CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on March 21st, 2024, reviewing the new streaming series “Manhunt” – based on the bestseller by James L. Swanson – currently streaming on Apple TV+.
Film Review: Story Lets Down Chloe Grace Moretz in Stupid ‘Hick’
CHICAGO – It’s understandable that people from the Southern or rural United States would criticize the general media. With films like “Hick,” which generally portray them as idiots or sociopathic, there is no balance or honest characterizations. Chloe Moretz, Blake Lively, Eddie Redmayne and Alec Baldwin add their take on it all.
Rating: 2.0/5.0 |
This is a strange and thoughtless film, with characters that meet each other one second, and become emotionally or too familiarly involved the next. It supposes that a 13-year old girl would get a gun for her birthday, and then hook up – Wizard of Oz-like – with a cast of stereotypes that will become her new family. Alec Baldwin plays a guy named Beau, which is all you need to know about the authenticity of this story.
Luli (Chloe Grace Moretz) is restless on her 13th birthday. Her main present is a handgun, and her parents (Juliette Lewis and Anson Mount) are drunkenly arguing about who is going to take her home from the bar. She is rebellious at a young age, fantasizing about being a movie star in an age that looks like the late 1970s. She draws a lot on a sketchpad, rendering snapshots of her miserable life, especially the loss of a brother in childbirth. She is ready for a change.
A chance commercial on television beckons her to Las Vegas. She collects her meager belongings, including the gun, and starts hitchhiking to Crapsville. The first encounter is with Eddie (Eddie Redmayne), a cowboy with a limp who takes an unnatural shine to her. After leaving him, she is picked up by Glenda (Blake Lively) who brings Luli to a bizarre kind of Oz, which involves a rich eccentric named Lloyd (Ray McKinnon), an encounter with Eddie again and a ton of secrets about all the connections that ultimately lead to Beau (Alec Baldwin).
Photo credit: Phase 4 Films |
And yet...
And yet… everyone I know who saw this film loves it.
And yet… it has 4 stars out of, 5 on iTunes, audience reviews.
And yet… I have now watched it 3 times, twice with my girlfriend who also loves it. Like, was crying at the end, both times, because she thought it was so beautiful.
I don’t know why you critics have decided to go after this film so hardcore. It’s like a gang bang or something.
All I know is…this movie is actually rad.
(AND I will never look at what another critic says about a movie again. I was this close to not renting the film on iTunes because of all you haters. Now I am super stoked I listened to my gut and rented it. You guys suck.)
(Two words: Dude, retire.)
I agree with "and yet"
Unbelievable how vitriolic the film critics have been over this one indie movie. It’s almost like none of them have actually watched it except the first guy who slagged it off, and now everyone has too. It’s actually a great movie, as anyone who has bothered to watch it knows. Unfortunately the flacid puritanical cabal of film critics who somehow have worked themselves up into a Taliban-like rage about a 13 year old girl having a sexuality(gosh how unrealistic!) seem bent on ensuring nobody can make their mind up for themselves. Don’t listen to them. Go see it. It’s awesome.