ATM (2012)

Ah. Hello, American Investor. Welcome to the third and final part of my "IFC Midnight Trilogy Weekend Thingy." For the past three days I've been watching some movies from one of my favorite film distributors, IFC Midnight, and writing down my thoughts about each one. The first film, "Kill List" was an intense, tripped out crime drama that I found to be quite good. The second one, "The Corridor" would have been more enjoyable had it made a bit more sense.

For the last film, I took a look at the thriller, "ATM." Like the other two, this one was sold to me on the premise alone. All I did was read the back of the case. Other than that I had no idea what I was in for.

Reading the description I thought that "ATM" had some promise. The concept was that three people are trapped inside a walk-in ATM in the middle of the wintery night by a masked man who won't let them out. I'm sure that very concept sounds dumb to some people out there, but keep in mind that I was one of the few people who liked "Phonebooth," so you can't blame me for being slightly optimistic.

I think the thing I like about movies like "Phonebooth" is that they really tend to humanize the characters. You really get to know someone when you're trapped in a box with them for a few hours, and as long as the actor does a good job, there's some real drama to be squeezed out of a situation like that. I mean, as long as the characters are not horrifyingly stupid. I mean, can you imagine being trapped in a small space with a bunch of absolute idiots?

Wait. That sentence sounds eerily like foreshadowing. What the hell am I in for?

Well, I guess it had to happen eventually. I had a feeling that I may finally come across an IFC Midnight film that I hated in this little experiment. And well done on that, because "ATM" was freaking terrible. I hated this goddamn movie. Hated it. Hated hated hated hated it.

I almost want to watch the film again, and from beginning to end chart down and record on a minute by minute basis everything about "ATM" that pissed me off. Trust me, that could fill a novel, but most of it would be me simply typing YOU ARE STUPID as hard as I possibly could type it without breaking my keyboard, so it would get redundant pretty quickly. That and I would have to watch "ATM" again, and screw that.

Okay, so let's get this over with, because the less I have to relive the experience of watching this turd the better. The film begins with David and Corey, our two male leads. David is played by Brian Geraghty, who you may remember from "The Hurt Locker," and he's playing your "average Joe," which means he's quite bland and has no real characteristics that make him memorable in any way. Corey is played by Josh Peck, who you may remember from nothing unless you watch Nickelodeon, and he's the comic relief, which means he's the biggest douchebag you've ever had to suffer through.

God, just looking at him makes me want to put my fist through the monitor.

Just imagine if some sick mad scientist combined Jonah Hill and Dane Cook, made him a fratboy with a New York "Ey, buddy, I'm walkin' 'ere! Fowgitabowdit" attitude, then got that abomination onto the Multiverse drunk, and put him in a stressful situation where he could not physically stop talking because of nerves.

Isn't it a special occasion when you just know the next hour and a half is going to be like reeds under your fingernails after a character has been talking for less than ten seconds? And the amazing thing is that I really do believe that "ATM" wants us to like this piece of septic runoff. The movie honestly wants me to NOT want him dead?! At this rate one of us will be dead soon either way.

Don't you dare try to stop me...

Rounding out the cast is professional Nichole Kidman clone, Alice Eve as Emily, who is meant to function as David's love interest. I say "meant to" because what she actually does is provide 110 lbs of dead weight that does nothing useful at all, and simply sits in the corner, flails about, and whines "I can't!" whenever she is asked to contribute to their escape. What I love most about that is the fact that on the interview on the DVD, Alice referred to her character as "strong." Lady, your character is as useful as Princess Peach is to Mario. Don't flatter yourself. Your character sucks and you know it.

So the three of them wind up going to the ATM in the middle of the night, and we find the first dumb thing of the movie. David seems to think that at 1:35 AM, when it is literally -3 degrees outside, it's a good idea to park about 100 feet away from the ATM. He parks halfway across the damn parking lot. Perhaps he read the script and knew that would make the killer's job way too hard if the car was closer.

"Jerry, I don't see nothin'!"

"No, jus' kip lookin' dare. Does'r'sum noice crappies right in dare."

"Oh yah, Jerry, now I sees 'em. Oh yah, dem's good eatin's."

#ijustwroteabettermovie

Then, when they are all inside the ATM, the killer just stands outside. He never says a single word. I'm serious, too. Not once in the entire film do we a) hear the killer speak or b) see his face. Hell, I can't even be 100% sure that it's a "he." At no point do you get the slightest explanation as to why he's doing what he's doing. And I know what they're going for with this: the idea is that it's really scary when there's no rhyme or reason to violence. But even the most chaotic evil villains tend to have some kind of reason for it. I mean, The Joker had a method to his various kinds of madness. And when he talked about it, that's when you realized how sick and scary he was.

Imagine if The Joker hadn't said a word in "The Dark Knight?" Do you really think that scene in the hospital where he turns Harvey would have been the same if he had just handed him a gun and pointed to Harvey's coin? No, it would have been stupid. Instead we got dialogue like "Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos? It's fair." It's at points like that when we see how twisted and warped The Joker is, and that's what makes a memorable villain.

Seriously, Team Rocket is more intimidating than this guy.

There's so much stupid going on that it really becomes difficult to list it all. The most problematic thing about "ATM" is that it asks us to believe that the killer has them completely screwed when I lost count of the number of times that they could have made a break for it without the killer ever knowing. Because here's the kicker: the killer leaves all the time. On several occasions he's snooping around out back, just doing whatever, and the three doofuses just stay there like he's right outside the door. Usually they end up having the same conversation every time consisting of David and Corey switching back and forth between wanting to stay and wanting to go (seriously it's like the script flipped names at points as far as characters state of mind goes) and Emily whining and saying "No! You can't go out there! Please don't leave me!" because there's no way she's attempting to survive this, and she has to drag everyone else down with her.

These really do become forehead slapping painful to watch, especially when it's paired with dialogue like:
David: "I can make it! I'll be halfway across the parking lot before he knows I'm gone!"
Corey: "Yeah?! And what about the other half?!"

"Me and my Tin Tin hair will run like the wind!"

Ugh. Just ugh. That's all I can say to that stupidity. I mean, what do you want me to say to a guy that doesn't realize that, assuming the killer is not indeed The Flash, David will probably be out of the parking lot by then? Does Corey really think that the killer can run more than twice as fast as David? See what I mean about the whining? It's an hour and a half of this.

And while I realize that not everyone is capable of defending themselves in a freaky situation, I really can't get behind characters who are so disinterested in surviving. For example, I counted no less than 5 objects inside the ATM that the characters could have used as weapons to defend themselves, and many of those would have probably been pretty effective, especially if they attacked the killer together.

And before you go off thinking that perhaps they didn't have it in them, guess what? They totally kill a guy they think is the killer. Yeah, that probably needs a little explaining. About halfway through the film, a guy wearing nearly the exact same outfit as the killer walks into the ATM. Corey and David immediately jump him, beat the holy hell out of him, and David ends up strangling him to death with a cord. Now, why the killer let this guy just walk into the ATM when he'd killed two other people at that point for simply being in the vicinity I have no idea. But that's not the point.

My point is that the two of them took a guy down, and they are both clearly okay with the thought of killing the person tormenting them. And yes, they are greatly upset by this intensely stupid occurrence, but the fact remains, they have it in them to take someone out. So why don't the three of you grab that steel trashcan, that bottle of liquor and that pen and open that door, tackle that parka-wearing nutjob and start swinging, smashing and stabbing until he no longer occupies this realm of existence!

What? Did you use up all your encounter and daily powers or something?! KICK HIS ASS!!!

Oh, I'm sorry, I forget. You must not want to live. And you know what? After seeing this movie, I really was rooting for the killer, because he was doing the world a favor by killing these idiots.

And there is no scene that exemplifies that more than a scene near the back end of the film where David and Emily, as the killer is pounding on the back wall of the ATM, in other words CLEARLY in no position to know where they are, and telegraphing exactly where he is, run outside to aid Corey, who was stabbed earlier during his escape attempt. After making it to Corey, they pick him up. Now, at this point I should remind you that the killer is still behind the ATM, and does not know they're gone. There is also a functioning car not 20 feet away from them. For $10,000, what do they do?

That's correct! They drag Corey back inside the ATM to die of his wounds! Because THAT makes sense!

YOU DON'T DESERVE LIFE.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "ATM" is bad. Ungodly bad. I can't remember ever seeing a group of protagonists I hated more. This is making my "Worst of 2012" list. It's not even enjoyably bad. It just hurts. Skip it, and punch anyone you see watching it in the face.

Red Tails (2012)

Remember when Cuba Gooding Jr. was relevant? Take your time, it's been a while. Well, to give you a little reminder, it was around 15 years ago. That's the last time anyone cared about Cuba Gooding Jr. And while at first it was hard to understand why that was, considering the man won an Oscar for saying "Show me the money," it became clear after a while: Cuba Gooding Jr. makes horrible movies.

I think "Radio" was the final nail in his "take me seriously" coffin, but Cuba Gooding Jr. used to be in decent films. "Jerry McGuire," "As Good As It Gets," even stupid stuff like "Outbreak" was far better fare than what he started doing in the 2000's, but I think it was right around "Pearl Harbor" when he lost his dignity. Leave it to Michael Bay to make someone's career tank.

The point I'm getting to is that there is a bit of irony going on with today's movie, "Red Tails." The irony is that this is a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen, who were a group of black fighter pilots that held one of the most prestigious records in World War II. Cuba Gooding Jr. is in this film along with Terrence Howard, another actor far past the point of being cared about. But their washed up status isn't what is ironic. What is ironic is that for Cuba, this is familiar territory.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a good movie.

"The Tuskegee Airmen" is a great flick. It was a 1995 made for TV movie starring Cuba and pre-"Matrix" Laurence Fishburne. I remember watching the crap out of it when I was a kid going through my "fighter planes are awesome" phase, which to be fair I've never completely grown out of. I love fighter planes, and a good movie featuring fighter pilots doing their thing is a guaranteed great time for me. So "Red Tails" is looking promising!

Too bad comparing "The Tuskegee Airmen" to "Red Tails" is like comparing having a nice Jack Daniels and Coke on the rocks on a warm spring night to having a dog turd floating in a dixie cup shoved down your throat with a funnel whilst being chained to the ground in the desert in the middle of July.

This movie was abysmal.

"Red Tails" is like a perfect storm of bad. It is cast with middling to bad actors, the script is a mess, the action, for a pretty as it is, is boring, and for a movie that is two hours long, it feels like about 70% of the film was cut with the spastic, whiplash inducing edits and abrupt endings of scenes. But more than anything else that is infuriating about "Red Tails," and there's a lot, this has got to be the worst example I've ever seen of unforgivably bad dialogue.

There is no scene during the entirety of "Red Tails" that doesn't feature some corny, overly scripted, exposition heavy, completely unrealistic, soul crushing, over-the-top, horribly delivered terrible line that would be the stuff of legendary mockery in any other film. And it's like every single line with these mugging jackasses. If you're having trouble contemplating the horrors of what I'm talking about, think back on some of the worst lines you've ever heard. I'll get you started:

"A barrel roll. That's a good trick!"

"Are you an angel?"

"Hold me like you did by that lake on Naboo."

"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth."

"Anakin, you're breaking my heart!"

"NOOOOOOO!!!!!"

(Huh. Was there a pattern going on there?)

It's a showstopper like that every other line. It's really astounding how utterly, completely, shockingly BAD the words spewing from these actor's mouths are. And I realize looking back on it that the dialogue is the kind of stuff you'd hear in a video game. It's not hard to imagine having a controller in your hand, frantically pressing the "A" button in an attempt to skip a cutscene when lines like "The sky is blue, and my guns are hot!" are spewing from the actor's mouths.

There was a point in this film that I was trying to give credit to the actors and say that it wasn't their fault, and nobody could have delivered those lines well...but I lost hope before the end. I'm just going to come out and say it - These actors are terrible. All of them. And I was really trying to cut them some slack. But it was nails on a chalkboard BAD all around.

The final indignity came during the climax of the movie, during the biggest mission of the pilot's careers, deep into Germany. In what was at first shaping up to be a heartbreaking moment (had the rest of the movie been an effective lead in, anyways), Lightning, the main character Easy's best friend, is shot up as he saves Easy's life and takes out the anonymous German ace who functions as a kind of villain in the lamest way possible. As he spirals out of control, dying as he says goodbye to his friend and wife, the beginnings of an emotional payoff seem to be occurring.

Then he crashes into a fiery ball as Easy, flying overhead, in his anguish over his best friend's death exclaims "DAMN you, Lightning!" with the same kind of intensity he would have had if Lightning had borrowed a pair of Easy's underwear and not washed them before giving them back.

Now, it's a stretch, a REAL stretch, but I could actually see that line working if a more talented actor had attempted it. Maybe Morgan Freeman. MAYBE. Even he might have had trouble with that one. But I can also imagine Morgan saying "Now, isn't that kind of a silly line? Why would I curse him? That makes no sense in context. Wouldn't I save the anger till later? I would imagine Easy would just be sad at that moment."

"Meh. I'm bummed. I guess."

Oh and by the way - that important mission deep into Germany which would basically validate the black pilots and help turn the tide of war? Dropped after Lightning's death. Apparently stuff like the mission (see also: what he died for) isn't really important. "Red Tails" just jumps straight from that to them landing saying "Gee, good thing the mission was successful. But Lightning didn't make it!"

Not like seeing the successful outcome of the mission would be any kind of emotional catharsis at all.

That brings us to the rest of the problems. On top of everything else, the editing and pacing in this film is a joke. There's not a single scene that flows into the next one organically. Scenes just abruptly end with the grace of a sledgehammer to the balls. Not only that, but this film desperately needed another pass in the editing room to trim about 20 minutes off, mostly by eliminating two exceedingly stupid and useless subplots.

The first is a romance between Lightning and an Italian girl that basically has Lightning come off as a stalker, and the other is a prison break with another character that plays out like if you condensed "The Great Escape" into 2 minutes. Because it's totally viable to build up effective tension in that amount of time. It's so laughably stupid and out of place that it stuns me that anyone thought it was a good idea. These plot threads go absolutely nowhere, but keep popping up to throw an anchor down on any momentum the plot may have gathered by a fluke accident.

I can't really say much more than that. It's unbelievable how badly a good story like this was botched, especially when it's been done before to much greater effect. "Red Tails" is a joke, and George Lucas should once again be ashamed of himself.

Did I mention he produced it? You know, I hate to jump on bandwagons...but George is really making it hard to not hate him. Between him and Spielberg I'm not going to have any childhood favorites left to be a fan of soon.

Look at him. He knows he should be ashamed.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Red Tails" is making my list of Worst of 2012. There's no possible way that it's not. I pray it's not. If I have to watch 10 worse movies this year, I might kill myself. "Red Tails" is pain to the point of unwatchability. And it had the gall to feature the awesome Bryan Cranston. For shame.