What even is this? It’s supposed to be a suspenseful action thriller about a wanted criminal boss with a bullet in his brain who refuses treatment and the cops who want him in a cell but themselves are targets of the criminal’s associates, which is all well and good. But nothing happens. Literally, for all but the last 15 minutes the characters mill around and bicker, plans are formed and fall through, and all with little if any progression to the story. I don’t know where everyone else is reading all this social commentary in the text, when there’s barely any text to begin with. Ditto the supposed balletic composition. There’s no surprise to the supposedly tense bits — really, it has all the tension of someone setting up an elaborate domino run that just sort of flops over and it’s done and should we clap now? I suppose it’s polite, like you would at the end of a ballet that sucked. Meanwhile, the main protagonist is an asshole misogynist who constantly needles his overweight colleague (who’s played for comic relief, so you know what kind of bullshit that is). A key plot point seems to hinge on everyone’s astonishment that a man who says his right hand is banjaxed can still shoot a gun with it, and anyway can still use his left hand? And it’s dotted with product placement for some brand of itch relief cream? I… what?? ★★
Cross-posted from Letterboxd