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Here is another one of those comedies that is just not funny.  I was not looking forward to this one and I was not surprised.

Harold (David Oyelowo) is a mid-level employee at a company run by crooked Richard Rusk (Joel Edgerton) and sexpot Elaine Markinson (Charlize Theron).  The three of them head to Mexico to do stuff (I honestly don’t remember why) and Harold disappears.  Harold runs afoul of the local drug cartel, many locals looking for him and other various sundries.  Meanwhile, Richard and Elaine returned to the USA but have to reconsider what they had planned when Harold called them saying he had been kidnapped.

To start with… this plot is needlessly convoluted despite not having any depth to it at all.  There is a plot involving a pot (aka marijuana) pill that involved Amanda Seyfried somehow, a drug cartel leader who seems to love the Beatles, Harold’s cheating wife (Thandie Newton), a sexual encounter between Richard and Elaine, Elaine trying to stab Richard in the back by going out with Cameron from Ferris Buehler, and Richard hiring his conveniently mercenary brother (Sharlto Copley) to bring Harold back.. or kill him depending on the scene.  Actually Sharlto Copley was probably the most entertaining character in the film.

Of course, Charlize Theron is magnificent to watch on screen as well.

After that… not much here.

Harold is a major problem.  You see, at this plant in Mexico that the three of them go to see, Harold seems to have done a lot there because everyone knows him.  So much so that the Drug Cartel leader thought that Harold was the boss.  Harold is shown as a whimpering, weak willed man, except of course when the plot needs him to do something else.  There is a scene where he is being kidnapped by the drug cartel and he grabs the guy sitting in front of him with a gun, causes him to shoot the driver and is able to buckle his seat belt before the car goes into a massive crash, killing the captors.  Where did he get these skills?  Later, Harold shows off some shooting skills that we never knew he had.

Watching David Oyelowo try and play this was very hard to watch.  He is a much better actor than the crap he was asked to do.

A mess of a film that I have already spent too much time on.  It’s late.  That’s all I have to say… turn your clocks ahead remember!!!

1.5 stars







