rayjaymor-91982 Reviews

The Hunting Party (1971)

Proof that an amazing cast can't make up for lazy writing.

[2/10 · 2 January 2023]

Going by the reviews, people either really hate this movie, or really love it.

Obviously I'm in the former camp.

The gratuitous violence I am actually all for. I don't watch Westerns with the idea of putting on "Kumbaya" on the radio in the background.

On that level, the movie delivers but in bursts too short between long boring sequences where the movie tries to be far more intelliigent than it is.

The romance plot is completely and utterly insane and non-sensical, even accounting for the abusive husband trope, the idea that the kidnap victim develops some kind of extreme version of Stockholm Syndrome by virtue of the "protagonist" having a magic peen is lazy and terrible even for the 70s.

This could be forgiven if it was a minor sub-plot but it's 70% of the movie.

It easily could have been a classic if it either dove deeper into an actual plot that makes sense with characters you could remotely empathise with, or if it instead went 30 minutes shorter and cut out the idiotic romance plot.

The cast all do an amazing job. I'm surprised they could shoot this without laughing at their own dialogue let alone actually give solid performances.

Definitely one to have on the telly whilst doing something else at the same time.

Rage (2017)

So bad, that it's just plain bad.

[2/10 · 12 April 2020]

Instant Death is your stock-standard "they hurt my family now I want revenge" movie that is pretty much a trope on it's own now. That in itself isn't a bad thing. I love that kind of movie.

These movies in general require a bit of leeway as far as script writing, acting, and general believability goes, and that is fair because these are not documentaries. But this movie really does abuse that leeway.

Razor as the "main bad guy" has about all the charisma of a cardboard box. But I do get the feeling that the actor playing him is doing everything he can with a script that feels like it might have been written by a 15 year old in between watching Death Wish, Taken and Rambo and deciding he can write better.

The fight scenes have no weight, I have honestly seen better fight choreography from uni student film projects. The plot is laughably bad and hard to believe even for a character as unhinged as "Razor".

The movie constantly dances on the line of being "so bad it's good" to straight up just "bad" but it finally bulldozes over that line with the incredibly underwhelming showdown with the main antagonist, which really felt like the 15 year old I mentioned earlier suddently realised he was going to run out of paper.

I talk a lot about the character of "Razor" because he is the only character you end up getting attached to. Even the main protaganist (John Bradley) is completely forgettable - an impressive feat of poor script writing considering it's Lou Ferrigno.

It's a movie that spends about an hour getting you ready for the ultimate ride of your life. But once the credits begin to roll, the movie will lie down, stretch out and smoke a cigaratte. You on the other hand will sneakily open your drawer and look for something else.

Les Norton (2019)

A really good adaption of tricky material.

[9/10 · 15 August 2019]

As a fan of the original books by Robert G Barrett I was both excited and concerned when I heard this series was being made.

I was excited because I've always wanted to see how Les would go on the screen. I was concerned because the source material would definitely need some tweaking to survive an audience in modern day. (Mr Barrett was obviously a 'blokey bloke' and whilst certainly good natured, some things won't pass muster today).

Obviously some purists will disagree, but I thought they did an outstanding job on this. The spirit of the books is definitely there, nods to plot points of the books are alive and well (they were largely all short stories and these, if my memory serves, have been blended a bit for episodes).

Definitely worth a watch, whether you're a fan of the books or not.