https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8s4PZ0JENc

jesus this was bad. really bad.

and im a sucker for a bad gang movie

The guy who plays David was awful. I've seen him in some small roles and he's been fine, but hes not fit to lead

Shia, while i didn't have an issue with his role (the 'brownface' takes are misinformed and silly) he just came off laughable and never pulled it off. also his character was ultimately wasted.

George Lopez is terribly, terribly miscast

Conejo the rapper... awful lol.

I know Ayer has an obligation to put Bone in every LA movie but maybe scale his time back a bit instead of the other way around lol

Aside from a couple really attractive women, this whole movie was goofy, and just.. bad

the random mma training flashbacks leading to him turning the last fight around? who came up with that? lol.

shia supposedly got his whole chest tatted up for the role. but we never see his chest until hes bloodied up on the floor by conejo and his girl. and you cant even see the tats really.

what was shias character supposed to be anyway? he had the reputation of some stoic badass ('the devil'). but at times he was just some neurotic white dude eating healthy and worrying about shit (like the whole awkward birth control convo).

and yeah...george lopez belonged nowhere near this script.

the whole bone shit at the end...'lets ride'...that entire sequence of events was painful to watch/hear lol. this dude conejo is wiping out people left and right with ex military nshit...and yall infiltrate his spot with like 5 old ass gang members? lol.

this shit was mess.

>the random mma training flashbacks leading to him turning the
>last fight around? who came up with that? lol.

LOL i already had forgotten about this. So goofy

>shia supposedly got his whole chest tatted up for the role.
>but we never see his chest until hes bloodied up on the floor
>by conejo and his girl. and you cant even see the tats
>really.
>
>what was shias character supposed to be anyway? he had the
>reputation of some stoic badass ('the devil'). but at times
>he was just some neurotic white dude eating healthy and
>worrying about shit (like the whole awkward birth control
>convo).

Yea i found about the tat thing yesterday. I guess he was assuming this would be an iconic role for him.

His character didn't make much sense. I assumed going in he would be just another loose varition of Joe 'pegleg' Morgan (American Me, Blood in Blood Out), but Ayer tried to make him the quirky psychopath. We never actually see him do anything wothy of his rep which in a better movie could work (think Luca Brasi), but here since hes supposed to be such a central figure they needed to establish him in more than just vague flashbacks.

>and yeah...george lopez belonged nowhere near this script.

He works as the uncle who works at the auto shop. As soon as he started tough talking, extreme cringe

>the whole bone shit at the end...'lets ride'...that entire
>sequence of events was painful to watch/hear lol. this dude
>conejo is wiping out people left and right with ex military
>nshit...and yall infiltrate his spot with like 5 old ass gang
>members? lol.

THIS. We couldn't stop laughing at this. None of it makes any sense.
Its not like he saved Bone's baby from drowning. He brought his beat up homie back, and they're like lets risk it all. And yea 50 something old bloods against the people who just took out dude's elite squad 20 minutes earlier lol.

>this shit was mess.

Ayer has some lemons but damn if this ain't top of the list. I rewatched End of Watch recently which i think holds up really well. The gangsters are still a bit cartoonish but everything with Pena and Gyllenhaal is pretty great.

I didn’t mind López or Conejo though. David wasn’t great but his wife’s acting was way worse.

David wasn’t great
>but his wife’s acting was way worse.

She wasn't great either but she felt at least belivable in her role. David just seemed miscast, and being the main guy didn't have the chops to carry it. i couldn't buy Lopez at all though. As soon as he started talking street shit he just felt goofy. Conejo was belivable because he is who he is. He just cant act. Was pretty much b-movie acting all around, which could've worked maybe if that was the intention but it wasn't

Conejo was scary as shit lol, (spoiler) that sacrifice scene was wild. Never heard of him before the movie.

I really didn’t mind Lopez, played the low key og well enough for me *shrug*

I'm torn, cause as much I love to shit on Ayer's movies, I still find them entertaining somehow.

This one just feels like he wanted to make a Harsh Times sequel, Which I love for Bale's performance.

I got no issues with Shia's role, cause I've met cats like this character and I don't think it's brownface. I just want it to be a decent picture which he hasn't had since End of Watch.

maybe if you approach it as a ridiculous b movie, you could enjoy it?

the problem is it seems to take itself pretty seriously though.

I still haven't seen Harsh Times

>I got no issues with Shia's role, cause I've met cats like
>this character and I don't think it's brownface.

Yeah whiteboy cholo isn't exactly uncommon. Even among Eme made members. Shia doesnt really sell it imo. He's far from the worst part of the movie though

I just want
>it to be a decent picture which he hasn't had since End of
>Watch.

i generally enjoy Ayer too even the bad ones. I mean, see it if you want. just keep your expectations low lol

>maybe if you approach it as a ridiculous b movie, you could
>enjoy it?

So go into it as I did with Sabotage

>the problem is it seems to take itself pretty seriously
>though.

But doesn't he do that with all his movies with the exception of Fury and Suicide Squad? He always has this "This is how it really is out there" take and it pisses me off cause I don't buy his South/East L.A. cred much. Especially as an L.A. Native, its always rubbed me the wrong way.
>I still haven't seen Harsh Times

Highly entertaining and great performance by Bale.


>Yeah whiteboy cholo isn't exactly uncommon. Even among Eme
>made members. Shia doesnt really sell it imo. He's far from
>the worst part of the movie though

You need to watch Harsh Times then. Sounds like Bale does it way better than Shia.

>i generally enjoy Ayer too even the bad ones. I mean, see it
>if you want. just keep your expectations low lol

Oh I'm going to watch, I'm just gonna wait for it to be a $5.99 rental on Prime then.

>>maybe if you approach it as a ridiculous b movie, you could
>>enjoy it?
>
>So go into it as I did with Sabotage

safe bet

>>the problem is it seems to take itself pretty seriously
>>though.
>
>But doesn't he do that with all his movies with the exception
>of Fury and Suicide Squad? He always has this "This is how it
>really is out there" take and it pisses me off cause I don't
>buy his South/East L.A. cred much. Especially as an L.A.
>Native, its always rubbed me the wrong way.

Yeah this is true. I listen to his actors talk about him like "David really knows what its like out there", I don't know enough about his upbringing to say how legit or not he is but i know his cholo characters always come off cartoonish, even in End of Watch.

I'll have to check out Harsh Times though

>Yeah whiteboy cholo isn't exactly uncommon. Even among Eme
>made members.

This. Anecdotally speaking, damn near every crew I was around growing up had a "Casper", Weto, or Gringo or two in the mix, and a LOT of those cats repped without irony or caricature. Once in awhile I'd see a cat who was clearly trying.

>Shia doesnt really sell it imo. He's far from
>the worst part of the movie though

I can't even begin to see Even Steven pulling that off, lol
But without seeing it I wondered if it was more a case of him just not having enough of that in him to make it work, + extra progressive reviewers.

and yeah, the whiteboy thing is common. Before the racial divide popped off in the mid 90s, you saw the same thing where most gangs west of DTLA would have a few black dudes (Smokey, Blacky, Mosca, etc..).

even contrasting the cholos in Training Day and End of Watch, there's an over-exaggeration in the ones in End of Watch which he directed, and I think its the same issue with Shia. I can see Ayer a bit on some Hollywood Shuffle shit trying to coach his actors how to say "Naaaa foooo"

but the thinkpiece takes on this movie seem to be pretending Shia was cast as a mexican instead of casting a mexican, and Ayer in general has been pretty good about casting POC so i find this stuff kinda misdirected.

>and yeah, the whiteboy thing is common. Before the racial
>divide popped off in the mid 90s, you saw the same thing where
>most gangs west of DTLA would have a few black dudes (Smokey,
>Blacky, Mosca, etc..).
Yup, I mean if anyone knew anything it was in Colors, they had a fucking Ginger and a Black dude in the gang. But you know how people not from L.A. seem to know everything about L.A. and it's race relations...

>even contrasting the cholos in Training Day and End of Watch,
>there's an over-exaggeration in the ones in End of Watch which
>he directed, and I think its the same issue with Shia. I can
>see Ayer a bit on some Hollywood Shuffle shit trying to coach
>his actors how to say "Naaaa foooo"

Oh I believe he absolutely tries to tell some of the actors how to speak. The End of watch cholos was outlandish, to be honest. I mean it's some crazy DGAF dudes out there, but Big Evil was too much

>but the thinkpiece takes on this movie seem to be pretending
>Shia was cast as a mexican instead of casting a mexican, and
>Ayer in general has been pretty good about casting POC so i
>find this stuff kinda misdirected.

Back to my first comment, I think it's a case of fake outrage and not knowing anything about the actual culture out here. Its funny cause there was a giant Twitter thread that was full of people laughing at the think pieces saying they were rocking with Shia's character.

I have no idea how this went under my radar. This movie was a blast

Bale absolutely murdered this role. Even Freddy Rodriguez did great. It's so close in time Freddy's laughable gangster role in Havoc. He's much better as a neighborhood homie/fuck up, than some kind of hardcore G.

Watching this makes Tax Collecter that much more disappointing but I think you nailed it that Ayer just wanted to do this again. Ayer's 2 for 3 the white guy and mexican guy drive around LA adventure movies

aside from a couple tiny gripes I really enjoyed this one though

Risk COVID and see it!

this is more of a time and money risk