Thanks for the memories!

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Fresh and Exciting

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

My wife wanted to watch this because she's a Jason Mamoa fan. I watched because I'm a fan of my wife. Both my wife and I were not disappointed.Mamoa is Joe Braven, a logging employee who wants to spend some time in his log cabin with his dementia-suffering father (Stephen Lang). Unfortunately, one of his buddies has stashed a large quantity of drugs he's smuggling in the cabin and the owners of the drugs come looking for it. This leads to a standoff between Braven, his dad, his daughter, and the drug dealers.There is not a lot of new ground covered here. Still, the action is tense, the characters are appealing, and the plot never lets up. Mamoa has a certain screen presence that women adore and men admire. He's both hulking and sensitive at the same time, quite a feat. I enjoyed the movie, even though many of the characters do stuff that only dumb movie characters do.Still, the movie has it charm. Its worth a look.

Joe Braven (Jason Momoa) has his family and his logging company. His father Linden (Stephen Lang) suffers from dementia. After a bar fight, pressure builds to put his Pops into a home. He resists and takes Pops out to his cabin. Unbeknownst to him, one of his log truck drivers, Weston, is transporting drugs with Hallett. They crash on a snowy road and rush to hide the drug stash in Joe's shack. The incompetent pair's drug boss Kassen (Garret Dillahunt) leads the gang to recover his drugs the next day and it becomes a deadly cat and mouse game.The first half is a bit slow. It spends too much time with the family. Introducing Joe as a family man should not take this much screen time. His father's dementia feels like a side plot point. It could have come in handy to instigate the standoff but the ignition is more problematic than that. There are different ways for Joe to ignite the confrontation. Splitting the drug stash in half is one of the inferior options. He should probably try to give it all to Kassen hoping that he would leave on his own accord. I doubt Kassen could ever leave the cabin without securing all of his drugs. Joe's plan is an unlikely pipe dream. His father's dementia could have been used as a catalyst for everything. The daughter's jacket is too bright purple. A smart man would turn it inside out for better camouflage. Joe ends up using too many special weapons. It's a little too Home Alone. I do like Momoa, Dillahunt, and Lang. They fit the setting and the manhunt plot. The cabin is probably too nice and the production couldn't afford to do much damage. They would probably be better off with a rundown shack where the bad guys can shoot the hell up. They could burn it down for real rather than the obvious fake fires. The second half does have some cat and mouse fun. This is good enough.

It was okay. Understand it is not the movie of the year, but it has all you need to be a good film. Nothing extraordinary....but you can watch it from start to finish and feel good about yourself

So.... what exactly were the rule that governed the action in this film? Was one of the rules that no one may use the same weapon more than once? How about that no one may kill a bad guy during the first engagement, but must leave him mobile enough to come after you again like a lobotomized zombie? Perhaps one was that our heroes may not pick up a defeated enemy's weapon, but must instead opt for far less lethal or accurate ones?Never use video game logic in real-world action films. No one cares if a sequence is creative if it sacrifices even the most basic common sense.