I did not attend a screening this week. It’s the first time in a long time but I just wasn’t feeling it. Now I have uncovered the apparent truth that it is difficult to write a review and provide dynamic content when there is nothing out there that I feel is worth sharing. But I’ll share with you despite the facts.
I was planning on attending “Snitch,” which is not about the flittering, flying golden ball in the Potter movies. If it had been, I would have made it to the viewing. I think that would be a boring yet well-received Potter Spinoff. Instead “Snitch” is an Action Flick starring The “Dwayne Johnson” Rock that is about “A father goes undercover for the DEA in order to free his son who was imprisoned after being set up in drug deal.” At least that is what the tiny synopsis on IMDB says. I don’t know how accurate that is though. I didn’t see it.
So it looks like Mr. Rock punching throats and crashing big rigs into other vehicles for two hours with machine guns a-blazin’ which is a scenario that should get the adrenaline thumping. I’ve even read that the film acts as platform to expose the flaws of mandatory minimum sentencing. Which is great. I’m all for that. But I just need to take a breather from all the violent Action Hero Power Action flicks that have been coming to the multiplexes week after week here in 2013. I’m over it and I blame Bruce Willis for my distaste.
Here we are in late February and it seems that nearly every Nationwide release has been a Big Dumb Violent Shoot’em Up. We have the Elderly Action Trilogy of 2013 that has set this tone. Arnold in “The Last Stand,” (Jan. 18) Stallone in “Bullet to the Head” (Feb. 1) and Willis fifth install of the dead “Die Hard” franchise (Feb. 14). Of the three films, “Die (already) Hard” is doing decent Box Office but the other two BOMBED which reflects that are we being bombarded by this type of entertainment and no one wants anything to do with it.
Now I liked the Arnold and Sly throwbacks enough. They captured that 80’s sensibility, a heightened machismo that provided a nice nostalgic feeling for me. But then constant explosions of John McClane in Russia knocked little love I have for Actions films. Also in this short period of time we had a Jason Statham assaulting baddies in “Parker,” “Hansel and Gretel” as gun-toting “Witch Hunters” and a constant barrage of flying bullets in the ridiculous “Gangster Squad”.
Too many movies replacing mindless violence with plot and character.
Now I looked back the last couple of years and early releases do tend to be a little low-brow. Last year January and February saw releases like “Haywire” “Contraband” and “This Means War” but it still pales in comparison to this year’s blood bath.
What seems bizarre to me is that so much violence is flooding the Big Screen while we are having an unprecedented amount of real-life violence that has been unending. This is driving my distaste even more than Bruce Willis. It is hard to find entertainment and joy in this violence when the news is full of manhunts ending in blazing shootout in the snow, crazed lunatics mowing down children at an elementary school and an international sports hero gunning down his girlfriend after an argument.
I’m not advocating anything here. I don’t prove to have any answers on how to fix what is obviously broken. What I’m saying is that Arnold popping the heads off of Bad Guys is supposed to act as Fantasy. But lately there is too much truth in these films and I hear the bullets different.