Ryan O'Connell

I’m only halfway through, but I’m so confused by the Gary Oldman lead big pharma driven subplot. If this drug is marketed as the first non addictive pain pill in a post oxy world, then its definitely going to need to be non-addictive. It will be publicly scrutinized at some point. At that point it loses it uniqueness and value and just becomes another pain pill? Also, this appears to be one product from a multi-billion dollar company. Wouldn’t anyone with a brain, specifically those at the company, realize this and go, “it’s worse for us to tell a lie that’s going to be irrefutable 10 days after the public starts taking it versus I don’t know, any other option?”. I feel like I’m missing something… if I’m not… this is an extremely weak storyline and I’m surprised they wrangled in the cast they did and no one else thought of this. Outside of my the story and acting pull me in enough to pay attention. However, more of a good time waster than anything close to thrilling, suspenseful, remarkable or profound. So far…

Just finished watching and am heart-broken. The acting from Shia, and the whole cast is fantastic. The underlying story and message about the facts of PTSD and it's entanglement with psychosis is accurately portrayed. You can see him go from the negative psychotic symptoms of withdrawal and isolation, to complete disassociation and eventually the positive psychotic symptoms of delusion and hallucinating. However, outside of the acting, the polarizing truth of war and it's affects, and resonating with the love a father has for his son, the overall movie was so-so. The back and forth in the story line seemed like a justification for the (not needed) "apocalyptic" undertone of his mental breakdown and/or a way to glorify the inexpensive production, frail dialogue, and questionable story telling. I would have much rather seen this play out from beginning to end. The writing in my eyes desperately needs better reinforcement of Gabriel and Devin's friendship, and could do a much better job of eloquently presenting the deterioration of Gabriel's sanity. I think the problem is, a lot of the portrayal is done visually which is understandable to a degree but more and smarter dialogue could have done wonders.