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Checked this out because it features Zach Galifianakis, one of my all-time favorite comedians. Also stars two patrons of the daily show, Rob Corddry and Ving Rhames(Mission Impossible, Pulp Fiction). The story begins with a new recruit joining "The Factory", an elite team of highly professional assassins working for the U.S. Government. Funnyman Rob Corddry completely steals the show as 'Chariot', a functioning alcoholic has-been who shows the new guy the ropes, that is until an emergency lockdown traps everyone underground! The beginning of the movie (and deleted opening scene) is hilarious, Rob Corddry shines as an assassin who drinks on the job and hates his miserable life. But after the first 30 minutes the film goes downhill because the comedy is completely replaced by good choreography and deadly fight scenes. Galifianakis also gets hardly any screentime. The story just wasn't compelling enough, it seemed kind of rushed and haphazardly put together. You don't get any backstory about the characters, and before you can even get to know them they start offing each other during the lockdown. However the fight scenes and action are decent, they just take over the movie and it ceases to be a comedy .5-way through. If you rented it and drank a lot of beer it would be great, it's a decent drinking action movie. 3/5, + Beer it's a 4/5
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Aug 19, 2010 01:29
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 07:52 |
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While it's trying to be a comedy, this is an entertaining movie. Corddry does a great job as the lead and the characters as a whole quip back and forth at each other very well. However, once the action and intrigue start, it becomes a lackluster spy flick punctuated by ultra-violent fight scenes. Something about government conspiracies and secret spy stuff and then all of a sudden the base is going to blow up, they're locked in, and they're killing each other off pretty much "just because" You find out later in the movie that no, really, there's literally almost no reason beyond that. While the fight scenes are certainly violent, they're oddly not very fulfilling. They're solidly choreographed but somehow, well, boring until the final overkill move. It's like watching a fighting game play out: they do a quick dossier splash of the characters and their skill sets then pair them off to fight where they don't use any of those skills and just grab stuff around the office to try to murder each other with. The plot and character development? Ugh, I won't bother, it's all a convoluted mess. Overall, by the time the movie was hastily wrapping itself up, I was half grateful it was over, half annoyed that it felt like they'd wasted a solid cast that could have made a great action comedy if they'd decided to do it. It's really too bad that they couldn't seem to decide exactly what it was they actually were trying to do. Zach Galifianakis is little more than a cameo toward the end, unfortunately. 2/5 because the first 1/3 of the movie deserves a solid 4 stars for some slick humor and character interaction but the last 2/3 can barely pull off a 1 star for... I dunno, whatever they were trying to do there.
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Jan 13, 2011 09:52
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