The Campaign (2012) – Bear Film Review

Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis go head-to-head in the presidential campaign in this farcial comedy about American politics. As an Englishman living in O’ Blighty, I felt a tad alienated from all the hoopla and nonsense that pervaded this movie, but there were moments I found funny, and I will now go into my honest opinion.

Okay, I will talk about the not-so-good parts of this movie. I felt some of the jokes weren’t that funny to begin with. Perhaps an American audience may find the accidental punching of a baby hilarious, but I didn’t. And then they soon after rehashed the same scene, but this time the president (Ferrell) punches a dog. It didn’t tickle my funny bone, I’m afraid, and I was left feeling that I’d missed the humour. Maybe this movie was only intended in delighting an American audience, because I felt like I wasn’t in on the joke, sadly, and instead would see a supposedly funny scene, and find an empty response inside myself. Usually, I like films Will Ferrell is in, and I liked Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover trilogy, but this movie wasn’t as good as it could have been.

However, I think the reason this movie didn’t do it for me is because I have no first-hand experience of the American culture. Jokes about getting revenge on your political opponent by having sex with their wife and then using it for a TV advertisement is just baffling to me. Perhaps this is meant to mock the, shall we say, unfaithful presidents of the past, but I just didn’t find the idea to contain much comedy. In fact, I viewed it as meanspirited in nature, and I was surprised at how it was used in the movie.

I’m going to have to put this down to a cultural difference in British and American humour. Don’t get me wrong – I love American comedies… just not this one.

Parasite (2019) – Bear Film Review

This movie is a peach! A South Korean Comedy-Thriller packed with many amazing twists and turns, and with a real engagement on the issue of class and the social divide between the rich and poor. Parasite is available on Amazon Prime, and I highly recommend it for several reasons.

Parasite is a “peach” of a movie

Firstly, it was never boring to watch! Every scene was so interesting and beautifully presented, and that’s a rare thing these days I find. Its story structure was unique, and you never quite know exactly what was going to happen next. In some films, this might make for a tiredsome movie with no plot, but Parasite was so well paced and full of so many surprises that blew me away, and left my mouth open on some occassions.

Full of surpises throughout

The premise of the story is about how a poor family living in a basement apartment manages to infiltrate a wealthy family’s home, and take measured steps into making it their own. But this basic idea does not drag this storyline out throughout the whole film, but instead uses it as a stepping stone towards some bizarre moments, which I for one found an utter delight to watch.

A bizarre delight to watch

The characters themselves were well-developed, and it was deftly done how Parasite manages to have the viewer get to know so many so efficently. Some critics many argue that there was not enough backstory into some of the characters, such as why there was a character living in a certain place in the house (I’ve censored this description enough not to spoil anything in the movie). But I believe doing so would have been a disservice to the movie itself, as I quite enjoyed being shocked by certain scenes as they occurred.

Well-developed characters (including the secondary characters)

So if you’re after watching a movie which is both humourous in places and bizarrely interesting at the same time – watch Parasite. I highly recommend it!

The Queen’s Gambit (Ep. 3)

Ah, in this episode I finally find a weakness in one of the characters. I’ll talk about this first, because on the whole I really am enjoying this series very much.

Okay, here it is – I didn’t like Beth’s chess rival and former child prodigy, Benny. His character is just too cheesy for my liking, sorry. He looks like a Poundland Johnny Depp (not a good look these days) and he simply could have been better fleshed out by the scriptwriters. I’m sure that his character would have been more believable in the novel this Netflix series was based on than in the series itself. This is the one thing that bugged me throughout this third episode.

Aside from this, Beth’s psychology is on full display in this episode. The cracks were there from the beginning with the pill taking, but now we begin to see the consequences of what a sacrificed social life does to her. She begins to think about guys, and she ends up feeling utterly stupid for falling for a guy who appears to be a homosexual. At least, he shares a room with a guy with a single bed… so he might be bisexual. Who knows?

As the stakes are raised in this episode, the pressure is mounted on Beth to achieve more. She begins to be unkind to herself when she realises that she could have been defeated in one of the games before she reached the final round. We also see how Beth’s foster mother is a bad influence on her (she only cares about using her adopted child to fund her now-lasvish lifestyle).

Out of the first three episodes, I consider this one to be the weakness, simply because I felt the rivalry between Beth and Benny could have been so much more intense. Instead, I was left feeling short changed in the presentation of their rivalry. However, I did appreciate the passionate swearing when Beth would tell her foster mother about the final match, and thought this aspect was good. It’s just a shame that there wasn’t more scenes between Beth and her main rival, because I felt there could have been greater dramatic tension created between them.

On the whole, I did like this episode. The Queen’s Gambit is (so far) consistantly good in how it develops Beth’s character, and is very sound in its overall structure. I look forward to what happens in the next installment very much.

The Queen’s Gambit (Ep. 2)

In my last review, I gave an overview of the unfortunate beginnings to Beth’s life, and how chess was her only escape route out of her circumstances. In episode two, we see her leave the orphanage, and witness how this skill she has acquired starts to florish.

The development of Beth’s character as she grows older is niftly shown in this episode, and really does a good job at revealing to the viewer how she is starting to grow in confidence. Chess allows her something for her mind to focus on, and we see her begin to enter local tournaments, and how her earlier lessons from the janitor have led to her genius talents.

Another aspect worth mentioning is how because Beth has left the non-space of the orphanage and entered the real world, she is open to the complexities of high school life. Key antagonists seems to be the group of popular girls who look down on her for wearing cheap unfashionable clothing. This dynamic is well executed in this episode, and I can see that it will play as a good subplot throughout the series.

Indeed, Beth’s new life is one shrouded in poverty. It doesn’t help that her adopted mother is not in a very good place in her life. But what this does for the story is show how clever Beth is in using her desire to be the best in chess to bring in money for the family. It’s hard to say more than that for this review – otherwise I would end up spoiling the episode for you.

However, I will say that episode two of The Queen’s Gambit keeps up the high standard of the first episode, and it has left me eager to end this blog entry and move straight on to the third episode.

The Queen’s Gambit (Ep. 1)

Chess? Enjoyable viewing!? Surely not… but yes. Here I review Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit and why it is worth watching during November’s UK Lockdown (if you hail from the same neck of the woods as I).

I had no idea what to expect with this one. The reason I watched it was because I randomly saw a still from it in today’s Saturday newspaper. It also rained nonstop today! Beautiful English weather, no?

I quickly found myself wrapped up in this story from the very beginning. A young girl named Beth has lost both her parents in a horrific accident, and we are introduced at the same time as her to her new life in the orphanage. Unsurprisingly, her character is very withdrawn, but she seems to settle in fairly quickly as she is befriended by Jolene (whose character incidently reminded me of Angela Jolie’s character in Girl Interrupted. In fact, this might be the only slight criticism of The Queen’s Gambit – it contains that “Hollywood” tone to troubling life situations. But here I must confess to some hypocrisy – I am a sucker for this kinda shit. So… an atonement of my hypocrisy 360s it into integrity. Ha!)

I was impressed how the episode developed in story. Yes, okay, there were no real surprises, and sure, I knew what was going to happen throughout, BUT I ENJOYED IT SOISTHATACRIMENO! Where The Queen’s Gambit was strongest was in making me feel for Beth’s character. There was the parallel being made between strategy in chess and survival in an orphanage which I thought was made superbly. I also was impressed by how we gradually get to see how Beth’s rebellous side (i. e. skipping class to play chess with the janitor in the basement) is also her weakness. I won’t say what I mean by that (spoiler avert!) because I am kind. Also – like this shitty blog post and comment plz. Thanks.

To sum up – this is the best thing I’ve watched on NetFlix in quite some time. I loved how the story developed, and I’m looking forward to how this limited series will progress throughout.

(I’m more of a chequers fan normally on accounts of the IQ deficiency, BUT today I will say this – watch The Queen’s Gambit. It’s rather good.)

Apostle (2018) – Bear Film Review!

Hello0o0o. It’s been a while, hasn’t it, my internet film friends. What have I been doing these past 2 years since I last wrote a film review? Thanks for asking. Well, quite a lot. But I’m not going to be narcisistic about it and share the mundanities of my existance. No. Instead – here is a film review of Apostle (2018).

Reasons to watch
My first impressions early on into watching Apostle is that they put a lot of effort into establishing a believable world. I was interested in the setting of the island, the journey by boat towards the island, and how this all took place in the early 1900s.

Journey to the island

There was also some good characters and good acting from the leading male actor (Dan Stevens), and the islander leader’s daughter (Lucy Boynton). Their relationship in this movie was the strongest aspect of Apostle, in my humble opinion.

Moreover, I enjoyed the usual camera angles on the brief occasions we (the viewers) are made to experience what it’s like through the character’s eyes. Like, for instance, when the leading character is hit on the head by the servant to the old lady who is fed blood underground. Again, I liked the oddness of how the whole community was based on these sacrifices – at first giving her animal blood, but later on having to resort to human blood.

One example of Apostle‘s usual camera style

Reasons for why this film bored me to shhhhleep
Sadly, the movie falls flat for being so slow in pace. I was constantly asking myself when something was going to happen for the first hour, which wasn’t a good sign considering this was a two-hour movie. And this is coming from someone who loves slow psychological thrillers.

When you eventually got to the interesting parts of the movie, the outcomes are predictable. The soundtrack cue of discordant music creeping in was also something I found rather patronising. I wouldn’t mind this if it was an all-out horror movie, but this film was attempting to portray an sophisticated thriller of sorts.

If it wasn’t for the unique religious elements pertaining to the islanders’ community, I would be attempted to say that this movie was simply a poor man’s version of the original The Wicker Man. It is not an unwatchable movie by any means, but I did feel that this movie was misleading in how it inticed me into watching it into the first place. I say this because the image used on Netflix’s menu for Apostle was that of a horrifying instrument. The movie itself only featured this weapon in one scene, and that scene alone was something I didn’t consider to be this movie’s centre point.

Yes, you could say this movie “bored” me to death

To Summarise
Personally, I found Apostle a bland viewing experience, with moments of intrigue which quickly fizzle out in their impact. Nevertheless, I would still recommend this film to anyone who is in the mood for a slow-paced thriller. If I had the chance to go back in time, I would have approached this movie with no expectations in order to be surprised by the storyline.

Don’t expect a jump-out-of-your-seat thriller/horror film is what I’m saying.

A Hole in my Heart – Film Review

A Hole in my Heart could have been something interesting, but instead fails to deliver any sort of social message, which, I believe was what director Lukas Moodysson had set out to do in this movie.

Having watched Lilya 4-ever many years ago, I felt compelled to pick this up at my local secondhand commodity-store, and thought it would go down with a nice cup of tea. Instead, my eyes had to witness what can only be described as amateur pornography, in some rundown apartment, where a father and his close ‘guy-friend’ had sex with a woman. The twist in the story is a psychological one (but, to be frank, most of it was twisted). Sadly though, the backstory (primarily the father’s), whilst presented as a deep psychoanalytical exploration into these people’s lives, was wafer-thin, almost cardboard in its narrative. ‘What a shame’, I said to myself as I watched this. Lilya 4-ever this was not, because at least that film had some sort of impacting message (at least it did for me).

But thinking back to Lilya 4-ever, I can see Lukas Moodysson’s filmmaking style is in this film too. In Lilya, there was a few corny scenes that undermined the movie as a whole (the angels, a McDonald’s happy meal on the table), but at least they were memorable. (I watched that film perhaps ten years ago.) Having just watched A Hole in my Heart, I fail to recall much. The only interesting thing happened when the woman leaves the apartment, and entering the real world, we see that she cannot handle it, so she then retreats back to them. The film should have explored that idea more, I believe, and could have easily been done as she was the only one to leave the house! If they’d all have left at one point or another, we could have seen how they required the perversity of their secret world, inside the flat, in order to survive. It would have made for a deeper, more meaningful contrast. But no! instead, we have what I would term as post-dogma camera work, looped editing (e.g the film starts where it begins), and by the end of it I’m immediately left with the words ‘Is that it?’ on the tip of my tongue.

I believe Lukas Moodysson is a talented filmmaker, but A Hole in my Heart is huge failure in my opinion, purely because it lacks a coherent message. Some films don’t require an explicit statement for the audience to receive, but in a film such as this, there is a moral obligation not to infect the viewer with bad ideas. Moodysson, by not being obvious in his message, signals to some viewers that this kind of behaviour is acceptable, when it is not. I don’t care what happened to a character such as the boy’s father – you don’t treat women like that! Having psychological issues such as what he had does not mean you should enact abuse on others. Moodysson fails to deliver a solution to this type of problem, which he could have easily have done, and in not doing so he leaves the film open to the interpretation of being a glorification of sexual abuse. Whilst I believe Moodysson did not intend for this to be perceived as such, it must be said that there are many, many damaged people out there who will see this film as so. It could be said this is purely that type of viewer’s fault for indulging in that psychological perversion of theirs, but this is exactly my point: Moodysson gives them the opportunity to self-medicate their own psychological issues in this arena. A misjudged film, by a filmmaker who is capable of so much more.

Spider (David Cronenberg) – Bear Film Review

I haven’t had much exposure to David Cronenburg, but what I’ve seen of his films I’ve liked very much (Scanners, EXistanZ, and of course… The Fly!). This film however took me by surprise because it was unlike these other films. There were no sci-fi elements whatsoever – it was purely psychological.

Seeing Life Through His Lenses

We follow Mr Cleg, a mentally ill man, after he has been let out from the asylum he had been hospitalised in for an undisclosed amount of time. He is taken to a safe house so that he can learn to gradually gain independence in a safe environment, along with other ex-patients. There is a woman there who I believe to be some sort of carer, but none of the people kept there really like her (one even calls her a tyrant).

The storyline dips in and out of his reality, into his memory/fantasy of a reconstruction from a specific time in his past. Like the puzzles he tries to complete in the safe house, he is trying to piece together the events that lead up to this very important event in his life, and which we the viewer are to believe is the reason he has become this broken man we see now. I liked what is friend says to the carer about why he wears four shirts all the time: “Clothes maketh the man. And the less there is of the man, the more the need of the clothes.” That broke my heart when he said that because I can feel his pain, and having meet people like this in my real life, I know too well that this saying is what many vunerable people, mentally ill or not, go through.

Mr Cleg – not the former Lib Dem MP, but the protagonist in this low budget movie – scribbles down recollections as he pictures himself in the scenes, kind of like how Ebenezer Scrooge observes those in his community when visited by the three ghosts (that reminds me – Merry Christmas people!! Subscribe and leave comments please. x). When I tried to read what he was scribbling in this book, all I can see were pencil marks that looking nothing like words. He is so paranoid someone might read this tiny book that he hides it under his bedroom carpet.

Pure Imagination

It’s peculiar to watch this man watch himself as a child. He revisits his childhood home and we see how much love he has for his mother, and how she keeps the peace at the dinner table between him and his father. His father likes to go to the pub frequently, and though the mother does go once, she is not so keen to. Eventually because of this, the boy (the his grown up self) sees that his father is starting to see another woman at the pub.

One day, his wife gets suspicious as he why his husband isn’t home yet, and so goes to the pub his frequents. It turns out that no-one has heard of him there, which she finds odd. Next, she goes to the most likely place after that where he might be: in his shed down by the allotment. She swings open the door and there he is, straddling the bimbo from the pub. The father, in fright, clouts his wife on the head with a shovel, which sends her unconscious. He are to believe that she is dead. They bury her there in the allotment patch, with the grown up version of the boy watching it all unfold. Thinking back on it now, his feels like a figment  of Mr Cleg’s imagination. I say this because why would a young boy like him be at the allotment at that time on night? But then again, his was a rather curious and intelligent boy, and so it cannot be ruled out that he was in actual fact there at the time. Damn you David Cronenburg! Damn you for making me think!

Glass is a theme in this movie. 

A glass mosaic – more symbology from his movie.

Fact? Fiction?

With this man’s imagination, it is hard to separate sometimes what is fact and what is fiction. In his reality today, he visits a cafe regularly and stares up to a poster on the wall of countryside hills. We are then transported to a scene where he is in fact in the countryside, talking with his now tenants at the same safehouse he lives at currently. Are we seeing them actually there, or are we seeing him imagining he is there? It’s hard to say for sure which.

This is the same with the ending. His real mother always told him that he was go with his hands, and so with that he devised an elaborate mechanism made entirely of rope that can be pulled from his bedroom to turn the gas stove on in the kitchen. He did this knowing fully well that his father’s lover would he in that room, possibly asleep (and drunk). Once the gas was enough to reach the upstairs, his father got his son and evacuated him from the house, then pulled out the woman onto the street. He cries to the neighbour for help but no-one comes. The scene ends with his father telling him that he’d killed his own mother, and when he looked down to see her, the face had changed to prove that his father was indeed telling the truth. This chilled me to the core.

Because he was re-enacting this in his mind, it triggered him to see that the carer in the safehouse was much like the replacement of his mother, and so should be destroyed. The moment his mind’s eye saw his father’s lover morph into his dead mother, he was in reality now standing over the carer’s bed, holding a chisel and hammer over her head. He realises what he is doing now but it is too late as the carer wakes up to see him lurking over her body. “What have you done Mr Cleg?” she says to him, and alas he is taken away back to the asylum.

In Conclusion

The mood was rather bleak throughout this minimalistic film, but though it wasn’t filled with anything massive in spectacle, it still gripped me to the very end. And that ending – I was not expecting that! I was tempted to conclude that it was him who had killed his real mother, but the ambigutity leaves one to wonder. It’s so cleverly done, so subtle, like a silent ninja piranha that knows where you live.

Just to let you know, I plan to watch this film again (once I’ve watched all of David Cronenberg’s films. Any tips on which one I should watch next?).

And because I’m the kind of guy who loves to spoil ya, here is the movie. I’d be interested to here what you think of it. X

Luther (S1 Ep2) – Bear TV Review

Rambling Hi!!!

In the second episode of Luther we see Alice (the innocent-until-proven-guilty-but-obviously-the-killer-or-her-parents—–and-dog) become more and more like Rose from Two and a Half Men, back in the days where Charlie Sheen was the uncompromising womaniser on screen. But unlike Rose, Alice is more of a threat – afterall, you never saw Rose break into the house of your estranged wife’s house like Alice does. Alice is the real deal. Rose is a wannabe. This is relevant I know, but the rest of this review is worth reading, so I’m sorry for this paragraph, but not sorry enough to delete it. Hater’s gonna hate regardless.

Anyways, enough of the subplot. Here’s the real meat for you to sink your teeth into (unless you’re vegetarian or vegan, then I wholeheartedly apologise from my caravore heart. Follow, like, comment y’all! X)

The Nitty Gritty

So we begin with a guy slumped by the side wall of an underpass, the train on the track above whizzing past as a police car comes by to expect what looks like either a homeless guy, a drunk, or both. It turns out it was none of these things I’ve just mentioned, but someone armed with a gun whom kills them both with expert precision. Who is this?

After seeing some CCTV footage back at the station of a guy near that very location and time of the shooting, from only the back of this person’s body can Luther discriminate what kind of background this murderer has, to some degree anyway. Luther declares that this man use to be in the army, and he can tell by the way he walks, and having been around many people such as this in his past.

His boss gives him a file of someone who fits the guy’s profile of killing only cops and the descriptions they have of him. The file is of a person whom cannot of done this as he is still inside behind bars for killing a previous copper, and looks too old to fit the bill. So instead Luther thinks – once shown the next file – that it could be this guy’s son, who also served in the forces but was recently released due to mental illness. To Luther, this is the killer, and you know something – he’s right again.

The next scene of crime regarding this case takes place at point blank range. He deliberately walks up to a passing female police woman and shoots her in the abdomen, with the intention of not killing her but leaving her as bait to attract more police to this location. It worked, and he starts sniping them all from the rooftops like he was playing a video game. But what kind of sick twisted mind wants to kill policemen, and what is his motivations? That’s what Luther wants to know. And the answer comes in the form of an online video.

The killer uploads a video to the web (it’s gotten a fair amount of hits already, so say one copper) and states the demands he wants in order to stop him killing anymore innocent police men and women. He wants for his father to be let out from prison as he doesn’t deserve to be in there, and did this country a great service. Luther now understands who is really behind these killings, and it isn’t the one on the screen.

The commander of the killings is the one locked away in prision: the father. He has a strangehold on his mentally unstable son and apparently use to beat him when he was younger, so much so that he made his son wet the bed constantly. The son wants to please his father and would do anything for him – joining the army, and even kill for his release. So Luther decides to pay him a little visit.

The veteran meets up with Luther in an empty prison hall and he tries to bargain with the detective that he will tell his son to stop killing if he is allowed to have his prison sentence reduced 5 years, as he believes what he did was manslaughter not murder. Luther laughs away his negotiations, telling him that this isn’t going to happen. Meanwhile, whilst they talk, this guy’s cell is being searched inside-out for clues in how he is able to communicate with his son in the outside world. It turns out that he had a mobile phone in there all along, but little do they know that this commander behind bars is still one step ahead of them. He knew that they would find the phone, and planted it there so that more policemen will be led to a building with a bomb inside. The bomb being detonated by a mobile phone call.

Luther goes back to the veteran and tries to blackmail him into giving him what he wants. And what does no prisoner want other prisoners around them to think they are? That’s right – a nonce. He slaps a brown envelope on the table between them, and the guy’s face twists in disgust at the picture he sees. He tells Luther that no-one will believe him, but Luther thinks they will as the story of how he controls his son to commit murders on behalf of himself says a lot about what their real relationship could really be like between them. The prisoner doesn’t give Luther an answer, or at least we do not see it. But it doesn’t take long for us to know what the outcome of that talk was.

In her office, the boss sees Luther on the BBC news, talking to a reporter about the gunman who is killing policemen. Everything he says is a lie, and is his way of painting himself as a target. Because he’s so smart, he also knows that the killer has been listening in to all of their police conversations, and so tells his boss over the walkie talkie where he is heading. This is a message for the killer, and he bites it hook, line, and sinker.

Outside a row of upper flats, we get the head-to-head of Luther and the gunman. Using his psychological wit to try and disarm the mentally unstable man doesn’t work and only winds him up enough to hit him in the face a few times with the butt of his gun. He still tries to use his father against him, telling him that he doesn’t have to live in his shadow anymore and that it’s him the police are after, not him, but the ex-soldier doesn’t buy it. Instead, he takes all the bullets out of his gun chamber bar one, and plays russian roulette with him. After the fifth one (empty load), Luther knows that there isn’t much time to act before the man finishes himself off, to prove he is nothing like his own father. Luther wrestles him to the ground, punching him in the face and disarms him. Job done! Of course his boss isn’t happy about him disobeying orders, but that’s what happens when you’ve got a maverick like Luther on your team. In the end, you’ve got to roll with it, like Oasis said.

So where will the next episode find us? If I was to guess I’d say the guy whom Luther decided to let fall from a great height at the beginning of episode one will come back into it, and join forces with Alice. This has already been suggested in this episode as we saw Alice playing psychological games with Luther from the guy’s bedside, telling us that he is indeed still alive. Ooo0o0o0o0o I can’t wait! Can you?

See you in a bit. Xxx

The Ridiculous 6 – Bear Film Review

Okay, I’m about to review an Adam Sandler movie. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those elitist movie snobs who says stuff like “Punch Drunk Love was the only decent movie Sandler made,” or “Jack and Jill can suck ma ballz,” because I haven’t seen it, the latter is just creepy and wrong, and because that ain’t true in my book.

The good thing when it comes to Adam Sandler movies is that you know what you’re going to get.

The bad thing when it comes to Adam Sandler movies is… that you know what you’re going to get.

If you’re interested, these are the films I’ve seen of his, and I’ve put them into three groups: the good, the bad, and the ugly (see what I done there? Nope? You will in a minute).

So off the top of my head, we have:

The Good

1. Mr Deeds
2. The Waterboy
3. Punch Drunk Love
4. Little Nicky
5. Happy Gilmore
6. 50 First Dates

The Bad

1. Grown Ups
2. Don’t Mess With The Zohan
3. Mall Cop
4. Click

The Ugly

1. Bucky Larson – Born To Be A Star

Before you ask, I watched the majority of these when I was around 14. If I watched them now I might have a different opinion.

Back to Reviewing THIS Film…

So what is this film even about? Well at first, I thought it was going to be a parody of Quentin Tarantino’s H8ful Eight movie – a parody of a film which hasn’t even been released yet – but then I heard this was meant as a parody of the Magnificent Seven, so I guess I was wrong there. Either way, it’s about a group of western folk who come together in search of their long lost daddy. Long lost not because of circumstance, but because it suited the womanising outlaw lifestyle he had grown accustom to.

The story follows Adam Sandler who has grown up in an Indian Tribe. His name in the film is Tommy Stockburn, but he also goes by the name White Knife due to his skills and tendencies using  knifes. In the film he is dressed to look like a Native Indian and has a wife called Smoking Fox. His dad is called Screaming Hawk (or something like that. I forget now). Yes, these are cliches.

After finding his long lost dad by chance, he is told by him that he is dying and that he came to find him so that he can be shown where the hidden money is buried. At this point, a group of men on horses take him away from Tommy so that the dad can show him where the hidden money is buried. Bummer.

Tommy goes into a town with the intention to rob a bank. His plan once he has $50,000 is to give the kidnappers of his daddy the money they crave so that they can be reunited. Along the way his discovers by chance 5 other men, all of whom come from different mothers but all have the same father. His Father!!!!!!

Brothers from another mothers

The biggest problem this movie has is that it meanders in places and feels too drawn out for its type of comedy. The movie DID have a handful of belly laughs in it such as Steve Bucusmi as a Bartender/Dentist, the beginning fight scene where Adam’s character bamboozles a small gang, and some ass jokes from… a literal ass, and if it were to have 30 minutes cut from the movie, I’m sure I would have enjoyed the whole experience a lot more. This could have been a great movie for what it is (obviously it wasn’t made with the aim of nabbing an Oscar from Tom Hanks this year) but unfortunately in certain places, it falls as flat as the desert terrains they journey throughout this movie.

I’ll add here that if you liked early Sandler stuff ala Happy Gilmore, then you may like this film more than a lot of his recent output. You’ve got the lightning-visual gags thrown in sparingly with the quirky crowd people you tend to see in his early films, the romance element his character usually has, and the usual slapstick which makes his movies his own.

Overall, it’s not a great movie, but I think that’s always been the point of his movies – it’s not about greatness, it’s about just having a good time watching it. I’d say it’s worth a watch, but that’s just me. And as for the whole ‘racist’ thing the press was generating about this film – don’t take such a dumb ass film so seriously! There is so many more shocking films out there to huff about. Heck, look at the world right now. Look at the recent events of Paris. Look at Syria! Don’t get distracted in such PR nonsense regarding this film – watch it/don’t watch it, but don’t start political BS over a goofy comedy (but comments are welcome :)).

There isn’t really much else to say about this movie. I won’t spoil it anymore for you if you’re planning on watching it on Netflix anytime soon. I hear he has a contract deal with Netflix, meaning he has agreed to make another 3 more films exclusive to them, so who knows – in about a years time I might be reviewing another film of his.

But until then – take care. X

This would make a lovely postcard, don’t you think?