Assassination Nation (2018)

I know we are not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but it's because of the poster that Assassination Nation caught my attention. Eventually, it lost it because I thought, and I have to thank Google for it, Bella Thorne was the lead. I've read several positive reviews about it ever since so I decided to give it a chance. 

The film mainly follows Lily (Odessa Young) and her friends, Sarah (Suki Waterhouse), Bex (Hari Nef), and Em (Abra), a group of high school seniors in a city called Salem. Each of them has her own daily struggles, but things get really bad when an anonymous cracker starts posting personal messages, photos and emails from everyone in their small town, and the four girls become the target of their community. 

Saying that the plot to Assassination Nation is a mess is a bit of an understatement. It is chaotic at its best, it's often unfocused —there are several plot points that seem to have a huge impact on the story but eventually, they go nowhere— and it is occasionally boring. It would also be one of the most absurd plots of the year if it wasn't terribly plausible in today's society, specifically in the States. 

It's also quite an important story as it deals with themes such as misogyny, feminism, sexual assault, bullying, racism, gun culture, morality in the digital age, lack of privacy online, and more. This is both the film's greatest strength and its biggest weakness. A strength because these are themes that need to be addressed; a weakness because there are so many issues to handle, some are barely exploited, and overall it feels like they could have done more with each. 

The characters are all unlikeable, underdeveloped and it would be impossible to care for any of them if it wasn't for the girls who are some of the most relatable characters of the year for people of a similar age.

The performances are pretty solid, especially from the four girls who share incredible chemistry. Odessa Young easily stands out though. Her performance as Lily is terrific as she brings to the character both vulnerability, fragility and innocence, and violence, and manages to make fun of her character and her generation in the process.

Neon, AGBO, Refinery29

The cinematography is a bit of a hit-and-miss: it is very vibrant and beautiful in some scenes; it's bland and lacks creativity in others. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is quite brilliant and manages to make the dull moments kind of grippy.

Overall, Assassination Nation didn't really convince me. It just borrows too many elements from other films —Heathers, Mean Girls, The Purge, to name a few— and it addresses too many issues for his short running time.

A Merry Friggin' Christmas (2014)

It's been so long since I added A Merry Friggin' Christmas on my watchlist that I forgot why it was there. So it's knowing nothing about it that I finally decided to watch it (it turned out it was because of Robin Williams). 

The film follows Boyd Mitchler (Joel McHale), a father who does all he can to give his kids a perfect Christmas because his childhood was ruined by his drunken father, Mitch (Robin Williams), who ruined Santa Claus and Christmas, and pretty much everything for him. When his younger brother, Nelson (Clark Duke), asks him to come his son's baptism which will be held on Christmas Eve in their hometown, Boyd is forced to spend Christmas with his family and estranged father. It gets even worse when he realises that he forgot his son's Christmas presents, decides to make an eight-hour round trip to get them and his father tags along to help.

Although it's not the smartest of plots, it does have some potential at the beginning. Eventually, the writers decided to develop it, or rather not develop it, in the worst way possible and the result is a dull, pretty stupid and unengaging story whose moral and message get lost. I guess it's supposed to deliver the true meaning of Christmas —something the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas! did beautifully— and show how to deal with childhood fantasies while growing up, or something like that. I'm not sure because it's all very confusing and messy. 

The characters too are pretty weak. They all are shallow, one-dimensional, unsympathetic and, frankly, quite pathetic characters that it's difficult to care about —maybe the drunken Santa Boyd almost killed is an exception. In other words, they are forgettable.

It doesn't surprise me one bit that the cast does a terrible job. Joel McHale who I loved in the Community episodes I've seen isn't funny at all, and the fact that he plays a hating jerk doesn't help either. Robin Williams who plays the grumpy old man who never was there for his son is too serious —this is supposed to be a comedy, after all— and his witty humour and one-liners are nowhere to be found. The rest of the cast is just as bad, Lauren Graham deserving a special mention because her acting reaches a whole new level of bad.

Phase 4 Films, Entertainment One Films

At last but not least, the comedy. It's certainly not entirely the actors' fault is their performances are dull and unfunny. There isn't much you can do when you have to work with jokes that are either childish or dumb, or both. There's a one-liner from Williams at the end of the movie, that's the only time I chuckled. A Merry Friggin' Christmas is so unfunny is depressing.