There are two reasons I haven't done any reviews in the past two months. One is simply I was busy with finals and the like at school, and immediately after, I went on vacation. So, with all that, I couldn't really write anything. Another major factor is that I couldn't really find anything to say about certain films. I considered Deadpool as a potential candidate, but I realized that detailing the plot would involve big spoilers. I considered Upgrade, but I couldn't quite muster much material for a full review, nor did Hotel Artemis. So, given it's been two months, I'll just do a review of a film I saw a couple days ago, that I don't have much material for, and might be out of theaters at this point.
This film is based on the real life 2004 robbery of rare books at Transylvania University in Kentucky, done in a docudrama style, with the real participants interviewed along with a dramatization of the events. Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) and Warren Lipka (Evan Peters) decide to abandon their hum-drum lives and commit a robbery of the rare books collection at their university in Kentucky, which includes the original folios of John James Audubon's Birds of America (estimated at $12 million) as well as other rare books. After Warren secures a buyer in the Netherlands, they recruit acquaintances Chas Allen (Blake Jenner) and Eric Borsuk to help, planning an elaborate heist to extract the books and gain the money. However, they find that committing a robbery is far easier in the movies, than it is in real life.
I thought of two films watching this: Richard Linklater's Bernie and I, Tonya. The former because of its docudrama style (though this, unlike Bernie, uses mostly the real participants in interviews), and dark themes, and I, Tonya due to its focus on unreliable narrators and uncertain events. Both work to make a very fractured narrative, and not in a bad way. It helps builds to the unstable nature of the robbery itself, and how people tend to recall minor events differently, when compared to more intense one. The film is concise, with everything inside building to some sort of theme or contributing to the plot. Everything always builds the plot, or deals with the theme. The interviews help give more insight into the minds of the characters, and helps make this event more real. Going off that, it also deconstructs heist movies, as their plans for the heist slowly go awry thanks to different factors, and their overestimation of their capacity. Thus, it goes horribly wrong during their final heist. It gets hard to watch.
The first half drags a little. I understand that it builds up, but it sort of drops us into the action, with no real exposition, other than the interviews. It never really establishes itself in a satisfactory manner, and thus, the build-up feels off constantly. It manages to re-adjust itself once they begin to actually plan the heist, but it should probably have been a bit longer. The interview/dramatization ratio decreases towards the second half. Whilst this allows us to absorb the magnitude of their failure, I honestly would've liked some commentary on what actually happened during it.
Like I said, not much material I could gain from this. Overall, though, this is a recommendation. It's probably out of theaters, but if it's still playing or coming on DVD or home video, I'd say seek this out for fans of Indie films or heist films or true crime.
Next time, I will delve into Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and something a little different.
This film is based on the real life 2004 robbery of rare books at Transylvania University in Kentucky, done in a docudrama style, with the real participants interviewed along with a dramatization of the events. Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) and Warren Lipka (Evan Peters) decide to abandon their hum-drum lives and commit a robbery of the rare books collection at their university in Kentucky, which includes the original folios of John James Audubon's Birds of America (estimated at $12 million) as well as other rare books. After Warren secures a buyer in the Netherlands, they recruit acquaintances Chas Allen (Blake Jenner) and Eric Borsuk to help, planning an elaborate heist to extract the books and gain the money. However, they find that committing a robbery is far easier in the movies, than it is in real life.
I thought of two films watching this: Richard Linklater's Bernie and I, Tonya. The former because of its docudrama style (though this, unlike Bernie, uses mostly the real participants in interviews), and dark themes, and I, Tonya due to its focus on unreliable narrators and uncertain events. Both work to make a very fractured narrative, and not in a bad way. It helps builds to the unstable nature of the robbery itself, and how people tend to recall minor events differently, when compared to more intense one. The film is concise, with everything inside building to some sort of theme or contributing to the plot. Everything always builds the plot, or deals with the theme. The interviews help give more insight into the minds of the characters, and helps make this event more real. Going off that, it also deconstructs heist movies, as their plans for the heist slowly go awry thanks to different factors, and their overestimation of their capacity. Thus, it goes horribly wrong during their final heist. It gets hard to watch.
The first half drags a little. I understand that it builds up, but it sort of drops us into the action, with no real exposition, other than the interviews. It never really establishes itself in a satisfactory manner, and thus, the build-up feels off constantly. It manages to re-adjust itself once they begin to actually plan the heist, but it should probably have been a bit longer. The interview/dramatization ratio decreases towards the second half. Whilst this allows us to absorb the magnitude of their failure, I honestly would've liked some commentary on what actually happened during it.
Like I said, not much material I could gain from this. Overall, though, this is a recommendation. It's probably out of theaters, but if it's still playing or coming on DVD or home video, I'd say seek this out for fans of Indie films or heist films or true crime.
Next time, I will delve into Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and something a little different.
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