Ezequiel Trumper

Terrible. A massive flop. What a pity.

A road trip of a film that overpromises and hugely underdelivers. An unexplained civil war in America and four souls claiming they are “press” rambling along to interview the president in DC. The country is in flames but you don’t see it or understand it because they don’t tell you. And these people flag their press badges as it was a shield (in a real war this would never be as it would be used by both sides as a fake cover) making the stupidest personal decisions. The dialogue is so bad it hurts. The movie is poor. And you shouldn’t waste your time. Pretentious and irritating at the same time.

A terrible script, rambling, boring to watch, storyline all over the place, too much emphasis on his homosexuality, and frankly after 45 minutes you ask yourself what you’re doing with your time because the film is really not Interesting at all. Yes, Bernstein was a great composer and director. But this is a movie that must stand on its own. And it doesn’t. The script is so bad it hurts, the direction makes you wonder what this is about and the acting can’t save it. Save yourself 2.12 hours of your life and leave it alone. Not even Netflix material.

More music than movie. And at 2.26 hours they had time to include a proper script. It’s an empty and disjointed film. Pity. Good acting and production but the director failed us all and the movie is a mess which should have been completely re-edited. A failed effort. Don’t.

The film is a pretentious mess. And it’s often incoherent. Extremely long. It could have been edited and cut back at least 50 minutes. Some of the scenes are meaningless and others devoid of any meaning. Blanchett does a good performance but not even her can save this movie from its awful script. I can’t believe it was made. Stripped of all its hype, it’s tedious and very boring Save yourself the time, don’t bother and move on. Avoid.

Unwatchable. A good plot wasted in cheap sentimentality and low blows. It is incredibly bad. No redeeming features. Average acting, predictable characters. It is that bad. Just avoid it and save your time.

Struggled to concentrate because the plot and script are deficient. After an hour and a quarter I still didn’t quite understand what the film was about. Full of needless details and devoid of a core story. Worse than Gravity. It is really really bad and I can’t find any redeeming features. It is bland and pretentious at the same time. And it doesn’t tell an interesting story or any story. I wonder how such a terrible script passed the editing room or tempted any producers. That bad and empty. Don’t waste a second.

This is a very interesting film but for the wrong reasons. Coogan is an awesome actor, nothing new there. The cast is superb. Direction is agile. Easy to watch and entertaining. What bothered me was the sneering of the Rich. For the director (who also wrote the script), the Rich are all vain, spoilt and shallow, their children stupid and self-entitled. It is one cliche after next. All their money is made allegedly by ripping other people off. If only it was that simple. This isn't acknowledged by director Michael Winterbottom. The Rich is presented as a bully, arrogant, and essentially not sophisticated. That characterisation of the Rich billionaire is appalling and negates the fact that only the super bright become super rich on merit, as it is the case of the character in the film. But of course that defeats the lefty narrative. where only the virtuous or pious are intelligent -but they are poor like the storyteller in the film- and deserve to be praised. And here comes the spoiler (so if you haven't seen the movie, don't read the next bit): the Rich is murdered by one of the assistants, in full view of the storyteller. The assistant committed a brutal crime. The storyteller by not going to Police is an accessory. They are both criminals, and they are both the 'heroes' of the film. Not the slightest condemnation. The crime is justified and it is done with absolute impunity in the narrative of the film. This film reminds me of the underlying message behind the Oscar winning film "Parasites". They share the same narrative. Rich are spoilt and stupid. Poor are virtuous even though they commit criminal act after criminal act. This seems the new ideology and conventional wisdom. Where the mediocre can't accept the Rich are generally much brighter than them and if the mediocre and poor are just that -I am talking about life in the West not in third world nations like Sri Lanka of course- is because they are morally superior and not interested in the 'crassness' of money, which isn't true. In my experience, these types would do anything for cash and resent not having it despite 'their superior intellect" As the main character put it: "Envy and jealousy are incurable diseases". Never truer than applied to the director and script of this film.

I do not intend to write a thorough review as a critic. I intend to give you my impression of the movie and its place in the current political quagmire. The Rich are portrayed as naive, even plain stupid and spoilt. So they are easily played and conned by a family of impostors, uneducated and without any sophistication. This is implausible, to put it mildly. And that is how the film starts. The poor are ingenious, funny, and take delight in the manipulation of the wealthy. In real life, this is an impossibility. The Rich husband runs a Super successful corporation and lives in a mansion. He won’t be played and conned by an semiliterate driver. Yet the script goes along with it, taking the audience for fools. If this is how the director wants to go about portraying social inequality, he is on his own. I found it irritating and condescending. I won’t say more about the plot as I do not wish to include any spoilers. The film is certainly watchable despite many absurdities and lack of editing (it is way too long) but the message where the rich are stupid, frivolous, and unintelligent, while the poor are witty, resourceful and bright, and are afforded sympathy even when they commit hideous crimes, it’s not one that I can subscribe to: ; it may fool many members of the audience but anyone with a moral compass will not fall into the simplicity trap the director proposes. See it but use your judgment.