Directed by: Steven C. Miller
Starring: Christopher Meloni, Adrian Grenier, Bruce Willis, Johnathon Schaech, Dave Bautista
Did all of the members of this cast lose at Rock, Paper, Scissors and were forced to show up on set for this movie? It sure feels that way. Marauders is a crime thriller with no thrills, unlikable characters, and performed with alarmingly low energy by the actors. Nearly every scene is drenched with soaking rain. This is either done on purpose to inject some Atmosphere, or the filmmakers had really, really bad luck with the weather while shooting.
Where to begin? The film opens with vicious bank robbers dressed in creepy costumes robbing a bank and killing some staff members. Their instructions are delivered via a Siri-like recording. Who programmed this thing? The FBI is soon on the case, led by a taciturn, angry agent named Montgomery (Meloni). This Montgomery is a piece of work. When he's not busy yelling at his crew, he's pounding drinks and lamenting the loss of his family. Montgomery is written as so angry and unsympathetic that we dislike him as much as the villains. There is no depth. So why should we care if he stops the bad guys?
The bank is one of many run by a man named Hubert (Willis), who may as well wear a t-shirt saying, "I have more to do with this than you think." Willis speaks in his trademark low-register, tough guy voice. In some scenes, he barely puts forth enough effort to be audible. Was director Miller so happy to have Willis aboard that he let him coast? Former wrestler turned movie tough guy Dave Bautista is on hand as an FBI agent who seems to be trying to outdo Willis in the "I speak so softly only dogs can hear me" department.
Another shady character is a Cincinnati cop named Mims (Schaech), whose wife is dying from cancer and a new FBI recruit (Grenier), who acts like he got lost on the way to the next Entourage movie. Most of the characters play bigger roles as the robbers take down more banks and kill more people. There is More To This Than Meets The Eye, but are we supposed to really sympathize with the criminals' motives?
All of this could conceivably work if the movie didn't feel so depressed and defeated. It isn't fun to watch. The actors take little joy in their work, as if they realized it was a dud. What we see is actors stuck in a movie that has straight to DVD written all over it and they knew it.
If you squint hard enough.... it's almost a bland Mulholland Drive. The once mighty have fallen... This is what David Lynch would look like on mood stabilizers. The only good thing I took away from this is Bautista's actual (if minute) growth as a semi-serious actor. For a VOD film, not vomitus.
ReplyDeleteI liked Bautista in Guardians of the Galaxy and as a serious heavy in Spectre. He has screen presence and can certainly hold his own physically. He can act. In this film, I wished I was able to see more than just him delivering his lines in a low-register growl. Thank you for the comment. I very much appreciate it.
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