Dolemite Is My Name: A Film Review

Eddie Murphy’s Comedy Muscle is Still Strong

Ratings: 4 1/2 out of 5 Stars

Cast

Credited cast:

Eddie Murphy …Rudy

Keegan-Michael Key …Jerry Jones

Kodi Smit-McPhee …Nick

Wesley Snipes …D’Urville Martin

Craig Robinson …Ben Taylor

Chris Rock …Daddy Fatts

Snoop Dogg …Roj

Tituss Burgess …Theodore Toney

Chelsea Gilson …Carrie Mills

T.I. …Walter Crane (as Tip ‘TI’ Harris)

Mike Epps …Jimmy Lynch

Da’Vine Joy Randolph …Lady Reed

Ron Cephas Jones … Ricco

Depending on how long you may have lived on this planet, we are blessed with over a thousand memories. Each memory is a world within itself. Memories can be happy, sad, tragic, awe-inspiring or any of the numbers of feelings we have. Music is a big part of our memories and even comedy. As a kid, I remember Rudy Ray Moore’s Dolemite, this outrageous caricature who didn’t fit into those conventional norms society was celebrating at the time. Dolemite was this underground take no prisoner comic. He was raunchy, he was vulgar, he was funny. He was not your Bill Cosby, sans rape convict. He was not your Richard Pryor. The closest I would say was that he was in the vein of Moms Mabley and Redd Foxx. Dolemite was this fixture in the predominately urban communities of the ’70s. Before there was the Internet or social media, his fame grew through word of mouth and whispers.

In the Netflix film, Dolemite Is My Name, Eddie Murphy takes on the titular role that polishes this apple of comedy in such a way that introduces the rest of the world to this comedic genius. We are taken on this journey of self-discovery as this man finds his own abilities and trusts his own instincts opening up to this world of ribald humor.

As the film opens up, there is a mood and feel to it that sets the tone of the era and that is the soundtrack. There was a style of music during that time of films of which the blaxploitation era evoked. If you can recall Superfly or The Mack, it was that sound that lingered through these films and Dolemite doesn’t shy away to bring you to that time. The only problem I had was with a Sly & The Family Stone piece where you could tell it was digital. I would have preferred that it would have been analog just to hear the needle on the grooves and the sound of the hissing coming from the record player. But Eddie Murphy owns this role. He is not just convincing, he seems to submerge himself into the part and as each minute passes, we get to understand this pure genius that was Rudy Ray Moore in all of his unconventionality.

As an MC at a local nightclub, Rudy’s style of comedy is not working. His day job is being an assistant manager at a record shop. The record shop serves as a pivot point for Rudy as this is where Ricco, a down on your luck alcoholic, comes in look for some spare change and a rhythmic ability to curse with poetry. Rudy takes note and later seeks out Ricco and from the film narrative, pays Ricco to recite every filthy limerick he knows. When you see that, you have to wonder after all this time that Ricco never received any recognition for being the inspiration behind Dolemite for it was him who, for the better part, created the Dolemite persona.

The film doesn’t address this part and instead moves forward with Rudy donning the Dolemite caricature at the nightclub. He gets on stage and becomes the unofficial warm-up act to the band and he kills. I must say that I found a lot of what Eddie/Rudy Ray did was a flashback to my youth. As a former head comedy writer, the selling feature was the rhythmic cadence to Dolemite’s delivery. Once you’ve mastered that cadence, you can never go wrong. Rudy Ray found that rhythm and the race were on.

But stand up wasn’t the end goal for Rudy Ray. He wanted to sell albums and he accomplishes this by pressing his own albums after being turned down by a company for being too vulgar. Rudy was the pioneer of selling his body of work from the trunk of his car, a practice many unpublished rappers had to do in the day to sell their ware. Soon record labels made note of his climbing record sales and he found a home. This was another climb on the ladder for Rudy Ray. But Rudy Ray wanted more.

After going to see the movie, The Front Page, a Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon movie, Rudy Ray and his friends didn’t understand the movie and couldn’t understand why people were laughing. Rudy Ray decides then and there that he wants to make a movie. It is here that the bulk of the film is devoted to Rudy Ray pursuing this dream.

The supporting cast is excellent by the way. Craig Robinson, as Ben Taylor, gets to showcase his musical and singing abilities. Tituss Burgess, as Theodore Toney, is very convincing as a nervous, full of anxiety personality. Mike Epps, as Jimmy Lynch, is the kind of friend, a supportive friend, that you need when every avenue is blocked. Da’ Vine Joy Randolph, as Lady Reed, is the gold standard and this should be her breakout role. She’s excellent and shows the kind of strength black women at that time demonstrated. Wesley Snipes, as D’Urville Martin, is the surprising role of them all. He’s funny, he’s narcissistic, he’s on the verge of always being combustible. When awards season comes about, they should receive a slew of nomination from SAG, the Golden Globes, Oscars, etc. they were just that great.

The thing about this film was that it became a story about obstacles. With each obstacle that Rudy Ray faced, somehow he managed to overcome that obstacle through sheer determination and by the happenstance of where he was and the surrounding environment. Eddie Murphy did a commendable job of not only showing the humor of Rudy Ray but also the side roads he had to take to get to that destination. Rudy Ray demonstrated this quiet confidence but had to put on this obtuse bravado to sell himself. He was never a pimp, he just acted like one. The brightly colored clothes were just a uniform for the public and for the business and for the act. His intimate conversation with Lady Reed was raw and honest and their duet was funny and good. They made a wonderful country western song that will never see the light of day on any Nashville radio playlist.

Rudy Ray, with all of his opportunities, was only known in the urban communities. He wasn't a nationwide household name like other famous comics like Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Foxx, or Cosby. He never made it to the late-night talk show circuit. What he did contribute was the style of comedy rap which birth rap music. He’s known as the godfather of rap. His brand of comedy was also instrumental in giving us the comics of the ’80s like the shock comedy of Andrew Dice Clay, Sam Kinison and even Eddie Murphy himself. Comedy is never in a vacuum, it’s forever expanding with its tentacles. 

As far as entertainment goes, I’d rate this alongside Dave Chappelle’s Sticks & Stones as good entertainment value.  Every new comedy act has an origin story that reaches back to Carlin or Mably or Moore or Lenny, we just never know. At the end of the film, Eddie says a final goodbye to his brother, Charlie Murphy, as the film is dedicated to him. You know that Charlie would have a hand in contributing to the making of this film. Thanks, Charlie. 

Somewhere Rudy Ray is still in my head as a paraphrase this little limerick attributed to him.

The sparkling stars kiss the sparkling sky

The sparkling moon kiss the sparkling sky

The sparkling wine kiss the sparkling glass

And you, my friend, can kiss my…

See, Rudy Ray just stays with you.

Terminator: Dark Fate

A Fate Worse Than Desired — A Film Review

Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

Cast

Credited cast:

Mackenzie Davis …Grace

Linda Hamilton …Sarah Connor

Edward Furlong …John Connor

Arnold Schwarzenegger …The Terminator

Gabriel Luna …Terminator

Natalia Reyes …Dani Ramos

Some films have the aurora of a pedigree. If the film is anywhere being good and has a followup successful sequel and critical acclaim, this honor is bestowed on them. The director is applauded, the writer is applauded, the cast is applauded. The audience is accepting of this and after a period of time, we place such film on this pedestal and shelf because we have relegated it to the position where any attempt to recapture that moment would be an offense to the hearts and minds of those who placed it there. Terminator: Dark Fate, is a movie that proves that revisiting a proven franchise is not always a pleasant experience. In the opening scene of this film, we find human skulls and a field of skeletal remains on a beach. As the scene continues, there are more human skulls as one roll down a hill of bones. We’ve seen this before in previous Terminator movies. Does this film attempt to remind us or just plain ran out of ideas to stimulate the audience with this rehashing of a plot point? This was your first sign of the repeating narrative that will be Terminator: Dark Fate.

James Cameron wrote this and Tim Miller directed it. These are two of the most high profile director and writer in the business. Somewhere in this collaboration, no joy was achieved in the making of this film. After the bones scene, the film quickly jumps into the time-traveling naked bodies of Grace, played by Mackenzie Davis and the Terminator, played by Gabriel Luna. The pacing for the first act is swift but it comes with perils to the storyline. The primary casualty is who is Grace and how did she get the enhancements to her body? Her backstory is convoluted as we see no technology being introduced to her body other than conventional first aid. The new Terminator is also a mystery. We got a full understanding of what the T-800, the original model, was about and the T-1000 was an enhanced dream bot of the highest order, liquid metal over a chassis. This newer version of the Terminator was lacking the sophistication of its predecessors and was enhanced with crude edges and jagged lines layered with a pewter finish. Gone is the silver metallic structures that came from the T-800 and T-1000.

The Terminator franchise has always been about a matriarchal figure. Sarah Connor played once again by Linda Hamilton, returns as the wounded mother figure after grieving the loss of John Connor from a successful assassination by a T-800. She’s a tortured woman living with the consequences and blaming herself for letting her guard down that caused the death of her son. It is this anger that fuels her rage throughout this picture. But is it too much rage? Gone and buried is the Sarah Connor from the original. Sarah had some warmth to her human existence. There was innocence that is now gone and replaced with unrivaled hate. Her undisputed hate for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 character is over the top and there is a question about this T-800 that also left with a perplexing identity crisis.

As we were told in the original Terminator, “Listen. Understand. That Terminator is out there. It can’t be reasoned with, it can’t be bargained with. It doesn’t feel pity of remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are dead.” So why is this Terminator living with a family and pretending to be a dad? Did he all of a sudden he has an emotion chip like Star Trek’s Data? Did someone rewrite his code to be kinder and gentler and be a hugging cyborg instead of a choking you to death cyborg? This take on the plot is completely illogical. If anything, this model Terminator should have deactivated himself after completing his task. By all things canon, he still should have remained a human killing cyborg. Was the rule book thrown out? Oh, and by the by, he goes by the name of Carl and he’s in the drapery business. He’s also behind the covert messages that he’s been sending to Sarah.

The object of the new Terminator obsession is Dani Ramos played by Natalia Reyes. The film leads you to believe that she is birth some new challenge to the future cyborgs but there is something that doesn’t track. Sure, you suspect that Grace may be the offspring to Dani because Grace is being cagey with answering Sarah’s questions. Still, after all is said and done, the surprise is revealed and it’s a nothing burger of a plot device. Unlike John Connor who led a resistance movement, we are lead to conclude that Dani would do the same thing but as with any group, an eventual leader will rise to the occasion.

So what was the point of all of this? Was it a self-serving interest from Grace’s point of view? After all, we accepted the premise that Grace had orders to follow but was any dispatched? There were some scenes that defied any logic what so ever. In one scene, the new Terminator is pursuing the group in a helicopter while they are on-board a C-5 transport plane. He crashes and gets another plane and catches up with them. How is this possible? It isn’t for you would have to suspend your belief on the laws on aerodynamics and physics.

I do not know why this film was ever made in the first place? It’s not like there was a huge demand to revisit this picture. The first two should have been an over and done situation. There was some humor that was supplied by Arnold but it wasn’t enough to keep this film from sinking into the abyss of failure. Sometimes going back to the well is only laced with rancid water. C’est la vie.

Zombieland: Double Tap: Film Review

Not a Home-run but a Solid Three Base Hit

Rating: 3½ out of 4 stars

CAST:

Credited cast:

Zoey Deutch … Madison

Abigail Breslin … Little Rock

Emma Stone … Wichita

Woody Harrelson … Tallahassee

Jesse Eisenberg … Columbus

Rosario Dawson … Nevada

Bill Murray … Bill Murray

If you want to just clear your mind of the constant onslaught of the Democrats revving up impeachment hearings for the current sitting president or having to deal with Hong Kong protesting or what’s going on in Turkey, I recommend you going to see Zombieland: Double Tap. This is the overdue sequel to the original film, Zombieland. The original stars, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg, and Abigail Breslin, all return to reprise their role and they didn’t lose a step in picking up where these characters left off. The plot generally stays the same but this time around we get some new characters and some new lingo like “Murraying”, more on that later. Of course, you know this film is going to be a hoot when the Columbia Pictures Torch lady uses said torch to beat off some invading zombies during the credit roll.

In this particular venue, the film picks up with Eisenberg giving us a narration. Jessie’s narrations aren’t particularly pleasant to the ears. I would have preferred Emma’s or Abigail to do the voice-over narrations. This, for me, was the only thing that made this journey a bump in the road. Putting that aside, we forge ahead. In the narration, plot points are established and one of them is that there is a new apex zombie that has evolved. It’s harder to kill. You can’t just shoot it in the head and think you’re done. No, you have to shoot it twice in the head, double-tap, hence, the leading title to the movie. This is established early on in the film but it’s not the leading narrative.

The leading narrative is the relationships of the four lead characters. They’ve been together for a while now and being together has it’s growing pains mainly for the women in this collective. One, Little Rock, wants to be dating but her pick of candidates only wants to eat her brain and they are dead. The other, Wichita, feels the weight of being in a long term relationship with someone with an eccentric personality and who is, let’s whisper it, a nerd, not that there is anything wrong with that. Tallahassee is the father/Uncle/Big Brother figure of the bunch but he’s no Ward Cleaver by any stretch of the imagination. There is a sense of respect given to him within the group. They trust his decision with their lives.

Little Rock and Wichita take off after Wichita turns down an offer of marriage from Columbus. And Little Rock takes off from Wichita after some hippy guy, Berkeley, shows up on the road and persuades her to go with him to his commune.

This film doesn’t take itself seriously at all when you saw the Torch Lady swinging for the fences at the beginning. After all, everybody is named after a U.S. city in this sequel and the tongue is firmly planted in that cheek. You’d think that they were some sort of band of covert spies with those names. That is what makes this film so fun. Each new character that gets introduced along the way has a city or state name. There is Madison, Berkeley, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, and Nevada played respectively by Zoey Deutch, Avan Jogie, Luke Wilson, Thomas Middleditch, and Rosario Dawson. Each brings its own set of misadventure with them that doesn’t bog down the premise. There is no perfect person in this bunch, no Reys or Captain Marvels or Mary Sues, just your slightly off-centered and just slightly embarrassing people filled with farts.

The third act builds up to a nice action sequence that really shines with that sense of dread and anticipation as the showdown with a contingent of apex zombies make their attack on Berkeley’s hippy compound. If it wasn’t for the fact that Little Rock was there, you’d want the zombies to make a meal out of this group. But since our protagonists are in the line of chomping, we want to root for the good guys. There is plenty of action leading up to this including a battle between Albuquerque and Flagstaff that was pretty intense. Nobody should take this movie as seriously as some SJW critics took to Joker with the sort of prejudicial maliciousness unfairly heaped upon it. Zombieland: Double Tap is straight-up slapstick and cartoon violence. Even when Flagstaff and Albuquerque are turned into zombies, that is done with humor. Zoey Deutch is good in the role of Madison as this ditsy survivor who becomes a love interest for Columbus and a thorn in the side for Wichita. That dynamic was done in such a good way that it was refreshing to see and without the usual tropes that come with a three-way relationship. There is no hidden agenda, inter-sectionalism, identity politics, nothing that would lend itself to any sort of controversy. Just go in for the 1 hour and 39 minutes and just let go. The last scene of the movie will make you smile is a flashback scene with Bill Murray and NBC weatherman, Al Roker, it’s just stupid fun. Roker and Murray have become this comedic duo in another reality but who is the straight man? “Murraying” by the way, is when you mistakenly kill someone when you think they are a zombie. Poor Bill Murray.

Joker: The Pageantry of A Tragic Opera

A Film Review

Cast

 Joaquin Phoenix …Arthur Fleck
 Robert De Niro …Murray Franklin
 Zazie Beetz …Sophie Dumond
 Frances Conroy …Penny Fleck
 Brett Cullen …Thomas Wayne

There was a mistake made about Joker leading up to its October release. It was described as a comic book movie but it was, in this opinion piece, nowhere near to any depiction of what is considered a comic book movie. It would be wrong to simplify this like that for it was so much more. It was layered in emotions. It was layered in the study of human foibles. It carried more significant meanings and interpretations of what makes us fragile. It raises that very question, what event or events that will break the human mind?

Such is the case on this film interpretation of Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck as a down-on-your-luck low rent comic and performance clown. You would think that somewhere in a person’s life, they perhaps would have selected a profession worthy of mastering but Arthur Fleck’s decision process has a lot to be questioned. Arthur Fleck is a troubled man. His home life is saddled with him being the caregiver for his ailing mother. This is exacerbated even more so as Arthur is locked into some clinical therapy session that is about to be discontinued due to budget cuts. Adding to Arthur’s list of dilemmas is the uncontrollable laughter that he emits due to a medical condition. You here this uncontrolled laughter coming from him after he gets beaten up. It’s the very definition of haunting.

And in that very moment, you get the sense that this feels like some sad tragic opera similar to a more famous tragic opera, Pagliacci. Both involve a clown as the main protagonist and both lives are surrounded by misfortune. The cinematography for Joker is excellent by the way. It looks and feels like New York in the seventies. Seeing all of those older model cars added to the authenticity of the film that placed you squarely into this world of Gotham City. The look of Gotham City was one of the characters in this film. The subway cars had that grimy feel to it. The bleakness of the apartment hallways has just about the right level of darkness to make you feel claustrophobic. Todd Phillips may have directed this film but Martin Scorsese’s wizardry was all over this film. Even Arkham hospital itself felt old and dingy. There was even an interior scene at the hospital that looked so familiar to a scene from the TV series, Gotham, where Bruce is waiting in the corridor after Alfred is injured and Selena stops by to check on him and Bruce exchanges some heated words at Selena.

Arthur Fleck is not the Joker as yet. He is just an ordinary man whose circumstances have been pushed and pushed and PUSHED to the very brink of any person’s boundaries of understanding. When his sign is stolen by neighborhood kids and subsequently struck by the sign where it is destroyed, his employer penalizes him for not returning the sign. His therapist seems to just placate him with her canned responses and he responds by saying “All I have is negative thoughts.” She seems to not listen and only wants to inform him that the program is ending. And as each downward turn in Arthur Fleck’s life erodes away another layer of who he is, you witness the decline of his humanity as he takes another step into the warm embrace of psychopathic rage.

Robert De Niro plays Murray Franklin, a late-night talk show host who has a mean streak in him. The only thing similar to him and the late Johnny Carson is the curtains to his show. Murray Franklin is a small mean man. He punches the little people by making them feel smaller. Murray feeds Arthur’s delusions as Arthur interprets his one-time notoriety as a prelude to fame and success. It’s slowly revealed that Arthur is suffering from delusions of grandeur. He’s living in a world where he’s a good stand-up comic. He’s living in a world where he is the boyfriend of a woman down the hall from him. He’s living in a world where Murray Franklin adores him. This bomb is slowly counting down to disaster and it explodes in a subway.

While on the subway, three Wall Street types are haranguing a woman and that causes Arthur to have an uncontrollable laugh episode. This, of course, turns the attention of the Wall Street gang to Arthur. The focus is now on Arthur and they proceed to beat him up but instead of it being a long drawn out beat down, Arthur turns the tables on them and produces a gun and kills two of the three men. The third escapes the train with Arthur in pursuit. He’s killed at the bottom of the stair. In this situation, you have to ask yourself, was Arthur in the right or was he wrong? Do we justify the argument of the self-defense posture? Is Arthur the emaciated rib cage bearing mad-man antihero?

Thomas Wayne played effectively by Brett Cullen, is a Trump-Esque billionaire type personality. His life is outside the world of the average person. He lives above the fray and he doesn’t let you forget it. His confrontation with Arthur is noteworthy as Arthur’s rage reminded me of a brief moment from another film. It was electric and charged and you didn’t see Phoenix, you saw someone else. And once again we see Arthur on the other side of a beat down by Wayne. This encounter was precipitated by letters his mother had written about an alleged affair with Wayne. Arthur is spiraling further into a chasm of madness.

We are watching nervously for that proverbial straw that will push Arthur Fleck over that cliff. That straw is revealed when Arthur finds the truth about his lineage. He’s not the bastard child of a billionaire. His mother was suffering from a host of psychotic disorders. His abuse as a child was also included in this potpourri of callous and vindictive upbringing. His life was nothing but pain and lies. He wants nothing more than do to harm to himself.

Somewhere between him and two minutes later, that notion is gone. He lashes out by killing his mother. When two of his former co-workers arrive to check on him, he kills the one who gave him the gun and spares the other one. On the scale of one to ten, the level of violence is a four and a half. Five people are shot and killed, with three being killed at one time and one was stabbed to death. The stabbing was perhaps the goriest but it wasn’t graphic gory. The film wasn’t glorifying the violence. It wasn’t violence for violence's sake. John Wick: Chapter 3 violence was over the top but nobody is complaining about that.

Arthur is invited to the Murray Franklin show and it is there where the Joker is fully born. He is introduced as the Joker. He comes out and sits in the chair for a talkfest. It is there where he confesses to killing the Wall Street trio and the audience reacts. He is pushed and pushed and PUSHED again, culminating into him shooting Murray Franklin on a live broadcast. I don’t know if this was planned or was a happy accident but there appeared to be a homage to Heath Ledger. In the scene with Arthur being under arrest and was being driven to the police station, it was eerily reminiscent of Heath Ledger’s performance in a similar scene.

The police car is T-boned by an ambulance and clown revelers pull Arthur from the back of the car and lay him on top of the cruiser. Arthur wakes up to an adoring crowd and it is there that Arthur Fleck takes his final step into the abyss of madness. All hail, the rise of the Joker.

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars

John Wick Vs. John Rambo

A Caviar and Champagne Character vs. A Meat and Potatoes Character

Have you ever wondered why certain films seem to resonate with people while other films have quite the polar opposite effect and are met with derision and disgust? Is it a thing as simple as timing when a film comes out and all the stars are aligned for a perfect synergy of balanced harmony? Or could it be that maybe the moment has passed and people have moved on away from the characters and don’t see themselves in the character any longer? Such is the examination of two films, John Wick 3 and Rambo: Last Blood, as one was applauded with positive reviews while the latter was met with mostly negative reviews by the critics. But why was that?

Both films had unprecedented violence in them. John Wick 3 had a body count that looked like it went past three digits. Rambo too had a high body count but not as severe as John Wick3. John Wick’s body count was laced throughout the picture with a roller coaster level of violence. Rambo’s body count was mainly in the final act and from this POV, it was rather tepid and lukewarm, mainly because the acts of aggression weren’t anything new or exciting. There was no “DAMN” moment where our senses were shocked. There was no “YES” moment when a bad guy was killed. It was mostly a by-the-numbers killing journey. Rambo: Last Blood basically ran with the notion that this was a nostalgic look back with John Rambo and for those fans of his era, they got what he delivered.

John Wick, on the other hand, gave us new acts of aggression that satiated the carnal savagery we place in these types of films. We want our violence to be severe and yet poetic in its style. Rambo seemed to handle its violence like he was a caveman as he ran around in his underground tunnel. He was slovenly dressed. He visibly was sweating. He was this meat and potatoes avenger. John Wick was a more sophisticated avenger. He wore a suit. He was more refined in his method of killing and even when he was sweating, it wasn’t a distraction. Rambo was in the dirt. John Wick was in the rain. John Wick was the caviar and champagne enforcer. There were plenty of “GODDAMN’ and “WTF” moments with the John Wick series.

John Wick’s violence was a close-quarters contact sport. He engaged with his opponent that seemed more personal, more in-the-moment fighting and killing. John Rambo, though personal after watching his goddaughter die from a forced drug overdose, was more remote at a distance fighting. This was his style of fighting. Although he can fight in a close quarter situation, most of his fighting was done with explosions and booby traps.

We have prejudices and biases that are inherent and we have become more and more of a class society. We have come to accept some of these social vices, in many instances, not for the better. Rambo: First Blood, was such a unique property in its time. It had a character who became this anti-hero. He reached icon status. His plight was heavily linked to a war in Vietnam that saw its veterans being spit upon when they returned home from that divisive conflict. The times moved on and the nation’s animosity towards these soldiers shifted from disdain to honor. Do you have to wonder if Rambo played any part of that changing perspective?

When John Wick came bounding across the screen, his life was a mystery. He recently became a widower and was still in mourning when a small group of men invaded his home and killed his dog. It was your typical revenge bait movie that was enhanced with hellish kung-fu gunplay and unorthodox stunt work that salivated the senses of an unsuspecting audience who lapped up every bit of it through three films and is still wanting more.

Rambo took out a vicious and sadistic drug cartel and yet the SJW’s had a problem with him taking them out. What, have no SJW’a read about the killings in these central Mexico countries about the murders that they have committed. Have you not seen any of the videos of them hacking people to death, dismembering their bodies to make a point. They took a page out of the Middle Eastern terrorist playbook on extreme methods of murdering people. Quite frankly, I thought John Rambo was rather mild in taking out the drug cartel compared to how John Wick was dispatching the convoy of assassins. You were left feeling empty once it was over. John Wick has changed the viewing habit of what we want in modern gunplay. We want it to be lyrical in its style. We want unrealistic stunt play that defies the human body’s ability to move in that context. We want our senses to be invigorated and challenged. John Wick did that. Rambo only reminded us that Rambo’s last hurrah was the sound of the bugle playing taps to a soldier who died in spirit in that war zone so many years ago, came back with a healthy dose of PTSD and never recovered. We should have given them honor then instead of waiting for the sun to set on a mood.