Mojave (2016)

I wanted to but couldn't!

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

I have come to the realization that Netflix is one of the few companies that can offer inferior product to the public, and the public eats it up. The story here is fairly interesting, but the script is horrendous. A sampling;"Where are you from? Where are you going? Who are you?""No one in particular.""Anybody in general?""That's the crux of it, brother.""You're not a talker. I like that."That is basically how the dialog goes through the entire film. The one plus is, the dialog makes for a great drinking game. Take a shot every time the word 'brother' is spoken...you'll be passed out before the halfway point, which is probably a good thing.Another gem of dialog; "When you get what you want, what do you want?" What I wanted was this movie to end.One question: Mark Wahlberg? Really? Did he lose a bet?All in all, an atrocious movie...brother.

I don't know what it is about cool Los Angeles movies, with the main protagonist being a lost soul who comes to some epiphany at the end of the movie, however small or minuscule it may be. They somehow give me, as a LA native, something to strive for, or comfort in being exactly who I am. Like Malick's Knight of Cups or Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, Mojave hits all the right spots for this movie addict.The story is philosophical in many places, and highlights the highs and lows of man. The film ends with the protagonist reading a book to his daughter, reflecting whether the good or the bad of a man's character is examined by others throughout their lives. A great way to end a story of murder and manipulation.I am not a reviewer to really discuss the plot lines of a movie. But I can say that the same writer for The Departed, William Monahan, had written and directed this, giving it credibility in my book. I am eager to check out his other work as well.I give this an 8, but in my mind it deserves more. It was a great watch on a random night. Forget what the other critics say, it's a terrific ride, another story about the City of Angels.8 Stars

Tom (Garrett Hedlund)is a suicidal artist who travels into the desert and whilst out in the desert, he meets drifter Jack (Oscar Isaac). Initially thinks are OK between the two men but they quickly fall out and start arguing and fighting. Tom manages to get the better of Jack and abandons him in the middle of the desert, but Jack isn't prepared to let it go and wants his revenge against Tom.A film like Mojave should have been a no-brainer; two men have an argument and a fight and one of the men is a sociopath who the other man abandons in the desert and for this reason said sociopath hunts down the other man to gain his revenge. With this kind of simple plotting, how could this film possibly not work? Well the answer is that whilst the plot in itself is simplistic, Monahan drags it out in all sorts of directions without ever really offering us much of an understanding for what is going on? At the start of the film, I sensed that Tom was a troubled soul, but could never work out why? Perhaps developing his character more would have helped. It also doesn't help that he's pretty unlikeable as well and in all honesty I just didn't really care what happened to him to be honest?Another problem with this film is that I never really felt much fear for the protagonist- he seems to be able to handle himself and whilst Oscar Isaac is presumably supposed to be intimidating I found him a bit too cartoonish and never felt scared for Tom at any point (thus pretty much all the tension in the picture was removed as far as I was concerned). Mojave is 90 minutes long, but it doesn't really cover this ground particularly well. A lot of the dialogue is either meaningless or dull and all the various strands to the story don't seem to add up to much and it has to be said that as a whole it is neither enlightening nor is it particularly entertaining. There is a scene later in the film between Tom and Jack where you feel as though Monahan was trying to recreate the scene between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Heat, but it is nowhere near as effective.The performances are perhaps as good as could be expected; Isaac is always good value, but I felt that if his character had been more menacing or threatening then he could have got more out of this role. Hedlund is OK and Mark Wahlberg is good fun as an 'up-his-own-backside' producer.Mojave probably would have been a better film if it would have been more simplistic; leave the two guys out in the desert playing a game of 'cat and mouse'. However, Monahan's decision to separate the two men and fill the majority of the running time with scene after scene of meaningless dialogue and poor character development results in a film that is dull and mostly uninteresting.Sometimes a less is more approach should be adopted with films and a film like Mojave is definitely a case in point.

This is a misfire from Oscar winning screenwriter William Monahan. In Mojave, Thomas (Garrett Hedlund) a successful but jaded artist in the movie business meets a mysterious drifter, Jack (Oscar Isaac) out in the desert. Jack is a Shakespeare spouting sociopath and once he finds out that Thomas is wealthy, he torments him leading to an accidental death of an innocent.Jack then goes after Thomas back in Los Angeles trying to disrupt his privileged life now he knows Thomas has something to hide. It is a murky, existential thriller with hard boiled dialogue and unlikable characters as well as a satire on Hollywood lifestyles with Walton Goggins and Mark Wahlberg making cameo appearances in this underdeveloped film.