journal features

movie review - All the Devil's Men

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2019.05.19

This is a spy story set in the modern, post-Cold War era. It features a soldier who becomes involved in an effort to stop a nuclear weapon from falling into the wrong hands. Starring a son of Mel Gibson in his first acting role, it wanders from gun-fight to gun-fight, expending amoral and uninteresting characters until you know at the end that any victory is going to be rather difficult to feel. I can forgive the corners cut due to a low budget but not the feeling that whoever "wrote" this thing wasn't thinking in terms of characters. Or to be fair, perhaps it was meddled with. But, not my problem. I regret investing the time in this.

Not recommended. Find another contemporary action film. "Extraction", perhaps.

rand()m quote

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov