I really want to rate this movie higher

Rating: 6/10 (6 December 2019)

The acting is great -- Douglas, especially, was amazing, and the action gradually, then frantically, picked up the pace to make this a true thriller. The premise was interesting, even though you could see both major twists coming a mile away (partly a function, sadly, of knowing that few movies would have the huevos to end this movie ten minutes earlier than it did end.) It had plenty going for it except...
...I haven't read any other reviews here, but I suspect my criticism can be found in many of them: the movie asks too much in terms of suspension of belief. Some of the events were guided. I get that. But there were so many possible ways things could go completely wrong, and all the personality tests in the world wouldn't be able to predict how a man will react to serious danger and stress for what I can only assume was the first time in his life. The extent of control needed to pull this off would require resources and (wo)manpower and contingency planning to put a serious dent into Nicholas' own $600 million dollar fortune. They couldn't just plan for a straightforward trip and have alternate plans on paper. They would have to allocate the same amount of time, money and resources to every possible contingency because an alternate plan is just a piece of paper if you don't actually have the resources in place to execute it if it becomes necessary. And this is the generous assessment of the suspension of disbelief issue. The harsher one is that they literally couldn't possible control the chaos enough to make the game feasible, let alone safe. All it takes is Douglas deciding to run in front of a car in panic or despair, or grabbing a random knife somewhere and slitting somebody's throat or deciding to board the wrong transportation in Mexico or throwing a certain blonde of the wrong side of the roof for things to go very wrong. I just couldn't buy that any organization could have that much power and control. We can't even get the government to pull off anything perfectly (people forget, for instance, that the carefully-planned and executed killing of Osama by the U.S. government still resulted in a crashed helicopter) and the government has more resources than any novelty company.
A couple other issues -- the organization was still breaking laws. Doing questionable things to a guy who signed a release? Sure, fine. Impersonating a police officer, reckless driving/endangerment, intercepting electronic communications? Transporting someone illegally over national borders? Felonies, and no release in the world will change that. And, in my personal opinion, Nicholas' rapid turnaround and ability to accept everything in good humor at the end just...seemed unlikely, especially for a high-strung man like Nicholas. Eventually coming to term with it, I can buy. Just not a 15 second transformation into a jolly good fellow. It's the most supremely optimistic Hollywood idea of how a person would react to a given situation I've seen in a good long while.
But, yeah, it was a fun watch anyway. I just can't gloss over the suspension of disbelief issue to rate the movie higher.