21 Bridges (2019)

I would have liked 21 Bridges to have been more of a mystery.  I went in knowing that it was about a robbery gone bad and that it was a matter of figuring out the details.  There might be some bad police officers and the criminals were likely set up.  The questions were who and how.

Andre Davis is a good police officer.  He’s been investigated for several shootings, but was cleared on all of them.  He became an officer (and eventually, detective) after his father, also a police officer, was killed.

He’s called to investigate the aforementioned robbery.  Seven officers were killed, so it’s important that the people who killed them are caught.  (Not as important is whether or not they live.)  And so, Davis has all 21 bridges leading of Manhattan closed.

Having seen similar movies before, it was fairly obvious to me who was going to be dirty.  It was mostly a question of the details surrounding the actual robbery.  Exactly why were they sent to steal all those drugs?  Were the criminals supposed to kill the officers?  Were the officers supposed to kill the criminals?

Sadly, I’m still not sure.  I couldn’t quite sort out exactly what happened.  I’m guessing that it was the criminals who were supposed to die, as I don’t imagine a manhunt would have been part of the plan.  I’m not entirely clear, though.  It’s one of those things that if it had gone according to plan, we wouldn’t have a movie.

On that note, shutting down the island doesn’t seem to be for anything other than effect.  It’s a way of saying that the movie has begun.  The two criminals don’t really try to escape.  There doesn’t seem, to be much backlash from stranded motorists.  Granted, it’s late at night.  However, it would seem that it was unnecessary.

The movie was good, but it could have been better.  I’m not sure if it’s that I’ve seen too many movies like this one or if it just wasn’t that well-written.  It’s not a good sign when the best I can say about a movie is that it held my attention for 100 minutes.  It seems like the kind of thing that would have been better suited for a shorter movie.

IMDb page

 

Lone Survivor (2013)

WARNING:  I’m going to give away major details about the movie that may spoil it.  You’ve been warned.


I generally don’t like movies that start in the middle or end of the story.  With Lone Survivor, we not only know that one person will survive, but we spend most of the movie knowing that Mark Wahlberg’s Marcus Luttrell, is going to be that survivor.  We start with Luttrell being evacuated and treated, so we have to figure he makes it out alive.

The story is of a SEAL team sent in to kill a Taliban leader, identifiable by the fact that he‘s missing an ear lobe.  Luttrell is one of four men sent in to kill him.  We get to see some SEAL training in the beginning, just to see how tough team members are.  It doesn’t take long for the mission to go south, leaving the team to retreat.

The main problem is that three goat herders happen to find their location, setting up a predicament.  They can’t very well let them go, as the herders could reveal their location before they could get away.  Even keeping them alive could provide them opportunity to somehow get word back.  No one wants to kill three people who did nothing to the SEAL team, so the decision is made to leave them tied up and seek higher ground so that they might call for extraction.

It’s never that easy.  You never have a movie where everything goes right.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a movie.  As I said, Luttrell is the only one that survives.  The other three are killed when the locals figure out where they are.   Parents should be warned that there is a lot of fighting and, by extension, bloodshed.  It’s not the kind of thing that children should watch.

This wouldn’t have been my first choice for a movie.  My parents rented it through Netflix and asked if I wanted to watch.  I decided to give it a try and ended up watching the whole thing.  The movie is based on a book, which was an account of Operation Red Wings.

It’s difficult to really go into any sort of detail about the movie because so much of it is the action.  The first part of the movie is getting to know those involved in the mission.  The second part is the team trying to get out of a bad situation.  I probably never would have rented the movie on my own.  It’s not the kind of movie I usually go for.

Most of this is that the story is tenuous.  The entire thing is predicated on one thing going wrong.  If the team hadn’t been discovered, the mission may very well gone off without a hitch.  Yes, this is based on a true story, but how many teams accomplish their missions flawlessly?  How many times does a mission have one or two mistakes, but still work?  As I said, I started the movie knowing something bad was going to happen and that we’ be building up to that.  It’s one of those situations where the title gives away the movie.

Lone Survivor Official Trailer #1 (2013) - Mark Wahlberg Movie HD

Official Site