Crime - Movie Meister Reviews

June 12, 2020 leebutler Action, Crime, Netflix, Thriller

The Last Days of American Crime (2020) – Absolutely Criminal

Released: 5th June
Seen: 11th June

When it comes to single sentence movie concepts, it’s hard to deny that “The government is about to implement a device that makes it impossible to do crime, so what would the last crime ever committed look like?” is a fantastic concept. The idea alone promises a fascinating film, maybe something like Minority Report or even the later Purge movies that had some elaborate plot device around how crime is handled and used that to discuss serious real-world issues. It promises a fun movie, possibly futuristic and certainly a little bombastic. I mean, this is a film about the last crime that can physically be committed in the United States, surely that crime has to be something elaborate right? Well, turns out… no, no it doesn’t mean that. In fact, somehow a film that’s been gifted an idea so good that it should be impossible to mess it up managed to mess up in every way possible.

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The Lovebirds (2020) – Something For (Almost) Everyone

Released: 22nd May
Seen: 25th May

In case you hadn’t noticed, these last several weeks have been… a lot. It’s been a couple of months now that the entire world has basically had to shut down while we deal with a minor apocalyptic pandemic and everyone is reacting differently. Some are just getting tired and depressed, some are playing a whole lot of Animal Crossing, others are outside demanding barbers open so they can get haircuts because no one loves them enough to grab a pair of scissors and snip their bangs. I’ve personally been doing the first two of those, my Animal Crossing island is awful at the moment but I clearly have plenty of time to create a little getaway where I don’t have to deal with the third kind of person.

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May 6, 2020 leebutler Crime, Drama, Mystery, Netflix, Thriller

The Last Thing He Wanted (2020) – No One Wanted This

Released: 27th January
Seen: 5th May

So, while I’m still learning how to effectively write these reviews, I have slowly developed a system that works for me. After I do the first paragraph (usually designed to be just eye-catching enough that if you were to scroll through my main page that it might make you want to know more) I will then stop and think about how to describe the plot. I might have IMDB open to remind me of character and actor names but I can usually come up with a decent enough plot synopsis that doesn’t give away more than I need to in order to get you to know just what kind of movie I’m talking about. The plot synopsis is always a quick thing for me, I try to keep it short and sweet because if you want a proper plot synopsis then Wikipedia is in the next tab over. I add it for context and little more than that… this time? I’m tempted to skip it because the plot is so poorly constructed that even just adding it for context feels pointless but it’s my structure now so I feel obligated to try.

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April 29, 2020 leebutler Crime, Thriller

The Fanatic (2020) – I’m Not A Fan

Released: 30th March
Seen: 27th April

Sometimes a movie is so instantly deemed “God awful excrement” that I’m almost eager to see it, just to know if everyone is overreacting. At the end of August last year, The Fanatic came out in America and when I heard about it, I patiently waited for it to come down to Australia when I’d have the chance to see it, but it never came. Possibly because it made $3000 in 52 cinemas, which is aggressively bad, but I knew eventually I would have to see it somehow. Sure enough, the movie got a DVD release on the 30th of March, meaning it’s a 2020 movie for me and I would finally have the chance to see it (and it’d be eligible for an end of the year list for me, so that’s nice). Then it popped up on Google Play and was about 6 bucks to rent which… yeah, more than I should’ve spent. I should’ve just not bothered, I don’t deserve this kind of shabby treatment.

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February 9, 2020February 10, 2020 leebutler Action, Adventure, Crime

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) – (2020) – High Flying Fun

Released: 6th February
Seen: 8th February

The 2016 Suicide Squad movie is the definition of a mixed bag. It’s currently the 4th highest-earning film in the DCEU (or whatever the hell we’re calling the batch of DC films since Man of Steel) making almost $750million worldwide which is pretty impressive… it also has a 27% on Rotten Tomatoes right now and is getting a ‘sequel’ next year that will only be bringing back 4 of the actors and has the title THE Suicide Squad which, to me, sounds like they’re masking a reboot under the cover of a sequel. One of the few things that everyone could agree on about the original Suicide Squad movie was that Margot Robbie is an absolutely amazing Harley Quinn and should probably have her own movie. The catch is, Harley Quinn is just a little too insane to be trusted to finish a story on her own and maybe she should have a little bit of backup.

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February 8, 2020 leebutler Crime, Drama, Thriller

Uncut Gems (2020) – Colourful and Powerful

Released: 31st January
Seen: 5th February

Australian release schedules kind of suck… a lot. I’ve mentioned this a lot but it keeps needing to be brought up because it keeps causing me to be about 4 months out of sync with the cinematic zeitgeist and it has no reason to be this bad. Back when films were released by sending out 50 reels and having them go from cinema to cinema it made sense but now we’re in the age where a digital copy of the film can be streamed anywhere around the world instantly and the only thing that keeps certain countries waiting several months is bureaucratic bullshit by movie studios who refuse to follow the advice of Van McCoy and change with the times. Anyway, this is why I didn’t get to see Uncut Gems in December when it was THE thing everyone was talking about and why it wasn’t going to appear on my best-of list last year. I had to wait till the end of January for it to pop up on the local version of Netflix so I could watch it and go “Oh, THAT’S why everyone was talking about this film and saying Adam Sandler deserved awards nominations”

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February 6, 2020 leebutler Comedy, Crime, Drama, Thriller

Parasite (2019) – Everything You Heard Is Not Enough Praise!!

Released: 27th June 2019
Seen: 5th February

It was worldwide news when Australia decided to turn up the heat and set itself on fire. I don’t need to go into details of it all but suffice to say that it wasn’t exactly a good time to be in the land downunder. Air was awful, the heat was intense and our prime minister decided to go on holiday in Hawaii before coming back to force people to shake his hand for a series of photo ops that went wonderfully for him. A small (we’re talking beyond trivial, but I bring it up for context) side effect was that travelling from my home to Sydney was not going to happen under any circumstances since I had no guarantee the fire wouldn’t block the way and because the air quality was roughly the same as smoking 37 cigarettes a day. Because of that, any movie that was only being shown in Sydney was impossible for me to get to because I will do a lot to go see a good movie, but I won’t walk into an inferno.

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January 27, 2020 leebutler Biography, Crime, Drama, Western

True History of the Kelly Gang (2020) – Liiiiieeeesss

Released: 26th January
Seen: 26th January

True History of the Kelly Gang is a lie. It’s a work of fiction based upon the novel of the same name written by Peter Carey. The original novel pretends to be a journal written by the real Ned Kelly but is a highly fictionalised version of the story. Claiming to be told by Kelly to his daughter, the book spins a yarn about one of Australia’s most infamous historical figures. Adapting it to a movie is certainly not something to be taken lightly, a story about a real figure that is full of lies meant to try and reveal a greater truth about the man is not easy to translate to film. Clearly, it’s not easy at all because the film doesn’t work as well as I wanted it to.

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January 3, 2020 leebutler Action, Crime

The Gentlemen (2020) – Bring It On Lads

Released: 1st January
Seen: 2nd January

For several years now, Guy Ritchie has been trying to spread out from the English crime drama/comedy films that he made his name on. Most recently he tried to take some of the elements from his old crime drama films and put them in the criminally underrated King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. He then made the just flat out criminally bad Aladdin movie and maybe those films shook him a little since people were starting to catch onto his bag of tricks and calling them out. Whatever happened with those two films, Guy Ritchie seemed to go back to what he does best… an English crime drama/comedy with a large eclectic cast of characters who drop obscenities like they were forms of punctuation. Thank goodness because this is probably the kind of film Guy Ritchie was born to make because he does it so well.

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December 6, 2019December 6, 2019 leebutler Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller

21 Bridges (2019) – Bridge Over Tepid Water

Released: 27th November
Seen: 4th December

So, fun story, I’ve had several opportunities now to go and see Terminator Dark Fate. I’ve had the time, the screenings have been local and I’ve even planned on it… I just can’t be bothered. A week ago when I saw Arctic Justice and Countdown on the same day, I planned on seeing Terminator that day too but ended up not bothering with it because it just didn’t seem like it was worth my time… but Arctic Justice and Countdown? Oh, those I had to go see. Same with Addams Family and Knives Out, I planned on the day I saw those to end with me seeing Terminator but after Knives Out, I just didn’t have the interest to stick around to see it because my day was already officially perfect and I didn’t want anything to ruin that (seriously, if you haven’t seen Knives Out then go see Knives Out and thank me later on).

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