The Good: Other reviews have said it. It's a feel good movie, low budget, low-mid pack actors. Yet the story line just works. Predictable? Of course.
But the anti-hero, dark, mind bending, psychobabble, check all the boxes even if you have to churn the dialogue (who cares about dialogue?) out with a word salad generator movies are just over played circa 2022. We can get all the reality TV documentary in real-time by flipping through the news media channels.
The bad: Actually, the dialogue isn't that great. Ugh. It tries to be honest but it's just not well written. I blame the director (easy since he's credited as writer) for that. No excuses like "I had to work with what I had".
The Afghanistan sequences we so unrealistic it was painful. OK. That needed a bigger budget to pull off, but there are cinematic tricks to overcome that. The fact of the main character Marshall's experiences in Afghanistan were important to the plot line, but that could have been conveyed without what ended up cheesy mailed-in scenes.
Marshall's wife Sophie was the worst. First she gives an overstated, thus unrealistic performance in objecting to Marshall racing again, then after a rather weak talking to by her father-in-law (a point in the movie the dialogue need to be emotionally strong) she pivots on a dime to give an equally overstated performance in support of Marshall's return to racing. Allison Paige doesn't appear to be a terrible actress, she was following the written lines and directed on their delivery. There was so much emotional and female audience identifiable red-meat possible in that character that got lost in what left me head-scratching.
Aki Afshar played Cyrus and while his dialogue was sometime fair and sometimes idiotic, I actually saw him as a pretty darn good actor. Likeable and believable when given the chance. I don't know what else he's done but I really could see pulling off some fine acting in a bigger role in a bigger film.
As overstated as the Sophie character was, the lead character Marshall was flat out dull. Perhaps that wasn't the writer/director's fault. Who knows - we don't see the original script after all. But sheesh.
Then other small stuff like the "Walker brothers" open mockery that. Then I guess the movie ran out of time to show how the Walkers ditched Tony (Panterra) such that the fact of it came out of nowhere.
I won't bag on Tony Panterra's acting. He's not expected to be Jack Nicholson playing Tony Panterra. But having his character go from jackass to simply being misunderstood without something motivating it spells cheesy movie and was unfair to both the character and the man playing himself.
I'm not panning this film. I really liked it because it was more fun and simply better than I expected. Hey I gave it 8 stars! And I will probably check out another Alex. Ranavilelo film that when my head's worn out and I'm in the mood for something easy and expected yet at least not going to insult.
I could have watched Bennett's War with my kids and we'd all enjoy it. Frankly that alone justifies an 8 star rating these days,
But the anti-hero, dark, mind bending, psychobabble, check all the boxes even if you have to churn the dialogue (who cares about dialogue?) out with a word salad generator movies are just over played circa 2022. We can get all the reality TV documentary in real-time by flipping through the news media channels.
The bad: Actually, the dialogue isn't that great. Ugh. It tries to be honest but it's just not well written. I blame the director (easy since he's credited as writer) for that. No excuses like "I had to work with what I had".
The Afghanistan sequences we so unrealistic it was painful. OK. That needed a bigger budget to pull off, but there are cinematic tricks to overcome that. The fact of the main character Marshall's experiences in Afghanistan were important to the plot line, but that could have been conveyed without what ended up cheesy mailed-in scenes.
Marshall's wife Sophie was the worst. First she gives an overstated, thus unrealistic performance in objecting to Marshall racing again, then after a rather weak talking to by her father-in-law (a point in the movie the dialogue need to be emotionally strong) she pivots on a dime to give an equally overstated performance in support of Marshall's return to racing. Allison Paige doesn't appear to be a terrible actress, she was following the written lines and directed on their delivery. There was so much emotional and female audience identifiable red-meat possible in that character that got lost in what left me head-scratching.
Aki Afshar played Cyrus and while his dialogue was sometime fair and sometimes idiotic, I actually saw him as a pretty darn good actor. Likeable and believable when given the chance. I don't know what else he's done but I really could see pulling off some fine acting in a bigger role in a bigger film.
As overstated as the Sophie character was, the lead character Marshall was flat out dull. Perhaps that wasn't the writer/director's fault. Who knows - we don't see the original script after all. But sheesh.
Then other small stuff like the "Walker brothers" open mockery that. Then I guess the movie ran out of time to show how the Walkers ditched Tony (Panterra) such that the fact of it came out of nowhere.
I won't bag on Tony Panterra's acting. He's not expected to be Jack Nicholson playing Tony Panterra. But having his character go from jackass to simply being misunderstood without something motivating it spells cheesy movie and was unfair to both the character and the man playing himself.
I'm not panning this film. I really liked it because it was more fun and simply better than I expected. Hey I gave it 8 stars! And I will probably check out another Alex. Ranavilelo film that when my head's worn out and I'm in the mood for something easy and expected yet at least not going to insult.
I could have watched Bennett's War with my kids and we'd all enjoy it. Frankly that alone justifies an 8 star rating these days,