February 9, 2018, - 5:06 pm
Weekend Box Office: 15:17 To Paris, Fifty Shades Freed
Two new movies at theaters, this weekend:
* The 15:17 To Paris – Rated PG-13: This is a great movie, with a MAJOR caveat. The movie depicts the heroic acts of three great American men–Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone, and Anthony Sadler–in foiling an Islamic terrorist attack on a train from Amsterdam in 2015. Because of them, not a single person died in the attack.
The caveat: you would be hard-pressed to know from the movie that the terrorist is Muslim, but for his Arabic name, briefly mentioned in a speech by the French President at an awards ceremony. We know that the terrorist, Ayoub El-Khazzani, was an ISIS recruit, a jihadi, and a guy who, prior to the attack, had been designated with an “S” by French counter-terrorism forces, meaning he was the highest level of dangerous. But Director/Producer Clint Eastwood doesn’t seem to want you to know that. The guy has basically been whitewashed. In fact, I’m not even sure the actor who plays the terrorist, Ray Corasani, is an Arab or Muslim (El-Khazzani is a Moroccan national and an Arab Muslim, who regularly attended known jihadi mosques–a redundant phrase). I think he may be of Italian or Hispanic descent.
That said, other than this major offense, the movie is terrific. It’s entertaining, it’s funny, and it’s suspenseful during the scenes on the train. I wasn’t bored for an instant. The movie is patriotic, moving, and very respectful of Christianity. It makes you proud to be an American and takes some nice swipes at the wimpitude of not only Europe and Europeans, but also at that of some of the bureaucrats in our own military and some of the cowardly things they apparently teach our servicemen (and women).
The three men, all of them in their 20s, met as kids in a Christian school. The mothers of Skarlatos and Stone are single moms who are devout Christians. Prior to going to the school, the two boys went to public school, where their mothers were lectured about putting their boys on ADD medication for merely acting like young boys (being bored in school and looking out the window, etc.). “My G-d is bigger than your statistics,” one of the mothers tells a typically anti-male, imperious liberal school teacher.
I like that the movie shows kids playing with toy guns and possessing real ones and knowing how to use and respect them–a point in the story that will anger gun control advocates. The anti-war crowd probably also won’t like the fact that the three boys loved war and had their teacher (played by a barely recognizable Jaleel White a/k/a “Urkel”) give them World War II battle plans that they enacted in the woods with their toy guns. Anything that drives liberals and the rest of the politically correct phonies crazy, is up my alley.
I also liked that another scene shows Stone, responding bravely when there is a false alarm of an active shooter on his Air Force base. He and the rest of his Air Force trainees are told to hide under desks and tables, and he refuses, saying he’d rather die fighting off the reported shooter. Given that attitude, it’s kind of ironic–and hypocritical–that the movie hides under desks and tables when it comes to telling us who the attacker on the train was: an Arab Muslim immigrant.
The three boys stay friends and, as men in their mid-20s, go on a trip through Europe together. That’s where they–typical, average American men–rise to the occasion and heroically save countless European (and some American) passengers on a train from Amsterdam to Paris. One of them is told by his mother that she had a dream that G-d had a big, exciting event planned for him. And Stone prays, even as a kid, that G-d will bring him as his purpose, creating peace and saving lives. And we know what happened.
There is no sex in this movie (though there is a stripper pole). And, yes, it’s very briefly violent because, after all, it depicts the violence of an Islamic terrorist bent on snuffing out Westerners in the name of allah.
Of note is that the three heroes play themselves in the movie, and so the acting is good. Casting the real heroes as themselves was a good move because they are incredibly likable, good Americans. I also note that, but for a few major cities, this movie was not screened for movie critics. It also didn’t have any advance showings on Thursday night, which is now de rigueur even for the worst movies, so I was suspicious. But I braved the “Global Warming” Michigan winter snowstorm (10 inches) to go see it earlier today, and my suspicions were mostly proven wrong.
This is highly entertaining and worth seeing . . . so long as you know that Clint Eastwood was afraid to accurately tell the world who the attacker was: a Muslim bent on murdering hundreds of passengers in the name of his violent religion. For that reason, I cannot give it FOUR REAGANS. I can only give it . . .
THREE REAGANS
Watch the trailer . . .
* Fifty Shades Freed – Rated R: More like Free Us From Fifty Shades. STAT. Many brain cells were killed in the viewing of this film. At least, I could feel a number of mine passing away from the sheer stupidity and idiocy of this utter crap. Fifty Shades of Booger Green would be vastly more interesting, not to mention classy. I hate-hate-hate-hate-hated this movie.
As I’ve written, the theme of the Fifty Shades movies and the “books” from which they are taken, is that modern American women have a great life when they marry a billionaire who is violent, jealous, and likes to torture them. Yup, hypocritical women flock to this stuff at the same time they are shrieking about #MeToo, Time’s Up, and Larry Nassar. A buncha frauds. As great talk radio host Richard Dixon of Birmingham, Alabama’s Talk 99.5 (on whose show I appear every Friday from 12:30 to 1:00 p.m. Eastern) said, these women eagerly consume these Fifty Shades movies and read the books glorifying the torture of women, while at the same time they were shocked–SHOCKED!–by what Donald Trump said on the Access Hollywood tape. Indeed.
As I’ve previously noted on this site, the Fifty Shades novels dominated the fiction book bestseller lists for most of the last 13 years. And that’s because women make up 80% of the fiction buying market.
This movie was dumb. Silly. Filled with crummy dialogue that was consistently unintentionally laugh and cringe inducing. Oh, and did I mention the cheesy songs and music constantly played over the entire flick? The story and plot are straight out of the worst, most vapid, trashy Harlequin Romance novel ever. I couldn’t wait for this to end. Yet, it kept going and going and going. The best part was when the credits rolled. The worst part was the applause so many brainless women gave it at the screening I attended. And they wonder how the phrase “dumb broad” got coined. Um, hello . . . this is Exhibit A.
The story: Anastasia Steele (these names only exist on soap operas), a frumpy recent college grad, caught the eye of a fellow alum of her college, internet billionaire Christian Grey (whose company doesn’t seem to actually offer any real product or service). They’ve since gotten engaged and married. Now, she is living out the last, desperately overdone plot lines of the third installment of the Fifty Shades novels in this third movie in the series. Those plot points include a brief, pointless trip somewhere on a private plane and yacht, a disgruntled former would-be suitor who resorts to hacking and attempted kidnapping, a trip to Aspen, an unplanned pregnancy, a promiscuous architect trying to steal the billionaire husband, and other stupid stuff. Like a typical porn movie, nobody cares about the plot, including the scriptwriter and filmmakers.
With lots of topless shots of the flat-chested, homely Dakota Johnson, this movie is brain-addled semi-porn. With several torture scenes, it’s painful to watch and tragic that it was made.
With all of the middle-aged and younger women going to see this while fantasizing that they were married to this selfish, childish billionaire torturer rather than the hard-working husband or significant other that they are with, it’s yet another stark example that we live in a very spoiled and utterly mindless country filled with pathetic “Bad Mom” wannabes. Yay, feminism.
FOUR MARXES PLUS THREE MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADAS PLUS TWO BETTY FRIEDANS PLUS ONE ISIS BEHEADING
Watch the trailer . . .
Tags: 15:17 To Paris, 15:17 To Paris Movie, 15:17 To Paris Movie Review, 15:17 To Paris Review, Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Ayoub El-Khazzani, Clint Eastwood, Fifty Shades Freed, Fifty Shades Freed movie, Fifty Shades Freed movie review, Fifty Shades Freed review, Movie Reviews, Spencer Stone
Fifty Shades Freed?
What’s the diff between that and Rob Porter having allegedly punched his ex-wives in the face?
Women complain about physical abuse and then they turn right around and enjoy torture porn.
Yay feminism, indeed.
NormanF on February 9, 2018 at 8:05 pm