American Muscle (2014) Reviews

• Grindhouse at it's best

  sascha-130-3742352014-10-12

  John Falcon (Nick Principe) is out for revenge/out for a kill. His muscle car and pump gun are ready. On the day he leaves prison, blood will be spilled. This is fun to watch. Didn't expect too much in the first place, was then surprised by the crew's obvious enthusiasm. Honest, low budget, hard hitting. Some superbly directed shots, some straight forward action. Some of the acting is better, some is worse. Altogether a good mix for a wild ride (some nude dance included). I wasn't too keen on Machete Kills (the second one) by Roberto Rodriguez, but this is the kind of Grindhouse I personally like. As this seems to be the director Ravi Dhar's debut, I guess there is more to come. I'll watch out for it.

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• Brutal,vicious and gritty ... but so pointless and simplistic

  peterp-450-2987162015-07-09

  "You owe…you pay." "American Muscle" is a simple revenge film (the terms exploitation and grind-house are commonly used) and you certainly won't expect a creative storyline and memorable performances. The only purpose of such a type of film is to create a violent flick as quickly as possible and with a limited budget. There certainly is an audience for such films and I myself sometimes like watching such a go-for-it-without-thinking pulp film. This gritty film also focuses on brute force, bloody settlements and some female nudity. But what annoyed me the most after a certain time, was the totally nonsensical and vastly simplistic content. Most of the characters their muscle development isn't proportional to the development of the brains. Sometimes the shown stupidity in here, made me laugh spontaneously. The story is dead simple. John Falcon (Nick Principe) has been released after a prison sentence of 10 years. As soon as he leaves the gate, he has only one goal and that's to take revenge on those who ensured him to end up behind bars. He also wants his wife Darling (Robin Sydney) back by his side. Darling is a naive girl with a drug problem. Despite John's attempts to keep her from the deadly stuff, it seemed as if she's the one who caused that John received those years of imprisonment. The path John's following, leads directly to the members of the responsible gang of which his brother Sam (Todd Farmer) is the leader. So what we get to see is a seventies-looking brutal film full of unfussy sadistic violence and massacres. The fake blood gushes through the film, the bloody bullet wounds are imaged frequently unscrupulously and you can gawk almost every 5 minutes at some female nude. Frankly however, most of them better left their clothes on, because they weren't really appetizing to look at anyway. Besides the desirable-looking dancers in the striptease-bar where John walks in during his trip, most look like unkempt sluts who get drugs as a reward after they've let themselves being used. John's concern about Darling wasn't really sincere in my opinion, since he has sex with every woman he come across his path (It seems to me that in that area there are living a bunch of women who aren't hard to get at all. Or they lack something in certain areas, if you catch my drift). Apparently the love between him and Darling isn't something he takes too seriously. Nick Principe needs no effort to look unsympathetic. He's a real bad-ass, with a body the size of an antique wardrobe and with pumped up, tattooed muscles. He isn't very talkative. His conversations are usually limited and his dialogs concise out of a few phrases he pronounces muttering. He rumbles through the desert scenery as a terminator. Nothing and no one can stop him. The fact that the intellectual level of his opponents isn't higher than that of a cactus that has been standing all day in the blazing desert sun, helps too of course. For sure the most dumb ones were the biker gang members, who accepted the assignment to kill John and send him to the happy hunting grounds. They could as well have a target cell painted on their obese body, while carrying a sign with the slogan "Please aim below in the bull's-eye." The only one who gets an award for the most courageous person of all, is one of the bimbos from Sam's entourage (an old-fashioned alternativo with a huge, inverted brush on her head), who despite being a light weight and having a muscle-less stature, takes it up against John. Respect. The real fans of this genre will probably enjoy this film. However this rugged film was a bit too simplistic and at times completely idiotic. Some fights were nicely put on the screen (despite the amateurish shooting skills again) and other scenes were plain ridiculous. Most dialogs are negligible and meaningless (the toilet scene is a typical example). The reason for the entire revenge expedition and the cause of John ending up in prison wasn't obvious. However, there are some positive points. The playing time is roughly 77 minutes long so it's really a film you can watch in between. The best fragment was in the desert landscape where iron works stood around. But sadly enough, this was ruined by a lousy, silly-looking shoot-out. "American muscle" looks much like the scantily dressed women in this film. There is the attempt to make it look interesting, but ultimately the end result is ugly, insignificant and only good for a one time use. More reviews here : http://bit.ly/1KIdQMT

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• This Has the Muscle of Pee Wee Herman

  jamdifo2015-01-31

  For almost any movie to work, you have to like the lead actor. I couldn't stand him. All he did was grunt and say the same things like "Where is she?" and "I've been waiting 10 years for this." This movie is a straight revenge movie that lacks any suspense. The lead actor easily handles everybody. He gets shot and stabbed, no problem. He's like a cyborg, nothing affects him. A number of times the bad guys get the drop on him with their gun. But rather than shoot the big bastard, noooooo, let's fight it out. That's another thing, poorly staged fight scenes. They are worse than what Steven Seagal fight scenes have been the past decade. Also, its the old cliché that he never misses shooting someone, but the others can't hit a 6'7" 300 lb guy from 10 ft away. This movie fails at so many levels. The best thing about this movie is its short, credits roll at 72 minutes.

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• The film that tries too hard... and fails

  jgballard13132014-10-08

  I watched this film with several friends, who are all fans of horror and genuine grind house films. I was the only one who lasted throughout the entire crap-fest. The lead character John Falcon (whose name coincidently is a tad too similar to the writer, John Fallon), gets out of prison after 10 years. His only desires are to get revenge on those who put him there, and to get back to his wife. Seems reasonable enough. This is where the film stops making any semblance of sense and becomes just gratuitous sex and violence, along with terrible acting and atrocious writing. If a man is desperate to get back to his wife,then why does he have sex with any woman he encounters? This makes zero sense. Even more so, his wife is having sex with anyone she meets. And I do mean anyone. Male and female. So if she is such a slut, then why is Fallon, err, I mean Falcon, so eager to return to her? Another problem I had was how all of the women are depicted in this film. All of them are made out to be whores, only looking for sex. All of them. John Fallon has some serious issues with women, to say the least, which is his business and that is fine. Just please leave that out of your screenplays. I was hoping this atrocity would be saved by Todd Farmer, cast in a role which I thought he would shine in. Instead, he fell short and came across as meek when he was supposed to be a bad ass. Perhaps the sub par acting of the others in this "film" affected his performance. Either way, it just fell apart long before it was over. This film tries way too hard to be a grind house revenge film. To call it such is a huge insult to the genre. Nick Principe as the doppelganger for Fallon falls hideously short in convincing us that he is a ruthless killing machine. His acting is wooden, and his appearance as a sex symbol is laughable at best. And that voice? Never has there been a more annoying attempt at "toughness" voice-over since Christian Bale's Dark Knight. I have heard this guy speak in films. He should have used his own voice rather than try too hard to be a tough guy. But I doubt even that would have saved this film. If you are a fan of Fallon or Principe, you may enjoy this. If you enjoy gratuitous violence and sleazy sex with bad acting, it may be for you. But if you are expecting some kind of storyline and decent acting, keep looking. Perhaps try the film Faster, which this one so closely resembles that Tony and Joe Gayton should take note. Imitation is a form of flattery,but not in this case. This film is garbage.

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• Bad even for a Mantasy.

  rushknight2014-10-17

  Start with a hero who is big and strong, covered with tattoos and vicious looking, who kills without remorse and has a true cause: To save his wife from the clutches of his evil brother who betrayed him 10 years ago. Add in the trashy hot chicks and the resulting heedless adultery, the drugs and alcohol, the rampant killing of bad guys and a few mostly innocent folks as well, bikers (never forget the bikers), drug money and lots of guns.. And ta da, you have yourself a Mantasy. A compilation of all the animalistic, pointless behaviors associated with big, strong, dangerous looking men as they rage through the neighborhood being.. well, stereotypically manly. The idea is that men don't think. They react on instinct. Revenge, hate, rage, lust and delusion. It could be fun, but this time it wasn't. In order to make this style of film really work, the hero (as it is entirely hero-centric) needs to be someone that the viewer can empathize with. If there is no empathy, there is no entertainment. This hero is set up as a showpiece more than a character. I think the writers and director wanted to believe that he was the perfect manly character: with the perfect manly name, the right sized muscles, the tough looking exterior and tattoos, and doing all the right manly things like winning the fights, killing the bad guys, boppin all the ladies, fighting for justice, etc. But unfortunately all those shiny archetypes of the manly hero are tarnished when we add in all the little blemishes to his heroic luster: He cheats on his wife, he kills even mostly innocent people without remorse, he is clearly delusional on some level and irritatingly fatalistic, etc, etc. And we have a hero that you just don't feel inclined to love. All in all, the film was simply just unsatisfying. The acting was not great, the plot development was handled as well as it could be for a plot that really makes little sense, and the camera work was only shaky when it really counted. It just didn't entertain, but instead skirted along in shallow waters, so to speak. It never achieved convincing depth, which is a shame because it tried too hard.

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