mister-mike Reviews

Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)

Beyond stupid

[1/10 · 27 July 2019]

The ending of this movie is idiotic (BIG SPOILERS).

Benicio Del Toro's character gets shot, and it looks like he got shot very seriously, because when he miraculously recovers after the bad guys have left, there are what look like large bloody chunks of his scalp falling away from his head.

Despite that, he managed to somehow survive death (or the appearance of death, which meant that no one shot him more than once) and gets up and somehow leaves the area where he was left for dead.

The bad guys have all gone, presumably some time before, because it was dark out when Del Toro got shot and when the good guys (Josh Brolin, etc.) in helicopters confront all the bad guys on the road and kill them all, it is daytime.

So how many minutes or hours is it from the time Del Toro is shot until these guys are all killed? Del Toro manages to seemingly WALK from the place where he was shot to where the bad guys are all dead. I estimate this could be a VERY long way, like what ... 10, 20, 50 miles or more?

Del Toro then takes over one of the bad guys' cars and manages to drive back to the border and the USA. It is amazing that no one seemingly thinks there is something weird about this at the border, considering he has lost enough of his scalp to probably cause brain damage and does not (as far as I know) have a passport to identify himself, because he was pretending to be a poor Mexican who was going to be smuggled over the border.

I read through several of the reviews of the show here at IMDB. NONE of the reviews I read mentioned the above stupidities!!

At the end of the show, back in the USA and some time later, Del Toro meets the kid who shot him in the back room of some place. Del Toro seems to be relatively OK!

The scene where the drug kingpin's daughter escapes and runs into the desert is also very dumb. Del Toro says he will go after her and find her, because Brolin and his pals have to get back to the good old USA, where poop flies because of the "international incident" which resulted. I dunno how far away the daughter got from him. Despite this, with the skill of an "Indian tracker," he manages to locate her and the two of them trudge across miles and miles of desert to the home of this mute dude who helps them on their journey.

The "extra features" on this DVD are pretty funny. It is amazing the way the people who made this movie are blabbing away, saying how great it is!

Red Light (1949)

Pretty bad

[3/10 · 24 February 2014]

This film had a few interesting noir-like scenes, but overall it was a stinker. (Lots of spoilers coming, see other reviews for plot summary.) First of all, the scene in the washroom where George Raft knocks Burr to the floor was ridiculous. I'm sure Burr, who must have weighed twice as much as Raft, could have demolished him with a couple of punches.

Then Virginia Mayo is a suspect by Raft in the murder of Raft's priest brother Jess who has returned from a prison camp overseas. Mayo stayed in the same hotel room as Jess and maybe took the Bible from the room (product placement for Gideon Bibles). It contains an important clue to Jess's killing. Mayo doesn't have the Bible, but instead has a photo of Jess, because her now-dead brother was in the military with Raft's brother. What are the chances of this happening? She says that Jess sent her the photo and her brother's effects. It would have made more sense if she had come to the hotel to meet with Jess, who was on his way to his new parish, and picked up the photo and other stuff, and she ended up getting Jess's room (though she still didn't take the Bible).

Then there is the scene with soldier Philip Pine, who did take the Bible. Having become blind, he is depressed and is about to blow his brains out in the hotel room (where the Bible is), and then this guy suddenly appears at the window. What is this guy doing, running up and down the fire escapes in the hotel or around the hotel ledges looking for people about to commit suicide? What about the scene where Gene Lockhart is hiding under the truck and Burr kicks out the blocks which are holding the truck up? The whole truck suddenly crushes Lockhart ... but isn't the truck partially held up by the tires? Duh! At the end, Harry Morgan shows up at Raft's office just as Burr is on his way out and fingers him as the killer. Another wacky coincidence: what are the chances of this happening, that the two of them will run into each other at the office, or that Morgan survived the fall from the back of the train where Burr pushed him off? The score by Dimitri Tiomkin, was crap, aside from the fact that it cribbed passages from several famous classical works including Beethove's Eroica Symphony.

The Streets of San Francisco: Tower Beyond Tragedy (1972) Season 1, Episode 5

Disappointing ending

[6/10 · 20 May 2007]

The ending of this show is dumb. Despite the fact that Gilliam and Ahern are shown driving down the coast at the same time that Stone and Keller are checking with the escort service's answering service (would the service provide such detail as to where she had gone "for a few days"?), the two cops are able to follow Gilliam and Ahern to Gilliam's love nest which is near Monterey (almost 120 miles away!) and arrive seemingly seconds after the two "lovers." Furthermore, how do the cops know where this love nest is located? Is this something that Gilliam's wife might have known about (I doubt it)? It is definitely not on the main road where Stone and Keller could see Gilliam's car.