn’t completely work for me, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Since the rating were pretty high for this movie and since it was recently added to the book ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’, I was really eager to check it out. To be honest, I’m pretty sure that it will be one of these movies they add every year but which end up being removed directly the year after or at least very soon. Still, I’m glad I saw the damned thing and it was really good, even one of the best movies I have seen released so far in 2016. Of course, I knew already a lot of what they told but they went so much in depth in the subject and they chose some really interesting, well-spoken and knowledgeable speakers. It was really interesting that the problematic came all the way back from the end of the slavery but I was mostly shocked by the privatisation of the prison sector in the USA. I already saw something similar in ‘Sicko’, another very strong documentary delivered by Michael Moore, in which they displayed the damage done by the privatisation of the health sector. As a result, you get to see that there is so much money involved  in the process, it can never be good that someone would open a prison and take care of prisoners in order to make some profit. Anyway, to conclude, it was a really strong documentary and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in  this subject.

To be honest, I have no idea why I actually ended up watching this flick. Indeed, the director was rather obscure, there was no really interesting actors involved and the whole thing seemed to be rather lame. Still, somehow, the damned thing was on my ‘to-watch’ list somehow so I thought I might as well check it out. Anyway, eventually, this movie actually had some potential. Indeed, there was something neat and romantic about this perfect guy meeting the perfect girl resulting in a perfect couple. Unfortunately, pretty much everything else was rather lame and boring. Above all, the whole conflict with the father was just so bogus and annoying.  I mean, if your daughter would meet a decent boy and deeply fall in love after years of mourning her dead brother, wouldn’t you be thrilled as her father? I was also annoyed by the mother who didn’t do much to stop him and I’m pretty sure if I would act like this, it wouldn’t take long before my wife would ask for a divorce. And, yet, somehow, I have to admit that the whole thing grew on me. Anyway, to conclude, even though my rating was probably too generous for this movie, I thought it was watchable and I guess it might be worth a look, at least, if you like the genre. 

Since I really enjoyed ‘Pusher’, I was quite eager to check this follow-up. Apparently, after his 2 next directing efforts turned out to be some failures, especially ‘Fear X’ which made his film company go bankrupt, Winding Refn did pretty much the same thing Sam Raimi did with 'Evil Dead II' and came back to his directing debut in order to relaunch his career.  Well, to be honest, even though I had some high expectations and even expected this movie to be an improvement on its predecessor,  I thought it turned out to be actually a slight step down. I mean, the directing was again solid and I really liked the same dark and gloomy mood. However, if I thought that the story in ‘Pusher' was too generic and predictable, here, it was the other way around. Indeed, there was no real plot and the whole thing felt pretty random.  Above all, the biggest issue I had was that while Frank, the main character in ‘Pusher’, was pretty much a loser, Tonny was actually even more pathetic. Seriously, even if Mads Mikkelsen  gave another really good performance, I had a hard time to root for the guy who was hardly charismatic and had no skills whatsoever. Anyway, to conclude, even though the damned thing was slightly disappointing, it was still pretty good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.