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Reviews
Chicago Overcoat (2009)
Overcoat should of stay where it belongs.. in retirement just like the character should be
Chicago Overcoat should of stayed where it belongs, the film is ripped with clichés and concepts mashed into a mob film although it isn't much of a terrible film to watch. The film tries to convey film noir with voice over narration, a gritty and dark world mashed with the mafia- setting and it's quite annoying considering this film was released three years ago. It attempts to convey so much of that set period even though its setting is in modern times.
The film is ripped with clichés and overused concepts that maybe not exaggerated to a point but it's evident that the director wants to derive other classic films into his; first of all, the main character played by Frank Vincent is a old hit-man, Lou Marazano working for the mafia who XXX days before retirement and even at the start, it was implied that. Plus there is a rigid, no-nonsense, hard-boiled detective, Ralph Maloney (Danny Goldring) who's investigating a murder by Lou who "doesn't play by the rules" and it just felt like Nick Nolte's character from 48 Hrs plus a plethora of other detective films. It just felt contrived that they would go through lengths to make it a noir film and released it as unique.
What even disappoints me is the dialogue, it felt cheesy to the point that they felt to conceal the cheesiest and I find the characters' interaction throughout the film, laughable. One huge example is when the detective is interrogating Vincent's character, that scene was so pointless and irritating and the detective just came out as a chicken- s*** himself. I mean, he just constantly insults the main character due to his nature of sending flowers to the person that he killed and kept constantly asking the same question to him; be that of a chicken-s*** or f****t.
What I found even baffling is he says that again in the end and it clearly shows that the writers of this film just lazily written this character to be no nonsense old cop that "doesn't play by the rules." I really like this detective at first but the writers seems to kill off this character with less impact to this storyline. And Vincent does not redeem any qualities as his character, he does play the mafia-so character well like in The Sopranos but with the bad dialogue, he is just a walking cliché of his own. I mean, he plays a stereotypical mobster and at one point wears black trench-coat attire and uses a freaking tommy gun near the end and the poster shot for the movie just felt like walking into a trap.
There isn't much to the storyline, it just felt like a poor man's Sopranos with Phil Leotardo and Artie's wife in it as well. There are other actors as well specifically Armand from Gotti who plays the mafia boss and dozens of decent performances that I found not really lacking compared to the main characters of this film. It's not that much of a terrible film that of which I did not shut it off but the writing and dialogue plus the clichés mashed into this thing came into decent and bad experience.
Detachment (2011)
Having notable stars, a sappy and melodramatic plot does not warrant a better film...
Having notable celebrities, an "emotional" storyline with a obvious, cliché message, tragic characters and cheap sappy music playing in the background and other bait that of which the Oscars or any award show would consume is the case of The Detachment, a 2011 indie film which won several awards.
We often see this type of deprived, artistic and emotional piece about a substitute teacher trying to help illiterate or with poor grades, poor or terrible school filled with stereotypes and bullies that at first, terrorized and bully the school and having one teacher turn it around in the end, well the director seems to get a great idea to make another annoying high school drama film or more specifically a teen- angst film.
Tony Kaye who is known for American History X tries to convey his elements of his previous films and try to make the most melodramatic and artistic movie that seems to be derived from other movies related to this.
I am not sure what the director is thinking, the fact that we see thousands of films like these and people tend to get suckered into the bad melodrama and the obvious plot lines with poorly drawn characters with terrific actors performing them. I mean how did they get people like Adrian Brody, Christina Hendricks, Bryan Cranston, James Caan to even Lucy Liu — seriously, she went out of her way to get this terrible role? I felt like this was just a money deal for them and they were just told what to do.
I don't want to begin what the film is about, I seriously doubt the plot would even care less as well; it's about a clinically-depressed substitute teacher who's been moved to the most illiterate and bad school that of which is being sold off (or trying to) by Mr. Mattias (Isiah Whitlock Jr.). Adrian Brody plays the substitute teacher, Henry Barthes who is this clinically depressed lemon (as one of the students called him) who isn't like the other teachers although the fact that the other teachers don't fend off the bullies are just as much as him.
Anyways, after his father had passed away, he lives a fellow irritating, homeless female student, Erica (Sami Gayle) and has to teach a class full of stereotypes and bullies who try to imitate and scare off the teacher.
The film is mainly about this substitute teacher drifting off from classroom to classroom attempting to connect with his fellow students while dealing his own personal demons as well. Oh there is also a overweight artsy student that loves photography, taking pictures of Mr. Wiatt (Tim Blake Nelson) who has gone insane probably because of all the bullying.
The film consists of so much stereotypes and bullies that I am baffled why people actually like this movie. I mean, the first few minutes when the Brody character comes to class, there is a stereotypical black person with an attitude problem that threatens him and in the next scene, we also see other teacher, Ms. Sarah Madison played by Hendricks being spit on and threaten to get "gang-bang" by a black girl. It's really baffling that people think this film is "powerful and gripping" even though the writers of this film clearly play the "racism card" of having all to most black people in the school that have either an attitude problem or presumably be in some gang threatening teachers. It's like every teacher in the school are wimps that don't stand against them, even other movies that related to this plot have gangs in the school and there are less emotional people in those movies.
I cannot stress how irritating this movie is, everyone in this movie is either an annoying, irritating human being or some pathetic, emotional person that does not have an inch of hope on improving their students. I like the fact that the director try to convey Brody's character feelings through him looking straight at the camera and the cheaply done artistic chalkboard drawings that attempts to convey some emotional impact. It felt like the director just wanted to have this movie be drenched with awards and have a melodramatic message and theme, terribly implemented to make it dramatic to the audience.
In the end, people who think this movie is even good is either have bad taste in movies or some sucker who get cheaply suckered into the melodrama and say things like "the movie has a gripping subtext that of which could easily related to real life or not." So the fact that everyone in this film is some kind of bully or some helpless person relates to a bunch of people online? Wow, where did I see that be implement in a dozen movies that has been produced years ago? Seriously, I do not see the slightest thing right with this movie and I am usually prone to these movies.