Review of Operation: Endgame (2010) by Philip P — 20 Jul 2010

In what starts out as a promising action comedy with a pretty awesome cast, 'Operation: Endgame' quickly dissolves into nothing more than a countdown of who's going to die next. None of the capable comedy stars are given time to develop their characters as the film only runs about an hour and fifteen minutes and by half an hour in blood is being splattered everywhere.

Only Joe Anderson and Ellen Barkin are really allowed time to pull the audience in to their stories yet the story never really feels fleshed out. And though I dont mind either Anderson or Barkin in the few roles I've seen them in, they weren't the two actors I was most interested in seeing here.

To be honest, I only rented this direct-to-dvd release because it featured Galifianakis, Corddry and Adam Scott who I thought would generate some pretty entertaining dialogue between each other. To bad Galifianakis and Scott are only on screen about twenty minutes between the two of them and even though Corddry survives for longer than most of the cast and is able to fire some pretty great insults at people, in the end he is simply a pawn in a messier game and movie that never gets its feet off the ground.

And so as the majority of the cast is killed off quickly and the plot is too incomprehensible to even care for we walk away feeling more cheated by this film than anything. The premise and cast made for a better outcome in my own mind than in the directors-he executes some pretty gruesome fight scenes and captures the right tone only ever so often.

Its just a waste really, both of your time and all the talent involved.