Police State 2018

23 Jun 2021 by Joey_Fantana

I'd been looking forward to this since halfway through 2016. My intrigue was entirely based on the poster and the tagline and the fact it was touted as a sci-fi, action, adventure. Zero promotion and even Letterboxd doesn't have many details to go on, however I found this wallowing in the depths of Amazon Prime. Here are my stream of conscious thoughts as I watched.... - Main guy is appalling. Appalling. I cannot believe he has been in other movies. I could start acting tomorrow if this is the acceptable standard these days. - Nauseating camera work. Not shaky cam, not handheld, something far worse. - Jumps into a doomsday/conspiracy/I'm-not-too-sure-what plot with absolutely no explanation, progression or development. - Jumps from scene to scene inexplicably. Missing out whole scenes of development. - Director's mates found some shockingly bad police uniforms and decided to join in. - I wonder how much Seth Gilliam got paid for the 3 minutes he shows up for. - Black woman going "mm-hmm". - No transitions of any kind. - No lighting of any kind. - No sound effects of any kind. At one point a character shoots a policeman in a government building. It needs to be seen to be believed but what stood out was the gunshot that sounded like a cap gun. - No set design of any kind. - The main character's shoes are two or three sizes too big, his hair changes length, style AND colour with each passing scene. Never seen a film where the time between shoots was clear as day. - Time travel plot now! When did this happen?! - Main character tries to sneak into police station by asking for a fictional police officer at front desk. Two scenes later he is miraculously walking through the police station with no explanation. - Misrepresents mental illness to offensive levels - Characters just appear! - Looks and feels just like a Michael Scarn movie... I miss the Office - Slow mo pigeons - Every single contextual element was either cut or not filmed at all. Shit just... happens. No explanation. No transition. - I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the director did every single job outside of the acting on this piece of shit - The first shot is a top-down view of Manhattan. And I think the budget was blown right there. The rest of this is outstandingly bad. I would love to say there was a good film in here somewhere struggling to find it's way out, but there isn't. None of it makes sense and is compounded by Chris Riggi's APPALLING acting. Eyebrows jumping all over the place, zero consistency in look or behaviour. It felt like a practical joke. By far the worst film I have ever seen. Makes the Room seem like a masterpiece. Like a bad improv class were given a camera and a one-sentence idea to play with. Utterly shocking. How did this see the light of day? My jaw is still on the floor.