Lift

Year 16, Day 153 - 6/1/24 - Movie #4,742

BEFORE: June is here, and so is the screening format breakdown for May: 

4 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): Destiny Turns on the Radio, Being Rose, Because I Said So, Pain & Gain

6 Movies watched on cable (not saved): Barbie, Georgia Rule, Stoker, Father Stu, The Big Hit, Shooter

7 watched on Netflix: Dumb Money, Poms, Penguin Bloom, Fear, Me Time, Ride Along, Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only

1 watched on iTunes: Kill Your Darlings
1 watched on Amazon Prime: Once Upon a Crime

1 watched on Peacock: It's a Disaster

1 watched on Tubi: Ride Along 2

21 TOTAL

Oh, right, I took that trip to North Carolina so May was a short month.  But here are the links that should get me past Father's Day and to the end of June: Gary Weeks, Amy Landecker, Patton Oswalt, David Koechner, Dennis Quaid, David Herman, Stephen Root, Susan Sarandon, Harvey Guillen, Natasha Rothwell, Hugh Grant, Sebastian Maniscalco, Robert De Niro, Dinah Shore, David Letterman, John Belushi, Penny Marshall, David Letterman (again), and Donald Trump.  Yeah, that looks like some documentaries coming up in June for sure. 

Kevin Hart carries over again from "Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only". 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Misfits" (Movie #4,431)

THE PLOT: Follows a master thief and his Interpol Agent ex-girlfriend who team up to steal $500 million in gold bullion being transported on an A380 passenger flight. 

AFTER: Well, it's clear that screenwriters share a common belief that if you just put the right team of experts together, you can accomplish anything, including impossible things.  You need a master-mind thief, for sure, and then you also need (in some order) a hacker, a safe-cracker, a pilot (or getaway driver) and a disguise expert.  Throw in a martial arts expert or a demolitions expert if you've got room.  This is, of course, recognizable as the "Mission: Impossible" formula, however it's a bit like a xerox machine, every time you make a copy of a copy, the result gets a bit harder to read or understand.  For this one and the last film that followed the formula ("The Misfits") the guy who's the disguise expert only seems to be able to disguise himself, not other team members, and in both cases, his disguise efforts just weren't very good, he still looked like either Nick Cannon or Vincent D'Onofrio, no matter what he did.  Umm, technically that's the opposite of an expert, if he's not very good at what he does - MAYBE think about replacing that guy, if he's not pulling his weight. 

Now, we just need an idea for a heist that requires hacking, safecracking, piloting a plane, and some martial arts and blowing stuff up, and we'll be all set.  Yes, I know this seems like building something backwards, or from the top floor down, but apparently this is how movies get made in Hollywood now, you have to tick all the same boxes that the LAST heist film did, because how else are you going to duplicate that film's success?  Write something original?  Nah nah NAH that just sounds too risky.  Tom Cruise did a thing with a plane, so let's just do a thing with a plane too.  That movie with Pierce Brosnan did a switcheroo with a pile of gold bars so let's just do a similar switcheroo too.  And make sure the guy who can't really disguise himself as somebody else tries to disguise himself a few times, even though it's really not crucial to the plot in any way.  LET HIM HAVE IT, because really, that's all he has. 

This is the heist formula, apparently you can't change it if you want to be successful and entertain America, even if it's only on Netflix. Other elements you may have seen before, in addition to the ragtag bunch of misfits with particular skill sets include:  

An Interpol agent who hires the team and promises them amnesty from criminal prosecution if they help out the good guys for once. 

The fact that Interpol agent had an (accidental) one-week relationship with the criminal mastermind, while she was undercover.  Jeez, you don't suppose that by working together on this job that they'll somehow get closer together and forgive each other for the past deceptions and maybe have a chance at a lasting relationship in the future, despite being on opposite sides of the law?  

People swapping out gold-colored iron bars for real gold bars, and moving them around very easily, despite the fact that gold is one of the damned heaviest things in the world, but yet when it come times to steal them, somehow thieves find a way to subvert the laws of physics.  

"Lift" doubles down on all these common tropes of heist films, then adds a few new impossible wrinkles of its own.  Most prominent is a private jet that is co-opted by the team, and somehow given the ability to fly right under the commerical airliner and duplicate/steal its radio signal, so that when the airliner is diverted, it will still appear to air traffic control to still be on course. Most likely this is ACTUALLY impossible, not just "Mission: Impossible"-style very unlikely.  For starters, we can assume that there should be some kind of security protocol used by ATC that would prevent this from happening.  So this is NITPICK POINT #1, I don't believe it's possible for a small jet to somehow steal the signal of another plane.  I also think that it's probably impossible to cover that jet with stealth-tiles, whatever those are, and for it then to be able to take off after being covered in those tiles.  But screw it, let the screenwriter create whatever they want, magic is just technology invented by a writer that doesn't exist yet, right? 

NITPICK POINT #2 tells me that nobody would put 19 tons of gold into a commercial airliner, because this magical second cargo level just does not exist, there's the passengers, there's the luggage compartment and...well, that's it, we're full.  Cargo goes on CARGO planes, not passenger planes.  If a passenger plane were carrying billions of dollars of gold, this is exactly what would happen, somebody would try to hijack it, putting all of those passengers at risk.  Nope, it's just not gonna happen in the real world. NITPICK POINT #2.5 tells me that even if you DID put 19 tons of gold into a plane, how the hell would that plane be able to take off?  Worse, you have to double that weight when you consider that the dummy gold made of iron or whatever is also aboard the plane.  Yeah, it's not leaving the runway then.  

NITPICK POINTS #3-6 - but this is a MAGIC plane, I guess.  It can fly upside-down for a long period of time, it can do a nose-dive without slamming its passengers into the rear wall, and it can pull out of that nose-dive without breaking into pieces.  Also it can shake off those stealth tiles just by doing a couple of barrel rolls, once they're no longer needed. Very handy.  And also when you can't land it on a runway, you can just find an icy road at the top of a mountain and land it there, who cares if that road is only 100 feet long, you can make it work.  

NITPICK POINT #7 - clearly screenwriters don't understand what NFTs are, either, but I guess that's OK because nobody anywhere really does. 

NITPICK POINT #8 - Cyrus and his crew steal a famous painting in London by causing a distraction at an auction house in Venice.  There's simply no way in the world this makes any sense, because even if their disruption disables or confuses the security in one location, that would have exactly ZERO impact on the security systems, alarms and guards in another building in another country, hundreds of miles away.  In what universe does this plot point make sense? 

OK, new proposed conversion method, five NITPICK POINTS means one point off my score. That seems about fair, right? 

Also starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw (last seen in "Fast Color"), Vincent D'Onofrio (last seen in "Dumb Money"), Ursula Corbero, Billy Magnussen (last seen in "No Time to Die"), Yun Jee Kim, Jacob Batalon (last seen in "Spider-Man: No Way Home"), Jean Reno (last seen in "The Promise"), Sam Worthington (last seen in "Avatar: The Way of Water"), Paul Anderson (last seen in "Nightmare Alley"), Viveik Kalra (last seen in "Blinded by the Light"), Burn Gorman (last seen in "Enola Holmes"), David Proud, Oli Green, Ross Anderson (last seen in "Macbeth" (2015)) Stefano Skalkotos, Martina Avogadri, Jess Liaudin (last seen in "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil"), Caroline Loncq (last seen in "The Protégé"), Alessandro Quattro, Morgan C. Jones, Nadira Tudor, Polly Middlehurst (last seen in "The 355"), Michael Absalom (last seen in "Extinction"), Andrew Wilson, Gerard Monaco (last seen in "Holmes & Watson"), Roy McCrerey (last seen in "One Missed Call"), Erol Ismail, Gordon Alexander (also last seen in "No Time to Die"), Russ Bain, Amit Dhut, Mark Hampton, Gary Fannin (last seen in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"), Alfredo Tavares. 

 

RATING: 6 out of 10 first-class tickets (will that be "hijacking" or "non-hijacking"?)

Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only

Year 16, Day 152 - 5/31/24 - Movie #4,741

BEFORE: OK, maybe too many action/comedy movies in a row, I need to shake things up a little.  Kevin Hart carries over from "Ride Along 2".

I know, this is a documentary, about his comedy tour with Chris Rock.  And the Doc Block isn't scheduled to start until mid-June, so why put this one here?  Honestly, I tried to fit this one into the schedule for the upcoming documentary chain, but it doesn't fit.  Well, that's not really true, it DOES fit, but only in one specific place, between a documentary about Chris Farley and another one about Albert Brooks - as you might expect, because Chris Rock was on SNL with Farley and a lot of comedians appear to talk about Mr. Brooks.  BUT that space is occupied by a documentary about John Belushi, and I can't fit them both in the chain there, that won't work.  That Belushi doc has been on my list for probably three years or more, so it takes precedence, I don't want to put it off yet another time.  So I'm sneaking the doc that WON'T fit into the chain here, between two movies with Kevin Hart in them.  

I could probably tear the doc chain apart and put it back together another way, and fit this one in there, but that's a lot of work, I'd rather not mess with it at this point.  I could skip it, but then I don't like the way my slots line up, I'm not crazy about which film lands on spot #4,750, so this one goes here and solves that little problem, too.  

THE PLOT: Follows two comedy icons behind the scenes throughout a tour of New York City area venues as they tell firsthand accounts of their early lives, their struggles, their triumphs and their brotherhood. 

AFTER: This is another weird film, because it's technically a documentary, but who the heck needs a doc about a comedy tour?  Why not just air the footage FROM the event itself?  The team-up was called the "Rock-Hart tour", and that's kind of cool because it sounds a lot like "Rock Hard". But Kevin Hart's got like five comedy specials (at least) on Netflix, why not just one more?  Because what's glaringly missing here is the comedy concert footage from Madison Square Garden - we see the two famous comics doing mic checks at MSG, we see them backstage at MSG, we see the intros to their routines, but NOT the routines themselves.  There's even footage of the post-show, where Hart gives Rock an actual GOAT as a present, as a way of telling him that he's the "Greatest Of All Time" in comedy, but umm, and look, I guess that means the mini-tour went well, but jeez, I'd really like to see that for myself.  

Last year I endured the similar doc "Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?" which showed the acclaimed Broadway actress and singer touring across the country, preparing for her big concert at the same venue, Madison Square Garden (which is neither square nor a garden, but that's beside the point).  And then once she got there, OF COURSE there was footage of her singing songs for the crowd at MSG, including OF COURSE "Let It Go", which nobody needed to hear again.  But that's called the PAY-OFF, you don't detail the road to something in a doc and then NOT show us that thing, because then what the hell did we waste the last 80 or 90 minutes building up to?  

Look, I can easily see myself complaining if there was TOO much footage of Kevin Hart and Chris Rock's routines on the MSG stage - then I probably wouldn't consider this a documentary at all, then it would just be a concert film, or a regular-like Netflix comedy special.  So clearly they were going for something that wasn't ALL comedy routines, let's shake it up a bit and ask other comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Wanda Sykes how they know our two headliners, when did they first see them perform, what makes them special, etc.  That's all fine, but then to not air ANY of the concert footage, that's a damn shame.  It's literally why we showed up to watch this film, to see the funny people being funny.  So I'm not saying there needed to be a lot, but I think there at least needed to be a little. 

Then the other problem is that their backstories are so matter-of-fact.  I went to this club, I was hired for this TV show, I was in this movie with Ice-T, that's all just a bit dry - and limited by which pieces of movie footage they were able to license. (My biggest challenge with linking these docs is that the IMDB listings for archive footage are usually incomplete, so I usually end up submitting a bunch of additions to the IMDB editors, and sometimes they believe me, and sometimes they don't, but I do what I can to make the listings more completer.). Do we need to know about Kevin Hart's sit-com "Big House" that got cancelled before it could air?  No, we do not, because who cares?  Everybody has failures on their resume, because not everything can be a hit, it's just that simple. 

OK, maybe both comedians had specials on Netflix that featured the same material that they performed in these NYC venues.  I guess I could see why Netflix wouldn't want to compete with itself, like you might not tune it two watch the latest Kevin Hart comedy special if you'd heard half of his routines before, like in some weird documentary about doing stand-up on tour in four locations in the same part of the country.  

Oh, but Dave Chappelle also joins the tour for the big MSG event, and both Hart and Rock weren't sure if he was going to show up until just days before the show.  They admit, Dave's gonna do whatever Dave wants to do, and also the reverse of that, he's not going to do what he doesn't want to do. Friends like Jay-Z show up backstage, and also the new mayor of NYC, Eric Adams, who often sounds like he's doing stand-up himself during his press conferences, except they're not funny and often don't make any sense. 

The big draw to me is learning more about Chris Rock's time on SNL, how he couldn't get many of his written sketches approved for broadcast, so he's probably got a grudge against the head writer at the time (Conan O'Brien?) and also why he left the show after only a couple of seasons to appear on the rival sketch show "In Living Color" instead.  This probably would have been a terrible career move if he hadn't hit it big in movies shortly after that, with appearances in "Lethal Weapon 4", "Dogma" and the animated films "Osmosis Jones", "Doctor Dolittle" and the "Madagascar" series.  Everything kind of turned out fine, more or less.  

Kevin Hart, same deal, once his "Big House" sitcom got cancelled, that only made him more determined to hit it big, even if he had to make a couple of stinker movies like "Soul Plane" and "Scary Movie 3" before long he stood t in small roles in "The 40-Year Old Virgin" and "Fool's Gold", "Meet Dave" and "Drillbit Taylor".  There you go, just keep working and hustling until you've got a starring role in "Think Like a Man" or "Ride Along".  So I guess it took both of these comedians/actors years or hard work before they could be considered "overnight successes".  There's a lesson in there somewhere about hard work and paying your dues, I suppose. 

I wish both men great success, of course, but I just wish the documentary made about their NYC shows could have been a little more engaging, somehow. 

Also starring Chris Rock (last seen in "Rustin"), Bill Burr (last seen in "Dog"), Cedric the Entertainer (last seen in "Street Kings"), Dave Chappelle (last seen in "Can We Take a Joke?"), Tiffany Haddish (last seen in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent"), D.L. Hughley, Jay-Z (last seen in "De Palma"), Tony Rock, Jerry Seinfeld (last seen in "The Super Bob Einstein Movie"), Wanda Sykes (last seen in "Monster-in-Law"), Eric Adams, Tina Farris, Robert Hart, Caroline Hirsch, Will "Spank" Horton, Keith Robinson, 

with archive footage of Dave Attell (last seen in "Mr. Warmth - The Don Rickles Project"), Roseanne Barr (last seen in "Frank Sinatra: One More for the Road"), Jim Carrey (last seen in "Val"), Dana Carvey (last seen in "Jack and Jill"), Louis C.K. (last seen in "I Love You, Daddy"), Chris Farley, Flea (last seen in "Babylon"), David Alan Grier (last seen in "Coffee & Kareem"), Arsenio Hall (last seen in "That's My Boy"), Phil Hartman (last seen in "Nothing Compares"), Jan Hooks (ditto), Steve Harvey (last seen in "Think Like a Man"), Kate Hudson (last seen in "Alex & Emma"), Ice-T, Reggie Jackson (last seen in "Say Hey, Willie Mays!"), Victoria Jackson, Sam Kinison (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Jon Lovitz (last seen in "I Could Never Be Your Woman"), Bernie Mac, Howie Mandel (also last seen in "Can We Take a Joke?"), Matthew McConaughey (last heard in "Sing 2"), Mike Myers (last seen in "Amsterdam"), Dennis Miller (last seen in "Jagged"), Eddie Murphy (last seen in "You People"), Patrice O'Neal, Colin Quinn (also last seen in "That's My Boy"), Joan Rivers (last seen in "Listening to Kenny G"), Adam Sandler (last seen in "Jack and Jill"), David Spade (last seen in "The Wrong Missy"), Robert Townsend, Damon Wayans (last seen in "Bulletproof"), Keenan Ivory Wayans, 

RATING: 4 out of 10 early appearances at the Comedy Cellar

Ride Along 2

Year 16, Day 151 - 5/30/24 - Movie #4,740

BEFORE: May's almost over, so I'm just taking it easy today, sleeping in because June's going to be very busy, it's festival month at the theater, so I don't have a LOT of shifts scheduled, but the ones I have are all 10 or 12 hours long, so it's going to be a marathon.  At my other job, my boss is constantly running out of money and coming up with more and more desperate attempts to make money and pay his bills, but nothing seems to be working.  Part of me wishes he'd just retire, which would solve a few problems for me but probably create a few others, too.  I've been job-hunting for maybe two years now and been close a couple of times, but nothing's come together for me on that front, so I'm kind of stuck until I can make some kind of big move, or I just have to quit and lay low for a while, but that doesn't feel right to me either.  

Kevin Hart carries over again from "Ride Along", and now we have a tie. 

THE PLOT: As his wedding day approaches, Ben heads to Miami with his soon-to-be brother-in-law James to bring down a drug dealer who's supplying the dealers of Atlanta with product. 

AFTER: Nothing succeeds like success, I suppose - and if you can spend $40 million making a movie that brings in $125 million, of course you should keep doing that.  But notice that they announced a third film in the "Ride Along" franchise back in 2016, and so far it has not been made.  Sure, there was a pandemic and everything, but still, if it were really necessary you'd think it would have happened by now.  The "Bad Boys" franchise has a new film coming out, and that's the second sequel to the original two movies, so they're kind of in overtime there.  Now i bet someone was wishing they'd saved "Bad Boys for Life" for the fourth film so there could be a prominent number FOUR on the poster.  "Ride or Die", what does that even mean?  Anyway tonight's film was almost called "Ride Along: Ride 2gether" but cooler heads eventually prevailed. 

A lot of stuff gets thrown at us in this film, and sure, it would be nice if all made sense, but that's not nearly as important as getting Ice Cube to act tough and Kevin Hart to be loud and crazy.  Yeah, those seem to be the primary goals - but also rookie cop Ben Barber is getting married, and clashing with the wedding planner, so it makes sense (?) for his future brother-in-law James to take him to Miami for an undercover operation.  I'm just kidding, it makes no sense at all for Atlanta cops to track down a drug dealer / arms dealer in Miami, because they're way out of their jurisdiction.  Police can't just go to another city and start shooting people, we'd have chaos all over this country if that were allowed, so I'm pretty sure it's not. 

Sure, we have the internet now and illegal things are brought into ports every day, I suppose, and then people load guns or drugs onto trucks and drive them wherever, but we're a nation of laws, and the police have to follow the laws and the rules of engagement, and if there's interstate trafficking going on, isn't that what we have federal agents for?  But no, why should a screenwriter learn how police work really functions, because that would just get in the way of a situation where Kevin Hart can act wild and crazy.  It's about priorities, people.  

Also, this is somehow even more confusing than the first "Ride Along" film, but the tradition continues of having a villain who's somehow into both drugs and guns and works completely in the shadows, the difference here is that he's masquerading as a normal Miami millionaire, and he's buying up politicians and port commissioners to make everything go smoothly.  Only he forgot about the hacker he used to, umm, do what, exactly?  This is where the story falls apart, because it's really unclear what the hacker does for the drug kingpin, and why he turns against his boss after a much-too-long foot chase through Miami's affluent suburban backyards.  

Ken Jeong is fine, but there's a few too many people from "The Masked Singer" in this film, with Jeong, Sherri Shepherd and Kevin Hart, who made a completely ridiculous appearance on one of this season's early shows, allegedly just to "prank" Nick Cannon, only that's not how the show works.  Clearly Kevin Hart wanted to be on the show, but also wanted to guarantee that he wouldn't have to sing for more than one episode.  

Really, this film is proof that you just can't have it both ways, you can't make an action/crime film that the audience can take seriously if you also want to have Kevin Hart falling out of a boat and being dragged behind it for comic effect.  That just CAN'T be in the same movie.

NITPICK POINT: Cutting to imaginary video-game footage in the middle of a car chase may seem like it's in line with Ben's gaming background, however it's just as likely this was done because creating live footage of those stunts was either too difficult or too expensive.  Like, how am I supposed to know the difference? 

Also starring Ice Cube, Tika Sumpter, Bruce McGill (all carrying over from "Ride Along"), Benjamin Bratt (last seen in "Snitch"), Olivia Munn (last seen in "I Don't Know How She Does It"), Ken Jeong (last seen in "Pain & Gain"), Michael Rose (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 3"), Sherri Shepherd (last seen in "Think Like a Man"), Arturo del Puerto (last seen in "CHIPS"), Eric Goins (also last seen in "Ride Along"), Lucius Baston (ditto), Carlos Gomez (last seen in "The Replacement Killers"), Utkarsh Ambudkar (last seen in "Marry Me"), Glen Powell (last heard in "Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood"), Nadine Velazquez (also last seen in "Snitch"), Bresha Webb (last seen in "Night School"), James Martin Kelly (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Robert Pralgo (last seen in "Jerry and Marge Go Large"), Tyrese Gibson (last seen in "The Christmas Chronicles; Part Two"), Ricky Russert (last seen in "I, Tonya"), Christopher Johnson, Jay Amor, Peter Parente, Rey Hernandez (also last seen in "Pain & Gain"), Yolanda Adams, Tip "T.I." Harris (last seen in "Monster Hunter"), Rick Ross (last seen in "Coming 2 America")

RATING: 4 out of 10 trash can nachos

Ride Along

Year 16, Day 150 - 5/29/24 - Movie #4,739

BEFORE: OK, so the initial goal was to have Mark Wahlberg and Kevin Hart as co-leaders with the most appearances this year, that seemed fair since they were co-stars in "Me Time", but I sort of forgot that Kevin Hart was in three films in February, that's given him a clear advantage, so by June 1 he'll have the top spot by himself, and he'll probably still be leading when I start the Doc Block in mid-June, but really, after that all bets are off, because somebody like Dick Cavett or Richard Nixon will probably be in so many documentaries via archive footage, that it won't really matter any more.  But enjoy the lead while it lasts, Kevin Hart. 

Kevin Hart carries over from "Me Time"

THE PLOT: Security guard Ben must prove himself to his girlfriend's brother, top police officer James, so he rides along on a 24-hour patrol of Atlanta. 

AFTER: Sure, there are action movies that have elements of comedy to them, but when someone tries to make a film that's both action AND comedy, it's very tricky - most often they end up with something like this, that feels like it doesn't know which thing it wants to be. It kind of toggles between the two things, and maybe there's just no film that's a true representation of both genres at the same time.  "Bad Boys", "21 Jump Street", "The Nice Guys", they all kind of suffer from this same problem, as not every film can be "Lethal Weapon" or "48 Hrs." or "Free Guy". 

There's so much of this story that wasn't clear to me, like what was the mystery man, Omar, really involved in.  Police officer James tries to get him on some fake passport operation, but isn't he an arms dealer?  Drug dealer?  What does any of that have to do with passports?  Or is he some kind of criminal mastermind who's involved in a whole conglomeration of vertically integrated crime-like things?  It's a bit tough to say.  

James has been after him for years, but the problem seems to be that nobody knows what Omar looks like, because everyone who's seen him ends up dead, including the people who work for him.  OK, so what then is anyone's incentive to go to work for Omar in the first place?  How does he retain any loyal followers at all if he (or somebody) keeps killing them?  Well, we have to put a pin in that one for now, because there's more going down, as high-school security guard and platinum-level video game player Ben wants to marry James' sister, Angela, but first he feels that he needs James' approval, so James takes future police cadet Ben along with him on patrol, with the idea that he'll show Ben how tough it is to be a cop, and when Ben can't handle it, he'll change his mind about going to the police academy, and probably marrying Angela, too.  Umm, sure, that tracks. 

James takes all of the "nuisance" calls from the police dispatcher, and Ben has to deal with a gang of bikers that block the handicapped parking spaces, also a drunk and disorderly patron at a market, who's really a poker buddy of James', in disguise.  In the midst of all this, James talks to an informant, who accidentally lets some information slip about an arms deal with some Serbians, which might be connected to Omar somehow.  But then the two men end up in a strip club with some real armed thugs, and by now Ben has figured out that he's been taken on a series of nuisance calls, so naturally he assumes that the real gunmen in the strip club are just another set-up arranged by James.  Ha ha, what a farce, to confuse real, armed criminals for fake ones!  

Honestly, the fake calls I could understand, but the REAL information from the informants about the arms deal was very confusing.  I think I fell asleep a couple of times while trying to sort it all out, and that's not a good sign for an action film.  OK, sure I was tired from a long shift at the theater, but still, an action movie should be able to keep me alert for 90 minutes, and "Ride Along" just didn't do that.  Not even Kevin Hart's high-pitched screams after getting shot in the leg could keep me awake, and that's saying something.  

On the comedy front, it's kind of a fail, too - I thought this was one of the classic films (it's 10 years old now) that MADE Kevin Hart's career, but in the end it wasn't that funny either.  So it's neither fish nor foul, therefore - not funny enough to be a true comedy, and not enough action to keep me awake, either.  Somehow this was a big hit, though, it made over $150 million, and that's in 2014 money.  That's over six times its budget, so a bona fide hit, no matter how you look at it.  I might as well knock off the sequel tomorrow, but honestly my expectations aren't that high, I'll just be doing that to cross one more film off the list. 

Also starring Ice Cube (last seen in "The Super Bob Einstein Movie"), John Leguizamo (last seen in "The Menu"), Bruce McGill (last seen in "Poms"), Tika Sumpter (last seen in "Think Like a Man"), Bryan Callen (last seen in "Walk of Shame"), Laurence Fishburne (last seen in "The School for Good and Evil"), Gary Owen (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Dragos Bucur (last seen in "The Way Back"), Jacob Latimore (last seen in "The Last Summer"), Jay Pharoah (last heard in "The Mitchells vs. the Machines"), Benjamin Flores Jr. (last heard in "Happy Feet Two"), Jasmine Burke, David Banner (last seen in "The Boss"), Gary Weeks (last seen in "The Tomorrow War"), John Kap (last seen in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip"), Anona Tolar, Dwayne L. Brown, Lou Anne Cooper, James Logan (last seen in "Greenland", Chase Steven Anderson (last seen in "Father Figures"), Kenny Alfonso (last seen in "Jerry and Marge Go Large"), Aaron Saxton, Bill Neenan, Will "Spank" Horton (last heard in "Tom & Jerry"), Eric Goins (last seen in "Boss Level"), Lucius Baston (last seen in "Secret Headquarters"), Drew Goin, Fernando Gonzalez (last seen in "Employee of the Month"), Jordan Rios.

RATING: 4 out of 10 quotes from "Training Day"

Me Time

Year 16, Day 149 - 5/28/24 - Movie #4,738 - FATHER'S DAY FILM #1

BEFORE: Ah, a film about how to spend your leisure time, or needing leisure time, or something - so I hope you had some leisure time this past weekend, and I hope you spent it well.  Just as Memorial Day is the "unofficial" start of summer (whatever that means, but every single news anchor says that like it does) then this week is the "unofficial" start of Father's Day films, I've already counted "Fear" as a very father-centric film, this looks like it will be the second, and there are more to come. 

Mark Wahlberg carries over again from "Shooter" and that makes six films in a row, that puts him on top of the leader board for the year, but if I stick to the plan he'll be passed by Kevin Hart really soon. 

I'll all for conserving my efforts right about now, I did look up those new documentaries about the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones, and they should slot right in between docs I already have on the schedule, so I won't have to tear down the chain I made and re-build it, and then while I was on Hulu looking up that Stones doc I saw there was one there about Joan Baez, and what the hell, I looked at the cast list and I found a place for that one, too.  But NO MORE changes after that, because if I could just stop looking up more movies, I can stay on the current course and cruise all the way to the end of July, past Father's Day, past Independence Day, and then the doc block, I don't have to program anything until August 1 is approaching, and by then I might already be thinking about how to get to...horror movies?  Maybe not, I'll think about how to get to some back-to-school films and then hopefully a path to October will be easier to see from there. 

THE PLOT: When a stay-at-home dad who dedicates all his time to his children is persuaded to take time off for himself, he gets mixed up in the wild shenanigans of his childhood friend who's celebrating his 44th birthday. 

AFTER: I guess Dwayne Johnson wasn't available for this one, so Kevin Hart had to find a new muscled man to play the role of his character's best friend.  It's fine, the top movie stars are more or less interchangeable, anyway, I mean, does it really matter which A-list celebrity you pair the funny man with?  You can put Danny DeVito up against anybody, from Michael Douglas to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he's still going to be funny, right?  

The hook here is that these two guys used to be best friends, but they grew up and became two very different people, one the responsible family man and the other one is still partying hard into his 40's, and there was a birthday-based skydiving incident that was just too much for Sonny to handle, so he stopped going to Huck's increasingly wilder and wilder annual destination celebrations.  Sonny is now a house-husband, or stay-at-home dad, or whatever you want to call the primary caregiver for two kids if that person is a male.  This is very modern and forward, of course, because some moms work and earn more money than their husbands could, so in those instances it makes perfect sense for Dad to take a few years off from his job, or find a lesser job that he can do from home, if he's the one who gets the kids ready for school in the morning and makes sure they do their homework at night, while Mom works late sometimes.  But then of course Mom might feel she's somehow less-than if she's not spending as much time with her kids, or if she's not exhibiting those skills that we've come to accept as "motherly".  But really, we're all working on this to some degree, trying to get beyond the old gender-based stereotypes, there's no reason why a Dad can't cook breakfast, go to PTA meetings, get snacks for soccer practice, and volunteer to run the auditions for the school talent show.  All of those things are important to the kids, even if there's no salary involved. 

But when Sonny's wife decides to take her kids to re-connect with them at her parents' house, it's also an opportunity to show that she CAN take care of them for a few days, while Sonny relaxes at home by himself for the first time in years.  However, after a few days he's very bored, and attempts to fill the hours with activities like golfing and eating BBQ turn out to be disastrous, and all of his friends who are parents at his kids' school are either busy or have terrible ideas for how he should spend his time, so he decides to go visit his old friend Huck on one of his wild birthday trip-parties.  (What could POSSIBLY go wrong?)

Well, just about everything that the writers could imagine, of course.  When Sonny joins the group of Huck's friends and co-workers, they start with some public skinny dipping, then all change into identical track suits and board a bus.  Uh-oh, this is all starting to feel rather cult-like, so this trip might end with everyone drinking poisoned Kool-Aid and waiting for the UFO to come out from behind the comet and pick them up.  OK, so it's not that kind of party.  Instead the bus takes them all to the desert where "Huck-a-palooza" is taking place, unfortunately it's not a concert but just a compound where they have to share yurts, forage for their own food and go to the bathroom in what are essentially buckets.  I guess there's a certain type of person who appreciates this sort of roughing-it experience, but really, nobody wants to hang out with those people.

After Sonny has an encounter with an incredibly fake-looking CGI mountain lion, he gains the respect of the other campers, but the revelry is cut short when a loan shark arrives with his female enforcer (how very progressive), demanding the $47,000 that Huck owes them.  And if you're wondering who would spend so much money on a desert birthday retreat when he owes someone so much money, well, that's irresponsible Huck for you.  Sonny, meanwhile, learns that his wife has been visited by her client, Armando, while she's on holiday,  and he starts to get jealous, like why didn't his wife mention that her rich male client would be there, and is that why she didn't want her husband to come along?  

Sonny and Huck are forced to move the party, once the loan shark burns down the campground.  The party bus heads to Sonny's house, where Huck's friends start mingling with Sonny's PTA friends, and meanwhile Sonny and Huck go to Armando's house and pull some stupid pranks at his house, like sticking spatulas down their pants and stealing all of his left shoes. Then they accidentally injure his giant tortoise on their way out.  

What's weird here is that there are so many details offered that were unnecessary - why is the amount owed the loan shark $47,000 and not an even $50K?  Why does this rich guy want to buy an island for tortoises, and not some other animal?  What was up with the track suits, that little detail tells us nothing about Huck's character, but it does make things easy for the film's wardrobe department, so was this just a case of the story following some kind of budgetary restraint?  I'm left scratching my head about so many things here. 

Similarly, there are way too many specific details about very minor characters - did the screenwriter think that would make the film feel more "real"?  It had the opposite effect.  The one parent who leaves his family at Legoland so he can come back and party with Sonny by crushing up and snorting his kid's ADHD medication - that's a very unique combination of things, but it doesn't add up to comedy per se, it's still just a random collection of things that happen to this one guy.  And the WHOLE movie is like this, in one form or another.  Why is there a Lego Death Star?  Why do they delete episodes of "Blue Bloods" from Armando's DVR?  Why does Sonny's son specifically watch "Eddie Murphy: Raw"?  Perhaps there are reasons for all of these things, but perhaps not, it's tough to say.  

I think, though, that the more the script focused on these specifics, the less time that left to be funny, if that's possible. Most viewers probably won't find humor in the name-checking of shows like "Storage Wars" or "Naked & Afraid", because those are just cultural references, not punchlines.  "Oh, they're talking about a show I know" is a poor substitute for laughing at jokes, just saying. 

Also starring Kevin Hart (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Regina Hall (ditto), Jimmy O. Yang (last seen in "80 for Brady"), Luis Gerardo Mendez (last seen in "Chariie's Angels" (2019)), Che Tafari, Amentii Sledge, Diane Delano (last seen in "Jeepers Creepers 2"), Andrew Santino (last seen in "Friendsgiving"), John Amos (last seen in "Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You"), Anna Maria Horsford (last seen in "Heartburn"), Shira Gross, Kavya Thakrar, Michelle DeShon, Sharon Gardner, Kieran Roberts, Shyaam Karra (last seen in "The Host"), Connie Chen (last seen in "American Psycho"), Naomi Ekperigin, Drew Droege (last seen in "The Circle"), Deborah S. Craig, Antione Grant, Manika Beverly, Oren Skoog, Alexis Rhee (last seen in "Because I Said So"), Cathy Chang, Tani Hala, Koji Niiya, Octavio Solorio, Carlos Javier Rivera, Tahj Mowry, Prisca Kim, Carlo Rota (last seen in "The Boondock Saints"), Melanie Minichino, Jameelah, Chau Long, Syd Skidmore, Thomas Ochoa, Kamilah Michelle Hatcher, Ilia Isorelys Paulino, Kayden Alexander Koshelev, James Chan, Amanda Barlow, Michael Krause, Dreyson Ford with a cameo from Seal (last seen in "Jagged"). 

RATING: 4 out of 10 reasons to admire George Clooney

Shooter

Year 16, Day 148 - 5/27/24 - Movie #4,737

BEFORE: I've got a little extra time this Memorial Day weekend - who am I kidding, I've got a LOT of extra time this Memorial Day weekend, but before I just waste it doing laundry and clearing some old episodes of "Chopped" from the DVR, I wonder if I shouldn't be making better use of it, like should I be searching for documentaries to add to the chain at the last minute?  My wife said there's a new one about the Beach Boys, should I see if it fits into the mix, or just hold it for next year?  Maybe I should be taking a look at the horror films on my list, to see if there's a way to tie enough of them together for October, or should I be looking for more of those, too, to fill in the gaps?  Once I start doing this (in-between laundry loads), well, there goes the weekend, most likely.  I have to be at the theater on Tuesday afternoon, but at least it's going to be a short week. And then the big film festival month kicks off on June 1 with NewFest, and then the Tribeca Film Festival follows a couple weeks later.  So whatever I need to do to feel all caught up, I'd better do it now. 

Mark Wahlberg carries over again from "Pain & Gain", after just one more film he'll be in first place for the year, with 6 appearances. 

THE PLOT: A marksman living in exile is coaxed back into action after hearing of a plot to kill the President.  After being double-crossed for the attempt and going on the run, he sets out for the real killer and the truth.  

AFTER: Well, at least this has a more coherent story than "The Big Hit" did, that film was a total mess.  I understood what was happening here, up to a certain point anyway. About 2/3 through there was this minor character who suddenly became super important, and he had this really complex origin story, and I totally didn't understand how it fit into the big picture.  That's on me, maybe, but I have a feeling it was very important to the overall story arc, and yet I didn't get it at all.  Anyway, I should start from the beginning, probably. 

Bob Lee Swagger (great character name, BTW) is a former Marine scout sniper who we first see doing long-distance recon for a secret U.S. mission in Ethiopia.  They protect the convoy from far away by taking out the local scouts, which is helpful since the U.S. force isn't supposed to be there at all, so naturally they can't be seen by anyone.  But then the enemy forces show up in greater numbers, they deduce the sniper's position, or try to, from the direction of the bullets, and meanwhile the U.S. forces scatter back over the border, leaving Swagger and his spotter, Donnie, behind.  Which seems like a shitty thing for the military to do, whatever happened to "Leave no man behind"?  Well, the intel never said anything about helicopters, I guess.  

 

Donnie the spotter is killed by the Ethiopians, but sniper Swagger manages to survive, and we next see him three years later, living alone with his dog in the mountains of Wyoming.  We can presume he's no longer in the military, but who knows if that discharge was honorable or dishonorable, guess it doesn't much matter.  One day the men in black roll up to his mountain hideout and request his help, it seems there's been a threat against the President, and they need Swagger's sniper expertise to figure out which of the three cities the President will be appearing in soon might be the most vulnerable location.  In other words, if Swagger were to plan an assassination attempt, how and where might he do it?  Sure, this sounds mighty fishy from the jump, but Col. Johnson guilts him into helping out, because if he turns on the TV next week and sees that the President got shot, he'll feel guilty for not having prevented the attack.  Umm, sure.  

Swagger checks out the three venues in the three cities and determines that the only vulnerable event is the one in Philadelphia.  There's a tall church tower within sniping distance of Independence Hall, and sure, it would take an expert sniper, someone who could take all the factors into account - the wind, the distance, the amount a bullet drops over that distance, the curvature of the Earth, gravity, etc.  He knows HE could make the shot, meaning that there must be only a handful of snipers on the planet who could also make that shot, if they were at the same level at him.  At this point, if you don't see the twist coming, well, jeez, I can't help you.  I'd already figured out that the government was using this guy to PLAN the assassination, not prevent it.  But Swagger figures it out just a bit too late, that they'd been planning to frame him for the job, then shoot him Jack Ruby style.  

Yeah, this all seems just a bit too "Lee Harvey Oswald", doesn't it?  OK, there's no grassy knoll, no motorcade, no secret CIA training in Havana, but the idea is generally the same - take out the President and then pin it on one sniper who made a seemingly impossible shot, then make sure that the sniper dies so there's no denial of what "happened", then kill the guy who shot him, and bingo, no loose ends.  Except they shoot Swagger and he manages to get away - did they forget this guy managed to escape from the entire Ethiopian army?  He survives, that's what he does. 

Swagger steals a car from a clueless FBI agent (to be fair, it's Nick Memphis' first week on the job) and drives off to find a place to hide out, plus some medical supplies for his gunshot wound.  Changes his clothes, changes his look, changes cars a few times, and then he can't exactly go home, so he heads to Kentucky, where spotter Donnie's widow lives.  He remembers she was training to be a nurse, and that's exactly what he needs.  Meanwhile the FBI, the police, and even the Coast Guard are searching for him, but that clueless FBI agent starts to figure out that the facts in the case don't seem to add up, plus the FBI keeps telling him what to put in his report, even though it doesn't really match what happened.  

Turns out the President wasn't shot, but the Ethiopian Archbishop that was his guest got killed.  Hmm, Ethiopia, where have we heard that country name before?  Swagger sets out to clear his name, but to do that he needs the help of that FBI agent who's starting to figure out that Swagger didn't pull the trigger.  But then, who did?  To find out, they need to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole and visit this guy in Tennessee who seems to know everything about firearms, assassinations, faking ballistic matches, and not only can he tell you who else could have made that shot, but also what they each had for breakfast.  I guess this is where the plot kind of got away from me, because this "expert" spoke so cryptically that maybe I didn't pick up on his clues.  Since this guy also thinks the CIA killed Kennedy and the moon landing was faked, I didn't realize I was supposed to take him seriously.  

OK, no more spoilers here, but I had to read the plot summary on WIkipedia to figure out all of the connections to a particular Senator, the oil industry, and the mission that Swagger almost didn't survive.  But essentially Swagger and Memphis have to work their way back up the chain of command to get back to where this whole thing started, with a mountaintop shoot-out between the good snipers and the bad snipers, and then Swagger still has to prove to the Attorney General that he didn't try to assassinate the U.S. President.  Yeah, good luck with that, and watch your back, because the FBI or CIA can still send someone to kill you, and then once again you'll be unable to deny your involvement.  

Swagger should have remembered what President George W. Bush once said, which was, "Fool me once, shame on....shame on me.  You fool me, can't get fooled again!"  Ohh, so close, George. 

Really, just one big NITPICK POINT tonight, and it's that the film asks me to believe that this sniper can be an expert on ballistics, survival and military tactics, but yet he couldn't figure out what the government could do with all of the information he was supplying to them about how to carry out an assassination.  I mean, I GUESS it's a good cover story that they were just trying to learn how an assassin thinks to prevent one, but come on. 

Also starring Michael Peña (last seen in "Extinction"), Danny Glover (last seen in "Proud Mary"), Kate Mara (last seen in "Happythankyoumoreplease"), Elias Koteas (last seen in "The Last Days on Mars"), Rhona Mitra (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"), Jonathan Walker (last seen in "The Thing" (2011)), Louis Ferreira (last seen in "Naked Lunch"), Tate Donovan (last seen in "Worth"), Rade Serbedzja (also last seen in "Proud Mary"), Alan C. Peterson (last seen in "Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed"), Ned Beatty (last seen in "Prelude to a Kiss"), Lane Garrison, Brian Markinson (last seen in "Frankie & Alice"), Michael St. John Smith (last seen in "The Core"), Dean McKenzie, Tom Butler (last seen in "Code Name: The Cleaner"), Adrian G. Griffiths (last seen in "X-Men: Apocalypse"), Darrin Massey, Mackenzie Gray (last seen in "Warcraft"), Levon Helm (last seen in "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James"), Rebecca Toolan (last seen in "Bad Times at the El Royale"), Trish Allen, John Tench, David Bloom (last seen in "Okja"), Brad Kelly (last seen in "Peter Pan & Wendy"), David Neale, Anthony McCrae, Chic Gibson, Fred Keating (last seen in "Walking Tall" (2004)). 

RATING: 6 out of 10 firing pins

Pain & Gain

Year 16, Day 147 - 5/26/24 - Movie #4,736

BEFORE: So we've religiously watched 11 seasons of "The Masked Singer", and my wife and I have a friendly competition to see who can accurately predict the identities of more celebrities.  It's an imperfect process, because sometimes you just get a FEELING, like I recognized Paul Shaffer and Michael Bolton and Wendy Williams right away, and I couldn't tell you for sure exactly how I did that.  It's some subconscious combination of recognizing what you think someone's singing voice is, along with their body language, how they move around and of course, the clues they give you.  She has a better understanding of famous singers' vocals, like she got Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick and Thelma Houston. but I have a slightly better grasp on pop culture.  Either way, it's a mixed bag, hits and misses - honestly I think the whole show is rigged so sometimes I identify people by thinking, "Who would be at the proper level of fame to appear on this show?" or "Who's got something to promote?"  

But in the last two seasons, it feels like the writers on the show have gone out of their way to trick us with the clues, intentionally misleading us so we can no longer succeed at this.  I was convinced that the Anteater character last year was John Cougar Mellencamp, partially because the costume had a set of overalls in it, but also during the clue packages there was an image of both a cougar and melon - what else could explain this?  Spoiler alert, it was not John Cougar Mellencamp.  

This season, my wife was similarly misled by the clues for the Gumball character, which included a map of Louisiana, a reference to being a "superhero", and having co-starred with Channing Tatum and Ken Jeong.  Well, Anthony Mackie ticks all those boxes, because he was in "10 Years" with Channing Tatum, and he co-starred with Ken Jeong in this film, "Pain & Gain".  Right up until the finale, my wife was convinced that Anthony Mackie was in this Iron-Man like costume, even though he didn't play Iron Man or War Machine in the Marvel movies, is divorced so probably wouldn't be dedicating a song to his wife, and for all we know, can't really sing at all.  I understand that we latch on to false conclusions and then can't get off of them, but I also think there's an active ongoing attempt to mislead us with the clues now.  

For, me when the Clock character sang "Piano Man", I caught a bit of a vocal warble that reminded me of "Wing Beneath my Wings", so I convinced myself that it HAD to be Bette Midler in that costume, like she seems like she'd be game to do that show, but then a few episodes later she talked about her kids, and I "cheated" by checking on Wikipedia to see if Ms. Midler had any children, and she doesn't.  Still, I hung on right to the end and would not concede, I was sure that once the reveal happened, I'd be proven right.  Didn't happen.  

Mark Wahlberg carries over again from "The Big Hit". 

THE PLOT: A trio of bodybuilders in Florida get caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terrible wrong. 

AFTER: We're headed right for another American holiday, Memorial Day - and all the news could report on this week is how many people are traveling, filling up our country's airports and bus stations and car rental agencies, because simply everyone HAS to get out of town this weekend.  Well, I'm sorry to have to tell all the fine people who work for the news that if it happens every year at the same time, that is NOT news, which technically by definition needs to be NEW.  If you do a piece on how people are eating turkey for Thanksgiving, that's not news. Hey, people are buying roses and chocolates this Valentine's Day. Nope, not news.  People are going to travel or go to the beach on Memorial Day weekend as certainly as fish are going to swim and birds are going to fly, and simply nobody is going to change their plans just because they saw a news report about how there's a four-hour long line at the airport, so if you haven't left to catch your plane yet, you're going to miss it.  Eventually people will figure out that if they have to catch a plane on Friday, they need to go to the airport on Thursday and camp out. Life lessons are not learned easily.

I've been around a while, I've learned a few things - as a result, I never go anywhere on a holiday weekend, that's the perfect time for a staycation.  We went to North Carolina 2 weeks ago, during a week where nearly NOBODY else was going on vacation, because Memorial Day is coming up, and kids, we'll go on vacation then like all the other sheeple do, except one idiot in Queens, NY who just wants to sleep in late and get a few chores done around the house, maybe not even that if he's not feeling up to it.  Probably he's just going to watch a couple movies, clear some TV shows off his DVR and think about doing laundry, because that pile of dirty t-shirts is now bigger than he is.  There was a BBQ rib-eating event yesterday, and normally I'm drawn to such things like a magnet, however on a holiday weekend in BROOKLYN?  Forget it, the place is going to be crowded with hipsters, some of whom don't even eat meat, but they're there ironically - no, thank you.  I worked yesterday at the theater instead, a very crowded screening of a new documentary about the history of hip-hop, and now I'm at home, relaxing for two days and we'll see if I can make a dent on that list of chores.  Definitely, we need to put the screen window in the front door, and OK, sure, let's drop off some more comic books at the storage unit, but then I'd just like to drink a few beers and chill out, please.  No beaches, no car trips, no BBQ unless we can get take-out.  Look, you have your holiday weekend, and I'll have mine.  

The absolute last place I'd want to be is in Florida, for many reasons, and the temperature is just one among many.  Maybe we'll go back down to North Carolina in October, visit the state fair and see my parents again, but that will need to be planned, like when is NY Comic-Con, or will I quit that job between then and now and not care about that?  It's too early to even think about.  But Florida has been on our "DO NOT VISIT" list since the pandemic, we had tickets to visit her family friends down there in March 2020, but then the whole world shut down and we eventually cashed in the tickets to travel to Chicago in 2021 and visit her brother.  Man, between Trump and DeSantis and alligators and global warming, and book-banning and gay-bashing and conservative Republicans in general, I'm never going back (two of our cruises sailed from Florida, so visiting back then was a necessary evil).  And everything about this film emphasizes the reasons why.  

Yes, America is the biggest, baddest, most jacked-up nation on the planet, and Florida doubly so.  All of our biggest bodybuilders apparently call it home, having a "beach body" is simply the most imporant thing, and along with that, it seems like 75% of our country's strippers also call Florida home.  (Now wait a minute, that sounds like it could be a good thing, but let me also assume for a minute that it's probably not.  Florida therefore has the maximum number of hot women eager to separate men from their money.). Let's re-emphasize that "Pain & Gain" is based on a true story, a series of articles in the Miami New Times in 1999 detailed the exploits of a group of bodybuilding ex-cons who used kidnapping, extortion and torture techniques to get wealthy men to sign over their property and fortunes to them.  

Many of the names and details were changed for the film, but the real-life Daniel Lugo did use his job at the gym to meet his targets - wealthy men who needed fitness advice, and whom he envied for their lifestyles, fast cars, owning several properties, etc.  Sure, why not kidnap one of these rich a-holes and threaten him so he'll sign over his fortune to you, what could POSSIBLY go wrong?  Well, a lot, obviously, and about 2/3 of this movie is watching their schemes go wronger and wronger until finally even the incompetent and very racist Dade County police are convinced to maybe start doing their jobs and break up the serial kidnapping and extortion ring.  

Sure, the film doesn't depict things EXACTLY as they happened, there's some creative license involved.  If you really want to read up on the Sun Gym gang and their exploits, you're still free to do so.  The goal of filmmakers is to make an entertaining movie based on some of the facts, whatever fits together the best dramatically or comedically has to take precedence over getting everything 100% accurate, this isn't a documentary, after all.  The character played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is a composite, an amalgam of several gang members, one who was super into religion, another who was hooked on cocaine, and no member of the Sun Gym gang ever robbed an armored car, getting his toe shot off in the process.  

Ultimately, the blame clearly lies on the self-help guru who encouraged Daniel Lugo to be a "Do-er" and not a "Don't-er", and just knowing that our country even HAS a self-help/encouragement industry really tells you all you need to know about the U.S.  Every single one of them, from Tony Robbins on down, is a con artist, plain and simple, and I put them squarely in the same category as priests and cult leaders. If the last step in their self-help program isn't "Finally, create a self-help program and bilk money out of clueless losers looking for the secrets of success" then you know they're lying sacks of you-know-what. 

Considering the subject matter, I think director Michael Bay maybe did the best he could here with what he had to work with - it was probably difficult to make an action/crime film and a black comedy at the same time.  Committing murder and cutting up two bodies is just not a great topic for a comedy, even a dark one, and I don't think having mechanical problems with an imported chainsaw or putting the corpses' hands on a BBQ grill to remove their fingerprints really qualify as comic moments, IMHO. But hey, your mileage may vary. Nor does running over their mark's head with a van after setting him on fire and trying to kill him in a staged car crash.  At some point that's all really sad and pathetic, rather than amusing.  Still, this counts as a vast improvements over the other Mark Wahlberg films from last week, like "Fear" and "The Big Hit".

Also starring Dwayne Johnson (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets"), Anthony Mackie (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Tony Shalhoub (last seen in "Final Portrait"), Ed Harris (last seen in "Coma"), Rob Corddry (last seen in "80 for Brady"), Rebel Wilson (last seen in "Senior Year"), Ken Jeong (last seen in "Tom & Jerry"), Bar Paly (last seen in "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III"), Michael Rispoli (last seen in "Framing John DeLorean"), Keili Lefkovitz, Emily Rutherfurd (last seen in "Elizabethtown"), Larry Hankin (last seen in "How Sweet It Is!"), Tony Plana (last seen in "Havana"), Peter Stormare (last heard in "Cryptozoo"), Vivi Pineda, Ken Clement (last seen in "Sex Drive"), Yolanthe Cabau, Brian Stepanek (last seen in "Dark Skies"), Persi Caputo, Bill Kelly (last seen in "Where the Crawdads Sing"), Gregg Weiner, Parris Buckner (last seen in "Out of Time"), Nicholas X. Parsons, Rushanna Lewis, Richard Haylor (last seen in "Table 19"), Trudie Petersen, Patrick Bristow (last seen in "Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar"), Mike Tremont (last seen in "Sweet Liberty"), Holland Hayes, Sabrina Mayfield, Kiki Harris (also last seen in "Sex Drive"), Choice Gray, Mike Benitez (last seen in "The Do-Over"), Cedric DePasquale, Kory Getman, John Archer Lundgren (last seen in "Father Figures"), Stephanie McLane, Tommy O'Brien with cameos from Kurt Angle (last seen in "Warrior"), Wladimir Klitschko (last seen in "Ocean's Eleven")

RATING: 4 out of 10 fake notarized documents