Switchback
“Because he told the truth. Once you've heard the truth, everything else is just cheap whiskey” -Sheriff Buck Olmstead
The cast is great, the setting and visuals are great, and the cinematography is cool. Does that make a great movie? Not always. Switchback has some extremely cool elements to it. I think the story does have some flaws though. I think the characters are interesting and I love a cat and mouse movie. The issue is I don’t know if the whole movie was hashed out before they started filming. Overall though, I enjoyed the watch and look forward to watching more movies recommended by the infamous Big Brett!
-J
One of my dad “Big Brett’s” all-time favorite movies, and in the family DVD collection I watched in great volume as a kid, Jord stumbled upon that very DVD in E and I’s house the other day, and upon hearing that it was one of Big Brett’s all-timers, he immediately went out and watched it. Somehow, E had never seen it either, so we decided to give it the full ZEJ treatment. From my memory, this was an awful movie, and a despite a 31 Metacritic score, we were all surprised at how fun it was, and though not a masterpiece, it’s certainly an entertaining C-level movie. At its best, is basically any scene with Danny Glover, and his serial killer character “Bob”, who absolutely EATS in this role. It’s an amazing dynamic, as charismatic and transfixing as Glover is in this, his road companion, baby Jared Leto, is one of the most pointless characters in all of cinema. Dennis Quaid plays a pretty forgettable FBI agent, and is completely outclassed in every way by R. Lee Ermey, “Sheriff Buck”, who is a total scene stealer. At its worst - the entire ending, with a half-baked Mission: Impossible train ending that is such a letdown for the seemingly mastermind plan the friendly neighborhood serial killer “Bob” created. Currently not streaming anywhere, I wouldn’t go out of your way and rent it, but if its ever streaming or you find it in DVD form at a garage sale and still have a way to watch DVDs, and you want to see Danny Glover in a truly captivating heel turn, then it’s a fun throwback to throw on. And as Big Brett would say, “the scenery alone is worth the watch”.
-Z
