River Runs Red (2018) User Reviews

Zero Character Chemistry

[reg-18226 · 3/10 · 25 November 2018]

Husband and wife don't kiss on the lips. The bedroom scene is shot in individual half screen clips even though they are supposedly in the same bed talking.

Acting is horrid. But the worst is the wife. How did she make it past screening?

I watched it for the concept of what the story represented. The acting made it painful.

Truly unforgettable cinema.

[glencooksfood · 3/10 · 9 November 2018]

Stilted acting, uninspiring dialogue and laughable cinematography are some of the best things about this film.

I'm all for using film to highlight social issues and when done respectfully can make for truly memorable cinema. When this is rushed, under funded and poorly cast you end up with a film such as this.

Sadly memorable only for it's short comings, 'River Runs Red' is at best laughable at worst unforgettable, but hey if you've nothing better to do with your evening give it a watch you may well answer the question "what would Ed Wood be doing now if he was a contemporary black / writer director?"

3 stars

Awful

[sourseb · 3/10 · 9 November 2018]

This movie is terrible! Awful acting, rubbish plot, crap music. Don't waste your life! It is actually funny how bad it is.

Boring from start to finish

[miki-watt72 · 1/10 · 18 November 2018]

John Cusac is just in this for the sake of a well known name I think. Terrible acting, terrible camera work and the story isn't great. Infactual as in police work in solving murders and so on. Just another rubbish movie that had enough money spent on it that it could have been a half decent movie, but NO, total rubbish movie, don't waste your time.

The acting, dialogue and people are so bad

[binthaider-755-822849 · 1/10 · 16 November 2018]

This is really bad. The script is pathetic but the cardboard actors make it worse. Everything about this movie is cringeworthy. No excuse!

An eye for an eye

[nogodnomasters · 2/10 · 2 December 2018]

CJ (Joseph Belk ) driving his dad's Bimmer on his way to the police academy, gets pulled over for a DWB. He ends up dead with a planted gun. His dad, Judge Charles Coleman (Taye Diggs) wants revenge against the police who did this (and they did this before, planting the same gun) but the system won't give it to him the justice he seeks.

I thought this was going to be an interesting courtroom drama in a wrongful death civil suit, but apparently, they didn't have the funding for a feature that long so they shortened the film with some poorly scripted vigilante nonsense.

The dialogue was forced and strained. The actors could not deliver the junque in a convincing manner.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity. John Cusack in a very minor role.

Story very slowly gets worse

[mileshodkinson · 1/10 · 10 November 2018]

Won't be getting that time of my life back. This was a basic story that never grabs you, the whole thing is wooden and 2 dimensional. By the end we were both sitting in disbelief, if I could give it zero stars it would still be too many.

Waist of time

[wats-19908 · 1/10 · 7 December 2018]

This movie had some good actors but the acting from these actors was very very poorly executed. You can definitely tell when a movie is poorly directed actors respond to good directing and a good script this movie had neither

How IRONIC

[mimiybyazphil · 7 June 2020]

I watched this movie AFTER George Floyd was killed in living color, (No pun intended) Everyone panned it, called it AWFUL, do you all STILL think that?! I am black I have 3 sons, I KNOW what happens to to OUR sons!! Now so do you so called experts!

Lost potential to bad directing and even worse writing

[Top_Dawg_Critic · 6/10 · 16 November 2018]

Novice writer & director Wes Miller should have passed on the screenplay duties to someone more experienced. The premise of the story was good, but it was executed poorly.

What was the point of even having John Cusack in the film? And why does he always have to wear the lame sad black clothes and baseball cap in every film?

The character development was pretty lame, especially Taye Diggs' Asian wife that totally did not make them look like a couple and was annoying with the subtitles when she was speaking in Chinese. Their son wasn't even 1/10th Chinese, so gain, what was the point? The casting department really needed to give their head a shake. The only cop that looked and played the role was Luke Hemsworth. All other cops including supporting roles and (especially) Cusask where very poorly cast.

Wes Miller's camera directing was decent, but directing his cast was awful, and it showed. The only actors that held their own were George Lopez and Luke Hemsworth. I'm a fan of Taye Diggs, but I know with a better director, he would've shined.

The editing was also atrocious. Did a 5th grader with scissors and tape edit this film?

The cinematography was decent as was the score and soundtrack (would have loved to hear more). The pace wasn't bad as some reviewers stated - it was the directing and editing that made it seem so slow. The length of 94 mins was decent, although 85 would have been better with proper editing.

Nevertheless, this is a B-grade film with (unfortunately) a C-grade production, which made it lose its potential. Perhaps instead of having over *36* producers in this film, they should have invested in a better film production team.

Would I see it again? No. Would I recommend it? Sure if there's nothing better to see, and if you can get past the amateur production and simply appreciate the story being told from some popular lead actors.

Not even close to the fake 10/10's, but certainly undeserving of all the 1/10's. It's a true and honest 6/10 from me.

Awful

[jakki-04984 · 2/10 · 28 November 2018]

Bad acting, bad movie makers, and just bad everything. Very disappointing. Waste of $ and time.

Cops are giving bad reviews

[belisimo-41120 · 10/10 · 24 November 2018]

This movie had me from the first few minutes. Great plot with important themes. Obviously only haters are giving low reviews because they don't even make sense.

"Realness" prevails in this above average flick.

[middlepassageckln · 7/10 · 25 November 2018]

This is not your typical revenge flick. The lines are blurred between good and bad, and the truth lies somewhere in between. The acting won't win any academy awards, but at least it's honest and whether or not you believe that all cops are just doing their jobs or that the're evil doesn't really matter. This is political ish that tells it like it is in regards to a lot of the police killings of black men. It's fairly easy to tell who the Trump supporters are on this board. They're the ones who no matter the quality of the film, will always dismiss it and give it a low rating, mumbling about it being some black lives matter nonsense, or how it's too "anti-cop". However if the quality of the film is the same as the black film, but is dealing with "terrorists" or a US military intervention, it's realistic and great. This opinion may sound a bit harsh, but I've read too many critiques on this forum and I've found this to be true in a lot of the posts.

Thumbs down

[kalvincahn · 1/10 · 27 November 2018]

A waste of an hour and a half. Not made well at all

Nothing from nothing leaves nothing...

[covington_c · 1/10 · 10 November 2018]

There was nothing good about this movie. Acting was horrible, b/c there was no chemistry b/t any of the main characters. Rather unrealistic family dynamic. Vigilante storyline was rather implausible. Wanted to like the movie, but could bearly hold my attention. Wish I could give it zero stars.

An atrociously acted movie and a crap film/script/plot and everything

[contactmaz · 1/10 · 20 November 2018]

My review title says it all. I should have realised it would be crap when I saw that Cusack was in it and that excuse of an actor, Luke Hemsworth, who only seemed to want to curl up his face and raise his lips when he had 'his turn' in the film. Boy, does he know how "not to act"! The judge was very weak in the film, as was his Chinese wife who, half the time, couldn't be understood. The other half, she was speaking Chinese so we had the benefit of subtitles.

Overall, a complete waste of time. Don't bother!

Slow boil

[youoldduffer · 1/10 · 17 November 2018]

They say this is a slow boil film?, well its so slow boiling I wondered if they had plugged the kettle in. I wish i could say "when this film gets going" but this film just never gets going. The acting from some otherwise good actors is dire indeed, the script could be to blame as some of the line the actors have to say feel like it was an eight year old kid that was the main writer.

B movie at best

[mikekilleen · 1/10 · 10 November 2018]

No idea how this movie got an over 7 rating,it's slow,uninteresting and dull at best!There are b movies out there that leave this thing a million miles behind..slow slow slow

Absolutely horrible

[IMDbUser123456 · 10 November 2018]

First off, worst movie I've seen in a long time. Bad editing, even worse dialogue. Scattered storyline, and just plain nonsense. The gun he placed by CJ in the beginning isn't even the same gun they showed in the pictures later. I mean how hard is that to get right? The message? If you don't like what someone did, kill them! Your opinion is enough justification to do whatever you want apparently. I can't believe how this got to a score of 7,3, honestly I would give it a 0,3 but the star rating system only gives me the option of giving one and that's incredibly generous for this movie. Complete waste of time.

Really bad movie

[fdawsari-08584 · 1/10 · 18 November 2018]

Nothing to say, it is just bad movie Gggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

Entertaining

[faer_kr · 7/10 · 28 May 2020]

A dramatic and action movie. It's about a judge seeking justice for the unpunished murder of his son. The third act is spectacular. The first part of the movie is totally drama and the end of the second act and the third is totally action. It does not fall into the movie stereotypes, neither the characters nor the situations. It talks a lot about the sense of justice and corruption, about fighting for ideals. Quality. Entertaining Only two scenes are not completely accomplished.

Feels like a poor joke

[bobrichards54 · 1/10 · 18 November 2018]

I appreciate that there is a problem with policing in the USA but such blind racial hate on both sides is not the answer. It is really not worth the effort to watch this .

Love this movie

[huangyay · 10/10 · 23 November 2018]

Fantastic movie. I love the story, the music, and all the actors/actresses. There should be more movies like this in the market!!!

For a B-Movie I've seen worse however this wasn't without its flaws.

[Brooklynsmagicmike · 6/10 · 16 December 2020]

I would like to start by saying that the movie isn't really an action movie, it plays more of as slow burn drama. Not sure why it was listed as such because the only action comes within last 15 minutes of the film.

With that said I found this to be an slightly ok watch. The premise of the movie isn't bad by any means and the film was easy to follow along with. I thought Taye Diggs and George lopez did alright job with the provided source material. Plus I found the ending to actually be quite emotional.

Outside of that there were quite bit issues I had with this film. First the film does get quite draggy and there are a crap ton of scenes in the film that serve no purpose other then to pad it out. Second while I gave compliments to Diggs and Lopez for there acting. I found Jennifer Tao's acting to be one worst I've ever seen in film. She was just horrendous for so many reasons and there was virtually zero chemistry with her and Diggs. I also had issue with Cusack while I love his work normally. He felt extremely out place in this film and it felt like he was just there to cash a quick check. Lastly the film has bad habit of beating you over the head with things ranging from BLM, police brutality, politics, etc. It got to the point where you felt like you were teenager again getting yelled at by your parents.

Would I recommend this movie? If you stumble across it and Have urge to check it out go ahead. Just don't have high expectations.

Absolutely awful

[davidneuman · 1/10 · 10 November 2018]

Painful acting, low budget, and painful to watch. I don't know if they were trying to be artsy or were incompetent, but people's faces were always out of focus.