Kevin Costner is nearly unrecognizable as the grizzly Hamer; Harrelson is at his quirky best. Excellent supporting cast, beautiful visuals, well-woven true story. Score is grand and a perfect fit, form the great Thomas Newman. Meticulous timepiece, close attention to detail. Very, very well done...I rarely give a 10/10 but this warrants it.
Reviews
11 Reviews
The Highwaymen
(2019)
Excellent, absolutely compelling, very well-made, engrossing, effortless.
13 September 2019
Absolute bore-fest. Visually stunning, absolutely zero plot.
2 September 2019
I have a high tolerance for wandering stories, but I took a nap, then went for a walk to the concession stand...came back, and this nonsense was still aimlessly wandering nowhere across the screen. Plotless, boring, forgettable, unengaging, uncompelling, nearly as bad as the recent disaster that is Robert Downey Jr's. Sherlock Holmes, with similarly wasted beautiful visuals. Watch this only if you want some background noise while your are doing something more useful.
Tedious, dragging, boring.
8 July 2019
I enjoy a good documentary about passions and technology, and I've enjoyed quite a few similar car documentaries, but this one was just unwatchable. Just drags on and on and on with no point, no plot, no punchline. It's like the entire documentary is an "intro" to another documentary, I sat there waiting and waiting and waiting for it to start, and by the half-hour point just gave up. Devoid of any fascinating technical details, exploration of the car, survey of the design process, view of the production process, etc. This entire documentary could have been a three minute special, with two or three shots of the car and an interview with the team leader. Instead, you got about three hundred shots of the car from every angle over the course of an hour, and still, no meaningful interviews...all style with no substance. Watching this documentary is the equivalent of staring at a few pretty magazine pictures, with small, poorly informative captions underneath. Don't waste your time.
Designated Survivor
(2016–2019)
Watchable, but absolutely barely.
21 June 2019
Gosh, this had so much potential... But unfortunately, the most exciting 30 minutes of this entire series was the first 30 minutes of season 1. Thats it. After that, it's devolved into a complete mess stretching credulity further and further. Kirkland's character is inexplicably unstable...oddly unpredictable, going from warm and insecure to brutally cold and growly, with no coherent consistency, rhyme or reason. A few of the cast seem to have actually reading an acting book or two, but many of the other characters are played terribly stiff, unidimensional, embarrasingly overacted, edging on the absurd, just plain unbelievable...acting class 101 rejects. Massive goofs in some of the action sequences. Not a speck of dirt or sweat on any character even though they've been running through the woods or construction sites for miles or jumping from vehicles. Looks like they just got up from a makeup chair every time, probably because they did. Kirkman's family play corny, caricatured, predictable, dripping cheesy parts. The story beaches out inexplicably far, inexplicably fast, to the very edges of credulity. This series was barely watchhable, painfully so, and I persisted mostly because I had no better option, and partly just out of sheer curiosity for how ridiculous and poorly acted it would get next episode. This kind of stuff belongs in the direct-to-$1.99-DVD disc pile in the back of a discount store, something to watch when you're half-asleep, tipsy, and want some mindless, senseless drama that sort of makes sense when you're enebriated enough, or want something as background noise while you do housework or cook.
Sherlock Holmes
(2009)
Utterly boring. Dull plot, wasted effort. Zero emotional depth. Utterly forgettable.
27 May 2019
Honestly, this was a total snoozefest. Forgettable characters. Forgettable plot. Dull, utterly dull. I rarely say things like this about a film, but this was on the level of "Fantastic Beasts"... beautiful visuals, ruined by an utterly tiring, umcompelling, wandering plot. The villains are predicable and as scary as play dough; the heroes, equally unremarkable. A story you will forget only seconds after you hit the stop button. Sad waste of RDJr's talents.
Bright
(I) (2017)
Awesome film. Compelling story, well cast. The critics got this one wrong.
22 April 2019
After watching this movie, I was quite shocked by the professional critics, who had little good to say. I don't know what exactly they were expecting, but it seems they just didn't understand this movie.
I'm pretty picky when it comes to stories and acting, very picky in fact, but this was top of the line on both counts. I enjoy very much being thrown into an unusual storyline, unapologetically and without excessive "set up"... and being demanded to accept an odd new world, as it is, on face value. That's exactly what this movie does, and does it well. The story is fascinating, compelling, and weaves a great tale. Joel Edgerton is awesome as Jakoby, and the rest of the cast are naturals, eminently believable. The action is well-suited and not over the top. I'm not a huge Will Smith fan, but he did a great job here too.
I've watched it and rewatched it. You should too. Wish there was a sequel or series!
I'm pretty picky when it comes to stories and acting, very picky in fact, but this was top of the line on both counts. I enjoy very much being thrown into an unusual storyline, unapologetically and without excessive "set up"... and being demanded to accept an odd new world, as it is, on face value. That's exactly what this movie does, and does it well. The story is fascinating, compelling, and weaves a great tale. Joel Edgerton is awesome as Jakoby, and the rest of the cast are naturals, eminently believable. The action is well-suited and not over the top. I'm not a huge Will Smith fan, but he did a great job here too.
I've watched it and rewatched it. You should too. Wish there was a sequel or series!
Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies
(1999 Video)
Underrated cult classic, must-see for Divoff's performance.
25 October 2017
I love this movie. it is quite underrated in a number of ways. Sure, the overall plot and subject matter is rather silly,this is definitely not Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List; but for what it is, this movie offers a lot of subtle surprises.
By far, Divoff's performance drives this movie, and as somebody who has admittedly watched this about 30 times, the subtleties he brings to the role are quite underrated and absolutely hilarious. He's the perfect combination of good-natured evil, unintentionally creepy,but yet subtly hilarious and in many ways innocent. His facial expressions and growling noises are always perfectly timed and ridiculously funny. The acting in general might be goofy at times, but in many cases quite good...in a way, they are aware that the film is kind of silly, but within that they take that silliness seriously and it shows.
This movie deserves to be a cult classic, but in a positive light (not in a so-bad- its-good sense); it's acceptance of its own silliness and Divoff's skillful and hilarious performance make it so much fun.
By far, Divoff's performance drives this movie, and as somebody who has admittedly watched this about 30 times, the subtleties he brings to the role are quite underrated and absolutely hilarious. He's the perfect combination of good-natured evil, unintentionally creepy,but yet subtly hilarious and in many ways innocent. His facial expressions and growling noises are always perfectly timed and ridiculously funny. The acting in general might be goofy at times, but in many cases quite good...in a way, they are aware that the film is kind of silly, but within that they take that silliness seriously and it shows.
This movie deserves to be a cult classic, but in a positive light (not in a so-bad- its-good sense); it's acceptance of its own silliness and Divoff's skillful and hilarious performance make it so much fun.
Hyena Road
(2015)
Watchable, but only just, as a movie; more suitable as a TV special.
7 August 2016
Can tell a lot of effort went into production, and a sincere effort was made at authenticity...but still comes off as a movie that doesn't take itself very seriously, played by actors who take themselves perhaps too seriously. At times I wasn't entirely sure this wasn't a deliberately tongue-in-cheek drama with the aim of a little awkward comic relief; however, neither one works well as it is neither here nor there. Perhaps soap-opera-ish would be a good descriptor in terms of overall production value, not content per se'.
The combat scenes, while not poorly acted or choreographed, still come off as a little bit staged. Sometimes it's just the little things, like uniforms not being quite dirty enough after soldiers were supposedly rolling around in the mountains for a few hours; sometimes the mountains look a little bit more like the Arizona Rockies than Afghanistan. Sometimes The Afghani villagers look a little bit too clean, well fed, and smooth-skinned to be actual Afghani villagers. The way the Taliban swarm en-masse, hail-mary style is just not how they tend to move tactically in the real world. Like I said, the little things. the sniper scope reticle they give us a peek through is, thankfully, not the usual nonsense with all sorts of colors and numbers and flashing lights, as is seen in some movies. it's not the standard Mil Dot reticle, but at least it's half believable.
Ultimately, on a budget, just so much can really be put into production. overall, not a terrible movie, perhaps as an amateur military historian who's watched more than my fair share of combat helmet cams, I'm a bit more tuned in to the minutiae. So be it...overall, I'd give it a 7 for effort, and a 5 for final product, so at 6 I think is a fair score.
The combat scenes, while not poorly acted or choreographed, still come off as a little bit staged. Sometimes it's just the little things, like uniforms not being quite dirty enough after soldiers were supposedly rolling around in the mountains for a few hours; sometimes the mountains look a little bit more like the Arizona Rockies than Afghanistan. Sometimes The Afghani villagers look a little bit too clean, well fed, and smooth-skinned to be actual Afghani villagers. The way the Taliban swarm en-masse, hail-mary style is just not how they tend to move tactically in the real world. Like I said, the little things. the sniper scope reticle they give us a peek through is, thankfully, not the usual nonsense with all sorts of colors and numbers and flashing lights, as is seen in some movies. it's not the standard Mil Dot reticle, but at least it's half believable.
Ultimately, on a budget, just so much can really be put into production. overall, not a terrible movie, perhaps as an amateur military historian who's watched more than my fair share of combat helmet cams, I'm a bit more tuned in to the minutiae. So be it...overall, I'd give it a 7 for effort, and a 5 for final product, so at 6 I think is a fair score.
The Wild
(2006)
This movie screams rip-off
1 May 2006
This movie, simply put, is a cheap rip-off of Madagascar. Rip-off, since the story is identical, the characters are nearly identical, a la the lion who grew up in captivity and is too sophisticated to act like a wild lion, even down to the "zany sidekick with British accent" (the penguins in Madagascar vs. the koala in Thw Wild). Cheap, because it does quite a hatchet job at the rip-off. The plot line is terribly underdeveloped, with inexplicable directions to the point that it seems like they ASSUME you saw Madagascar and are even working off of THAT story line, without doing any development themselves. It is corny, packaged, and the story and characters are forced and unnatural. Sure, the animation is great, and there are a few jokes, but that falls far short of justifying seeing this movie. If I was not with the kids, I would have walked out.
Walker, Texas Ranger
(1993–2001)
Unwatchable
30 April 2006
This series is formulaic and boring. The episodes are the same thing every week, simply with slightly varied settings. Some purely evil character does some dastardly deed, Walker goes after him, and it ends in a Karate match. The villains are super-cliché super-stereotypical evil villains, the good guys are all pure, honest and saintly, and the story lines are simplistic and unrealistic. After about 2 episodes, the show becomes totally unwatchable by all but the least discerning fans. Certainly not Norris's best work. His other work may be cliché but it usually does not drag on for weeks. If you enjoy formulaic,boring, repetitive clichéd snooze-fests, then this is for you.
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