This movie is very loosely based on the movie Cloverfield which came out in 2008. Unlike the original Cloverfield which was a science fiction movie involving aliens, 90% of this movie takes place in a bomb shelter where the owner of the shelter played by John Goodman has taken in a young woman played by Mary Winstead whom he was in a car accident with at the start of the movie. After this, almost the entire movie was scene after scene of her trying to escape from the shelter, talking with another young man who is in the shelter with them, playing board games and finding out that the character played by Goodman may have killed another young woman in the shelter some time earlier. Why this other woman was killed or the circumstances of this possible murder was never explained in the movie which I considered to be another flaw amount several during the 2 hours.

The payoff of this movie is to finally find out if they are in fact in a shelter for a real reason, trying to avoid the aliens who have attacked the earth or protect themselves from the poison air which supposedly the aliens have used to kill humanity or if the Goodman character is just insane and kidnapping two young people for his own insane enjoyment. Unfortunately these are not compelling enough reasons including the special effects in the last 10% of the movie to recommend it. For these reasons I cannot recommend this movie.

10 Cloverfield Lane – IMDB

Is being extremely disgusting and raunchy ever funny? In my experience this is rare in terms of something that could be considered comedy or generally funny to most people. A possible exception to this rule would be perhaps a great comedian like the late Sam Kineson who was frequently raunchy and at times disgusting, but his delivery, timing and comedic genius was normally enough to create something that at first might shock you, but later you would realize that what he said or did was so outrageous that all you can do is laugh.

On the other end of the scale, one has to wonder how or why Sacha Baron Cohen is able to make a new disgusting movie every 3 or so years. The theme of every movie that he creates is always the same: “do something so shocking and disgusting that people will talk about it, be curious and go see the movie”. This is essentially the only reason why I saw this amazing piece of garbage today, because I was curious about what he would do next and I was also curious about this one very shocking and disgusting scene involving Elephants. While you are sitting through the horrible 90 minutes of this movie you start feeling like a real idiot that you spent the money to see something so stupid and bad and then you wonder about the Hollywood movie making process and how something this bad could ever be green-lighted in the first place by any producer. Perhaps Cohen has his own production company like Adam Sandler because its hard to imagine that any outside production company would ever approve of financing a movie this bad.

The saving grace of any comedy is if there are enough scenes with big enough laughs then perhaps the whole thing can somehow be salvaged, but in this movie nobody laughed in the audience, not even in the big payoff scene involving Elephants. So why was this movie made? How can a movie this bad be made in the first place? This reason should be studied by anyone who would ever be interested in writing or producing any movie in Hollywood. There is a level if insanity there, a level of craziness and outrage that none of us who would love to sell a screenplay will ever understand.

This movie is horrible, disgusting and about as bad or worse than all of the other movies Sacha Baron Cohen has made in the past. Do yourself and save your money and save 90 minutes of your life and miss this horrible mess, which will rank as one of the worst movies ever made.

IMDB – The Brothers Grimsby

Anyone going to see this movie should know in advance that this is not a comedy just because Tina Fey is in it. This is Fey’s first dramatic role and as an actor she does a good job overall. The problem is that this movie does not really have a story but just a series of events that happen to a reporter in Afghanistan. This movie reminds me of the recent Sandra Bullock movie “Our Brand is Crisis”, which also co-stars Billy Bob Thornton about a political operative in a South American country who is trying to get some politician elected. This movie also had no real story and only a series of disconnected and mostly boring scenes that lead nowhere. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is slightly better than Our Brand is Crisis but certainly not good enough to recommend. The dialogue in this movie was highly unusual in certain areas and seemed to jump around at times and make no sense. I was also very disappointed to see another very unnecessary smoking scene and the only good news there was there was only stupid smoking scene in this movie. Once again the producers of movies in Hollywood take money from tobacco companies to finance the production and this practice should be banned immediately.

This movie should have been about one thing. The insanity of allowing any reporter/civilian into any dangerous war zone just to report on a war. This stupid practice has killed hundreds of members of the press over the years and if any common sense existed within either the military or the press over the decades then this would have stopped probably after World War I. Members of the press have no business being in a war zone, putting themselves in harms way with no weapon and no training of any kind. With modern technology all we need is some cameras on some military equipment, a tank or an SUV and an email from a soldier out in the field and that would be more than enough “press coverage”. In this movie Tina Fey’s character jumps of SUV under attack just to make a video of some firefight with the enemy even though she was ordered to stay in the truck. One remembers the NBC reporter David Bloom who was killed in 2003 because he insisted on being on the front lines. The insanity of putting civilians in any war situation is ridiculous and should be stopped, but it probably never will be. Reporters out in the field not only put themselves in grave danger but also the soldiers that are trying to protect them. I for one do not need a reporter standing by a tank as bombs go off to understand or appreciate a story more. Ultimately this movie does show some of this danger and insanity but not nearly enough to recommend it as a significant movie.

I cannot recommend this movie because when your finished watching it, you wonder what was the point of the whole two hours in the first place.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot – IMDB