input: Raising Victor Vargas fails terribly in what it tries most to be: being real. Unfortunately, there is no reality to this film. The characters and situations feel completely artificial and fake.

The reason? Bad directing. Peter Sollett uses all the wrong tools in his arsenal. It seems Mr. Sollett read somewhere that not lighting his film would give it an authentic feel. Wrong! It just gives it a badly-made feel. Similarly, shaking the camera does not give a documentary style to your film, it just gives the audience a headache and detracts from what's on screen instead of enhance it.

Of course, what's on screen is so painfully fake, as if Mr. Sollett wrote his script with the only goal of trying to look "hip" to his Sundance buddies and show how "edgy" a filmmaker he is.

Overall, the only lasting impression this film leaves you with is what a bad director Mr. Sollett is. Next time, how about taking a few writing and directing classes?

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: After seeing the trailer for this movie and finding out Spike Lee was directing, I was excited to hear about this event. I wasn't alive at the time, I didn't live in New York, so I expected more of a history lesson than anything. What I got was some interesting acting, a lot of sex, and about 30 minutes worth of film that actually had anything to do with the Son of Sam. I guess the film wasn't about the Son of Sam, but it was a peek into the summer of '77. Label me disappointed.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: It felt like I watched this movie thousand times before.It was absolutely predictable.Every time the story tried to get a bit twisted,every time I awaited something interesting to happen, I saw nothing but what I expected. Like "The bread factory opened up another facility,because there was not enough bread". In two words:Flat story,that has become a cliche,bad acting,bad special effects...Only the dumb Russian cop,Vlad, was a bit funny while punishing around the bad guys.The pile of muscles was so incredibly STUPID,that it made me laugh at him for a moment. I wonder why i waste my time spitting on that shame-of-a-movie... It won't get worse (because it is not possible) :D

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: I'm a huge fan of war movies, and, as a Vietnam combat vet, have some experience with the technical details. I worked with the bomb guys more than once and have nothing but respect for them. Other vets, and Iraq vets in particular, have summarized the inaccuracies in this movie very well. Poetic license is one thing, but this movie is a complete fantasy, and fails badly because of it. No bomb disposal unit, or any unit, would ever have tolerated this rogue operator for more than 5 minutes. Military units prize conformity and discipline for a reason;it saves lives. The opening scene particularly annoyed me. The guy with the cell phone would have been shot immediately. Yelling, "Stop dialing" is not an effective deterrent. It got worse from there. The scenes with the sniper were particularly egregious. As others have noted, your average EOD guy doesn't know jack about being a sniper, and to think any Arab sniper is that good really stretches the imagination. Kidnapping an Arab businessman for some form of personal revenge just wouldn't happen. Somebody might shoot him, but this kind of risk-taking is limited to the movies. I could go on, but, as I said, others have pointed these things out in detail. This is not a good movie, and if it wins any awards at all, it's a further reflection of why "La La land" is so named.

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pos/neg ans:
negative