Review of War on Everyone (2016) by Jesse O — 03 Jun 2017

I don't know if any of you knew this, and it's not like any of you would have any reason to know this, but I fucking loved last year's The Nice Guys. For those of you who are unaware, that's the film where Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe team up to solve the disappearance of this teenage girl, which they find out is part of an even bigger conspiracy.

But the point is that I love this movie with a passion. It's got a fantastic script full of incredibly clever and funny dialogue. Not to mention the fact that Ryan and Russell have absolutely amazing chemistry with one another.

It all adds up to a pretty fucking great movie, if you ask me. It was certainly one of my favorite movies from last year. Which brings us to War on Everyone. I'll be upfront, this move is never as good as The Nice Guys.

Hell, the worst scene in The Nice Guys, and this is simply a hypothetical, is probably better than anything in this entire movie. And that's not to imply that this film is terrible or something, that's just how great The Nice Guys is.

Having said all of that, there are certainly some similarities between the two. Both look at a unconventional partnerships, though the chemistry in Nice Guys is far more antagonistic at first. This movie looks at a couple of small-time, crooked cops who lie and manipulate people to get their way.

These two get caught up trying to solve this heist, which gets more and more complicated as the narrative progresses. I will say that, quite frankly, the story isn't exactly as interesting as everything else surrounding it.

John Michael McDonagh, writer and director of this film, also wrote and directed The Guard and Calvary, both excellent films starring Brendan Gleeson. This movie, admittedly speaking, isn't as effective as either of those two.

I just think it's missing a certain something that made those two films great, particularly Calvary. This is meant to be more an inappropriate, but very entertaining, black comedy featuring two contemptible cops as our heroes, who are chasing down even worse people than themselves, if you can believe that.

But I'll be damned if Michael Pena and Alexander Skarsgard didn't try their damnedest to make me like them. And I'd be lying if I said that their attempts didn't work. As bad as these two characters are at their jobs, there's no way that they're ever as bad as the people they're chasing down.

Michael and Alexander have some pretty fantastic chemistry together, if I'm being honest. These two characters have been partners prior to the film and Michael and Alexander do a great job at portraying that.

They really came across as good friends. Friends who completely disrespect the rules that are set in place in order to keep them in check, but good friends for a long period of time nonetheless and that is a testament to the chemistry between the two leads.

The humor in the film, at least to some, will be seen as hit and miss. It's certainly got humor would consider to be politically incorrect, but I feel that the humor in this film is more satirical than anything else.

It pokes fun at cops and some of the stereotypes associated with them. If it's well-written, then I really have no problem and I felt that this film, in spite of its narrative flaws, was well-written.

The dialogue is very strong and the characters, despite not having much depth, are still memorable and interesting. The problem with the film narrative is that it feels kind of scattered. At first it's about this heist that went wrong, then it's about Terry and Bob (our lead characters) trying to claim the money from the heist as their own.

And then it's about Terry and Bob killing everyone for revenge for what they did to another character in the film. The narrative just isn't as focused or tight enough as the characters in the film are.

McDonagh's previous film, Calvary, built to this moment where the lead character, a priest who was trying to figure out who wanted him dead for an entire week, is murdered. Because of that, the story felt focused and everything felt like it served the greater goal at the end.

They still managed to tell individual stories within this context, but it still all helped in getting to the climactic act. This movie lacks that narrative focus and that's just a damn shame, because the rest of the movie is so damn good in comparison.

I wouldn't say that this is a very good movie, because of what I just mentioned, but it's very good at being a good movie. The dialogue is very good, the acting is even better and that, to me, makes this an entertaining flick.

I can't say that this is gonna be everyone's cup of tea, it's clearly gonna be hated by some people, but I enjoyed myself watching this movie more than I thought I would. I'd say this film is worth a shot, even if you end up hating it.

It's on Netflix, so watching it should be harmless if you're subscribed, it's not like you'll pay your subscription solely to watch this. Fun flick.