Well, I haven't watched a Danny Dyer movie for some time and now I know why. They're painful! Painful and cringe-inducing.
The acting is uniformly bad and Dyer isn't at all convincing in the trained assassin role of the title. He spends most of his "assassin" time wandering around in full motorcycle gear, including helmet. If ever there was a better way to attract attention than wearing inappropriate headgear in public spaces, then I haven't seen it. He stands out like a sore thumb. Walking around with it down just makes you look suspicious.
In addition, we soon referred to him as "Mumbles" the assassin, because of his penchant for talking quietly whilst wearing the helmet, making the audio very difficult to hear. At times he makes an expression like a sad little monkey trapped in a cage, leaving me to wonder whether he realised how bad the film was and wondered how he might get out of it. At other times, he seems to be channeling Joey from Friends with the "Smell the Fart" acting technique.
On the plus side, Dyer isn't the worst actor in the film. That dubious accolade is reserved for his bit of crumpet, who is about as appealing and animated as a cabbage patch doll, but far more wooden.
The Kemp brothers are far and away the only people trying to act in this film and even they seem to be trying to recapture their Kray twins glory from long ago. The rest, are best forgotten.
Camera-work is a little variable, with tops of heads being cut off at times and an over-reliance on hand-held cameras that makes everything look...well... cheap.
Sound editing is also bad. Apart from "Mumbles" the assassin, the level jumps up and down and sometimes the music drowns out the dialogue. Our hero's motorcycle likewise has two distinct engine noises, depending on whether the shot is from the riders or a passersby perspective.
Story-wise, it is a bit pathetic. By then numbers gangster movie script that fails to convince. The dialogue is at time guffawful (its a word!). You'll just laugh at some of it and blink in disbelief at others. There's a scene with the girlfriend and her BFF sat on a sofa working out "clues" as to what is going on that is just beyond terrible. Add in the often monotone delivery of these lines and it becomes both hilarious and painful to behold.
Likewise the "romance" element to the story is about as believable as perpetual motion, or cold fusion. It's ham-fistedly done and utterly painful to watch it "unfold". Later, the girlfriend undergoes some kind of dramatic breakdown but is more funny than heartbreaking to see.
Continuity suffers too. The most obvious example of this is the black helmet/silver helmet transition about halfway through the movie. He wears a black helmet in one scene and then parks and walks away holding a silver one. A few minutes later his helmet changes colour whilst riding from one shot to the next! Then there's the scene where Mumbles shoots a man at his front door from five feet away seven times and the man simply turns and runs away? Oh! And the dialogue to accompany this unrealistic gunplay scene? "Get aht! Nahh!" from Mumbles. It's priceless.
*: Or Editing, Sound Levelling, Acting etc. etc. you get the idea.
SUMMARY: An awfully bad film! Poor acting, dialogue, script and editing all combine to make this a chore to sit through. Not so much John Wick, as John Get on Your Wick!
The acting is uniformly bad and Dyer isn't at all convincing in the trained assassin role of the title. He spends most of his "assassin" time wandering around in full motorcycle gear, including helmet. If ever there was a better way to attract attention than wearing inappropriate headgear in public spaces, then I haven't seen it. He stands out like a sore thumb. Walking around with it down just makes you look suspicious.
In addition, we soon referred to him as "Mumbles" the assassin, because of his penchant for talking quietly whilst wearing the helmet, making the audio very difficult to hear. At times he makes an expression like a sad little monkey trapped in a cage, leaving me to wonder whether he realised how bad the film was and wondered how he might get out of it. At other times, he seems to be channeling Joey from Friends with the "Smell the Fart" acting technique.
On the plus side, Dyer isn't the worst actor in the film. That dubious accolade is reserved for his bit of crumpet, who is about as appealing and animated as a cabbage patch doll, but far more wooden.
The Kemp brothers are far and away the only people trying to act in this film and even they seem to be trying to recapture their Kray twins glory from long ago. The rest, are best forgotten.
Camera-work is a little variable, with tops of heads being cut off at times and an over-reliance on hand-held cameras that makes everything look...well... cheap.
Sound editing is also bad. Apart from "Mumbles" the assassin, the level jumps up and down and sometimes the music drowns out the dialogue. Our hero's motorcycle likewise has two distinct engine noises, depending on whether the shot is from the riders or a passersby perspective.
Story-wise, it is a bit pathetic. By then numbers gangster movie script that fails to convince. The dialogue is at time guffawful (its a word!). You'll just laugh at some of it and blink in disbelief at others. There's a scene with the girlfriend and her BFF sat on a sofa working out "clues" as to what is going on that is just beyond terrible. Add in the often monotone delivery of these lines and it becomes both hilarious and painful to behold.
Likewise the "romance" element to the story is about as believable as perpetual motion, or cold fusion. It's ham-fistedly done and utterly painful to watch it "unfold". Later, the girlfriend undergoes some kind of dramatic breakdown but is more funny than heartbreaking to see.
Continuity suffers too. The most obvious example of this is the black helmet/silver helmet transition about halfway through the movie. He wears a black helmet in one scene and then parks and walks away holding a silver one. A few minutes later his helmet changes colour whilst riding from one shot to the next! Then there's the scene where Mumbles shoots a man at his front door from five feet away seven times and the man simply turns and runs away? Oh! And the dialogue to accompany this unrealistic gunplay scene? "Get aht! Nahh!" from Mumbles. It's priceless.
*: Or Editing, Sound Levelling, Acting etc. etc. you get the idea.
SUMMARY: An awfully bad film! Poor acting, dialogue, script and editing all combine to make this a chore to sit through. Not so much John Wick, as John Get on Your Wick!