Son of a Gun is not a great gangster movie, and I lost my interest about half way through the movie. I turned off the movie when JR, played by Brenton Thwaites, who reminds me of a young Colin Farrell, goes swimming with the gangster’s girlfriend. The story was too predictable. Don’t get me wrong. The acting was stellar.
The story is about JR meeting crime boss Brendan (Ewan McGregor) while serving a short stint in prison. Brendan protects JR from gang rapes in prison with the understanding he now owes Brendan his life. JR gets out of prison. He breaks Brendan and two other cohorts out of prison. They embark on a heist with a Brendan’s girl (Alicia Vikander) who I mentioned earlier.
What happens next? The story can be easily guessed , and I wasn’t interested in finding out if I was right.
I think Ryan Reynolds made this movie in Canada while his wife Blake Lively was starring in a much better movie being filmed in Canada. I guess, it was something for him to do, so he could hang with his wife in Canada.
The Captive has a good message, but many plot points are missing, and I suspect that the movie just didn’t have the budget to develop a strong storyline. The result is several puzzle pieces missing on a rather easy puzzle to put together. That is aggravating as a viewer.
Using flashbacks and forwards and more flashbacks makes matters worse because the back stories of key characters are the puzzle pieces missing. If they had added those, I think the movie would have come off like nice little movie with a strong message.
The acting was believable, but like I said, I wanted to know more about the characters’ back story.
Keira Knightley and Chloe Grace Moretz are actresses that I enjoying watching on film because they are believable and have honest performances. Sam Rockwell, who also stars in this movie, is just as believable. Having all three of them in this simple, splice of life, indie movie is pure joy.
I wouldn’t call this movie a gem, but I would say it’s worth the time to view. The story is about a woman, Knightley, who follows a different beat from her lifelong friends. She has a college education, supporting parents, a committed boyfriend, and yet she feels she is missing something from her life.
She meets Moretz’s character, a High School student, with a divorced dad (Rockwell) and an absentee mother. All four characters discover something about themselves in a rather awkward and thought provoking way.
Bruce Willis is a legend. Yet, he picks movies that are poorly produced. Vice is one of those movies. Tons of wasted material with a lost plot delivered at a snail’s pace. Bruce Willis is great in the movie, and likely he shot his role in a couple of days.
The movie looks like a video game gone wrong, nothing substantial backs up the storyline. There are more holes in each scene that I couldn’t watch it, so I had to turn the movie off.
The movie starts with Bruce Willis explaining the futuristic city of Vice like the movie Westworld. Though Westworld was believable and entertaining and Vice is not.