Movie: Dying in a shootout
Cast: Diego Boneta, Alexandra Daddario, Justin Chatwin
Director: Collin Schiffli
Rating: 1/5
Duration: 90 minutes
This rather tired attempt to channel Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘Romeo and Juliet’ into a daring modern love story fails to gain favor.
In New York City, a young man falls in love with the daughter of his father’s enemy. Director Collin Schiffli’s film, from a script by Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, tries too hard to be a daring take with a bloodier ending.
The environment is modern. Two families at war with competing information empires and a family vendetta in their closet. It is a family revenge of several generations that has remained alive to this day. Diego Boneta and Alexandra Daddario play lovers Ben and Mary, both descendants of rich parents who are enemies of each other. So, obviously, the parents are not going to allow any fraternization between the two. Ben and Mary are rebellious, but Boneta and Daddario play them as deadly boring. Billy Crudup’s tone-deaf and ‘stoned’ voice-over narration gives us the fine details as the star-crossed lovers reunite and get caught in the crossfire of a family feud and some business-destroying shenanigans.
The animated sequence that opens the narrative is as numbing as the two central actors. The title tells you what it is like. It’s lazy and boring and makes the entire narrative imminently predictable. Each character in the film is presented in a Guy Ritchie-style freeze frame. The attempts at style seem inept and ingratiating. The dialogue sounds nonsense and the humor is non-existent. The cinematography may be the only colorful and visually friendly thing here.
There is a third angle to this tragic romance. An investigator who ends up becoming a stalker becomes the third wheel. The characters don’t seem all that interesting and it’s very difficult for the audience to empathize with their plight.
Schiffli’s self-conscious tone becomes tedious. The action is distancing. Her frenetic, relentless style fails to add weight or substance to the narrative.
Slow pacing, terrible acting, uninteresting casting choices, inert scripts and mediocre technical specifications make this a pointless and terribly unsatisfying experience. The combination of animation and live action doesn’t work. The voice-over narration makes it even more discreet. Can you imagine introducing your main character as someone who “loves to fight and lose”?
This is a disgraceful attempt to channel Romeo and Juliet and is best forgotten!