(1 / 5)
“Women in Refrigerators” is a terms that started in 1999, created by now famed comic writer Gail Simone. It was a response to an issue of Green Lantern where he comes home and finds his girlfriend has been murdered and stuffed into his fridge, this ignites a revenge story-line. The term means that women are killed, harmed and/or depowered simply for plot reasons. Why do I bring this up? Because this is the mentality of this entire movie. In-fact not just at the start, but another time near the end is a female character (this one serving little to no purpose) is killed off mercilessly with not a care or regret.
Our main character is a young man named Rapp (Dylan O’Brien) that has suffered the loss of the woman he just proposed to. Now that she was tragically gunned down he has resigned himself to hunting down terrorist, training himself day and night and having very little restraint when things become physical. This man is clearly unhinged and apparently that’s just when the C.I.A. want because they recruit him.
Michael Keaton is brought in as the rugged trainer that’s seen it all and knows it all. His talents as an actor are wasted in this movie and belong in a better one. I cant say whats worse, having a fine actor be in a bad movie and give a bad performance, or in  a bad movie and have the energy of a good performance wasted. I don’t know, either way is upsetting.
Further adding to the despicable makeup of the movie is its one-sided view of non-white, non-christian Americans. If you are not white then you are the bad guy and a scumbag (that word is used directly by our main character). The main antagonist is white however he has some layers to him, the other enemies that are non-white are bad through and through.
I cant tell you what the message of the movie is. Revenge is good? Revenge leaves you empty? Follow orders? Don’t follow orders and be your own man? But it doesn’t matter what it’s about because it’s foundation is an outdated, misogynistic plot setup and from there on it fans the narrow-minded drive about how to handle terror threats. Good performances cannot help sweeten this rotten meal of a movie.