I really wanted to like this movie. I watched it all the way through hoping it would get better. It didn't.
It wasn't all bad. In fact there were even some brief flashes of brilliance. But not near enough to make this movie come together as a worthwhile story. In fact the story is what stands head and shoulders above the other problems as the real culprit of a failed effort. I kind of doubted that there was even a script at times.
The whole idea is basically "Texas" wants to secede from the Union so they decide to hold New York hostage so that the US Congress will let them go. But here's the thing: It isn't exactly Texas. The soldier that gets interrogated to provide the info says he is from Kentucky. He also lists 6 or 7 states that are "with us". Strangely none of the states he lists is Kentucky! And then he is supposed to be a mercenary. But claims he was just following orders. And the reason that these guys dressed like SWAT teams are shooting everyone on sight is because Bushwick has so many guns and people are fighting back. And well that just shouldn't have happened because "guns are illegal here". So they got orders to shoot to kill. And apparently they are just invading this one neighbourhood in New York.
That pile of crap is what you get from the one short scene that is supposed to explain what is happening. And of course it contradicts an earlier scene in the movie that says that they also "invaded" Washington, Chicago and a few other cities. Not to mention a scene of most of New York in flames. On the other hand the character that informed us of the invasion of those cities apparently forgot that as soon as he said it because he was the one that was interrogating the "mercenary" to find out what was going on. It's glaringly obvious that there were rewrites and changes with a complete lack of effort at continuity. I could go on and on about the gaping plot holes but it's basically all hole and no plot.
The acting isn't the worst that I have seen. Nothing great but then the actor's didn't have anything to work with so it's not really fair to judge them too harshly.
Special effects you ask? Well don't go expecting a bunch of impressive CGI effects because there aren't any. What there is, is mainly some plumes of smoke and some flames. Non-CGI effects included some quite decent pyrotechnics work that worked pretty well. Most of the explosions and such are actually off screen. Basically a loud boom, camera shake and maybe the lights flicker. And there were some helicopters.
The camera work was decent. Quite competent and at times even impressive. There were a lot of scenes that went for quite a while without a cut and it seemed that most if not all of the movie was shot with one hand-held camera. With a better story to tell it could have been very effective.
The sound was not great. Dialogue wasn't always clear. It was often hard to tell if the bangs were guns or explosions or what. In fact it seemed like they used the exact same explosion effect about 80% of the time. The music was pretty awful and in many cases just did not go with what was on screen.
Direction? What direction? The movie basically looks like the directors gave some very basic instruction and then went and smoked weed in the corner. Many of the scenes end up being very flat and one- dimensional. Probably because the actors are putting most of their attention into where they are going physically in the extended and sometimes complex scenes.
The concept I think was pretty good. If they had pulled it off it would have been a very realistic real-time thrill-ride. But they did NOT pull it off. It appears that they tried to fix things by shooting a new ending or something. The last 5 minutes are jarringly different in look from the rest of the movie and the ending fails on many levels. I won't get into that.
So: Might be worth a look if you are bored and non-judgmental. If you are more of a stickler for a coherent and logical story you will hate it. A lot. My honest recommendation would be to watch the trailer and then NOT watch the movie. That way you might get a little enjoyment and you will miss the aggravation and disappointment.
It wasn't all bad. In fact there were even some brief flashes of brilliance. But not near enough to make this movie come together as a worthwhile story. In fact the story is what stands head and shoulders above the other problems as the real culprit of a failed effort. I kind of doubted that there was even a script at times.
The whole idea is basically "Texas" wants to secede from the Union so they decide to hold New York hostage so that the US Congress will let them go. But here's the thing: It isn't exactly Texas. The soldier that gets interrogated to provide the info says he is from Kentucky. He also lists 6 or 7 states that are "with us". Strangely none of the states he lists is Kentucky! And then he is supposed to be a mercenary. But claims he was just following orders. And the reason that these guys dressed like SWAT teams are shooting everyone on sight is because Bushwick has so many guns and people are fighting back. And well that just shouldn't have happened because "guns are illegal here". So they got orders to shoot to kill. And apparently they are just invading this one neighbourhood in New York.
That pile of crap is what you get from the one short scene that is supposed to explain what is happening. And of course it contradicts an earlier scene in the movie that says that they also "invaded" Washington, Chicago and a few other cities. Not to mention a scene of most of New York in flames. On the other hand the character that informed us of the invasion of those cities apparently forgot that as soon as he said it because he was the one that was interrogating the "mercenary" to find out what was going on. It's glaringly obvious that there were rewrites and changes with a complete lack of effort at continuity. I could go on and on about the gaping plot holes but it's basically all hole and no plot.
The acting isn't the worst that I have seen. Nothing great but then the actor's didn't have anything to work with so it's not really fair to judge them too harshly.
Special effects you ask? Well don't go expecting a bunch of impressive CGI effects because there aren't any. What there is, is mainly some plumes of smoke and some flames. Non-CGI effects included some quite decent pyrotechnics work that worked pretty well. Most of the explosions and such are actually off screen. Basically a loud boom, camera shake and maybe the lights flicker. And there were some helicopters.
The camera work was decent. Quite competent and at times even impressive. There were a lot of scenes that went for quite a while without a cut and it seemed that most if not all of the movie was shot with one hand-held camera. With a better story to tell it could have been very effective.
The sound was not great. Dialogue wasn't always clear. It was often hard to tell if the bangs were guns or explosions or what. In fact it seemed like they used the exact same explosion effect about 80% of the time. The music was pretty awful and in many cases just did not go with what was on screen.
Direction? What direction? The movie basically looks like the directors gave some very basic instruction and then went and smoked weed in the corner. Many of the scenes end up being very flat and one- dimensional. Probably because the actors are putting most of their attention into where they are going physically in the extended and sometimes complex scenes.
The concept I think was pretty good. If they had pulled it off it would have been a very realistic real-time thrill-ride. But they did NOT pull it off. It appears that they tried to fix things by shooting a new ending or something. The last 5 minutes are jarringly different in look from the rest of the movie and the ending fails on many levels. I won't get into that.
So: Might be worth a look if you are bored and non-judgmental. If you are more of a stickler for a coherent and logical story you will hate it. A lot. My honest recommendation would be to watch the trailer and then NOT watch the movie. That way you might get a little enjoyment and you will miss the aggravation and disappointment.