"Back at the beginning of the second Trump administration (which feels like the Jurassic era now), the president named Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight special ambassadors to a great but troubled place, Hollywood, California. No one seems to be quite sure what these ambassadorships entail or if any of that troika of right-wing fellow travellers have fulfilled any official duties."
"But on the evidence of this, Stallone is already letting the side down by making a film so bad it shames American cinema itself. And it wasn't even made in Hollywood! Instead, it was shot in Ohio (pretending, deeply unconvincingly, to be Poland), making this what's called a runaway production, the phenomenon that is undermining Hollywood's film-making industry. However, this cheapola would-be spy thriller is bad all on its own, whatever its politics."
"The idea is that secret agents Joe (Scott Eastwood) and his supposed antagonist Lara (Willa Fitzgerald) meet-cute in Prague (the real thing, shown in what looks suspiciously like stock aerial footage) while trying to kill each other, but instead they fall in love and get married. Five years later, Joe has seemingly retired from the spy business, but Lara is still working for an independent, territorially unattached agency called Alarum who supply her with what looks like a fancy pager to communicate with headquarters."
The president named Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight special ambassadors to Hollywood. Stallone's new film is a cheaply made spy thriller shot in Ohio masquerading as Poland, exemplifying runaway productions that undermine Hollywood. Secret agents Joe (Scott Eastwood) and Lara (Willa Fitzgerald) meet in Prague while trying to kill each other, fall in love, and marry. Five years later Joe appears retired while Lara still works for an independent agency called Alarum and uses a pager to contact headquarters. A small aircraft crashes near a Gdansk stand-in; Joe recovers a thumb drive, Polish soldiers led by Orlin (Mike Colter) attack, and Chester (Stallone) emerges as a grizzled, syringe-wielding former colleague.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]