Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I have to admit that I don’t know much about Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle’s work so I was quite glad to discover his work after all these years. In fact, Arbuckle was quite a huge star at the time but his career was completely derailed by some scandal at the beginning of the 20’s. Anyway, it was in fact the 2^nd short I saw with this guy and, even though I enjoyed more ‘The Garage’, it was pretty good as well though. Above all, it was pretty cool to see Arbuckle working again with Buster Keaton. Indeed, Arbuckle was actually the one who helped Keaton launching his career and this short was one of the earliest movies starring Keaton which was of course really neat. Coming back on the movie itself, sure, it was pretty entertaining and some of the gags were really funny but the damned thing was still too messy and random, I’m afraid. Sure, you can argue that it was inherent to the genre but, in this case, it was even more chaotic than usual. There was also a 3^rd guy in this movie who was involved in some rather acrobatic stunts but I guess he never managed to become as famous as Arbuckle and Keaton were. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. I have to admit that it has been a while since I saw ‘What Women Want’ but, if I recall it correctly, I thought it was a decent comedy and it seemed to be a no-brainer to make a sequel swapping the gender of the main character. Well, somehow, it took them almost 20 years and, to be honest, I did ended up with some mixed feelings about the damned thing. First of all, there was the issue that the thoughts of most men are just disgusting. Sure, you might argue I might be too negative or pessimistic but, being a guy myself, I think I know what I’m talking about. I also think that they kind of ‘cheated’ with the concept. Indeed, there were too many times that she suddenly either didn’t hear anymore their thoughts or only from some specific men. The best example would be the church scene during she should hear at least 20 men but, somehow, it was limited to only the boyfriends of her BFFs. And, yet, Taraji P. Henson is such a charismatic actress and it was really cool that she was playing the lead for once. By the way, Pete Davidson had also a small part and, while I was watching him in this movie playing a rather pathetic closeted gay guy, I was wondering how, during the following 4 years, the same guy did manage to date some of the most gorgeous women in show business (Ariana Grande, Kate Beckinsale, Kaia Gerber, Kim Kardashian). Anyway, to conclude, even if I have to admit that the damned thing was rather harmless, it was still a rather useless sequel and I don’t think it is really worth a look.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this movie but, since it was starring Gabrielle Union, I thought it might as well check it out. Well, I’m afraid the damned thing was just as lame as I expected. Indeed, right from the start, the story was just so generic and boring and, to make it worse, the makers didn’t do anything new or interesting with this tired old concept. Eventually, the only redeeming feature was Gabrielle Union who was, as usual, really charismatic but she was also actually quite convincing as an average mother with some mighty survival skills. It’s too bad all the other characters (the thugs and her kids) were just so poorly developed and even rather cringe-inducing to behold. Seriously, I don’t think there was a single line of dialogues uttered by her kids which did sound true and/or entertaining. Concerning the bad guys, they were even more pathetic and the worst cardboard villains I have seen in quite some time. Concerning James McTeigue, it seems hard to believe that his directorial debut was actually the huge cult classic ‘V for Vendetta’. Unfortunately, the only impressive thing about his directing career after all is that each new movie he has delivered afterwards managed to be weaker than the previous one and this last directorial effort is definitely the worst of the bunch so far. Coming back on Gabrielle Union, who also produced this movie, I can actually understand the appeal for her to play in this movie. Indeed, this way, she was playing the lead which was also a resourceful and strong character but it’s just too bad that she had to pick such an underwhelming feature to showcase her potential. Anyway, to conclude, even if I have seen worse, the damned thing was still really weak and you should probably avoid it. 

In contrary to Charles Chaplin or Buster Keaton, I haven’t watched so many movies with Harold Lloyd so I thought I might as well check this one out. Well, the first interesting thing with this movie was how much it clearly stood out from the comedies they made at the time, by Harold Lloyd himself but also by all his other colleague comedians. Indeed, there was in fact no visual gags, no slapstick, no elaborate seemingly hazardous stunts involved and, instead, they went for something dialogue-heavy. Fortunately, I thought that Lloyd did pull it off rather nicely. On the other hand, it was rather cringe-inducing to keep hearing Jake Mayo mentioning these ‘Chinks’ but, since the character was supposed to be a corrupt ignorant moron, I guess it was acceptable. Una Merkel was also pretty good as she had some of the best lines, even though I thought it was rather unlikely that Pet Pratt would decide to get married with Ezekiel Cobb. Eventually, even though I do believe that Harold Lloyd made the most of this material, the concept was still pretty thin and I wish it would have been slightly shorter. Concerning this satire of the politics in a small town in the US, sure, it was exaggerated but, on the other hand, I always thought that there was something bothering me about this country where you can vote only for 2 parties and 2 parties which are vastly similar after all on top of that. Obviously, it is not the same as the corruption displayed in this movie but the lack of choices between candidates did feel similar and hardly democratic. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was nothing really groundbreaking, I thought it was a decent watch though and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Harold Lloyd’s work. 

Since I’m a huge fan of ‘Borat’, of course, I was quite eager to check this sequel. Eventually, it obviously didn’t turn out to be such a pop-culture phenomenon like its predecessor was but it was to be expected. It’s too bad because the context when this movie was made and released was really neat though. Indeed, it was released when Donald Trump was still President of the United States and it seems that it was shot right in the middle of the Covid pandemic so the potential was huge. In fact, shooting this movie was apparently much more dangerous than when they made the first one but I don’t think it is really surprising considering the fact that the US became even more polarized when Trump was in office. Unfortunately, Cohen didn’t do much with this after all and, instead, he got too much involved in pranking some average clerks in some shops but such clerks were/are a rather lame target. Sure, some of them might get into an argument with some weird/insensitive/inappropriate customers but most of them will just play along with whatever they are doing because that’s their job. Indeed, they are supposed to serve their customers and not judge or criticize them and to play against this concept was, as far as I’m concerned, not only disingenuous but, above all, not interesting whatsoever. Unfortunately, such tricks were basically half of the running time. Concerning the addition of Borat’s daughter in the mix, it was a pretty cool idea and I’m not surprised that Maria Bakalova got so much praise for her work in this movie. I also liked the idea that Borat had become so famous that he had to disguise himself in order to be able do his ‘work’. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it was a decent watch though and it is worth a look, especially if you like this character. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Kristen Stewart, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I’m afraid the damned thing didn’t really work after all. First of all, even though I do have a weak spot for Kristen Stewart, I think she was miscast here. I mean, Stewart is attractive but she has a more edgy look whereas Jean Seberg was really a classic beauty and I think someone like Emma Watson would have been more suitable. A bigger issue was that, sure, Seberg was quite gorgeous but I don’t think she was such a fascinating woman. The fact that, beside ‘À bout de souffle’, her career didn't turn out to be really impressive probably didn’t help. Sure, it’s terrible how the FBI spend so much time and resources to undermine her career and her whole life in general but, to be honest, I don’t think she was the biggest victim at the time. Indeed, for all the black folks, especially the ones active in the Civil Rights movement, the situation was much more difficult and dramatic. Furthermore, obviously, she should have been able to have a romantic relationship with a black man, however, they were both married at the time so her whole act of acting like a victim was actually misguided and rather annoying. However, a subplot involving a FBI agent played Jack O'Connell who had a crisis of conscience was even more even more pathetic though. I mean, this character was obviously made up but, above all, who cares about what this guy might have felt and thought at the time? To make things worse, they also added his wife and some very generic and really half-baked domestic conflict involving this couple. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I might have been to generous with my rating here but still think it was a decent watch though and it is worth a look, at least, if you like the genre.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought it might as well check it out. Well, even if it didn’t seem to be much, it turned out to be even worse than I expected though. In fact, there was actually some potential as it could have been cool to follow Jeffrey Dean Morgan delivering some mysterious package from one place to another. Unfortunately, for some reason, they went for something so completely convoluted and boring which had nothing to do with his job after all. The most surprising thing was that it was directed by Hany Abu-Assad. I figured this out only afterwards when the movie was over and I looked it up on IMDb. Eventually, I wonder how a director could go from ‘Paradise Now’ to such a cheap and above all weak direct-to-VOD action flick like this one. It seems that, after the critical success of ‘Paradise Now’, Abu-Assad went to live in the US to further develop his career but it seems that he struggled and this movie was the only thing he managed to do after 7 long years. Fortunately, it seems that his career afterwards didn’t suffer that much from this blow. Anyway, coming back on the movie itself, well, it was definitely a rather unwatchable mess, I’m afraid. Another weird thing was to see Lili Taylor and Miguel Ferrer, usually some solid actors, showing up to play some random killers but even they couldn’t do much with this rather abysmal material. Concerning Mickey Rourke, who was probably the main reason why I wanted to check this movie, he was rather weak here as it was obviously another paycheck gig for him. Seriously, it was rather pathetic to have him play a supposedly mysterious character shot from the back when his voice is actually so recognizable. Anyway, to conclude, the whole thing was a big waste of time and you should pretty much avoid it. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick (the title did sound terribly generic) but since it was directed by Anne Fontaine and was starring [Link removed - login to see], I thought I might as well check it out. The first 30 mins turned out to be something similar to ‘Rashomon’ during which we saw a seemingly typical working day from the perspective of 3 street police agents. Sure, it was nothing really original but it was efficient enough. Above all, I was again impressed by Virginie Efira who is so charismatic but still completely convincing in everything she does and this movie was no exception. Concerning Omar Sy, I have nothing against him but, as far as I’m concerned, he pretty much plays the same character in all his movies. Anyway, when the trio of police agents was introduced in some rather grim way, the movie then started to focus on a transport of some political refugee being extradited to his home country and I thought it was quite interesting to behold. Indeed, I was born in France, lived there for 20 years and then lived for another 20 years in the Netherlands and in both countries, immigrants and refugees have always been a hot topic (in fact, it was the main topic of the last general election in the Netherlands). As displayed in this movie, what should we do with these people? On one hand, nobody (in France or in the Netherlands or anywhere else in Europe) wants to shelter them but they will keep coming anyway and, when they come, they are welcomed in such dreadful centers where the living conditions might be even worse than in a jail. So, what’s the alternative? Dropping them in a middle of a huge city like Paris or in the middle of nowhere like Virginie tried in this movie? It didn’t seem to be a much better solution for a poor guy who didn’t speak French or even English and it was fortunately well handled in this movie. To be honest, this mix of the two parts (the everyday life of these cops and the extradition) didn’t really work together and, eventually, it seemed that Virginie and Aristide will then just move on with their lives without thinking much again about this poor refugee or the 1000’s of other refugees facing a similar fate in France or anywhere else. 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 like the genre. 

By now, I have seen all the full-length features directed by Charles Chaplin but it had been a while since I saw one of his shorts. According to the IMDb ratings, it must be one of his very best so I thought I might as well check this one out. Well, to be honest, the damned thing didn’t really impress after all. Basically, the main idea was to have the Tramp becoming a police agent which was quite a huge contrast with what the guy was usually doing in Chaplin's movies. At least, I have to admit that the approach was rather original but I think they clearly struggled to get the character involved in an interesting story. I mean, if I understand correctly, he was assigned to work on Easy Street which was supposed to be a rough neighborhood. However, it turned out to be really only a single street, not even a whole block of houses. Even more problematic was the way they decided to show how rough it was by having a bunch of locals endlessly fighting with each other for no clear reason whatsoever. The end-result was, at least as far as I was concerned, more bewildering than really entertaining and I wish they did find some other way to show how difficult and hazardous it was to work in these parts. Fortunately, as usual, Charles Chaplin was really entertaining playing this great character and the damned thing is still definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.