A good movie

Since it seemed to be a decent flick (I was actually already sold by the title), I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it turned out to be another really solid directorial effort from S. Craig Zahler after ‘Bone Tomahawk’ and ‘Brawl in Cell Block 99’ and you can only wonder what he will do next. It was also Zahler’s longest movie so far with a whopping running time of around 160 mins and while this aspect did slightly bother me with ‘Brawl...’, here, it worked like a charm though. Sure, it might seem to be slow but it was actually a very effective way to build up the suspense but, above all, it allowed the different characters to be properly developed as well as their motivation. Still, I’m not sure if the story really did make sense to me though. I mean, the reasons why Brett Ridgeman would go rogue as a cop were crystal clear but why did he choose such a hazardous job with eventually so little intel? Basically, he knew practically nothing about this job (or maybe I missed something) so it hardly seemed like a believable choice from such a seasoned policeman. Then, why did he drag his partner into this when the guy definitely had more options than he did? I mean, it was pretty obvious that Tony did it mostly out of loyalty for Brett but, from the moment he picked him up in the middle of the night, it was pretty obvious that he had no other choice than being involved until the very end. On the other hand, you could say that it did display Ridgeman as a really flawed man which made him even more interesting. Anyway, I was on the edge of my seat through the whole duration and I can’t remember the last time I saw Mel Gibson showing up in something so satisfying. Concerning Vince Vaughn, well, he should do something like McConaughey, drop his usual comedies, and make only this kind of movies from now on because he gave her another solid performance, just like he already did in ‘Brawl in Cell Block 99’. Anyway, to conclude, even if it wasn’t flawless, it was still a really solid action flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

7/10