Thursday, April 29, 2010

A Quickie: The Crazies

The Crazies


Release: 02.26.10
DVD Release: 06.29.10
Rated R
1 hour, 41 minutes


Group Rental



It's another sunny, peaceful day in the tiny Iowa town of Ogden Marsh. The townsfolk have all gathered for the big baseball game. All's fine and dandy until Rory, acting peculiar, pulls his shotgun on Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant, A Perfect Getaway) in the outfield and has to be put down. Thinking he'd simply fallen off the wagon, Dutton dismisses the strange event until other folk start acting crazy. As Dutton begins to connect the dots, masked soldiers attempt to corral the entire town for decontamination processing.

Timothy Olyphant has a mild Eastwood-esque swagger that I enjoy more with every role, so I expected to be pleased by his turn as a small town sheriff. He did not disappoint, but boy, did everything else suck! Let's back up; the way the military swooped into town in the dead of night to contain this deadly contagion was executed with precision and cranked the film's tension to eleven. The Marsh'uns were at the mercy of this highly skilled unit. A unit so skilled that, later, a few locals with rifles can roll up in a pick-up and totally clusterfuck their finely oiled operation. Really?

Without their intervention, obviously the story would have ground to a dull halt. The problem with The Crazies is, every time the story writes David, his wife Judy (Radha Mitchell, Silent Hill), and his deputy Russell (Joe Anderson, The Ruins) into an impossible situation, yet another ludicrous contrivance allows them to limp onward...even if it contradicts the previously established confines of the plot.

As much as I'd like to lambaste director Breck Eisner (Sahara) and writers Scott Kosar (Machinist) and Ray Wright (Pulse) for every inane liberty they exercised to sloppily extrude a full-length film from an otherwise decent premise, why bother? I shrugged off the loss of my $1.50, thankful I could wash away the bad taste with another quality episode of Olyphant's FX show, Jusitified.

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3 comments:

  1. This movie SUCKED. Fucking terrible.

    The mom and son scene? Come on. They are zombiefied but are still bitter over the shooting. Right

    Short The Crazies.

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  2. YES! Thet were Crazies so how were they able to take the time to tie her up instead of just killing her?

    And the deputy - was he a Crazie or not? If he was, he was the most coherent and thoughtful one ever! Such a ridiculous fucking flick.

    Mmmmm, I'd smile everyday with a dose of that medicine. Reminds me I need to review HTTM.

    I checked out a couple of the early posts on promovieblogger. I need to get back over there. My reader and review queue grows exponentially, but I never find more time. :-(

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  3. "YES! Thet were Crazies so how were they able to take the time to tie her up instead of just killing her?

    And the deputy - was he a Crazie or not? If he was, he was the most coherent and thoughtful one ever! Such a ridiculous fucking flick."

    Its a one time watch film. You watch it once and that's it.

    Lol.

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    ReplyDelete