There's an ongoing joke that Hollywood is contractually obligated to feature Pedro Pascal in everything they make for another year or so and apparently this extends to things with very little budget that nobody went to go see and barely managed to make over $2000 at the box office.
So if you haven't ever heard of this 2024 film, get in line: nobody else has either.
In case that Miami Vice - esque poster didn't give it away, this is a film that takes place in the late 80's. I can commend them for this because as someone that actually was alive in 1987, they did a very good job of making it seem like that was the time period we were in. No mobile phones, very little portable music, silly hairstyles (they weren't at the time) and punk rockers thinking they really are the greatest and most unusual thing on earth.
The film is meant to be based on actual events (loosely) that took place in and around Oakland in 1987. If you are unaware of these events you can also get in line because there really wasn't that much to them when I looked them up.
While the narrative jumps around a lot since this movie is an anthology, there is a central tale that all of the stories kind of revolved around. There is a punk rock club that some skinheads terrorized on a regular basis and eventually the owners and guests of that club decided to fight back, severely injuring some of the skinheads and I guess, preventing them from ever coming back. hooray non-racists I guess.
Unfortunately, for the most part the film is just a mess though. I feel as though it has its high rating on IMDB and RT because people, especially professional critics are afraid to call this film out for its obvious misgivings out of fear of being labeled as a racist or Nazi sympathizer. There are only 153 total reviews for it on IMDB so I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that there is a good chance that this is a bot farm or some level of social-justice-warrior California types that either desperately want this movie's message to resonate, or Lionsgate could be hoping to make this film worth a lot more than it actually is in streaming.
There's a reason why this movie was removed from theaters as quickly as it came and nearly nothing was spent on promoting it. Lionsgate knew it was a dud and now they are attempting to have another go at recouping their losses via streaming. It's the type of film that would have gone straight to DVD in the past, if they bothered to release it at all.
There's some decent acting in it, but this doesn't change the fact that all of it has some sort of supernatural something or other going on (hence the "freaky") that just doesn't make much sense and also doesn't really tie the whole thing together like I am sure the producers were hoping it would.
All in all it is just kind of dumb but I'll go ahead and say the things I did like.
- I enjoyed the throwback to the styles of fashion, hair, and music that was definitely real in 1987
- The music in the film (other than, sadly, the live punk rock) was pretty awesome especially the VERY 80's hip-hop that is so different from today.
- Pedro Pascal gives what might be one of his least wooden performances ever - and that's a shame since almost nobody is ever going to see this and he has gone well beyond the point of overexposure at this point
..to quote Forrest Gump: "That's all I have to say about that."
should I watch it?
If you made it all the way through that 2 minute trailer, you have probably already suffered enough. I went through the entire 107 minutes of the movie so that you don't have to. Other than the 80's nostalgia that wouldn't even apply to you if you weren't at least a teenager in 1987, this film has almost no redeeming qualities and therefore isn't really worth anyone's time.
This one gets a seriously hard pass from me.
the only place to legally stream this film is with an Amazon Prime membership. It can also be rented on a lot of different streamers that offer that sort of thing including Apple
