It has been a long time since I have walked out of a movie. I can stomach a lot. But I could not stomach this childish, contrived celluloid lobotomy. I tried to stay, I really did. I made it to close to an hour and a half, and now I want to thank the Arclight Theater for giving me a free pass to come back to an actual movie even though the policy is that you have to leave in the first thirty minutes. At last something Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives can agree on: This is a horrible, horrible movie in every sense of the word. Quite possibly one of the worst ever made. When truly horrible writing, acting and directing comes together in perfect disharmony it is a sight no one should have to behold. In addition does anyone want to see ridiculous polemical movies right now? We have 24 hour news channels with no news and just partisan high school debate shows. We’ve seen enough. Right now with the economy failing people want to go to movies to escape from all the nonsense and see superheroes dress in costumes and see stuff blow up. The timing could not be worse. Maybe if this movie came out four years ago it may have made more sense. Actually, not really. This movie is so bad it doesn’t matter when it came out. After great movies like “Platoon”, “Natural Born Killers” and “Wall Street” this movie is Oliver Stone’s “The Village”. With this movie Stone has effectively thrown away everything he knows about filmmaking to settle what seems like some kind of political vendetta. The result is an abysmal, boring mess. Oliver Stone has officially jumped the Shyamalan. Maybe Oliver Stone was trying to make a satire. Maybe. But you know what the one criteria is for making a satire? Humor. It has to be funny. This movie was not. Not even unintentionally, like “Street Kings”. But here’s the thing: Satire cannot be made by humorless, curmudgeonly conspiracy theorists. Happy anarchists make satire, like Larry Charles. Now if Larry Charles had directed, it would have at least been watchable. Now also imagine if it was an actual biography that uncovered or explored a hidden truth or gave humanity to a president who won two elections and but now has a record low approval rating and is one of the most despised men in the world. That also would have been watchable and at least could have offered insight and promoted discussion. You know, the way art is supposed to. Most people would agree that George W. Bush is one of the worst presidents in modern times. This is hardly a revelation and is evidenced by the fact that both parties are running against the last eight years in the current Presidential election. How often do you see that happen? But even the worst President in history deserves a better movie about them than this. Hell, at least Nixon got Anthony Hopkins. Through no fault of their own the entire cast is awful and the characters they play are beyond caricatures and sit firmly in the cartoon category. With James Brolin, Richard Dreyfuss and James Cromwell the cast is stellar and yet the performances are absolutely unwatchable. It’s like watching Sir Lawrence Olivier if he were in one of the “Rush Hour” movies. Maybe it’s also because I’ve seen better character development in “Cannonball Run”. What struck me the most is how incredibly amateurish this movie was. Worse than a student film. It was like watching a 100 million dollar Youtube video posted by someone submitting to Moveon.org for a video contest to win $200 and a rope made out of hemp. Move On, indeed. Move on from this film.
—Chris Mancini
