The Arrow Reviews

GAMER had enough live rounds in its chamber to cause some happy-happy-joy-joy damage. First how refreshing was it to see the always charismatic Gerard Butler back to the type of films he should be doing according to this loon as opposed to the romantic vomit he's been popping boners for now of late. I love me my Butler jacked, mean, gun in hand and ready for mayhem with a bad Yankee accent - GAMER gave me just that. The intense, frenetic and flamboyant action sequences at play definitely hit my spot and were the highlight of this watch for me. Car carnage, visceral shoot-outs (the rave bit was nuts), badass hand to hand fights, extreme violence left, right and up your ass - the works baby...the works! And all of it was played out via zany editing, slow motion whoring and nifty camera angles at that. YEEHAW! Arrow Happy! Displays of kookiness (Dexter's Michael C Hall chewing the scenery like it was a stick of gum and one cute dance number going down at the oddest time...lol), sexual deviance galore and shameless female flesh peddling toppled this pie with the right flavors as well.

A note on the latter spice if I may; the Crank dudes love the ladies and being that I share their sentiments on the matter, I appreciated them indulging in that love onscreen so fervently via ample nudity and countless bootie close ups (yeah, I'm an ass man... sue me). The fact that foxy lady Amber Valletta was one of the trinkets on display also helped sweeten the deal for this mook. Damn that broad is finer than red wine a dripping down a hooker's butt crack. DAMN! Tag to all that, a bopping (yeah bopping, go with it) soundtrack (cant go wrong with Marylyn Manson man), trippy/colorful prod/costume designs some novel ideas that bordered a sly social commentary (loved the for real SIM game thang...f*cked up), a quick fix pace and a gnarly cast (Alison Lohman, Ludacris, Terry Crews and Kyra Sedgwick owned it) and and you get a flick that f*cked hard, kaboomed harder and looked snazzy while doing it.

Unfortunately, GAMER reeked of what's often wrong with the usual post-summer, September releases (i.e. dumping month as its called): it was simply badly put together. The flick felt slap dashed in terms of structure, its story was more akin to a slew of concepts tossed on the wall than a full fledged and cohesive narrative. Moreover the character development and the relationships were a jokes and the sad sack attempt by the film in making me care about any of it was the punch-line. I so smell overcooking in the editing room on this one (it should be said that GAMER was shot before CRANK 2) and I wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple of suits to blame. The stench of corporate interferences spewed out of the screen and polluted the cinema I was in. But hey maybe's its just me....

All in all, if better stirred in Post Production, GAMER could've been a compelling drama and a biting social commentary on top of being a slick action flick with a penchant for decadence and poon. As-is, its a roller-violence ride on cocaine with lots of shells spitting out for your bucks - that's it.

PLAY THE GAMER WEBSITE HERE