You know what's never a good idea? Casting America's favorite underdog, Jason Bateman, as an asshole. He can absolutely do it, but nobody wants to see it. Perhaps that's why nobody talks about this overrated movie?
Bateman and his wife, played by someone whose attractiveness level seems to shift scene by scene, are a happy young couple who move from Chicago back to Bateman's hometown in Cali. There a random encounter with an old acquaintance sets them on a path that destroys their lives.
Well directed and acted, but it needed more than that to be awesome.
If you want to see it without spoilers, stop there, but know that I wouldn't recommend it. It's a long, boring slog of a film with no payoff.
This whole movie is about bullying and revenge. It's essentially an adult's wet dream if they were bullied as a child, and don't have the emotional stability to have gotten over it. The biggest problem is that there are no heroes. There's nobody to root for, not even the wife. Beyond that, the former victim breaks so many laws and ethical boundaries that there is no joy in his Kaiser Sosa walk away moment at the end. An ending that's quite ambiguous as well. If you were a bullied child and you grew up without human emotions, this movie might appeal to you. However, even if you were bullied, if you have a soul there's nothing good to be found here.
The Gift (2015)
The Gift (2015)
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”