Mark Ruffalo | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

The new movie “Crime 101” that stars many known actors: Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Monica Barbaro, Nick Nolte and Halle Berry, tells the story of a worn-down police officer, Ruffalo, a jewel theif, Helsworth and an unhappy employee of a high-end insurance company. This story is not told sequentially like most movies, but within a series of parallel events where about 6 different stories are told simultaneously, and at the conclusion, several of these stories intersect in a climactic scene. This kind of storytelling is innovative, but most of the scenes are about jewel heists, chase scenes, and gunfights that we have all seen before.

By far the best part of this movie is the story about Helle Berry, who plays Sharon, an 11-year employee of a large, upscale insurance company that caters to the super-rich. Now at age 53, Sharon has been lied to for years and promised a promotion to a partner of the firm she works for, and has been strung along for years, with lies including “we will see in January”, “just hold tight”, “we are putting a pin in this for now”, “it is right around the corner”. Sharon’s frustrations about years of being lied to, understandably, turn into overwhelming anger, leading her to make a huge mistake – becoming involved with a criminal named Davis, played by Hemsworth. The one scene with Sharon confronting the lowlife CEO of the insurance company when he tries to groom a much younger employee to take Sharon’s place is extremely well written and well-acted. This one scene makes it worth seeing this movie, for all of us who have worked for companies and have been lied to, and treated with injustice and disrespect.

As far as the ending, I thought it was very close to not being believable, considering the circumstances and the decisions of the long-suffering police officer, Lou, played by Ruffalo, that in the real world he would very likely never make.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for Crime 101 is a too high 86%, with my rating around 80% and a moderate recommendation.

The Oscar winner for Best Picture 2019 was “Parasite”, a win that had more to do with something new, in this case having a movie made in South Korea and a South Korean director, Bong Joon Ho win two major awards. In 2019, two better films were passed over for best picture, “A Marriage Story”, and “The Irishman”.

Once a famous director wins an Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director, they have the power to write their own ticket to receive funding to produce any movie they want for years into the future. Too often, having the clout to fund and produce a new movie results in a horrible film. A great recent example of this is Francis Ford Coppola’s movie from last year “Megalopolis”, when Coppola spent 124 million dollars of his own money to produce one of the worst movies ever made.

While the new movie “Mikey 17” is not as bad as Megalopolis, it is bad enough to make any top ten list for one of the worst movies ever released. Starting with the insane logline: “In a futuristic world on another planet, an expendable worker on a colonization mission, dies many times and then is recreated using a 3D printing machine that can create clones of any human being”. What is the point of the main character Mickey Barnes, played by Robert Pattinson, dying 17 times in a row, and then being recreated is never really explained in this story. There is another character in this film who appears several times dressed as a giant rooster – also never explained, even for those in the audience who have not fallen into a coma.

The entire film is about following Mickey Barnes as he falls victim and dies in one accident after another, and then winds up back again in the human cloning machine. The screenplay is nonsensical, disjoined, and largely makes no sense. Inside of 30 minutes, anyone watching this mess is looking at their watch, hoping for a quick end to this torture, which unfortunately is way too long at 2 hours and 17 minutes.

Other actors in this bad movie include Steven Yeun, Mark Ruffalo, and Toni Collette and I can only conclude that these well-known actors agreed to act in this movie for an opportunity to work with an Academy Award-winning director – Bong Joon Ho – and then forgot to read the screenplay he wrote.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this film are an insanely high 79%, that is all about the new trend in Hollywood where something never seen before, is more important than quality. My rating, only for some of the special effects is 20%, and a recommendation to run from this disaster of 2 hours.