Reviews

At the end of the movie, Forest Whitaker tells Liam Neeson that he knows that Neeson downloaded data from the police computer and that such an act is illegal. "I could arrest you for it," Whitaker says. But he doesn't, and he allows Neesom to walk away. What is astounding is that Whitaker does not arrest Neeson for the following: 1) stealing a police vehicle, 2) reckless driving, 3) physical endangerment given that his driving caused multiple crashes, destruction of property, and serious bodily injury, 4) property damage inside a minimart, a high school, and a gas station 5) physical assault of multiple police officers, 6) evading arrest, 7) theft of police property, 8) illegal possession of a lethal weapon, 9) and there's more..

I'm willing to grant that Neeson's killing of at least 20 'bad guys' could be considered non-criminal acts of self self-defense; however, the list of Neeson's actual crimes cannot possibly be ignored by the authorities. Neeson clearly will become a grandfather while he is incarcerated.

This movie is easily 30 minutes longer than it needs to be. Midway into the movie I remained interested and willing to suspend disbelief. Past the midway point, the story became difficult to accept, and three fourths in, the story was simply laughable. I had no problem accepting the notion that AI took on a life of its own during the time of some ancient, superior extraterrestrial civilization, but thinking the moon was an integral part was just plain silly. So, too, was the notion that these same extraterrestrials seeded earth with DNA to begin life, but rather than create human beings outright, they apparently seemed content to let three billion years of evolution do the hard of work of arriving at humanity. When the film ended, it was mostly smiles for the principals, but I couldn't help thinking how many decades, if not millennia, it would take to clean up the mess made on earth by an errant, runaway moon.

This movie is not a film noir, despite the hype. This a tender homecoming movie whose plot leading up to the denouement has multiple unrelated foci that fail to come together into a nice, neat package. A high school football hero turned PI is hired to find someone's wealthy aunt who is ostensibly living in a nursing home in Galveston, our hero's hometown, but who is unreachable. Needing money, our hero (Travolta) takes the assignment, though he is loath to return to his hometown, the home of his football shame and his ex-wife whom he deserted. We are introduced to a sleazy nursing home doctor (overweight Brandon Fraser) who is more weird than evil, and who offers lame excuses as to why the aunt is not accessible. Travolta drops the favorite bar of his youth and reconnects with old teammates. There he meats the current high school football hero who has zero respect for Travolta (now having met him) for foolishly throwing away his career by throwing a football game. At the local gambling casino, Travolta meets the cultured kingpin of the town (Morgan Freeman) owner of the casino and most of the offshore oil drilling sites, but who desires the ones he doesn't yet have is fond of telling Travolta that he never loses. On the way back to his motel, Travolta is forced to fend off four armed bad buys from LA sent to kill him for reasons that are unclear, but which might have to do with unpaid betting losses. Travolta kills three and a fourth flees, yet for some reason, the police chief (Robert Patrick) seems decidedly uninterested in the three dead bodies. Freeman's wealth, influence, and suave demeanor, while a nice touch, in the end has nothing to do with the plot of the story. The current high school quarterback gets leveled in a Friday night game, spits up bad stuff and soon dies, apparently poisoned. The sheriff believes the quarterback's young wife is responsible, yet fails to present means or opportunity, only motive. The young widow is the daughter of Travolta's ex-wife (Framke Janssen) whose second husband died some time ago. Their emotional interaction soon takes center stage and becomes the rationale for caring about any subsequent action. We learn the 'sought after' aunt died some time ago and the weird doctor (Fraser), has been bilking his resident's relatives. He ultimately pays the price, but his death, like his illegality is as incidental to the plot as Freeman's cultured airs. The mystery of the quarterback's death is resolved at the movie's end and leads to the homecoming, but the unrelated and somewhat muddled action leading up to the denouement, while interesting, turns out to be totally extraneous.

The viewer can fast-forward through the tedium. I fast-forwarded through quite a bit and didn't miss a thing in terms of critical plot points. While the final explanation seems reasonable, the brother's motivation stretches credulity. In addition, Theron's performance was totally one dimensional - cynical, indifferent, disconnected, jaundiced. I would not recommend this movie.

In order for the American Side to work, even a little bit, it's essential that you know nothing about Tesla, the man who developed alternating current. Because if you know of him, you'd know that he had no such dream of creating the mcguffin that drives the movie. Because the premise is ridiculous, the lengths to which various individuals and groups go to acquire the plans is simply not believable. But this movie has other shortcomings besides. To advance the plot, the protagonist, a down-in-the-mouth gumshoe who drives a Dodge Dart, is given entree to daytime cocktail parties and evening soirees where he is able to chat up the rich who for some reason feed him bits and snatches of what they're up to instead of simply calling the cops and having the guy thrown out. The movie is also replete with coincidences and characters whose function is to provide knowledge so as to advance the mystery, but whose fortuitous appearance stretches credulity. For example, the boat owner who hired our hero early in the film and to whom our hero returns in one of his hours of need just happens to teach physics and knows all about Tesla. There's more, but it's just too silly.