Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Great film. This is the second Dardenne movie i've seen after The Son; i thought The Son had some remarkable stuff going on more than anything Olivier Gourmet's performance who would rank up there with the best of this century for me, problem was i kind of ruined it for myself. The whole reason i decided to watch it was because i read the premise and thought it sounded good, thing is everything is kept a mystery for a while and with me knowing what was going on between Gourmet and the kid it took alot of the power out of it for me. There was also some stuff you had to suspend disbelief over which shouldn't be necessary in a no thrills, down to earth, attempting to be realistic film like that. Only gave it 2.5/5 but i'd probably up that to 3 thinking back, anyway even though i ruined that for myself i could tell their films had a great chance of working for me and this one did alot.

There was something both funny and sad about watching this kid try to run away all the time. After watching i read a couple of reviews on Letterboxd one of the highest rated ones was basically a sentence saying that the kid was an a-hole with a low score. Whoever wrote that wasn't wrong at all but that's what i loved about it, it didn't shy away from making the main character completely unlikeable when his situation meant there was a strong chance he was going to be like that. It's easy enough to make a film about a troubled child who half of the time is very sweet then half of the time acts out, this feels more real to me in that he is always a risk of going nuts for seemingly no reason. It does have endearing moments with him; everything involving his dad even when he is being a dick is pretty heartbreaking, and not in a cloying way in a very believable he doesn't want to let on that he is hurt way. For a long time the only direct plea for sympathy from him was that scene late at night when he says he wants his dad. The dad was a shthead not even sure what to say there, i literally facepalmed when he nonchalantly said "what's up" no apology no excitement for seeing him for the first time in however long, just gross. Such a pathetic pos trying to put it on Samantha, and it's just all the effort the kid puts into seeing him and how he's such a different person around him, the whole thing was disgusting.

No doubt i kinda hated him at times not because of his outbursts but because of all the stuff with Wesker, betraying Samantha after everything she had done including choosing him over her boyfriend; it made complete sense though so wasn't a problem. The actor who played Wesker was totally convincing as a manipulative snake, the kid already feels angry and betrayed, he is looking for a place to belong and Wesker offers this. There's also the fact that Wesker went to the same home he is the same as the kid so he knows dangling the good things he has in front of his face will make him believe good things will come if he just does what he says. It's kind of subtly heartbreaking when you see that he has broken his promise to Samantha immediately after making it and what he is actually going to do. I call it subtle because that's not the tone of the scene at all but it definitely made me feel bad all things considered. That's the best thing about their films and it's obviously not just theirs: the present things as is and let the viewer come to their own conclusions works alot for me at times. I mean i know these aren't difficult things to arrive at but i don't feel like the Dardenne's are trying to drag me there and i think evidence of that is a fair amount of people not liking the film because they despised the kid.

Like The Son i figured early on there was mystery here mainly what is this woman's deal. She paid for his bike then agreed to foster him without more than five seconds of thought and this was after seeing that he is obviously troubled. The obvious guess would be that she can't have kids but it doesn't go into it and i'm glad it doesn't because i don't think it would add much and i can't see a way for them to fit it in which wouldn't feel contrived; as she is obviously not going to tell the kid that the only way to do it would be her saying it to another adult which i wouldn't have liked. Her saying "I don't know" when the kid asks was enough for me. The actress was fantastic and the character was a saint basically, felt bad for her throughout. Really don't know what to think of the ending; overall i'd say i liked it i think. Thought it wasn't going to tell you whether he lived or not which would have been annoying, the whole thing was weird. Anyway great film.

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Patriots Day

(Peter Berg)

Was going to watch Brigsby Bear and i will some time in the next few days, thought this would be a better fit right now after the down to earth Kid With A Bike earlier. Nearly everything before he ends up in jail was terrible, the film would have been alot better if it started with him already in jail and any attempt at a conflict and/or emotional story was erased because the writer was obviously not capable of making it meaningful. The script is eyeroll worthy quite a bit; like the law of averages/cream nonsense, seems to be trying (and failing miserably) to say more than it needs to at times and it can be pretty tough to watch. For the most part i'd say the script was awful, like how horrible was the part at the pool table where Vaughn is hitting you over the head with the fact that his childs birth means so much to him when he is obviously going to end up in jail soon, seriously made me cringe how unsubtle and weak it was. And that didn't even satisfy the writer he had to make Vaughn seriously wary about doing this just...ugh. The attempts at making him likeable were completely unnecessary and they didn't work anyway, making him go back to help the police was so dumb and you even had the prosecutor reiterating it in the next scene too make completely sure that the audience is aware this is a good guy, he supports our boys in blue! Jesus christ. Not going to keep going on about the script because there was things i liked about this film but yeah it was mostly a POS, think this part of the film was on par with Con Air which it reminded me of (i mean he even refuses to see the kid while he is in prison just like Cage ) except it was taking itself alot more seriously making it that much worse.

It's annoying because the majority of the prison stuff really works, it's very brutal and Vaughn is excellent. This could have been much better as a 90-100 minute film with all or the vast majority of it set in prison. I mean the wife and baby's limbs stuff was super stupid but at that point i didn't care was just looking for some over the top action and i got it. The whole thing got more and more ridiculous and it was great, the sht cell cracked me up then i was dying when there was apparently something worse in Cell Block 99. So there was 90 minutes of a very entertaining brutal action film with a flimsly plot only there to hold things together, problem is that was following around 50 minutes of a horrendous attempt at an actual story. If there was only 5-10 minutes of the latter i'd say i kind of loved this but that's way too much to dismiss. Mixed but entertaining in the end.

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