pachrick Reviews

Go Tell the Spartans (1978)

Unwatchable

[2/10 · 13 November 2018]

I knew from the first few minutes that this movie was going to be bad - although it's supposed to take place in the early 60's, it looks more like it was *filmed* in the 60's (as a shallow made-for-tv series). The 'jungle' looked more like the scenery in many Westerns (verified after seeing that it was filmed in California), the musical score was hokey, and the dialogue reminded me of those old WWII movies from the 40's. If this came out during that era it would be acceptable, but this movie was released the same year as The Deer Hunter and year before Apocalypse Now - 2 great movies that had much better production, original viewpoints on the war (or war in general), more in-depth characters, more believable dialogues and vignettes, etc. I really struggled to try to watch the whole 2 hour movie, but after about 1:15 minutes I couldn't bear it any more.

Survivor (I) (2015)

Not sure if I should be yawning or laughing

[2/10 · 31 August 2015]

It's difficult to put time into writing a review of a movie that the writer/ director didn't put time into doing basic research. My first hint that this would be incredulous was the very first scene which was a pre-dawn raid in Afghanistan at '05.02 UTC'. Well, that's actually 9:32 Afghan time and the sun has long been up. The next scene took place sometime in the morning in London and gave the 'GMT' timezone. Hmmm.. GMT and UTC are the same thing for practical purposes. OK, enough about timezones... However, the rest of the movie was full of the same type of nonsense - it would have been enjoyable if the writer/ director had at least some sort of clue about government protocols and procedures (I'm no expert, but I at least have a clue): Visa clerks are relatively low-level employees that don't warrant expert international terrorists to try to kill them because they denied a visa to someone. Senior embassy staff don't give the OK to host countries to kill their staff because of shallow and questionable evidence. Host nationals cannot demand that a US embassy gives a visa to anyone. Ah... enough already. I didn't finish the movie it was so bad.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

Not seeing the big deal here

[4/10 · 24 December 2003]

Just noticed that almost 1/2 half voters gave this a 10... I'm dumbfounded. It has great martial-arts fight scenes, and the plot would be pretty interesting if it were actually developed, but there just isn't that much to this movie. Very over hyped. I give a 4. (And typically I'm a great Tarrantino fan).

We Were Soldiers (2002)

bullcrap from people who never saw a bull crap

[1/10 · 19 March 2002]

I'm not going to sit here for an hour and talk about how technically wrong the movie was, but I've seen more real-to-life scenarios (combat as well as non-combat) in spoofs (ie Stripes). Battlefield as well as homeland scenes were terribly portrayed and acted.

The only point of this movie was to try to be a tear-jerker. You're pretty gullible if you fell for it.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Booooo-ring

[1/10 · 13 January 2002]

Uninteresting, not funny, thin plot. Not sure what type of movie this was supposed to be because it didn't speak for itself. Maybe if I knew the writer's previous works or read up on what to expect it would have been more...something. But standing on it's own it was just boring and pointless. That about sums it up - not worth going into detail here.

Spy Game (2001)

Pure gibberish

[3/10 · 29 November 2001]

Really terrible plot/ storyline and only mediocre acting. The writer obviously 'borrowed' some ideas from well known books and other movies (ie. the training exercise where Pitt has to appear in the balcony of a window is taken from a book about a Mossad officer (and possibly other sources)), and the facts are not accurate (ie. Embassy bombing in Lebanon where 211 civilians killed in mid 1980's? Maybe they're thinking of the Marine barracks that were bombed and 245 Marines were killed.)

Besides all of that, the story just drags on with no real purpose. The idea is that Pitt has been captured by the Chinese in an attempt to free some political prisoner. The CIA wants to know what Pitt was doing when he got captured and then decide what to do about it - ignore/ deny it or try to help him. The whole movie is then just Redford rambling on about how he met Pitt, recruited, trained, and worked with him. None of this would seem to have a bearing on the alleged plot.

Story line had many flaws as well (BEWARE - spoilers ahead): Why would a highly trained and experienced spy (Pitt) make a stupid mistake like giving chewing gum to some unknown prisoner during a dangerous mission?(Why would he even have gum with him?); Why would Pitt risk his life to save this woman he only barely knew some 6 years previous and who left him with only a 'Dear John' letter (as far as he knew)?; Why would Redford throw away his life savings/ retirement house in the Bahamas and risk jail time to get Pitt out of prison when they didn't even like each other and hadn't spoken in the past 6 years (not to mention Redford's 'rules' about not risking anything for 'resources')? Whatever - I don't mind far-fetched plots when that is the pretext for the movie, but when they try to play it off as factual and believable, then all of this gibberish is irksome.

Last but not least - the acting is uninspired and bland. Personally, I think Redford is overrated as an actor and Pitt has had better performances.

I could go on, but this movie doesn't warrant it. (I've already spent more effort on this comment than the writers, directors, producers, actors, et spent making the movie.) I rate it a 3/10.