El Camino Christmas (2017)

The story is about a young guy who gets caught up in circumstances that make it appear as if he is a gunman holding hostages, when in fact he's completely innocent. And don't worry, that's not a spoiler, you find out he's innocent very early on in the film.

But the film has been written so badly it is actually painful to watch. All of the characters make bad decision after bad decision, and the thought goes through your mind while watching that if everyone was like that, humanity would have wiped itself out thousands of years ago.

The director obviously had an end goal in mind that he desperately wanted to arrive at, and so the film's characters are forced to steer the story towards this goal via extreme levels of mental incompetence.

Are there any pluses in the movie? Yes, the casting was generally very good and most of the acting was great, and the director's story is sequenced well so the movie is easy to follow as a result. But no town is full of people that are as stupid as these characters are, and this ruins all of those positives I just mentioned.

Apparently the film is supposed to be a comedy, but ironically I think the only time I laughed was when the FBI agent said something like "the whole nation has been watching the stupidity with which you've allowed this situation to unfold". I nodded in agreement and laughed out loud over what is possibly the most apt line in the film.

Fmovies: I felt compelled to write a a review of this movie after watching this on Netflix last night, really enjoying it and then reading another user review that I felt completely missed the mark. The review described it as full of dumb characters doing really dumb things which makes it totally unbelievable and annoying to watch. But that's exactly why it is great. So forgive me if I am wrong but the point of the movie is it serves as a social commentary on the ineptitude of some police and public and their willingness to act first, think later.

It plays out a bit like Coen brothers comedy of errors, with some over the top characters ending up in a ridiculous hostage situation in a liquor store on Christmas eve, but due to no other reason than misunderstanding. And then things escalate.

Although a comedy it doesn't have many laugh out loud moments, but more of an underlying black comedy tone. It's short runtime means it never out stays it's welcome and although the plot itself is basic and predictable, it's a fun ride with some well placed serious moments.

Tim Allen and Vincent D'Onofrio are a joy to watch, playing up on screen and clearly having fun with it, and Dax Shepard has some excellent lines as the dumbest of all the dumb cops.

It's definitely not the most festive film you can watch over Christmas, but it's current low rating (5.8) is a shame, it deserves higher as it's well worth a watch.

American cinema doesn't do ensemble that well very often, and it frequently gets punished at the box office, as well as by viewers and by reviewers, for even trying. This film pulls together a low-key cast with an intelligent script and ends up as a quirky, darkly humorous drama that unfolds over Christmas Eve.

The characters are a motley crew of misfits and losers, stereotypical small-towners on the surface, with the obligatory pregnant woman arriving as a tv reporter from the big city. The actors, many of whom we're used to seeing in bigger roles where they tend to take up a lot of screen, give dialed-back performances that allow - even expect - the audience to fill in the subtext. And there's a fair bit of subtext lying behind and between the stripped-down dialogue: about power and corruption, war and trauma, family and gender roles, the nature of life's choices and the cold reality of death.

This could be done as a stage play and it would be getting rave reviews that mentioned Tennessee Williams. I'm not used to seeing so much packed into a contemporary, for-the-masses movie, and I'm plainly not alone in that. The poor reviews may be due in part to an un-sparing execution that's cutting too close to the tragi-comic reality of the modern American south.

El Camino Christmas fmovies. Tedious, tone deaf, and not the comedy the trailer wants you to believe it is. Can't decide if it is a comedy or a drama, and it's not enough of either to be a dramedy. Cast had a ton of promise and it was all squandered due to a thoughtless screenplay and uninspired directing. One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. And can Hollywood do away with the "Got in a car accident, here is an airbag hilariously exploding in a guys face 10 seconds after the crash" cliché? It wasn't funny 20 years ago and it's not funny now.

El Camino is pretty average. Nothing really excels here and I don't particularly think it's worth watching.

The writing is uneven, sometimes good, sometimes terrible, and the acting is the same. Tim Allen was good. So was Kurtwood Smith. Everybody else fluctuated. Sometimes it felt like they were able to act, other times it felt like they were just reading lines from off camera.

The story is simple and not much happens. It's pretty slow and not that interesting for the first 30 or 40 minutes. It picks up a bit then slows down again, picks up again and then the movie ends. It doesn't have the best pacing.

It can't figure out if it wants to be a comedy or a drama and really suffers for it, with radical changes in tone that are quite jarring.

Cinematography wise, it's bland. It's visually bland as well. Sound is fine. Soundtrack is questionable at times. There's a car chase in this but the music makes it so damn boring.

Overall, it's nothing memorable or special. There are better films to watch. Go find them. It has its moments, but they're few and far between. There's nothing truly bad about it, or good either, which is why I'm giving it a 5/10, straight-up average.

It's a comedy, a tragedy, with a small touch of romance, and thank goodness it's not a try-hard film that tries to go too far. The producers knew their audience, and knew them well. Clearly a low-budget film designed to tell a simple story in 90 minutes. Well done.

Dax Shepard played the best dumb cop I've ever seen for this type of R-rated content...he isn't an "idiot," nor is he a Barney-Five. He's just a normal dude, trying to do the right thing, that stumbles, and it's funny because it feels actually realistic, as in, police departments probably do have this type of guy.

It was fun to see Kurtwood Smith, for all you "That's 70's Show" fans. He's the tough Sheriff that, too, is trying to do the right thing, but, dag nab it, just is struggling to have a competent force in a small town...and it's funny, because again, you can sense that this type of incompetence exists out there.

Then you have Vincent D'Onofrio, known best for "Full Metal Jacket," and he comes out perfect in this film as just a low-life cop, whose only pleasure in life remaining is to watch other people become more miserable than him. He is pivotal in to the story and again, the writers kept him simple, nothing overdone, and he plays his role BELIEVABLY. Man, I always appreciate good writing. Kudos to Melfi and Wehner for not playing to any political crowd, but just creating dang good art.

Lastly, among the key dudes to the story, you have Tim Allen and Luke Grimes. It's a good pair. It was quite strange to see Allen in this type of role, but he gave it his all...sometimes out of place, but believable, still. Luke...yea, he was good. Real good. Very well casted.

Some of the best comedy came out of Jimmy Yang ("Silicon Valley") and Jessica Alba...they were the perfect pair for the comedic relief you needed at times. I'm excited to see what Jimmy Yang will be pulling off in the future, he's dang good and landing hilarious comedic lines. They never feel forced. In the movie, they play as the rookie reporters...and playing into that role hilariously.

The side story of single mother and potentially autistic son added to the tension, and even romance, which kept things interesting. And seeing good old Emilio Rivera ("Sons of Anarchy") playing the tough but cool and collected guy was fantastic.

Can we not appreciate simple, low-budget, great acted films anymore? Indy films are like this, and they are some of the greats. There was scarcely any CGI, heavy explosions, etc...this move REQUIRED on-point acting, and I was extremely impressed. Not your typical Christmas film, yet I'll be recommending this each year for people looking for something to enjoy, something that's different from the norm.