All in graphic detail. For instance, the second killing is of Danny Trejo (of Machete fame – which I sadly never got around to reviewing that fun romp. It started off with a bang, literally when they blow away this really hot nude girl at the beginning. And when you see a girl willing to go naked on screen get killed off so soon.. well… rather sad!). Anyway, I digress, Danny Trejo is the fry cook and gets his head blown off, literally, with a shotgun. You don’t see but a superfast glimpse, but still…

The movie was ok, I guess. I mean I was entertained enough for an already brain dead Saturday night. But, it could of been sooo much better. It is what it is, but you kind of expect to see a better Madsen on the screen. He disappointed slightly. The lead actress, Noreen, was rather cute and a joy to watch (Post-Buffy the Vampire Slayer). But all in all, what do you do if you are faced with a situation like this? Someone goes bonkers in the tiny diner you are at. Are you just royally screwed because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or do you do something about it? And how do you decide what you do, or if you just call the police or what? Makes you think a little about what you’ll do if you ever (god-forbid!) get faced with such a situation!

Things learned from this movie:

1. Diners late at night aren’t the safest of places.
2. If you go somewhere and they don’t run air conditioning, go find somewhere else to eat.
3. Serated steak knives are handy in a pinch.
4. Keep count of gunshots.
5. You can shoot an entire movie in one location.
6. Beware of traveling salesmen. Are they really who they seem?
7. Why do you wear a wedding ring if your wife has been dead two years?
8. Take the money and run.

Rated R. 90 minutes (1 hours 30 minutes). Swearing. Violence. As for sex, well the most is the law officer verbalizing that he’d like to run away with the married waitress – who is at another point called “hot” as an old broad, and retorts that she’s 32. But yes, she’s hot.

Basically you have Chris Pratt, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, a cocky hockey player seemingly on top of the world who does a stupid stunt and crashes his car, killing two best friends and seriously injuring his girlfriend (If I have this right). He’s suffered severe brain damage and has memory issues and gets frustrated when he can no longer understand things. Everything is written down in his notebook or on stickers – like “lock the door” or “turn off alarm clock”.

He’s a night janitor at a bank and spends time after getting off work in the local bar drinking non-alcoholic beer. He lives with Jeff Daniels, a guy named Lewis, who is blind – blinded from his at home meth lab – and works in a call center. It’s sort of a symbiotic relationship with each helping the other out.

Chris is approached by a “friend” who once supposedly dated his sister. They hang out a the local bar a few times and Chris spends a late Thanksgiving with the guy. He gets lucky with one of the guy’s friends “Luvlee Lemons” and so the bonds of friendship gets even stronger. The friend then approaches him about helping them rob his bank. Chris would be the lookout. He’d have the most important job… The enticement is completed by telling him how this would help him get his old life back because having money means he has power.

Things go wrong. Don’t they always? Basically Chris decides that he doesn’t want to help them rob his bank but is forced to go along with it. When the shooting starts … well, that’s the crux of this one – I’ll not spoil it, you have to see it. It’s not a must see, like Inception, but its good. If you haven’t seen and have some downtime, try it!

The most weird (technically part) of the film was the action scene. When the gunfight erupted, the action sequences looked like they were filmed by an entirely different film crew. Like it was inserted out of a different movie, only the location and actors fit. Very strange feel. But it didn’t really detract.

Try out The Lookout today!

Things learned from this movie:

1. Brain damage is not fun!
2. Fireflies lighting up the valley are amazing to look at!
3. Don’t drive with your headlights off.
4. Calling your dad up at 3am and asking for $10,000.00 isn’t the best of ideas.
5. Don’t let outsiders who don’t know you well destroy your relationship with your family and loved ones.

Rated R. 99 minutes (1 hour 39 minutes). Swearing. The brain damaged sometimes inappropriately proposition for sex. There is a naked girl laying on a bad smiling at you as you pause the video with her great butt on the screen. Gun battles and the required blood.

He’s mistaken for a informant and given this “world’s most powerful hallucinogenic drug” that makes him susceptible to suggestions. He’ll do anything asked and answer any questions truthfully. However, in 8 hours it’ll fry his synapses and he’ll die. His would be fiance is there as a police detective Amy Knight (Jacqueline Obradors) and she’s on the case of the crooked government agents that are doing all this.

Is their an antidote? Can they kill Dean Cage (Wesley Snipes)? Can they get the answers? When will Dean stop having flashbacks to his trauma?

The movie is just an action flick. Tons of unexplained government ops. Lots of empty streets for chases and crashes that never seem to have consequences. Just popcorn fun. Don’t take it too seriously.

Things learned from this movie:

1. Dean Cage is definitely dead.
2. Shooting a tanker full of gasoline will explode it.
3. That tanker full of gasoline will teeter over the edge of a overpass with only the cab of the truck on the street and the rest over think air. It will not fall until the hero has time to climb around and listen to tension building music as the tanker rocks.
4. The hero who jumps from the tanker to the safety of the bridge as it is exploding into a giant fireball of gasoline will not be harmed. No singes, he can hear, he’s ok.
5. Drugs always have antidotes.
6. Government ops always wear big black jackets, white shirts, and ties for field work.
7. Police detectives in street clothes with a drawn pistol will not be seen by CIA guys in a van even though their headlights shine directly on her in the darkness.
8. A trained government agent drawing a submachine gun and shooting at two people at point blank range will miss, allowing someone else to draw a pistol and shoot him.
9. A guy in a chopper with a mini gun cannot take down a hallucinating guy with nowhere really to run.
10. Government vans will not crank when they really need to.
11. About to die because your brain is being fried? Getting an antidote makes it all ok. You’ll be fine. No ill effects.
12. Villains trying to buy these drugs will just vanish if the deal goes bad.

Rated R. 96 minutes (1 hour 36 minutes). Language. Lots of violence and explosions but that’s fun – not worth rating an R.

The boy, it turns out, was the murdered man’s brother.

Fast forward about 30 years. Liam Neeson’s character, Alistair Little, has served 12 years in prison and is out. Joe Griffen, played by James Nesbitt (who you might have seen in Waking Ned Devine) is living his life as well, full of bitterness and rage at this man who killed his brother. He’s been blamed by his mother for “letting it” happen and not trying to stop it. And he lives with that kind of guilt — for something that was not his fault.

A tv station wants to host a program where the two men, who have never met, sit down and talk. But as he’s getting ready for the interview Joe increasingly gets antsy and shows of the rage and anger and agitation as he waits for the “go” to do the interview. Finally he walks out.

Joe’s real intention is for revenge, even though, as the runner tells him “it wouldn’t be good for” Alistair, and also that “it wouldn’t be good for you either”. But he replies, how could it not be good for him, because it would be like five minutes of heaven. He believes the man who killed his brother is living the life of Riley.

But is he? Isn’t it that the image in his head of the little boy witnessing the murder of his own brother haunting him all these years – how do you get rid of that? And why do you chose, when you have a good family that loves you with two darling daughters, do you chose to let yourself be obsessed with taking revenge when your making those around you miserable by doing so? Shouldn’t you love and care for those around you – open your eyes and be grateful for what you have?

All in all, not a great movie, yet also not a waste of time. If you watch this and realize how you may be playing the role of victim in your life. Do you let things happen to you? Do you expect bad things to happen? And if they do – how do you respond? Do you pick up the pieces and go on – or do you fester and get angry and bitter and just wait for the next time to be victimized? Respond correctly.

Things learned from this movie:

1. The Irish riots are hard to figure out.
2. A fillet knife is a good choice to use as a murder weapon.
3. Automatic pistols “jam all the time”.
4. Framed photos of kittens on the wall are liable to be shot between the eyes.
5. Houses where murders have occurred sit vacant.

Rated R. 89 minutes (1 hour 29 minutes). Mostly for language and the one scene of violence. There is some historical footage to start the movie – and set the tone – that has some real violence. Mostly just a profanity tirade from the victim.

The basic premise of the movie is that there is this cop, Adam, who has a dad in the hospital with a heart murmur. They are babysitting his dad’s dog, Bruno. Eva wants to know how long they will have the dog and we learn that heart murmurs aren’t something you just get over quickly(!). So next day we find his dad has taken a turn for the worse and their is a fight that starts somehow with the dog and dad and fact that the father has never accepted the daughter-in-law. So Adam goes to the hospital to visit his dad by himself. As the fates have it the father dies just after Adam arrives and so Adam leaves and goes back onto patrol. He beats up the first perp he finds and then goes to the local watering hole and opens up a tab and starts to drinking. Lock, his old buddy who just got out of jail is there too and soon enough they are in a fight and Adam is stabbed and dies.

Following all this?

As he lies there and dies God, we presume, tells him that he can have his life back if he makes his killers life better. So Adam proceeds to walk around and look at people, who can’t see him, and the story goes nowhere. Literally. Honestly I’ve wasted enough of your time on this movie already – please don’t go see it. You’ve been warned.

Echelon Studios’ blog is, of course, proud to announce that this film is available on Netflix.

Things learned from this movie:

1. After you die you’ll walk around the planet wearing your last outfit topped with a gray poncho until you make life better for the person who killed you.
2. If you stab someone and they die and then you have blood all over your white t-shirt, you can turn it inside out and it’ll be ok.
3. Owning a house right on the beach means its ok to leave the doors open and unlocked.
4. If you are a police detective you can afford a house on the beach.
5. If your father dies its perfectly alright to go from his deathbed back onto patrol.
6. All family fights seem to originate around a dog.

Rated Not Rated. 86 minutes (1 hour 26 minutes). Some violence. Nothing else stood out, I mean, I’m sure there was some language, but I just didn’t notice and/or remember it.

The movie is a wanna be Snatch, those Guy Ritchie movies where anything crazy can and will happen. It kind of is that way, but not really — it is fun enough, but not nearly as good. You can entertain yourself for an evening, but sometimes the Irish accent gets into the way of enjoying the movie as much as you could have. There are worse ways to spend the evening – and better ones.

Things learned from this movie:

1. Things you do against pets will come back to haunt you.
2. Car thieves will gladly swap a hot car for a recently stolen police cars.
3. Hiding your gun under your bed isn’t a good idea.
4. Hiding a gun in your boxer shorts will not get past big crime bosses.
5. Pool tables make great hiding places.
6. If you bury a body and your car battery dies, its better to burn the car so you can’t be traced.
7. If you think you see the Grimm Reaper, you probably have.
8. A whack from a baseball bat on your leg that doesn’t break the bone will feel ok in a few minutes.

Rated Not Rated. 88 minutes (1 hour 28 minutes). Lots of language and one girl tries to entice her lover by walking outside into the apartment hallway in animal print panties and a button up shirt that isn’t buttoned up and shows off her perky little boobs. Animal violence — both giving and receiving.

All in all, Kent Faulcon – writer/director/actor – could have done worse, as the film does show some heart, but he could have done a lot better.

Don’t mistake this in Netflix for My Sister’s Keeper starring Abigail Breslin.

Things learned from this movie:

1. If you are a killer, always wear suits and ties.
2. If you need your gun, grip it tight and hold it way out so that everyone could see as you sneak and peer around corners.
3. Blinds will keep other killers (who are staking out the place your at) from knowing where you are.
4. Never believe that wheelchair-bound old people actually need their wheels or don’t know how to use a shot-gun.
5. Getting shot in the shoulder with a high powered rifle will be ok if you just sit calmly and keep pressure and a dish rag on it.
6. Recently widowed guys keep their house entirely empty.
7. Guys married to a hot chick need a mistress and will leave the hot one soon.

Rated R. 101 minutes (1 hour 41 minutes). Profanity and the mistress rolling around in bed briefly shows off her boobs.

The action is ok, but the attempts at humor, which might be ok in a drunken group are just too over the top. It’s like your seeing mafia types and police and FBI detectives acted by the Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern – at once laughable for the inane comments they make referencing pop culture, and at the other part so damn stupid it makes you wonder how they ever got to those positions as police detectives or crime lords/underlings.

The McManus Brothers are in Ireland and they hear of a killing of a priest inside a church in Boston. Before the police are finished removing the body from the church even, they have heard about it (because someone is making it look like they did it) and are stowed away on a freighter bound for America. They meet up with Mexican named Romeo on the boat and he decides he’s coming with them because he can hook them up in Boston when they get there. Not trying to give away the story but their father will end up needing to appear from Ireland as well and how he knew about what was going down, well, we’ll never know.

The movie is highly quotable, if you’ll take time to remember some of the lines. As Murphy would say, “Let’s do some gratuitous violence.”

Rated R. 118 minutes (1 hour 58 minutes). Profanity. Violence. Nudity is a few views of naked men’s butts. There are some tempting cleavage shots and almost down blouse on Julie Benz, but sadly…

I didn’t mind the violence, or the torture, or the profanity, it was all a well done part of a captivating movie. It did leave you feeling sad for the guy who seemed destined to have only one option in life and he did not have the opportunity to make a choice.

It is a well-done, almost recommendable piece, that those who are drawn to this subject matter will probably like.

Rated R. 117 minutes (1 hour 57 minutes). Violence – and realisticly done. Profanity. Plus given the Irish dialect, there may have been more profanity than I realized or maybe you’ll actually pick up on less!

Basically it’s a story about America’s top executive to turn whistleblower. He beings working with the FBI about the price fixing going on at ADM. He works with them for over 2 1/2 years getting video and recordings of meetings, but in the end it begins to also appear that he’s embezzling and he gets prosecuted as well.

What’s not to enjoy about this film — the happy-go-lucky bouncy music set against a backdrop of big corporate deals, white collar crimes, FBI agents, and possible jail time, and the while Mark Whitacre goes merrily along seemingly uncaring about the lies he’s telling or when or if they’ll catch up with him. It’s neat to see him just invent (I think) something new when he realizes he’s being discovered and how most of it then checks out, at least for a while. I say “I think” here because he’s so full of stories that you have a hard time really realizing which one of them, if any, are factual. He suffers from bipolar disorder, even as the forged letter from his would-be psychologist states in very specific terms. He must be a brilliant guy to keep all this straight for as long as he did, and that 2 million, no 5 million, or is it 7.5 million? I think it was 9 million, that he embezzled. Maybe it was 11…

Entertaining film! You don’t really learn anything and the drama isn’t really there, its just downright entertaining. So, have an enjoyable evening.

For me, the most sobering thing (aside from the white collar crime, don’t do that) is that in 1992 people with desk jobs were making $100K. When do I get a raise? I’m way underpaid!

Also interesting is ADM’s statement about the movie you can see by clicking here.

Rated R. 108 minutes (1 hour 48 minutes). Why it’s rated R, I don’t know! There is some profanity. No blood, no nudity, no violence aside from the alleged hit in the head by a briefcase.