Review of Once Upon a Time in Venice (2017) by Thequietgamer — 21 Apr 2018

Nice to see Bruce Willis in something recent that isn't completely terrible. It's still a rather mediocre movie, but the actor seems to be having some fun and putting in a moderate amount of effort. Something that we haven't seen him do in quite some time. He basically just plays an old dude who refuses to grow up and spends his days getting mixed up in crazy situations as a private detective. Willis has too many years on him to play a character like this in any believable fashion, but the movie is pretty self-aware about it as just about everyone he comes in contact with mentions it in some way.

It kind of aimlessly wanders for about the first 30 minutes or so before finally picking up a plot. From there we just watch Willis make crazy deals with different shady individuals in an effort to find his dog and get bombarded by a bunch of weird, underdeveloped side-characters. There's no real action to speak of. Just a very brief shootout in the last ten minutes and the occasional punch thrown. It's really more of a comedy. Not a particularly great one, but the hijinks are pretty amusing.

I loved John Goodman in this. He was delightfully droll. Nothing else about Once Upon a Time in Venice really stands out, but it can a suitable time waster. Some humorous moments, a cute dog, and Jessica Gomes' breasts are really all it has to offer. While better than the majority of the stuff he's been in over the past few years, Bruce Willis still has a long way to go before getting back to the quality work we once expected from him.

5.