Man shoots baddies

Rating: 5/10 (31 January 2020)

This film was clearly written for 13-15 year old boys that watch wrestling and follow a bunch of gun pages on Instagram. Im actually surprised it wasn't written by those very same people to be honest, judging by the script.
Script - awful.
Acting - awful.
Character development - non existent (and not the good kind like in The Raid whereby that aspect actually helps us get to the action sooner and lets us understand the world its set in as we go along, keeping us on our toes).
Score - something from an edgy 15 year old boys iPod.
Plot - something that same edgy 15 year old wrote on the bus ride home from school that took him 7 minutes.
I know this film is set up to be an action film. I know that the lack of character development and world building is intentional and I know that the tone is supposed to represent some sort of fun video game.....it doesn't work. If you are over the age of 15, that is.
Im amazed at how low peoples standards are for films. it seems that most people just don't care about good film making. Most people just want to pop a film on, watch some stuff happen, not think too much about it and move on. Thats fine (if not slightly immature and insulting to the art form) but there is a very clear difference between you enjoying a film and that film being a 10/10. Of course this sort of stuff is subjective but the fact that you liked a film doesn't mean it is objectively a good film. Just because Keanu Reeves does some spinny stuff and drives a cool car, doesn't actually mean that there is any substance to what's going on. They might as well have named this film Evil Russian Shooty Man or something, it really wouldn't have made any difference and people would still have give it a ridiculous rating. 7.4....really?
Firstly there are other films that do exactly what this film does, only better and more entertaining. The Raid is a good example, as previously mentioned. I heard a lot of hype surrounding this film for a while and one of the things people liked most was that the fight choreography included legitimate martial arts techniques....Nope. Sorry, not the case. I heard that jiu jitsu was featured in this film, which is actually the only reason I watched it to begin with. I saw one Kimura...and a bad one at that, and I saw an arm bar...again, a bad one. That was it. Would the film be any different without those two things? nope.
Shooty gun man is invincible. Thats the video game vibe thing they were going for I guess. Completely saps any tension from any scene and takes away from the severity of the plot. They also over exposed a lot of scenes which I guess is again, another attempt to create the video game vibe thingy. There are seriously better examples of that kind of thing done on Youtube. Even Kung Fury managed to get the tone right for what it was. This just made me question if that was intentional or just bad editing.
Terrible comic relief which they just throw in there every now and again. Doesn't add to anything and only makes you question the writing choices. Like, does every cop know who John Wick is? or was it just coincidentally that one cop that showed up at his door that one time? am I supposed to think about that? I guess not because it is never mentioned again or explained ever so move on. Why do the police not arrest this guy? is he just so much of a badass that they don't even bother? does he work for them sometimes? do laws not exist in this world but for some reason cops still exist? was that just a friend of his that isn't really a cop and just likes to wear that uniform? who knows, its never explained. Oh well it really doesn't matter and affects nothing in any way whatsoever...move on.
Evil Russians are clearly not Russian at all. And judging by how blatant they conduct their business I guess cops really don't exist in this world because no one is arrested or confronted by them at all. They just walk around with guns and stuff and no one seems to care. Fair enough I don't care at this point just show me some cool shooty gun man stuff.
No time for that because we now have to go to "the continental". A hotel for criminals to hang out and party....how, why....what!? its the most ridiculous thing ever honestly. No criminal business is to be conducted in this hotel by the way, unless of course you're bribed into it, just because...I dunno, its never explained.
Shooty gun man doesn't care for this rule and goes mental with his spinny shooty gun stuff and then we're greeted to more comic relief from the hotel receptionist. Hilarious stuff 10/10 comedy, this stuff is better than monty python. I mean seriously the guy just acts like everything is normal when clearly things are not normal. You just cant write this stuff absolute comedy gold 10/10 mate.
Girl is bribed to kill shooty gun man and decides that its a good time as shoots gun man is just laying on the bed fully clothed in a suit like a mannequin someone knocked over, stiff as a board. They wrestle, he has a hard time beating her even though he's supposed to be the killer of all killers or something like that. She puts a poor kimura grip on him which he gets out of immediately and throws her through a random pane of glass thats just in the middle of the room for no reason. He had no problem shooting 35 people directly in the face just 7 minutes ago but for some reason allows her to live. Because she's a girl? who knows its never explained.
Willem Defoe is also in this film. I honestly don't know his characters name or his relationship with Shooty gun man but at some point he's hired to kill shooty gun man but its later revealed that he's actually a good guy and was just helping him all along?...I think. He kills a couple guys around shooty gun man, sure. Ok. But what about the scene where the girl tried to kill him? You could've killed her without even waking him up. why shoot an inch away from his head? to wake him up to warn him?....just shoot the girl. Oh well it doesn't matter and its never explained or brought up ever again so don't think about it I guess.
Theres also the over exaggeration of shooty gun mans skills. He's spoken about as if he's the grim reaper or something and often referred to as "the boogeyman" or "the guy you send to kill the bogeyman" this line in particular is loved by fans of this average at best film and I honestly couldn't think of a more cringe way to describe someone. He shoots guns...thats his skill. He's good at it, don't get me wrong I appreciate a bit of spinny shooty stuff as much as anyone else but thats his skill. He's not a ghost and he's not the bogeyman and you don't need to add cheesy flash cards to the screen every time this is said. Especially when at multiple points during the film he was in a position to be killed by the bad guys but they just chose not to...even though the whole point of the film is to kill him...?
Even the Son of Evil Russian boss man doesn't know who he is and him and three of his idiot friends manage to break into his house undetected and beat the crap out of him. Easily could have killed him there and we're only 5 minutes into the film at this point. Why does every one know who shooty gun man is except from son of evil Russian boss man? don't know its never explained, don't think about it. Even Mr evil Russian Boss man himself has an opportunity to kill him at one point but instead decides to tie him to a chair, talk to him and walk away. Why? there is literally no motive whatsoever for keeping him alive. Its never explained so don't think about it. And people are really bigging this film up for having villains that aren't just dumb cliches...really?
Even im thinking "its just a dog" at this point. Why did it take you a couple days to get angry about the dog? you were there when it happened....you're the guy you send to kill the bogeyman....they didn't even have any weapons....what even is this film? An anecdote about killing 3 guys with a pencil is just not enough to hang the entire plot on, its just not.
This film is the definition of style over substance. Some people are going to love it and others will likely not if they care about good film making or story telling in any way. Ultimately I applaud the director duo on making a film they were clearly passionate about. Say what you what about this film (and trust me there is a lot to say) but you can't knock their ambition. 2 retired stunt men making a film about stunts actually does add to the charm of it and its clearly not just some soul-less product pumped out by Hollywood's plot regurgitating ass like we're used to 99% of the time. So well done there. Clearly some effort was made, especially in the fight choreography and editing. Im very glad they actually allowed us to see the action instead of cutting every 0.4 seconds to make the action seem even more intense. All of the best action films have long, one cut fight scenes that actually showcase the actors abilities. Keanu Reeves was a good choice for shooty gun man and played his part well considering the script gave him almost nothing to work with. You can see that it was actually him doing those scenes and you have to admire that on some level even if you're like me and didn't parictually enjoy the film as a whole.
I'd love to give this a higher rating. Maybe I'll revisit one day and appreciate it a little more now that I know what to expect...and what not to expect.
If spinny shooty gun man ghost killer bogeyman guy sounds appealing then give it a go you'll probably enjoy it. Beer and friends will help I'd imagine.
Alternatively you could just watch The Raid and save yourself 101 minutes of your life.
5/10 and thats generous.