I'd call this one of the much better B films I've seen lately, but it's too bad the novice filmmakers didn't put in more effort that could've elevated this to A film status.
Production designer turned novice producer and director David Hackl chose to focus more on cliches and directed his cast to play dumb in attempting humor. We're all tired of the cliched funny looking loud redneck bad guy. Then having Kevin Durand's talent wasted posing as a cliched Dr. Evil and being lost in his duties was cringe. Even Scott Eastwood's character was poorly directed, but luckily his character was elevated with Mel Gibson's character as their dynamics was hilarious. I felt that dynamic was underutilized. Even the rest of the cast were poorly directed and looked lost for the most part.
Then we have newb writer Christopher Borrelli who actually came up with a nice story with great twists and turns, but the execution was lacklustre. Had a seasoned writer looked over the script, I'm sure there'd be changes to elevate the screenplay. At 99 min long, it felt longer with many long dragged out and unnecessary scenes - and characters. The pacing was also slow and dragging. What even was the point of having Tyrese Gibson and Famke Janssen's character written in, when they were just unnecessary filler with little to no character development. The screenplay needed about 15 mins of fluff omitted, and another 30 mins added in utilizing Gibson and Janssen's character better, as well as making Eastwood's one-man-army character much more exciting. Or omit Gibson and Janssen's character all together.
But in general, the casting was great, and Mel Gibson shined (and was hilarious), but most of the leads were so underused, it felt they were only cast to add value to the film. The score was actually on point, especially for a B film, and the cinematography decent. The underground set and hidden entry they created was actually quite awesome. You wont see that one coming.
I feel if the directing and writing of the characters had been more serious - instead of acting like cartoon dummy bad guys, this film could've been a hit. It felt lost trying to decide if it's an action film (of which any little action was boring), or a dark comedy thriller, that was riddled with cliches.
Nevertheless, I saw it to the end, and actually enjoyed it - albeit noticing the small details that could've elevated this production to another level. For the novice filmmakers, I feel it's still a win, because I've seen some terrible films from seasoned filmmakers lately. Thus it's deserving of my 7/10.
