Here's the storyline:"Small-town stoner Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) spends most of his time getting high and writing a graphic novel. What Mike doesn't know is that he was trained by the CIA to be a lethal killing machine. When the agency targets him for termination, his former handler activates his latent skills, turning the mild-mannered slacker into a deadly weapon. Now, the utterly surprised Mike must use his newfound abilities to save himself and his girlfriend from getting smoked." (google.com)
It's a pretty cool plot and it seems like you can really go anywhere with this premise. But it doesn't really go anywhere, like at all, other than just the mindless killing (a lot of action, gun shooting in this movie). The acting by Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stweart (the girlfriend/CIA handler of Jesse's character) was what was so great about this movie. You get the feeling that they are the perfect fucked up couple. We've all seen these kinds of fucked up couples in real life and they acted it out really well. I really 'felt' their characters so to speak, they were believable. Eisenberg's character could be many people in real life. In fact, I've met people exactly like him, and I've met girls that are just like Pheobe Larson (Stewart's character).
Another thing that was great about this movie is that if you like gun shots, action, and people getting wasted you will like that aspect of the film. It was pretty cool but for me it gets old after maybe the 20th gun shot. Guns are kind of boring to me. I also hate how they're so popular in American culture. Every douche-bag sports all kinds of guns from assault rifles to pistols, we get it. It would have been more interesting if he used more of his hand to hand combat skills, or if he knew kung fu or something (that would've been awesome).
There were two greatest moments for me in this movie. The first was when Eisenberg was about to kill an agent sent to kill him. He was a former mental patient who went through the same CIA training program that Eisenberg went through, except he was a failure in most aspects. The failure, named Laughter or something like that because he laughs crazily, said that Eisenberg was 'better' than him. Then he proceeded to ask him who controls him. Eisenberg answers with nobody. Then Laughter says, "that must be nice". To me this was moment in the movie that stood out. In the end Eisenberg lets him live.
The second and best moment of the movie was the ending.. Its cheesy but I still loved it. At the end the government decides to use Eisenberg as an undercover agent. We see him and the girlfriend in the Philippines at a fancy hotel. She kisses him, and then he goes into an elevator. Then, we see a group of Chinese men in the elevator proceed to throw a bag over his head. Once he's captured, the Chinese gang lord starts talking in Mandarin saying stuff about how this guy is pathetic and unarmed, this is all they're going to send against him. Then Eisenberg laughs and the gang lord says in English,"something funny?". Then Eisenberg answers him in Mandarin,"I didn't know I could speak Mandarin". Then he punches him and it goes into this really cool gorilla ape comic strip type thing, going into the credits with that. Great ending mate. If I could rate that ending it would be a 10 out of 10, just awesome.
Now, for what was bad about the movie. The biggest thing was that the story doesn't really go anywhere, and on top of that, as the story goes on it gets progressively more drama focused-resulting in what my friend called a 'fucked up' movie. Its just kind of depressing because he finds out his girlfriend is just a CIA handler and that maybe she doesn't even love him, but later another CIA woman tells him that she quit the CIA just to be with him and start over, so I don't know which is which but in the end they ended up loving each other, Eisnberg even giving Stewart a Wedding ring, and he shouts out to the cops and government officials,"she said yes!", before they taser the fuck outta both of them. Also, it sucks that we were mislead into thinking it was a stoner comedy. That's the way they are marketing it. But in fact its its own thing. I'd like to think of it as action drama-something like the Bourne Identity or something like that. The movie has almost no laughs except maybe one stoner moment where they're talking about a tree and a car, and how that represents their relationship. It seemed funny at first but then you realize its not. In addition, it starts out as very stoner-ish so you're kind of expecting it to be that way but it just slaps you in the face with drama instead.
And now for the nerdy. Its awesome that this movie stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kristan Stewart. I only really know about Eisenberg because I know he's going to be playing Lex Luthor in the Superman V Batman movie. And of course I know about Stewart because of Twlight, something that I guess used to be popular and maybe isn't now? Not sure but I haven't heard about it in years, at least since that last moving Breaking Down or whatever it was called. I read a couple reviews for this movie and most of them said the movie was bad, but don't let me or the critics decide. Check it out for yourself. I would say this is a good movie to see with a girlfriend because there is a love factor in it between Eisenberg and Stewart. If I could give this movie a rating I would give it a 6 out 10 because the movie gets boring and it doesn't get weird despite the fact that this is a young stoner couple. Some parts of this movie were hard to enjoy. It doesn't really go anywhere other than just action action action on repeat with some lame dialogue like,"who are you, what is going on with me?", kind of crap. Also, stoner couples should be funnier than this. There's not enough jokes or laughs from all the characters in general. The baddie that laughed a lot wasn't funny, he just seemed like a psychopath. The director is an Iranian named Nima Nourizadeh who is only 37 so he is still young and has time to learn and make better films. I would give this movie a 6 out of 10 solely for the acting skills of Eisenberg and Stewart, they were good but the movie was bad. It doesn't get the Orlando Figueroa Bad Ass Stamp of Approval.
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