er-usmani Reviews

The Ice Road (2021)

Well it had potential

[4/10 · 19 September 2022]

It has a good premise, truckers overcoming hazards and dangerous situation to help some humans trapped in life or death circumstances while money hungry execs have no regard for anything but money.

I'm no trucking expert so I didn't see many "trucking issues" in this movie. However the pacing, well, it was totally off. A movie with "Ice Road" being its title should have had more of the ice road travel, adventure and tribulations in it. The ice road segment ended too soon and it was all mountains road for the latter half. LF's character was underused, I couldn't believe he was swept under the sheet (of ice) so early in the movie.

The token cliche native girl was there just to be native "prey" and spit in everybody's face. There was no reason for a native character to be there, any trucker with knowledge of that trucking route could replace her without taking anything away from the story. Heck the replacement could have been a mute wearing a festival mask and the movie wouldn't lose anything. Actually she was bad at her job too. She had a gun which she couldn't keep secure, she had crossed the bridge "1000's of times" but yet she broke it by not keep momentum and caused death of the mechanic by not keeping momentum uphill.

Anyways, the biggest (worst of even what's written above) issue was the wild coyote hit man. Put gasoline in one engine (why not 2?), blow up ice sheet with dynamite, throw truck off a cliff, STAGE AN AVALANCHE, he keeps coming back with elaborate plans of stopping the truckers but they keep surviving, "beep beep" style. Haha.

LN and LF were the only reason why I could sit through the movie at all.

After.Life (2009)

I'm just curious

[8/10 · 5 September 2022]

I don't watch horror but I went with it anyways because I like liam neeson's acting.

But boy, was I surprised! It has an intriguing story, solid acting by main cast, great score, fine pacing and great cinematography. Liam neeson was specially great in his portrayal of the funeral guy. Obviously it is not for the kids or family because of the nudity but it wasn't erotic because, well, you'll know

Only question I was left with after viewing was why the low rating? May be they should just keep making transformer movies then? Another avenger movie? Bring another comic to life that was meant for 6 years old?

A Perfect Murder (1998)

Does not compute

[5/10 · 18 August 2022]

Too many plot holes, too many coincidences. Average acting by everybody but michael douglas. Viggo mortensen definitely grew into a better actor later on but in this movie he is a total miscast. He has the emotional range of a soft guy but the sinister side was totally lacking. He is supposed to be a sinister guy when not in view of emily. He is supposed to be a guy that cons women, been to prison, has ghetto ex-con friends, hires a guy to kill the woman he is conning, blackmails her husband and then double crosses him in the end anyways. What we needed was Robert Knepper's teddy from prison break.

** SPOILERS ** There are many and have been enumerated by other reviewers but the worst of the worst I cannot get over is the very observant "suspicious at first sight" detective not finding the key behind the pipe. Come on, it was JUST THERE!

The Old Man (2022– )

Have good things to say except...

[9/10 · 16 August 2022]

"The Old Man" is a very grounded and regular paced thriller giving us some great performances by, well almost everybody. Jeff bridges is John Lithgow specially, but man, Amy Brenneman just can't act. Her acting makes it look like she was clipped from some other show and pasted here as an afterthough. The grittiness of situation is ruined by her totally out of place acting. Take the dining table scene where the writer tries to show us her wickedness of taking advantage of a bad situation (that she is in), she totally blows it On top her bad acting, she is constantly overshadowed by Jeff Bridges excelling acting and charisma. This results in no chemistry between them whatsoever and I find skipping all scenes she is in because she just ruins the show.

She was fine as a 10 minutes screen time that John had to go through on his way to Minnesota, but making her a main character in the show, dang. I hope her character sees an end soon.

Takes one star away from the rating.

Update: And then I watched further and it keep getting worst. Such a waste. Such, a, waste :( Started out so well but went starting downhill somewhere around ep 3, 4.

Annihilation (I) (2018)

Less power to this garbage

[1/10 · 29 July 2022]

Result of modern day affirmative action where only criteria met is quite apparent throughout the movie. No logic, no story, just garbage.

Enough said.

Jurassic World Dominion (2022)

So bad

[2/10 · 19 June 2022]

Watched it in 3D on a huge screen with 3D sound banging with my 8/6 years old kids and it failed to even impress them. Several hours since we have left the theater and they have not even recalled it once in awe. It was that bad.

Actually it was worst, my daughter said on our drive to home, "I'm gonna watch the old one on TV". She was talking about the he original Jurassic Park that was made wayyyyyy before she was born with so (comparatively) rudimentary technology. Point being, it is not the huge screen, the thumping sound, the state of the art CGI that make a movie, it is the story. Being a dinosaur movie, it should have been about the dinosaurs but this one was about, actually, nobody. It was just a pile of scenes strung together. Very bad movie.

The Mechanic (2011)

Hurry, hurry, hurry

[3/10 · 19 January 2022]

Actors, direction and story is from your typical run of the mill statham action movie book but the editing, man!, what a strange choice. For the first half, almost all of the scenes are no longer than 10 seconds. It is like watching a very long montage. The thing about a montage is that it is short, meaningful and ends on a substantial result that then carries the movie forwards. This montage however spans most part of the movie and replaces character development and evolution of a good story.

Could have been a decent movie but the editing non-existent character development killed it.

The Spanish Prisoner (1997)

Sorry

[2/10 · 12 September 2021]

Plot, story, twist, intrigue, deception? How about not being able to get past bad acting in first 15 minutes and turning off the movie.

Murder in the First (1995)

Cannot understand thehigh parise

[6/10 · 9 September 2021]

I started watching this movie having as modest and realistic expectations that a 7.3 on IMDB movie can deliver on. However I cannot say that I found it on par with that either.

The movie is a collection of many things working together for the viewers' great experience. A movie cannot fail in one and still be regarded as a good experience. This one failed on many. My main gripe is with the pacing. It is totally off. I am not a professional, well, not even an amateur film critic but I could tell right away that the movie wasn't spread even over those LONG 2+ hours. Kevin bacon gave a good performance but the pacing killed it. The crescendo of him falling into despair was just not there. It was like watching a bunch of disjointed scenes in no particular order. Same is the case with the court proceedings scenes. There is no "development" in the tension. It was just all over the place with judge, defendant, prosecutor and witness yelling endlessly.

Another thing is the music score. It is chiched and starts/stops at wrong times.

And finally, I kept asking myself that if having one narrator is bad why does this movie has 2 of them.

Dolores Claiborne (1995)

Is it ever getting anywhere?

[5/10 · 6 September 2021]

Discovered the movie, checked IMDB ratings, go it to watch on a Saturday. 55:15 and nothing's happening. It has the usual Kathy bates doing her fine acting, christopher plummer doing what he does i.e., being a nice guy but being enough creepy to give a glimpse of what he is going to be revealed as in the 2nd half. But what's up with jennifer jason leigh. I could simply ignore her as I do in any other movie she has a minor role in but she has so much screen time in this one for that. She's trying to portray a badass competent journalist from New York who's absorbed in her job enough to care about anything else, but all she does his huffing & puffing and looking in random directions while holding her smirk. This was a total miscast which ruins the movie completely.

This could be a 7 movie OK, but what's with the 9-10 reviews on IMDB. Talk about hyperbole. I get that this is one of stephen king book's adaptation but it is nothing special unless there is some usual suspects / silence of the lambs sort of 2nd half that I'm missing.

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

Kinda OK

[5/10 · 11 August 2021]

Well, the cast was good, setting and atmosphere was superb, acting was great. The story was intriguing at the start but the OVERLOAD of old timey songs was just too much. The movie was pretty slow but I'm OK with that. But it has FAR TOO MANY SONGS.

Well the songs could be tolerated but the thing I hate more than excessive songs is the unbelievably over the top characters. Those two girls man, do such characters actually exist in real life? Can they actually exist in real life? Their character and and acting was a wrong mixture of looks, innocence, street smartness, ruthlessness and criminal behavior. I just couldn't bear watching those unrealistic characters and gave up on chris hemsworth's introduction. I mean I don't even care what that character is and what's it going to add to the story. They corny "Howdy" was met with a F U! From me and I turned off the movie.

24: Redemption (2008 TV Movie)

Cliche Galore

[3/10 · 27 May 2021]

• African warlord
• Bad foreign entity (arms supplier)
• Good foreign entity (trying to "liberate" the people)
• Bad guys having bad aim
• Good guy using wrong methods for good
• Cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, fast camera movement to make it thrilling.

... Did I miss any cliche?

Death and the Maiden (1994)

Neither bad nor great, just run of the mill Roman polanski with bad acting

[3/10 · 24 May 2021]

Writing, direction, cinematography, score and acting are pillars of a good movie but the acting bears a great load when there is such a small cast. 3 actors have to share the 90 minutes screen time and all have to share the screen time equally since there is no place for a minor character in a 3 character movie.

Here lies the biggest issue with this movie. The devious yet convincing, brutal but emotional character was played by a person that has acting range no better than a bag of rocks. Ben kinglsy is just Ben kingsly in every role he is cast in, and that holds true in this movie as well. Take the final monologue, it was written for an actor that, seeing his sure death, first breaks down and starts repenting and admitting to horrible things he has done (emotions: breakdown and regret) and as he starts explaining the stuff his emotions take a turn and he starts to express how he actually liked it (emotion: triumph) and then to save his skin he reverts back to repenting (emotion: regret again). BUT, the actor just goes thought his whole thing talking like a robot. Just imagine the monotonous tone a text to speech engine would produce and you get ben kingly's monologue. Sorry, but this was plain bad acting and the biggest let down of the movie.

Bernie (2011)

Watch it if you like lame exposition mechanisms used excessively

[1/10 · 14 July 2020]

Jack black might have given the performance of a lifetime, it could have been a great movie but I don't know because I couldn't get past the interview-style exposition. It was fine for the first 5 minutes since when it is done it is done to bootstrap the plot and give a nice start to a story. But when the whole movie (not sure if it continued to the end, I skipped to ~75% and landed on an interview shot) is small scenes stitched between interview pieces, it is a bit too much.

The interview-style exposition was repetitive, it was uninspired, and it was just frustrating.

Sorry but I really hated it.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Amazed

[10/10 · 14 October 2019]

Alien planets, vast canyons, mars terrain, whales eating dinosurs, car chases, gun fights, train wrecks, underwater shooting, planes falling out of the sky, robots shifting into cars, dinosaurs punching the robots, bridges collapsing, sentient beings turning back time for survival, man sent in past to kill himself,

this movie has nothing of such BS

BUT!

it is one of the greatest movies I have even watched. PURE GREAT ACTING AND GREAT SCREENPLAY!.

Did I mention it takes place in almost one set?

The Collini Case (2019)

Had potential but failed.

[5/10 · 12 October 2019]

Watching this movie, one of the many problems you are going to notice right away is the lack of character development. There is not enough backstory for any of the characters for the viewer to really connect with them.

The second biggest problem probably arises from the first one. The movie is nowhere as engaging and immersive as the director/cast is hoping it is. This movie failed to generate the right emotional response at the right times. It being a trial court drama, one intuitively links it to the "A Few Good" men and sighs at how this movie just falls short at its climax.

Nice try but meh.