Ed's Review Dot Com

Broadway Video, Michaels-Goldwyn, Relativity Media,

Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Jason Sudeikis

Steve (Owen Wilson) is a bad guy. But he’s tired of the little nickel and dime capers, and thinks it would be great to pull of an armored car heist, but needs someone on the inside. Kelly (Kristen Wiig) has the solution. Kelly work for the Loomis Fargo company for a short while and knows that innocent, but not too bright David Ghantt (Zach Galifinakis) has a crush on her, and has worked for the company for many years. So Kelly flirts with David to convince him that he could pull of the heist, disappear to Mexico where she will shortly join him in a happy and carefree life with tons of money. But they are just playing him for a sucker. David pulls off he heist, heads to Mexico with his share (all he can stuff into his underwear, to Mexico where he finds the Interpo, and a hired killer named Mike McKinney (Jason Sudakeis) is looking for him. Not to mention that stupidly all of these “masterminds” left behind a huge amount of evidence, and the law is closing the noose.

This is a funny film, that does have a good many laugh out loud moments. It’s not as funny as it thinks it is though. Based on the real life 1887 Loomis Fargo robbery, it misses on a lot of the jokes and ends up being more silly than funny. It’s not nearly as good as many of the other films featuring these same actors, and I blame the script and the director for letting it fall into silliness right away. This is produced by Lorne Michaels which explains all the SNL actors in this film, and that also explains a lot of it. SNL has gone a long way towards losing their sense of humor lately as well, and is getting really hard to watch anymore. As a rental flick, this isn’t that bad, and these guys are really good actors, with very thin material to work with, granted, but they do their best. Several of the moments were really good, and I think it’s worth it to give it a go when you don’t have to pay big money to see it in the theater, but all in all, it’s not near as good as it should have been.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Broadway Video, Little Stranger, Paramount Pictures,

Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Alfred Molina, Billy Bob Thornton, Nicholas Braun, Christopher Abbott, Sheila Vand, Stephen Peacocke, Evan Jonigkeit, Josh Charles

Based on the memoirs of Kim Baker (Tina Fey) this is the story of a news reporter who is embedded with the Marines in Afghanistan and the dangers and excitement of trying to get the scoop and bet out other reporters while being in harms way every moment. This is the true story of this reporters experiences over a number of years in the early years of the 2000’s.

I was caught off guard by this film. Knowing it’s Tina Fey, and looking at the posters in the theaters, and not knowing anything about the content in advance, I expected a comedy romp through the middle east. This is NOT a comedy by any means. Now I have lots of respect for Tina Fey, and I don’t think she did really bad in this serious role, but still it was a little off putting to have her play such a dramatic and dark role. I ended up having a hard time keeping my attention on this film and found my mind wandering away. The story is interesting enough, but other than a few short episodes, most of it was bad romance and lots of talking and talking. One highlight was Bill Bob Thorton who plays the commander of the team Kim is placed in. He did a really good job, though it wasn’t a big role, playing this guy as tough as nails with a kind streak a mile long. I enjoyed him any time he was on the screen. But for the most part, it dragged and was not really that interesting to me. I was not highly impressed with this movie, and I guess the public pretty much agreed with me as it really disappeared in a hurry and ended up on DVD pretty quickly. If you are really interested in the subject of a female reporter in Afghanistan, the you’ll probably do better reading the book, and if you’re not particularly interested in the subject, then there’s probably not enough substance here to make it worth watching this nearly 2 hour film.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog