tom-810-150081 Reviews

Redirected (2014)

Would have made a good student-project

[3/10 · 26 January 2015]

The trailer and description made me watch this movie, they promised a "Hangover-meets-Guy-Ritchie" flick, and I can tel you, it's nothing like it. Perhaps they meant to say: Hangover-3-meets-Guy-Ritchie-for-a-10-seconds casting-advice-but-with-a-tenth-of-the-budget.

The first scenes of the movie are really thin, not funny, not good, but hey, you should give it shot. From that point on the movie develops in 'chapters' without a hint of a storyline, but with amateurism written all over it. The budget must have been small, I certainly hope for Vinnie Jones that at least he got a nice pay check out of it for the acting and lending his face for the poster.

To be honest, I couldn't watch the whole movie, I reckon that is torture. I did gave it 3 stars for staging it in Lithuania, 2 or 3 nice scenes and average acting performance for some of the actors.

Journey to Le Mans (2014)

It's really Jota's Journey

[3/10 · 29 November 2014]

When you are a petrolhead, a 'journey to Le Mans' movie will get you interested. And I am a petrolhead, with some Le Mans experience, and I can tell you this is nothing like a Le Mans experience. It really is nothing more than a personal story of the Jota team. Must be great to see for friends and relatives of those involved in the Jota team, but why releasing it to the general public? It puzzles me. Considering it's not that interesting for petrolheads, fairly boring for motorsport enthousiast and straight-out insulting for documentary fans.

Sure, getting Patrick Stewart (needs no introduction) and Tiff Needell (a car journalist) looks good on the poster, but honestly, the Jota LMP2 team is not that interesting. The documentary contains half kind of interviews with those involved, and half clips of racing action. Le Mans Radio audio-clips are edited to the racing video's to make sure you can follow what's going on with the Jota LMP2 team.

The title of this documentary is misleading and don't get your hopes up about it's quality.

Leave the World Behind (2014)

Movie about great music & broken friendship

[8/10 · 21 April 2014]

The Swedish House Mafia broke up, no need to sugarcoat it and this film certainly doesn't do that. The movie gives insight in how 3 individuals with different backgrounds got together to create music, and how it evolved from that point, with 'Don't you worry child' as their high-point and last creation. Of course the movie is filled with great images of performances and I know of no other music documentary/film that delivered the party-feeling so well. A few bits are repeated from the previous documentary (Take One), but the main-theme 'one last tour' makes it very different.

I have been to one of the Last Tour performances, and I've been on-stage next to the DJs as part of press-work I did at festivals. The Swedish House Mafia have always been different compared to other DJs of the new generation. They party off-stage but are fully focused on delivering a unique experience for the crowd when behind the turn-tables. In the film this is captured in a great way, while showing the different styles that Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso and Steve Angello have. This is not only applicable to the music, but also personal lives and role in the Swedish House Mafia collaboration. Steve Angello is the swagger, individualistic character, Sebastian Ingrosso the most stable, funny guy and Axwell forms the heart and glue of the group. A lot of scenes make it obvious why the Swedish House Mafia couldn't stick and why luxury hotels, private jets and nice cars won't bend a negative attitude.

Sadness comes to mind when you need to capture the one and a half hour in a word, however it's something of a frustrating, beautiful sadness.

I AM Hardwell Documentary (2013)

Play his music, skip this documentary

[3/10 · 23 February 2014]

Over a year ago I heard that there was a Hardwell documentary in the making about his path to become Nr. 1 DJ in the world (according to DJ MAG). I like his music, and was present in the Amsterdam RAI when he in fact was crowned Nr. 1 DJ, so, I had high expectations of this film.

Those high expectations where absolutely gone after 5 minutes. Without any doubt Robin Piree and Aziz Al-Dilaimi where 'inspired' by Take One, the documentary about the Swedish House Mafia boys. What they seem to forget, is that a 'Made by iMovie' style is never, ever going to entertain the viewer. At no point did I got carried away with the personal life of Robbert, the way he makes his music and a feeling for his way of performing in general. Filming is shaky, editing is bad but most important, the audio is frequently of very poor quality. Also the editors decided to use phonecam footage straight of YouTube, why oh why would you want to do that!?

It's a documentary you could watch with little attention while playing a game or browsing the web, if you don't want to completely waste your time.

Get Lucky (2013)

Proper English Action flick

[5/10 · 25 August 2013]

Without any expectations I started 'Get Lucky', and from the first moment on I got that this is a low-budget action movie. No known actors, some poor camera work and acting is at a sub- standard.

Look through the flaws, however, and you'll find a movie that is a somewhat entertaining Brit Flick. The storyline has got some surprising elements, the gangster characters are believable and there is some humor. It's all delivered in a cheesy package, with poor special, I mean, normal effects. But most of all, the movie never reaches a high point, and that's disappointing.

By no means is this a good movie. I really get the feeling they tried, but failed, to get enough out of it.

Assault on Wall Street (2013)

Finally, a revenge on Wallstreet movie

[8/10 · 9 July 2013]

Over the years there have been a few movies and documentaries telling the stories of big-bank-victims, as I prefer to call them. Movies like 'Margin Call', and documentaries like 'Inside Job'. Both movies tried to give a (somewhat), reconstruction of what happened during the crisis. Thank god, someone finally wrote a script about taking revenge on Wallstreet and Uwe Boll did a great job executing it. Certainly, the movie delivers on the title, Assault On Wallstreet.

The elements such as casting, cinematography and emotions are all surprisingly good, especially for a movie directed by Uwe Boll. To be honest, this director had managed to make a train wreck out of promising movies in the past, this being far from it. Foremost, the feeling of injustice and frustration for Jim Baxford (acted perfectly by Dominic Purcell), really gets under your skin. Also, news program quotes during the movie add a great effect about the message of anger of the people versus the big banks and CEO's directing them. All of this has been filmed and edited perfectly, meaning there is no moment when it's distracting because of CGI, or other trickery.

When I picked the movie, I expected a full-out action movie based on the poster. However I was surprised by the depth of the movie and action fans might get disappointed by the lack of action, it actually skips through most of it. But, the climax of the movie certainly delivered both action as story wise.