The Legacy Of A Whitetail Deer Hunter: MINI-REVIEW
I ain’t a big fan of hunting and I’ll never be. I guess I’m qualified to dislike this movie, then. Really though, the reason why I can’t say I honestly totally liked the movie isn’t because it’s about hunting, good stories can be told through horrible things… I wasn’t a fan of it because it relies on nothing but Josh Brolin to tell a story. I appreciated some of its quirks and the fact that the tone was purposely one big mess, but I don’t see it as something that satisfies a viewer’s expectations. Besides the fact that it’s Brolin in the lead role, nothing else ties you to the character, there’s no emotional link, and the one link that exists is very predictable. The dynamic between Brolin’s character and his annoying son is so utterly obvious that I can’t even call this “lazy writing”. This was “sleep-writing”. Recently, I’ve found myself reviewing movies that often felt like missed opportunities, add this one to the list. The performers and the setting could’ve worked towards a completely different goal, the final product could’ve been an indie sensation. At the end, we’re watching a very light comedy that only really gives you a small amount of excitement and/or fun. Without Brolin and McBride, it would’ve been a half-star movie. I don’t know, I’m thinking about it, and I don’t think it’s a movie that deserves to be torn to pieces, but it didn’t really make me feel much while watching it, so… Everything had the potential to work, but it was half-assed. Or maybe not, maybe that was the movie that Jody Hill wanted to make, a silly slice of life that doesn’t really go home after delivering all of the goods. The comedic elements are present, but never really fully embraced, because it looks like Hill was more interest in this unusual character study rather than a dramatic/comedic development of the story. Perhaps, a heavier hand when dosing the comedy bits could’ve helped. Even when dosing the dramatic bits, actually. Hell, imagine if the kid died during the hunting, it would’ve been such a huge hit in the stomach for the audiences that were in for the light ride, it could’ve elevated a mostly anonymous picture into something that people wouldn’t have forgotten, like ever.
Obviously they had different intentions, the Netflix production only wants to take you to the place of hitting the thumbnail and stick with it, so these movies have to stay in a much more conventional route, sadly, even though the whole “making weird-ass stuff” strategy seems to have worked the same in the past. I hope that Netflix, a place of ideas and creativity, doesn’t take too many steps towards becoming a regular movie studio, where instead of shaping the audiences’ tastes, they fall onto the pattern of predicting the audiences’ tastes and giving them the simple stuff that they (allegedly) want. I found some narrative similarities with I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore, for how the story was developed in an unconventional character-centric way, placing absolutely strange (sometimes unrealistic) dynamics between characters (McBride showing pictures of his girlfriend being gang-banged by dudes to Brolin’s kid who’s only twelve). While IDFAHITWA (I thought that going with the acronym would’ve made my life easier, it didn’t) found the perfect balance between weird, sad and funny, delivering one hell of a climax; The Legacy Of A Whitetail Deer Hunter (Dude, what’s up with these titles, btw) really didn’t. It’s too sketched out to become something concrete, even the ending (where things sort of become a little more intense) feels way too light and not rewarding enough. I didn’t get bored, again, 100% because of Brolin, but I was also never enthusiastic, and that’s not a good thing, undoubtedly. Visually, they worked out enough to make a classic setting feel a little more lively, by putting the characters in some situations worthy of a light Bear Grylls episode, even environmentally, and that was cool. It also doesn’t really take a stand on the whole “educating your kid towards hunting” situation, at least a tiny bit of moral dilemma would’ve been nice to look at. There’s a very tiny part of it, but left unresolved and unexplored, like the majority of the flick.
Let me know what you think, I care to hear your thoughts!
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Legacy-Of-A-Whitetail-Deer-Hunter:-MINI-REVIEW&id=9975457] The Legacy Of A Whitetail Deer Hunter: MINI-REVIEW