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Old 03-22-2022, 06:44 AM
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TrueFaith77 TrueFaith77 is offline
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16.Panama (Mark Neveldine); grade: D

Neveldine strives for integrity in the realm of the low-budget action. In a glorified cameo, Mel Gibson articulates the film’s termite-like morality, hard-boiled existentialism burrowing through international politics in the 1980s centered around the Sandinistas and the Contras in Nicaragua. The drawn-out narrative features a rogues gallery of spooks and narcs who talk-talk and kiss-kiss, not much bang-bang. Budgetary constraints limit opportunities for Neveldine’s visceral wit and kinetics that reached surreal heights in his collabs with Brian Taylor (Crank, Crank 2: High Voltage, Gamer, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance). A sequence in which the Contras play their weapons like musical instruments accompanying a rap song gets undercut because there is no music on the soundtrack! Strangely, Neveldine’s compromised integrity leaves me remembering it more fondly than I experienced it in the theater.
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