I don’t see a lot of really bad movies. My friends say I’m picky, but actually I just have a highly-developed sense of what I’m going to like and what I’m not going to like.
Last night, I rented “Swordfish.”
Truly this is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in the last decade. Stupid, pointless, tasteless, unbelievable, and filled with bad acting. But what amazed me most was the level of in-your-face violence spread with a putty knife across the screen. In the first scene of the movie alone, you get to watch in slow motion as a hostage’s body explodes from the C4 strapped to her back, and the camera spins around as ball bearings also strapped to the hostage whiz by, killing bystanders and making cars explode in flames.
Things go downhill from there.
Yes, I could have (and should have) turned the damn thing off right then. But as each scene got worse and worse, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was transfixed. Interesting, too, that the plot (so to speak) of the movie had arch-villain John Travolta (!) stealing billions and killing indiscriminately in order to finance anti-terrorist actions. It’s funny that the entertainment industry wants to erase the World Trade towers from “Zoolander,” but does nothing to protect us from this unbelievably violent tripe.
Find a movie reviewer than parallels your taste. 🙂
I know how you feel, Adam. I saw this at the theater before 9/11 and found the opening scene really disturbing. The rest of it struck me as a mindless action film. However if I were to see it today, I don’t think I could sit through it. I couldn’t view it as completely ridiculous over-the-top silly action, because what once seemed like an impossibility is now part of our history.
I guess it’s real popular here in Ventura because we had the film crews clogging up our little downtown for months on end, with endless prop cars sitting around full of “ball bearing” holes… my b/f rented it just out of curiosity, & because it was the only one left on the shelf, which is usually a good sign. In this case, it wasn’t.