The glaring problems with this movie

I see a lot of political conversation about this, but I really didn't care very much about that while watching this movie.

I did find it very obnoxious and boring, and I see others expressing the same thing, but without much reason why. I think the reasons for this reception stem from the biggest issues with the movie:

1. Absolutely no character arc. Frank and Roxy do not develop for the entire film. They are exactly the same at the beginning as they are at the end, and this just makes them boring, flat, uninteresting characters. I say boring mostly because this flatness of character makes their every action predictable, and it sucks out any potential tension from the situations they are in. The standoff with the wounded political commentator? No tension. We know they're just going to shoot him, and we don't really care if the protagonists get shot either. The "climax" in the TV studio? Same situation.

This also makes them incredibly tedious. Their opinions do not change. The beginning monologue from Frank tells you everything you need to know about his mindset and outlook, which is great. The problem is the *same message* is repeated endlessly throughout the film to the point where you just want to roll your eyes at the same old sermon coming out of their mouths right up to the end.

2. Sloppy and unsuitable writing. Again, this is in relation to the characters, particularly Roxy. She isn't a believable teenager by any stretch of the imagination (ironically, I thought Juno had much more believable dialogue for a teenage girl). "Musically, I'm all about Alice Cooper" is something no teenage girl past the year 2000 has ever said, and that's the problem here. You constantly hear the voice of the 50-year-old writer (exacerbated by her continual references to 80s culture) coming out of the mouth of this teenage girl, and surprise, her delivery is terrible. I don't think this was her fault, she was just given lines that no teenager would be able to say convincingly.

3. General incoherence, inconsistencies, etc. Frank doesn't like inconsiderate people. That's ostensibly his thing, and generally we can all relate to that. Unfortunately, this keeps getting muddled sometimes in the movie with inconsistent writing, and his character stops making sense for the duration of brief scenes. I'll put the baby-killing fantasy aside, since I'm sure people will debate that it was not something he'd really do. There's another scene where, out of nowhere, he says that he would like to kill people who use the word "actually" a lot. That's not rude, it's just a habit of speech he doesn't like for whatever reason. Alright, what? Now you just want to kill anyone? People who high-five? What? It starts to go off the rails. These people are suddenly just as intolerant as the people they're on a moral crusade to kill. Once again you can hear the voice of the cranky old writer coming through.

This is also one of the parts where the movie can exude this weird arrogance. This sort of "If you don't live your life up to these very specific and enumerated standards, you are low-life scum." Understandably it can make people annoyed.

There's a lot more, but I guess I'll stop. Half this script feels like it was cobbled together from a stand-up act. It would be much better suited for that. Instead it's being uncomfortably recited by these improbably characters.

If you like it, cool. I guess I'm just trying to lay out why some people don't like it.