To everyone who made this movie into a cult hit, I hate you,
Tim Lieder | New York, NY | 08/10/2010
(1 out of 5 stars)
"And I hope you die.
That said, I don't know if I would have hated this movie quite so much if I didn't hear so many people praising it to the hills for so many years. Even in light of the director being a jerk and BS2 being so bad, I have heard that this is the most awesome Tarantino imitator movie ever. To be this cool, you have to watch Tarantino.
Instead, I got a superhero movie with two brogue spouting actors playing a couple of invincible crazed killers who mow down armies of mafia types. It starts with the Russians and then goes on to the Italians. Not sure why the Irish mobsters are allowed to live. Maybe there aren't any Irish mobsters. All the Irish stuff is straight out of the Lucky Charms commercials. The mobsters rarely get their accents down. The conceit of having Willem Dafoe reenact the crime scene after the fact in order to show the crime scene works at first but then gets repeated so often that you have to realize that it's a one trick pony directing this thing.
And there really is no reason for Dafoe to go in drag at the end beyond the homophobia of a director who thinks taht dudes in dresses is hilarious.
The story is idiotic and the dialogue is BS faith stuff. And here's where the movie really grates on my nerves. You know how Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) says that the Bible verse he's been quoting was something that he just thought was some cold sh-- to say before popping a cap in some guy's a--? Well that scene works because it is at the center of this conflicted character who realizes that he has to completely reevaluate his life and that he's had the tools to repentence all along and he's been misusing them. In this movie, the prayers and the Bible quotes are simply ways for the screenwriter to fill up space when he runs out of variations on swear words.
Of course, I doubt anyone thinks that the guns and faith thing is serious. But still, this movie makes Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days (Left Behind No. 1) seem like Paradise Lost in comarison (full disclosure: I edited an anthology of Bible horror stories called She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror because I have the same issues) and it's insulting to anyone that might take their religion seriously.
Basically, this movie is a revenge fantasy for white suburban teenagers who are scared of the inner city and want to think of themselves as tough because their pasty white ancestors were probably from Ireland (shake a family tree and an Irish woman falls out). It's about two boring idiots who kill a bunch of evil idiots and can't die or get hurt. It's very boring and very insulting and a waste of two hours."
A pseudo-Tarantino mess
Seb & Co | Edinburgh, UK | 09/24/2010
(1 out of 5 stars)
"Very divisive film, as you can see from other ratings and comments. Personally, I hated it. Hackneyed moralizing, horrendous overacting (witness the horrorshow called `David Della Rocco') and an inexplicably high rating on Rotten Tomatoes (19%!) If you're hungover, depressed or even suicidal, avoid this tosh. You will end up twenty times worse. Or dead."