Why is this movie getting such good reviews? Right now I feel like I just watched an extremely typical thriller about kids in the wrong place at the wrong time; nothing stands out...
Yes it was brutal, and yeah there was some tension, but nothing that deserves the praise it's getting, and I really looked forward to this movie.
Am I missing something?
You missed a lot, apparently
shareGuess so. They just seemed to breeze by any and all sub context.
I didn't understand the relationship between Amber and the rest of the nazis, and why all the nazis seemed to be bad guys until they saw her with the band members and then became on their side. I also didn't understand the "meat grinder" song sub plot, or the drug sub plot (mostly the ending that showed the guy passed out with the needle in his arm and those scenes). If all it meant was the nazis were part of a drug ring, then okay I get that, but I feel like there has to be something else to it.
I get that movies shouldn't explain every single thing to the viewer, but they didn't explain anything with regards to these things.
I agree, the subplots were confusing.
1) I originally thought that the dead girl was going to leave the Nazi ranch with black car dude, somebody found out, so they got psycho dude to kill her. But that wasn't it, because when Nazi Picard finds the trunk full of stuff, he's genuinely surprised. So what was the motive for the meat grinder song planned killing? By whom?
2) If the entire plot is hinged upon one thing, it's that the Nazis couldn't let Aint Rights leave because of the killing (they would report it) but couldn't let the cops actually inside because of the heroin lab (should have been meth). Normally I am totally fine with suspension of disbelief, but the idea that big time drug runners would host their operation INSIDE A MUSIC VENUE is preposterous. Hundreds of strangers coming in every week. Venue would require fire inspections. Regular occurrences of things like fights, assaults, and oh yeah maybe stabbings. I suppose it's possible they were just really stupid.
Why were they Neo Nazis? What point did that really drive? I feel like they missed out on using the fear and intimidation of that organization as such, which is weird because it's such a big part of the film. They could have been way more militant and hard core. Instead they came off as idiots.
Maybe that's the point. Neo Nazis are dumb asses. Decent point, but not it's thrilling or scary.
I didn't hate the film, but given the scores here and on RT I was expecting more than this. 4/10
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I forgot my mantra.
Oh I completely forgot about the trunk full of stuff!
That's another thing I absolutely did not understand haha I felt dumb for not being able to piece it together because that's usually not a big issue for me, but man this movie was just way too vague regarding all of it's subplots.
I agree, I didn't hate the film - there were lots of great aspects - but I guess I was just expecting something "more"/different based off the hype.
The neo-nazis are a closed and extremely controversial group, who police their own and would ordinarily avoid the authorities, even in criminal situations. Like any other gang, they would rather retaliate on their own than call the cops. There also aren't a ton of them. Thus, it makes sense that they would have an isolated venue int he middle of the Pacific Northwest (overtly liberal, but known to have isolationist militias and various other crazies outside of the big towns), and feel comfortable having a secret drug lab locked away downstairs. I mean, why not? It had a hidden trap door (there was no access until they literally cut through the floor), and it was separate from anyone's home in case of a raid. Having shows was an easy cover for spending lots of time there. So if a stabbing or drunken brawl occurred there, which it ordinarily wouldn't because it's highly unlikely that a non-nazi would stumble onto their hidden forest compound, they would have taken care of the offender on their own. The concern this time was that Pat had a chance to call the authorities, AND there was a whole group of outsiders, not just a single random hiker.
For the record, white power skinheads scare the crap out of me, more than any other facet of the movement. They are outwardly violent, scary people.
The meat grinder song was the cue for she and Daniel (her secret bf) to leave. It was implied that she was Werm's gf, and Werm found out somehow and killed her. He was a red laces member, so they didn't want to throw him under the bus. Like any gang, you don't just leave the organization - blood in, blood out. That's why Emily and Daniel would have had to sneak away.
They're coming to get you, Barbara!
A venue on private property catering to neo nazis; highly doubtful they cared about it being up to code. Lmao. It was akin to a cult having a music hall.
shareThe song wasn't the cue for them to kill her. The song was the cue for her and the guy she was leaving with to bail so she couldn't be caught. They discovered their plan and killed her for it, but were unaware who she was leaving with. When he finds the trunk full of stuff he's surprised because there's a baseball bat that the group obviously used in a crime that was evidence that could be used against them. That's why he said the singer of the band had saved them all. It was fairly well communicated, and at no point did they say the killing was planned at all, especially when it was a band member who killed her. How would they have killed her during the Meat Grinder song if they hadn't played their set yet and would be on stage? Seems a lot like you've misunderstood.
What's all this shouting? We'll have no trouble here
They were Neo-nazis because they are one of the last bunch of bad guys that you can have that people won't complain about.
Just as they are in the latest Purge film.
Small moves Ellie, small moves
The way I understood the "Meatgrinder" sub plot was pretty much like Werm said. When that song was played, it was his cue to kill the girl we see stabbed when Pat first came into the room. She was planning to leave, and somehow Werm got wind of it, so they decided the best course of action to prevent her from doing so was stabbing her in the head. Daniel, the skinhead who they sent in after the dog attacks who was at first hostile then helpful, was with her, and was leaving with her secretly, which Darcy figured out and checked his trunk to find all their belongings packed. After Daniel saw what Werm did, he wanted revenge on the skins, so he tried to help them escape.
If you pay attention, Darcy tells Werm (or maybe it was Gabe, I can't recall) that he actually did them a huge favor by killing her and then having Daniel killed. After he found the bat that was more than likely linked to an assault/murder in Daniel's trunk, I feel like he thought Daniel was going to use this against him and his gang as evidence if they threatened to retaliate for them leaving, which made the killings of Daniel and his girl even more sensible from his point of view. Again, this is just my take on the sub plots, so some may disagree.
I'm confused as well, I watched this thinking "Why is every character making decisions that make absolutely no sense?" It's as if the director never interacted with people before. None of it made any sense to me, and none of the glowing reviews make sense either.
shareThe director has referred to this and his previous movie Blue Ruin as "idiots in extraordinary situations." You criticize the characters for making dumb decisions, I applaud the director for not writing superheroes. They don't know what the Nazis are planning to do, they don't have all the information that we do, and they don't have a whole lot of options. It's easy to say "well, I would've just started to kill them right away", but the characters don't know they're in a fight for their lives until they lose the gun. And what's best is, they're not Liam Neeson or John Wick. This random event didn't happen to the most dangerous CIA operative in the world, it was a couple of dumb kids.
So I don't think the director hasn't interacted with people before, quite the opposite really. I think he hasn't interacted with fantasy movie characters before. This movie isn't a power fantasy, like Taken or John Wick are.
Fair enough. But you don't have to be a superhero to make wise decisions. I guess it's just a random split. In the world, there are dumb people. And there are smart people. And people in between.
This film focuses on dumb people. It was the director's choice, so there's not much else to do about it. But it does make for a reason as to why it's hard to have the film connect, when actions and choices are just thrown out wildly to advance the plot.
You don't have to be as insanely skilled as someone from Taken or John Wick to act like an average human with average intelligence who is put in a life threatening situation. But, again, that's not necessarily a fault of the film. The director chose to write his characters like that.
ftr, I 100% don't mean this in a combative way, I'm genuinely curious.
I see this argument a lot ("they made dumb decisions that normal, intelligent people wouldn't make in this situation"), but I'm not sure what anyone thinks the right decision to make here was.
You play a show at a venue that ends up being a neo-nazi drug stronghold, you witness a murder because you totally understandably forgot your phone in the green room, and you are trapped at gunpoint in a room/building with no viable exits by people who are absolutely going to kill you. What would you do in this situation that would be so much more effective or wise than what the characters in the film did? Because everything thinks they'll be calm and collected under pressure, but so few of us really are. I fully admit I have no clue what to do in that situation other than die.
Addendum: I grew up in a town full of neo-nazis, they were not reasonable people, and keep in mind that the cops were often their dads.
So, genuinely, what would you do?
Thank you for challenging the other poster with an intelligent question.
While I was watching the film I had no idea what I would have done other than NOT hand over the gun. The gun was the only leverage they had, but I could understand that fear took hold of them.
Not all of them agreed to hand over the gun but MMA guy figured he could at least best them in hand-to-hand combat (but only one-on-one 'cause otherwise JiuJitsu is NOT good when fighting more than one opponent. Maybe if he were a Hapkido/Akido expert it would have been different).
It was a hard and very realistic situation, which is what made it so scary. Also, these weren't Jason Voorhees skinheads, some of these people were just part of the group, but like those two kids at the end... they didn't really want to kill anyone.
I completely agree with poopintoeachothersbuttsforever. And I have to say that it's far too easy to judge people too harshly when they find themselves in extraordinary situations (or even simply unexpected ones), as much in real life as in films.
When something occurs that is outside of anyone's ordinary experience there is shock, confusion, doubt and most often hesitation--and it's not like your logical brain is first to engage--you aren't sitting there asking yourself--do I run? Do I fight? No, your first reaction is going to be instinctive, and that can be totally the wrong thing to do. When you add in a group dynamic then you are confusing things even more. People in groups will often act differently and hesitate more than if acting as an individual (they also tend, in scientific studies to choose poorly UNLESS they have prepared for that particular type of crisis in advance).
It is completely unfair to judge anyone for how they react in emergencies, unfamiliar, unexpected or shocking situations such as this one. Some people may act heroically (and when interviewed they will almost invariably say, "I didn't even think I just did it", or they may act like cowards, or do something stupid (but no one bothers to interview THOSE people--if they manage to survive). In far too many situations there really IS no right or wrong answer==because you don't KNOW the right answer, just one that is more likely to get you killed, or not. Someone with a gun threatening to kill you and you are unarmed? Do you beg? Placate? Run(hint you can't outrun a bullet)? Fight (again, you can't outrun a bullet)? Or all of the above? Which is less likely to get you killed?
I could come up with dozens of real world examples off the top of my head in which there is no genuinely "right" answer, but suffice it to say that I found many of the actions depicted here quite believable. It doesn't make them stupid either--even if I could justifiably tell myself--from the safety of my recliner, "Come on, I would NEVER do that". Thrillers and horror thrive on this because it's comforting to believe that we would NEVER be in that situation, or act that way, or be dumb enough to.....
Yeah, that's what I thought was so successful about this movie. I could see myself accidentally in a similar situation (go to a lot of punk shows, travel and attend shows in locations I'm unfamiliar with) and I just sat there thinking, "What the hell would I even be able to do in this situation?"
In fact, the only thing that took me out of the movie was the thought that, had my arm gotten all busted up like that, all my friends were getting eaten alive by dogs and stuff, I'd be using that gun to put myself out of my misery. I thought his ability to keep fighting was unrealistic.
It appears as if you are one of the smartest posters here. I agree with your analysis. I have taken self defense, I know how to handle a weapon, and I can honestly say that I don't know what I'd do under the circumstances since I haven't ever been in this situation. People can say they would do this or that in a crisis situation, but fear and anxiety take hold and that can affect a person's way of thinking. I know self defense, but would I be strong enough in body or mind to use it? I can handle a weapon, but will I have one? Will I remain calm enough to think clearly about what I should do? I don't know the answer to those questions...I don't think many people do know those answers unless you've been through it. I really thought the movie was brilliant for the exact reason everyone is complaining...these kids are simply out of their element with no experience on what to do while neo-nazis are trying to kill them. It was well written, well directed, and very well acted. I found nothing confusing about this film. The dialogue said it all. I'm, too, am not trying to be argumentative, I just thought poopintoeachothersbuttsforever(love this name btw) made an intelligent point.
shareI personally loved Blue Ruin, but I really disliked this film. It could have been a lot better.
shareBecause it promotes the white male patriarchy narrative so many want to exist.
I see evil white supremacist in movies, but I've only met one actually racist white person in my entire life.
Also, the Holocaust didn't happen and jet fuel can't melt steel beams! Tell 'em, brotherrr!
shareThen you must not get out much or live in a social utopia. I have met dozens of white racists and a couple dozen non-white racists. Then again, I live in Idaho....
shareI'm kind of in the same boat as you. The back of the movie had quotes saying that it was a "nerve-jangling" and "badass" movie, and I was in the mood for some action horror, so I was thinking perhaps there was something to it. Unfortunately, I was just left with a "umm ok" kind of feeling once the credits started rolling. I'd probably rank this only a slight notch above Kevin Smith's "Red State", which was an action thriller that also underwhelmed me a great deal though I expected that one to be a bit odd given some of Smith's other work.
With Green Room, it just felt passable but nothing to get overly excited over. I didn't care about any of the characters at all, except maybe Pat. I'd probably say that I'd expect to see this kind of movie on Netflix, but the rave reviews are overhyping the movie and not really doing it any favors. Really can't explain it, other than perhaps this movie is one of the few horror movies that managed to get the attention of the mainstream and works more effectively for casual movie fans who love all different genres of films and aren't as accustomed to horror movies and the usual situations and tropes associated with them.
If you're watching it as a huge horror fan though, you may be expecting more but get a bit more of the same usual stuff we've seen done several times before in other movies. It's not a bad movie by any means, though.
this movie is one of the few horror movies that managed to get the attention of the mainstream
I completely agree. Very well said
share>Honestly confused...
Shouldn't you be used to it by now? :D
It's getting good reviews because by judging every film on the metric of if it's totally original and genre-bending you end up missing out on many good stories. It is a very high water mark to hold a film to.
A way to judge movies without reducing your enjoyment of them is asking yourself two questions. Does the film know what it wants to be and does it do that well.
This film definitely knows what it wants to be and is better written than most other films similar to it.
You're issues with the subplots are actually answered within the film, though admittedly the answers are in some throw away lines that could be easy to miss, and the bad guys are surprisingly fleshed out for how little screen time they are given.
Not missing anything ... I just watch this movie ... Its the kind of movie you cant remember any character s name after ... just a b movie with some great actors, but still a very poor script in my opinion
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