Review of I Care a Lot (2021) by Spidor — 20 Feb 2021

So this movie starts off rather promising, but quickly devolves into some sort of action thriller that immediately falls apart and never comes back. It could've been an okay dumb movie, but unfortunately it is something far worse - a terrible serious movie.

First of all - whoever wrote this doesn't know the difference between villains and anti-heroes. Even movies based around monsters know how to work around this by having a protagonist or at least someone likeable - the core of this movie is nihilistic, in that everybody is awful. Okay - but then why are you trying to make heroines out of the two monsters the movie revolves around? Actions scenes trigger sound queues to make us realize this should feel like a triumph towards a character we feel nothing but contempt for.

Peter Dinklage is great, but poor casting for a formidable, violent criminal - not because of his stature - because of his demeanor. Rosamund Pike is as great as always, but she has to work around a trashy script that tries to backflip and ends up breaking its own neck. No character arcs, no redemption, no folly. And then comes the ending - nonsensical schlock, where both the crimelord and the litigation parasite join forces, and then out of nowhere she gets murdered. Why? Well, clearly because they had finished the movie, but test audiences hated it, so they tacked on a scene that undoes the bad ending.

It's... it's a giant mess, really. The first act is promising, if a bit too dark, and then it all just goes to hell, and suddenly thugs and mobsters are complete incompetent clowns incapable of taking down a single guard at a home for the elderly or offing an unconscious person, while our evil legal guardian Jason Bournes the crap out of armed goons using tasers. It's just so improbable and moronic.

This movie completely falls apart at the script level, unfortunately. It's well shot, okay direction, great lighting, great soundtrack, and is somewhat well paced. But the writing of the characters, plot arcs, story and some of the dialogues are just so damn bad, I wouldn't hesitate to call it The Worst. At least if it were a little more hammy and a little less dour, it would've made for a fun romp - but unfortunately it is just too damn serious about itself to be this poorly written.