Michael's Movie Grade: F
An long, tedious, slow, confused, pretentious and unfocused mess of a movie.
This film never knows quite what it wants to be and loses focus very often. This movie has too many plots going on and sometimes it will spend too much time on one plot, that when you go back to the other you simply don't care anymore. There are also times when one plot will seemingly stop and the focus will change with no warning. This becomes worse when some of the scenes are incredibly slow and seemingly have nothing to do with the plot. Many of these scenes could have wound up on the cutting room floor and while this movie still wouldn't be great, it would at least be better and drag less. The scenes not only don't help the story but they add nothing to the film except to bore and lose the viewer's attention. They do not add a thing to the atmosphere, feel or enjoyment of the movie.
This movie also tries to create a moral ambiguity with its main character. However this is poorly handled because these little depth or meaning behind it. So rather than creating something thought-provoking, the film simply becomes mean spirited and unpleasant. The third act of this film is in fact painful to watch because it is so unpleasant without enough depth to justify this. Sure Matt Damon gives a good performance but that is hardly enough to make this character anything worth our time.
This film often tries to make political and social comments about Americas relationship to the rest of the world, but this too feels hollow and forced. Some of the commentary feels out of place and put into parts of the movie where it is completely unnecessary and the commentary that fits into the story offers no new insight that we haven't heard a thousand times before.
The ending of this movie was a great risk on the filmmakers' part but unfortunately it is not a risk that pays off. Rather than giving us a new perceptive on what we saw before, it leaves the last two hours feeling completely pointless. It makes us feel like we wasted those two hours (and if you saw this movie than you did). The twist like the rest of the movie moved a too forced and laborious pace. Once we reach the point when we can all see how this will play out, it takes seemingly forever for it to do so.
While in a way I want to applaud this movie for daring to take chances, I also have to acknowledge that there is not one chance taken that pays off and at the end of the day it is a terrible film. Avoid at all costs.
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