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Reviews
Palmer (2021)
Well acted, good story
Gotta say, I was pretty impressed with JT in this one and I think it was a pretty good watch. It was generally formulaic, hit a lot of the same keys movies like this tend to but I don't think that's bad. It's a good, tugs at your heartstrings kind of movie and an overall satisfying watch
Donnybrook (2018)
It Could've Been Good If It Followed The Book More Closely
When I first watched this movie, I tried to like it. I really did. I enjoyed the cinematography, I thought the de-saturated color choice set a good tone, and I think the actors worked well with what they were given. But none of that was enough to save it for me given that the story was absolutely butchered.
After watching this movie the first time go round, I couldn't help but think that it was too linear. No real sub plot and, what I see as an even bigger blow, not much exploring into the backstories of these characters. So naturally, I looked through the Youtube comments under the trailer to see if anyone shared my opinions and stumbled across the knowledge of it being based on a book. Wanting desperately to enjoy this story, I bought the book and read it in two days (would've been one if I didn't have to work.) The story that I read was so much different than the one I'd originally seen.
Turns out that I was right in thinking the movie was too linear. It avoids branching off into sub plots in favor of pushing our characters from A to B. We lose sight of the characters' personalities and get Jarhead in the form of a good old boy who's just trying to take care of his family, Angus who is just the bad guy™, and Delia who,, isn't even a character in the book. The replacement of Liz's character confuses me so much, all of her personality and the things that made her interesting were just sucked out of her, leaving us with a scared little girl just looking for a way out instead of a foul-mouthed woman who only cared about stealing her brother's money to ensure her next hit was secure.
We don't get to see Mr. Zhong or Fu at all, from what I remember, so that entire plot was tossed out the window, Ned's character either wasn't there or was made minor despite the fact he played a major role in Liz's (Delia's?) story line in the book, and Walen's entire history, something made important for his whole story and what cemented both his rage toward Angus and motivations to pursue him at the Donnybrook, was gone and we're left with some creepy stalker of a cop, I guess.
One of my biggest gripe was the character of "Chainsaw" Angus. For one, they never seemed to bring up his backstory(you know...the one where he got half of his face torn up by a chainsaw? The one he got that whole nickname from?). They basically just use him as a primary antagonist and good gods the overuse of the violence was borderline mind numbing. I don't think we saw a single scene in the movie where Angus didn't kill someone other than the last one he was in, and he damn near tried. Angus was so much more than just generic movie bad guy #5 and it sucks to see him pushed into such a stereotype especially since I think Frank Grillo could've brought so much more depth to the character if he was given the chance to, so I really think he was robbed in that way.
Not to mention the dog fight scene! Of all the scenes to leave out, that was probably one of the most intense ones in the book. Instead we get to 'see' Angus kill a kid, one that wouldn't have (and shouldn't have) tagged along in the first place if the damn movie followed the book's actual story.
In the end, I understand that a movie cannot be expected to follow the book exactly. That's asinine and I would never ask such a thing of any film. But so much was left out, so many major characters and plot lines were discarded, and so many unnecessary changes made. It's disheartening to see such an engaging story mushed up into whatever the hell this catastrophe of a movie was and to see such talented actors stunted because they were given the shell of a character to portray rather than the in depth ones we should've seen.
I don't think it's worth the watch at all, I'd say avoid this one especially if you have read the novel(and if you have it, give it a go, it's on thriftbooks for just just a tad over $5). It's a waste of an actually decent story.