When you see the Amazon Original logo on a movie, it usually serves a warning. You're going to get a slow moving film with lots of slow panning camera shots, cinematography ridden with lens flares, mist filter lighting and lots of closeups of the actor's faces with the rest of the scene blurred out in the background.
For once though, at least the color grading was nice.
The movie starts off somewhat intriguing, mostly due to Chris Pine, who seems to have prematurely entered the Neeson / Travolta Geezer teaser phase of his career after a few high profile misfires. But the plot quickly unravels as the narrative loses focus and becomes bogged down in cell phone records and endless flashbacks to the two main character's relationship. This is the core of the story, and it's supposed to lay the groundwork for the big reveal at the end, but the two leads have little to no chemistry, the love scenes and romance has no spark, and therefore the entire emotional core of the story falls apart.
As the plot meanders on from flashback to flashback, it becomes more and more ludicrous. Never mind that the CIA would never allow lovers working in the field like this, no one except Laurence Fishbourne feels like a CIA agent. The side characters are just window dressing with the exception of Johnathan Pryce, who get show off his acting chops in one scene.
The response to the hijackers is ludicrous, as is the entire story about how the Germans or Austrians don't want to release 5 prisoners. Ridiculous. Neither of these countries would risk a plane full of people being killed on the internet over 5 prisoners they could easily track after release. Never mind that they don't actually hold high profile terrorists in those countries.
Even more ridiculous is the plot about the Informant in Russia, naturally an entirely innocent man.
This is where the obligatory amazon wokeness comes in. Aside from one, the white characters are all either corrupt or killers. The non-white characters are predictably flawless and blameless. And of course the Russians are portrayed as pure evil again.
Even more ridiculous is a line about a character dying in Iran because they don't have medicine there due to western sanctions. Who writes this garbage? Iran has better medical care than most middle eastern nations and a life expectancy of 77 which is higher than most East European nations and only 2 years lower than the US. Sanction against Iran don't even include medical products.
As mentioned the portrayal of the CIA is ludicrous as well, presenting them like some incompetent squad of hobbyist hitmen who sell out innocent informants at a whim and kill their own agents in elaborate theatrical setups over a phone call instead of bringing them in for questioning.
What good is there to say about the film? Some of the acting is good. The color grading is nice to look at for once. And it's not 2 hours, though the slow pace makes it feel longer.
For once though, at least the color grading was nice.
The movie starts off somewhat intriguing, mostly due to Chris Pine, who seems to have prematurely entered the Neeson / Travolta Geezer teaser phase of his career after a few high profile misfires. But the plot quickly unravels as the narrative loses focus and becomes bogged down in cell phone records and endless flashbacks to the two main character's relationship. This is the core of the story, and it's supposed to lay the groundwork for the big reveal at the end, but the two leads have little to no chemistry, the love scenes and romance has no spark, and therefore the entire emotional core of the story falls apart.
As the plot meanders on from flashback to flashback, it becomes more and more ludicrous. Never mind that the CIA would never allow lovers working in the field like this, no one except Laurence Fishbourne feels like a CIA agent. The side characters are just window dressing with the exception of Johnathan Pryce, who get show off his acting chops in one scene.
The response to the hijackers is ludicrous, as is the entire story about how the Germans or Austrians don't want to release 5 prisoners. Ridiculous. Neither of these countries would risk a plane full of people being killed on the internet over 5 prisoners they could easily track after release. Never mind that they don't actually hold high profile terrorists in those countries.
Even more ridiculous is the plot about the Informant in Russia, naturally an entirely innocent man.
This is where the obligatory amazon wokeness comes in. Aside from one, the white characters are all either corrupt or killers. The non-white characters are predictably flawless and blameless. And of course the Russians are portrayed as pure evil again.
Even more ridiculous is a line about a character dying in Iran because they don't have medicine there due to western sanctions. Who writes this garbage? Iran has better medical care than most middle eastern nations and a life expectancy of 77 which is higher than most East European nations and only 2 years lower than the US. Sanction against Iran don't even include medical products.
As mentioned the portrayal of the CIA is ludicrous as well, presenting them like some incompetent squad of hobbyist hitmen who sell out innocent informants at a whim and kill their own agents in elaborate theatrical setups over a phone call instead of bringing them in for questioning.
What good is there to say about the film? Some of the acting is good. The color grading is nice to look at for once. And it's not 2 hours, though the slow pace makes it feel longer.