rheath-53855 Reviews

Madam Secretary (2014–2019)

Started out well and went downhill from there

[2/10 · 12 November 2023]

This is one of those shows that squandered all the good will it had banked. It started out as interesting, entertaining, and well written and devolved into what amounts as a liberal campaign ad of sorts. Don't get me wrong, I get that a show about politics has to have politics, but the thing is it ceased to be anything but pushing an agenda and at that point it failed to perform its primary function which is to entertain.

Additionally, the show quickly became formulaic ... entire world in a crisis in steps Madam Secretary and solves all of humanities problems by talking to one person and suddenly it undoes decades of problems in minutes. Moreover, none of these solutions ever had any negative or unexpected ramifications... unlike real life which tends to be if not full of them at least not totally devoid of them.

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)

Snooze fest

[2/10 · 22 August 2023]

This is perhaps one of the most boring movies I have ever watched. It is.2hrs 41mins, if which 2hrs and 25mins of so is just setting up for the 15 minutes of alternate history. Basically, it is lots of "nothing has happened yet" followed by "still nothing" followed by "when will something happen?"

Moreover, there is so much of the movie that could have been removed without hurting it, entire scenes filled with tedious side stories that go nowhere. The sad part is they could have fleshed out the side stories and done better by dropping the final 15 minutes instead, they have cameos of characters that are throwaway (the cameo of the Steve McQueen character how appears for about 2 minutes and does nothing for the story), then they have Sharon Tate, but the story really does not gravitate towards her, she is sort of an afterthought that only applies if you know the history of what really happened, otherwise it is wasted time and effort.

My thought is just skip the whole movie.

Dragged Across Concrete (2018)

Too long by at least a half

[1/10 · 2 April 2023]

The story, which is mediocre at best, could be told much better in maybe a little over an hour (probably more like 40 minutes really) and yet the director dragged it out for 159 minutes of pure drivel. If the parts with decent dialogue were all you watched it might be 5 - 10 minutes long.

As an example one reviewer gave, there is a scene about 2 minutes long of Vince Vaughn eating a sandwich and Mel Gibson then complaining about how long it took... the irony is that scene describes the entire movie which took too long and had very poor writing from start to finish.

Avoid this thing like the plague, that failing at least play it at 150% speed and make liberal use of the 10 second skip button so you can avoid the tedium of sitting through nothing happening for about 80% of the movie.

Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)

What an utter waste of time, money, and resources to make or watch this thing

[1/10 · 1 April 2023]

I came into this movie thinking it would be good, given the score it had... I should have known better but sadly I did not and I failed to read the negative reviews which summed it up very well as a waste of time.

Denzel Washington plays a lawyer who as best as I could tell was totally inept and yet somehow had a grandiose opinion of the caliber of his work and intellect. The problem of course is that the only supporting evidence of what a legal genius he was... was him bragging about how great he is/was. He managed to get a client murdered, alienate basically everyone he knew, and pretty much misrepresent or antagonize everyone he encountered along the way.

One of the problems with the film is that the dialogue of the main character is pretentious and comes off like someone of average intellect trying to make themselves sound smarter than they are. The motivations and moral arc of some of the other characters is almost completely unbelievable from start to finish.

Another problem with the film and perhaps the worst, there is no one in it that generates any interest... from the first minute to the last I didn't care about any of them at all and only watched the whole thing because I thought it had to get better... and then because there is only X number of minutes left I might as well finish it. To me it is pretty sad considering, that and I based my desire to watch it on the fact the same person who wrote "Nightcrawler" did this one... the problem is apparently Nightcrawler is an outlier because the rest of the things he's written were mostly bad.

And finally, another problem with the film is that it has some utterly stupid writing. For instance, the client that he got killed... the guy was killed by someone because apparently they didn't trust him to keep their location secret and to not testify against him... but despite that level of distrust the individual remained in the same location (come on, you go to the effort of having someone murdered because they might tell people where you are but you don't think maybe going somewhere else might be wise too?), the mother of the murdered client is talked into forgiving Roman despite thinking it was his fault, really? The firm decide that despite him subjecting them to what could have been crippling costs over causing his client to be murdered... it was all good because reasons, really? Roman pretty much sounds like a deranged megalomaniac the entire film and yet manages to captivate a volunteer legal aide worker because why? Roman who apparently thought of himself as some sort of great advocate for legal justice suddenly decides to "sell out his principles" out of nowhere, really? George, who is motivated solely by money it seems... he suddenly decides to be a legal justice crusader because he meets and hires the least capable, self aggrandizing lawyer imaginable, really? I mean the writing is like Swiss Cheese it has so many holes in it that do not make sense... like, what "good source" could have said Roman took a reward when he called from a payphone, to someone that did not know him, had the reward in cash put in a dumpster where no one saw him remove it, he paid for everything he bought in cash but was already working at a prestigious law firm so spending on a new wardrobe to look presentable instead of like he is one step above a vagrant... that would not raise suspicions at all. Short version, the movie gave no indication anyone would know he was the source of the information used to arrest the killer. Also, how believable is it that Derrell would tell his cellmate in jail that he told his lawyer the whereabouts of the guy who murdered the clerk but no one else... after Derrell already said that the guy would hurt him... so what does he do, of course he goes blabbing to his cellmate that he's told someone where the man he is afraid of is hiding... as if that would happen.

In short, avoid this thing like the plague unless you are a masochist.

In the Dark (2019–2022)

A mixed bag but in the end just a big no

[2/10 · 3 March 2023]

First, the story telling does a decent job at first... enough to get you hooked at least somewhat, then most of the way through the first season it comes off the rails in so many ways and just gets progressively worse as time goes by.

For instance, the plot line about the chief of detectives deciding he'd cover up a murder by a cop just to get some very iffy intel on a drug dealer (intel which given the source, a crooked cop... might not go far in a criminal case), then once the Chief of Ds gets let go they promote a very junior officer to his place, the new chief of Ds decides that he'll bring in a former IRS agent who is going blind and pretty much treat him like he is a seasoned detective. The same chief of Ds tells another detective she can date who she wants (a known drug dealer... which is against police policy for Chicago and probably everywhere). Almost the entire cast of characters has at least one reason to detest them... well except for the guide dog Pretzel and maybe Max, Murphy's dad, and oddly enough Darnell (the drug dealer)... oh yeah and the dead friend of Murphy's who the first season was about.

The problem is that as the show goes on it gets less believable and the characters get less likeable by the minute. Do yourself a favor and forego this show... it is basically a really horrible blind woman ruining everyone's life and solving cases the police do not want to or are incapable of solving... other than that it has nothing.

The Forgiven (III) (2021)

pointlessly long and boring

[1/10 · 28 November 2022]

It seems as if the writers wrote dialog not to tell the story or move things along... they seemingly did it to hear themselves typing. The entire story could have been condensed into a 15 20 minute short instead of dragging on and on for no reason. I mean they kept hammering away at David is a drunk, his wife is an unhappy woman, everyone is terrible... it was not enough to say or show it once, they felt the need to beat the viewer over the head repeatedly with that message as if we are too stupid to get it after the seeing David with a drink in his hands every single scene or hearing him berating people including his wife.

The worst part is the movie basically telegraphs everything way before it happens, meaning almost everything in the movie is something you expected more or less throughout the movie.

Jexi (2019)

The worst movie I can remember seeing...

[1/10 · 10 October 2022]

Even though this movie was "free" because it was on Netflix, I feel that I was cheated because it was terrible, stupid, and an utter waste of time. The acting quality was what you would expect from a middle school drama class and the writing was what you might expect from a child in elementary school.

The only good thing to be said about it is that it wasn't any longer than it was, in a time when various streaming services are filled with crap programs... this stands out as among the worst I have ever seen. In fact, the 2 minute trailer hits everything in the entire movie... watch it instead and save yourself from 1 hr. 24 minutes of inane junk.

Dakota (2022)

Possibly the single dumbest movie ever

[1/10 · 1 October 2022]

There really is very little redeeming that can be said about the movie other than the dog is a beautiful specimen of a Belgian Melanos. The script is rubbish, the acting is subpar, the plot is ridiculous... a complete waste of time.

Filled with cliches, a stupid plot, bad acting, bad dialogue... high school drama students could do 100c better than this and still fail with an F because this deserves a zero rating or less. Thankfully it was free but even then, I felt gipped out of time I will bever get back and anyone that watches it probably feels dumber for the effort they put in.

This thing is worse that a straight to video release, it is straight to the dumpster or landfill.