Change Your Image
rrgerber
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Consultant (2023)
Pointed Allegory
Firstly, I rated this title as 10/10, in part to offset the negative reviews I see here. Otherwise I probably would have awarded it 8, since a 10 rating should be used sparingly.
Most of the reviews praise Christoph Waltz, so I won't add to it except to say that as usual, his performance is outstanding. The rest of the review is to answer those that protest "I don't get it".
This movie is an allegory (and a quite funny one) of corporate consultants, such as from McKinsey and similar firms, and how they employ drastic measures to "save" failing companies and to achieve profitability. The measures taken here are only slightly more immoral compared to real-life consultants from McKinsey. Regis Patoff upends this game factory to the discomfort of most of the employees, but ultimately succeeds in turning it around.
Like many such corporate consultants Mr. Patoff knows virtually nothing about the business domain, in this case video games, although his ignorate is also exaggerated, as it should be in satire.
Does Patoff have supernatural powers, particularly in his powers of persuasion? Yes, but they are just marginally greater than the real-life consultants' powers over corporate boards.
Is he the actual devil? I tend to think of him not as the Devil, but as the Devil's creation, sent to further corrupt humans by encouraging them to commit most of the Deadly Sins, and particularly greed. That he is made out of gold is no coincidence.
I would advise ignoring the negative comments and to watch this series. I enjoyed it immensely.
Interceptor (2022)
Don't feel compelled to finish it
It does not get any better. In fact it gets worse. As the stereotyped good ole boy said to the cliched and ridiculous villain, speaking of Elsa Pataky's character, "You should have killed her first!". Indeed he should have, since it would have saved you from even considering to watch this awful mess.
El recluso (2018)
Avoid at all costs. Watch El Marginal instead.
The first season of this Telemundo series is a remake of a far superior Argentinian series, El Marginal. The acting here is mediocre at best, the jail scenes are laughable, the warden is more comedian than civil servant, the lead actor is wooden and boring, and shall I go on? Instead, I strongly recommend watching El Marginal, also on Netflix, which is significantly more believable and at times frighteningly intense. Whereas the successive seasons of El Recluso are substantially worse than the first one (if such is possible), El Marginal actually improves over time, and the 3rd season is downright fantastic. The only reason my review has two stars is for David Chocarro for his interpretation of the Santito role. But again, his counterpart in El Marginal is far more convincing.
Jaguar (2021)
Good premise, horrible acting
It was a good idea, but falls apart after a few episodes due to the amateurish acting and the dialogue which forces the actors to be even worse than they are. I turned stopped watching when one of our heroes was listening to "Paint it Black" on his car radio in 1961, before there was a group called the Rolling Stones. Geez, have some respect for the audience.
¿Quién Mató a Sara? (2021)
Watchable Trashy Telenovela
When you watch a Mexican telenovela, you can say goodbye to reality and hello to sweaty and very mild, soft-core sex scenes. The production quality is higher than the typical daytime Mexican soap, and the sound and lighting is excellent (again, usually rare).
But after a season I decided that I didn't really care who killed Sara, because I didn't care about Sara. The only good acting came from García Millán, who played the typically Spanish role of overbearing patriarch.
I suggest that if you make it to the season finale, you stop the movie when it seems to be ending. We spent two seasons discovering who was conspiring to kill Sara, and who actually did the deed, and we witnessed the murder right before our eyes, but in the last minute we are told that what we saw was false, and that we don't really know who killed Sara after all. Stay tuned for Season 3 (not). I'm not going to watch any series that makes us feel like fools in the finale.
Enemigo Íntimo (2018)
First season good, second season not so much
I like Fernanda Castillo, so I followed this series up until the end of the second season. The first season was quite good for a Mexican telenovela, with the high production standards you would expect from Telemundo with Netflix financing. The second season, which was not picked up by Netflix USA (hence with a lower budget) lacked the quality of the first. Most daily telenovelas do have a recap section at the beginning (which is pointless if you are watching every day), but in these episodes there were two recaps - the official one and another, longer one inside of the episode itself, thus minimizing the original content.
All this would be acceptable, but they committed the worst sin of all, which is a season 2 finale which makes you feel like an idiot for watching the previous 59 episodes. It wasn't as bad as "Lost", but close. It's not a spoiler to reveal that the final scene conveniently puts everyone in the same warehouse, and then boom - there's a huge explosion, probably killing them all.
Or not. I mean of course not. The major characters will survive, like they always do. Congratulations on insulting your viewers.
The White Tiger (2021)
This movie is great - ignore the negative reviews!
The White Tiger was one of my favorite books of the 00's, and shows a side of India which you rarely find in other books from the subcontinent. And this film as as close to the book as you can get, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, and you will too.
There are many Indian reviewers here that hated the move. They complain that it is not realistic, that, for example Balram would not speak such fine English, or that his village would have electricity by now, and so on. First, this is fiction, and we're to accept him as a kind of prodigy. He is not an ordinary child (then man).
They complain that the movie presents an old version of India, and that modern India is a high-tech wonderland, without such backwardness anymore. Well, I assure you that many such villages do not have paved roads or electricity. They complain that Delhi is a hyper-modern city, not the place portrayed in the movie. It is a modern city, but huge numbers of villagers (from the "Darkness") do live outside, on the edge of the roadway - you merely have to visit there to see it.
They complain that rich people don't care whether their servants are Hindu or Muslim, and the film is lying. Oh yea? Since when did this come to pass? Last week?
OK, my Indian friends. If you want India to be a center of culture, which it is, then you'll have to grow up and take the good with the bad. If American films were reflective of American society, then all US citizens would want to throw themselves off of a cliff.
Finally, many Indian reviewers are angry about a favorite and romantic Bollywood star, Rajkummar Rao, being cast in the role of a ridiculously westernized idiot. Guys, this doesn't mean that Rao is an idiot; he is just playing one, which takes some talent. Moreover, we are seeing things through the eyes of Balram, who views all western-leaning aristos as idiots, ripe for the picking.
So forget about the bad reviews and see the movie. It is excellent. And then read the book, which is even better.
Outside the Wire (2021)
America is the greatest country on earth
Here is a very brief synopses of the movie, without spoilers:
1. America is the greatest country on earth. We protect the world from itself, and only care about others. We keep the peace wherever we go. We have the best military, the best technology, and the best military technology, including incredible robot soldiers, which only do good. Sometimes we make mistakes, but only for the right reasons, and the people that err are punished.
2. (For about 10 minutes if that) Maybe America isn't the best country on earth. Its wars kill innocent people.
3. Scratch that. America is the greatest country on earth. Hell yea!
Young Wallander (2020)
Language and Accents
Unlike many of the reviewers here, I am not familiar with Wallander franchise, so I can judge this work on its own merits. The plot is reasonable, the acting is good, and it would be watchable with an English (or Irish) actor in the leading role. It is not that Adam Pålsson is horrible; it is just that he is out of place. Because despite their attempts to place this in Sweden, the series is, at its heart, another Brit detective series, and could have (and should have) taken place in a town like Newcastle or Bristol.
And everyone, and I mean everyone, will watch this as a UK series, in a UK context. Hence the presence of Adam Pålsson is jarring. It seems that his only purpose is to remind us that this is supposed to Sweden, which it is not. It's hard to place his accent in the sea of familiar English accents, but it does seem rather posh, even faintly aristocratic. If a policeman would choose to live in a council estate, he would necessarily have working-class roots and a working-class accent, and for this reason (and a few others) the character is simply not believable. I get disturbed just listening to his voice. Ah, you say, "but it's supposed to be Sweden, don't be so hard on the fellow". No, this is not Sweden. It is England, so stop pretending.
White Lines (2020)
A portrait of the Eurotrash that I know so well
If you are interested in exploring the vapid and soulless lives of 90s Eurotrash, then this series is for you. There is not not a single sympathetic character except for Boxer (Nuno Lopes), and one can wonder how a mature guy like him can suffer being around these pretentious, superficial and disloyal souls who do nothing but cause trouble for each other. One can wonder, but in reality there is always a responsible adult among these fools, usually in the form of a barman, bouncer or some other fixer. They are never really accepted as part of the snobbish and fashionable set, yet everyone relies on them, and they hold most of the secrets. Usually the difference is not so stark, and usually there is at least some halfway-decent human among the burnouts, but not here.
The actors are third rate, except for Lopes, who really doesn't belong here. The protagonist Laura Haddock is unwatchable. Other that that it is a great series!