3 WTF moments that make me love this movie

I watched this movie not expecting much, given that i feel that if it was really a good movie, i wouldn't have missed it, i would know about it and have already watched it. But once in a while i'm positively surprised to discover one of those gems nobody told me about and turned out to be much better than expected. I should also mention that a few hours earlier i had watched The Boondock Saints which i ended up rating 3/10 given how unexpectedly bad it was, especially in perspective with its high rating on here, 7.9 presently.

I know that the conventional wisdom is that one shouldn't rely so much on IMDb ratings, but as it turns out, a vast majority of the movie which are highly rated on here tend indeed to be between above-average and good in my book, the only major exceptions being most of the comic-book crap they produce lately, but apart from that i'm almost always somewhat in agreement either with the metacritic or the IMDb rating (+/- ~1.5 pt.), and strangely enough, very often they overlap. So as you can see, i put much more stock into the ratings of this site that most people admittedly do.

But somehow Boondock Saints was such a disappointment, that i expected something even worse with this movie given its lower rating. Boy was i wrong! So here we go with the 3 main reasons that made me really appreciate this movie's characters, story, mood and screwed up universe.

1. I've always found it pretty ballsy to kill off a main character so early in a movie and in such a random way, and even more so when he happens to be arguably the most charismatic of the cast. The way Baz was killed, so abruptly and casually, it made me drop my jaw and think "No way! That can't be! Doesn't make any sense!" etc. Why would they kill off now someone i perceived to be the lead at that moment? I was floored but in a good way.

2. The way Andrew out of nowhere kills the GF. I mean, i knew he was up to no-good when he invited her in, but i thought the heroin was as far as he was willing to go, especially after she more or less clearly said she hadn't been taking to the cops. So when he puts his hand on her nose and mouth, my jaw dropped again. Didn't expect that at all. So absurd and schocking how one can just brush away a life because "why not?", ya know. And the way the other simpleton of a bro just stares at the whole thing happening under his nose. I mean, common, what about basic human decency, empathy, humanity, common sense and whatnot? How can you just stay there and watch this?? How can you not intervene? Isn't it a biological reflex to stop this kind of stuff from happening, to save that poor clueless girl? But who am i kidding, those are sociopathic criminals we're talking about, i know. But still. Genuine WTF moment.

3. Already the way the story unfolds and Josh suddenly "betrays" the cops after the raid, i was like "What?? Really?!" and then when he casually asks to go back and live with the psychos, again i couldn't believe my eyes. But obviously the real WTF moment was when Andrew got his brains blown out out of nowhere and we understand that Josh, as suggested by the cop, finally figures out what kind of human he is gonna be, a predator instead of a prey; and then he calmly embraces his grandma who instantly understands that the previous alpha male has been disposed of and that there's a new king in the jungle. Genuine WTF moment as for me. Loved it, so unexpected and, i dunno, raw.

So all in all, i don't agree with all the people on other threads who say the movie was boring and predictable. A slow-burner, yes, but certainly not boring and even less predictable. Literally none of the twists i listed above were expectable in my view. I didn't see any of them coming and this is why i think this is a truly great movie. It keeps you guessing and avoids the usual clichés. I mean the cliché would have been that Josh turns state evidence and sends everyone to jail (Goodfellas, anyone? Or even Cop Land), from the pets to the grandma, yet exactly the opposite happens. One would think he would want to send them rot in jail forever after having killed the GF, certainly not that he would lie his way through, come back, kill Andrew and claim his position like the true Necromonger he is. Really badass. Nice little surprise there.

In conclusion, i hesitated between an 8 and 9 and settled for an 8/10, but it might change depending on how the movie stays with me during the next few days.

Thoughts? Why did you love it? Why did you hate it? What are your WTF moments?


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