One thing Netflix is great at is churning out an endless stream of mindless "action movies". Shoot em up's that are un-original, riddled with cliques, oh so predictable, and a waste of your viewing time.
I'll admit that they sucked me in again, even after I'd recently watched The Gray Man and Extraction II. You would think I'd know better by now!
This movie uses an old and well worn plot device; lets rob a drug cartel guy because he's a bad guy anyway so it'll be ok. Oh, and also the standard motely crew of ex-special forces guys who can't adjust to the world and have money troubles. Throw in a disillusioned DEA Agent and there's your clique cast of characters. And anyone who didn't know that by the end of the move they would learn an important lesson about it not being ok to rob and kill because it's just drug guys hasn't already seen many of these movies.
My biggest problem with this movie was it's predictability. Ben Affleck drops his daughter off at school and they share a bittersweet moment where he says he loves her and she says she misses him. Translation; he's going to die.
They steal the money then talk about the weight in regards to their helicopter getting over the mountains to facilitate their getaway. Translation; they're not going to make it over the mountains.
They crash in a small village and end up killing a few villagers, one of the dead villagers sons gives them the hairy eyeball as they leave. Translation; he's going to turn up later and do something bad to them. And he does; he kills Ben Affleck, because someone had to.
There were more, many more but those are the ones that immediately come to mine. God I hate predictable writing!
Another problem with this movie is that the hardened SF guys act like just that...sometimes, other times they do really stupid stuff or miss really obvious stuff because the script tells them to. And still other times, like when they find the money, they act like high school kids jumping around like idiots. No thoughts of the Cartel leader still loose in the house, or perimeter defense or anything else. Finally they time and again make absurd decisions that no one with their backgrounds would ever make; sure we can lug six hundred pounds of cash across the Andes Mountains, no problem at all. Or; omg, one of us got killed, really didn't think that would happen while robbing a cartel boss in his own country, darn.
The characters in this story change from one thing to something else at the drop of a hat because the script tells them to. They're all badly written and not all that well acted.
And of course in the end Affleck's character does die, they loose most of the money (gee, didn't see that one coming either!) and realize that what they did was just bad, even though they knew exactly what they were doing and that someone might die, one of them I mean, because they didn't seem to have any problem at all with a lot of locals dieing. And they give the money they managed to keep to Affleck's daughter and ex-wife because gosh darn it, it's the right thing to do. Please, another plot line that's older than movies themselves and that like most of the other plot developments, I saw coming way before it arrived.
Oh, and to extend run time there's a very long and very boring journey through the mountains as they're trying to escape with the cash during which they have an epiphany about stealing, and killing, and maybe cheating on their taxes too, I'm not sure because by that point I was actually debating whether I would even finish watching this drek so I fast forwarded through most of that to finally get to the end.
I knew everything that was going to happen in this movie before it did, and I felt like I'd seen it a hundred times before, usually in much better movies with much better acting. But hey Netflix; you just keep churning out these poorly written, clique riddled, poorly directed and acted pieces of junk.... I'll be watching something else.
I'll admit that they sucked me in again, even after I'd recently watched The Gray Man and Extraction II. You would think I'd know better by now!
This movie uses an old and well worn plot device; lets rob a drug cartel guy because he's a bad guy anyway so it'll be ok. Oh, and also the standard motely crew of ex-special forces guys who can't adjust to the world and have money troubles. Throw in a disillusioned DEA Agent and there's your clique cast of characters. And anyone who didn't know that by the end of the move they would learn an important lesson about it not being ok to rob and kill because it's just drug guys hasn't already seen many of these movies.
My biggest problem with this movie was it's predictability. Ben Affleck drops his daughter off at school and they share a bittersweet moment where he says he loves her and she says she misses him. Translation; he's going to die.
They steal the money then talk about the weight in regards to their helicopter getting over the mountains to facilitate their getaway. Translation; they're not going to make it over the mountains.
They crash in a small village and end up killing a few villagers, one of the dead villagers sons gives them the hairy eyeball as they leave. Translation; he's going to turn up later and do something bad to them. And he does; he kills Ben Affleck, because someone had to.
There were more, many more but those are the ones that immediately come to mine. God I hate predictable writing!
Another problem with this movie is that the hardened SF guys act like just that...sometimes, other times they do really stupid stuff or miss really obvious stuff because the script tells them to. And still other times, like when they find the money, they act like high school kids jumping around like idiots. No thoughts of the Cartel leader still loose in the house, or perimeter defense or anything else. Finally they time and again make absurd decisions that no one with their backgrounds would ever make; sure we can lug six hundred pounds of cash across the Andes Mountains, no problem at all. Or; omg, one of us got killed, really didn't think that would happen while robbing a cartel boss in his own country, darn.
The characters in this story change from one thing to something else at the drop of a hat because the script tells them to. They're all badly written and not all that well acted.
And of course in the end Affleck's character does die, they loose most of the money (gee, didn't see that one coming either!) and realize that what they did was just bad, even though they knew exactly what they were doing and that someone might die, one of them I mean, because they didn't seem to have any problem at all with a lot of locals dieing. And they give the money they managed to keep to Affleck's daughter and ex-wife because gosh darn it, it's the right thing to do. Please, another plot line that's older than movies themselves and that like most of the other plot developments, I saw coming way before it arrived.
Oh, and to extend run time there's a very long and very boring journey through the mountains as they're trying to escape with the cash during which they have an epiphany about stealing, and killing, and maybe cheating on their taxes too, I'm not sure because by that point I was actually debating whether I would even finish watching this drek so I fast forwarded through most of that to finally get to the end.
I knew everything that was going to happen in this movie before it did, and I felt like I'd seen it a hundred times before, usually in much better movies with much better acting. But hey Netflix; you just keep churning out these poorly written, clique riddled, poorly directed and acted pieces of junk.... I'll be watching something else.
