Bravetown

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source: Bravetown

Just too many stories and too many left untold. The movie caught my attention and had a good starting plot, but just didn't deliver. The movie did a good job making me feel for the main actors but left me wanting to understand more. What really happened with Josh's father? Why didn't they dive into this further?! The ending was a little hokie. Definitely worth watching.

There are many good, original themes in this movie. They aren't deeply processed. On one side some of the details aren't necessary to the plot, on the other way don't explain them makes us feel like to watch half a movie. It's a fiction (many details are obviously unreal). Good as entertainment that make you think about. I don't like dance scenes anyway it's only my taste. Good, must to watch.

Cute unique story. Could have been more powerful if they connected the music more with overcoming grief.

Prior to viewing this, my favorite bad movie was Showgirls. Well Joe Eszterhas, move over because there's a new sheriff in (Brave)town and his name is Oscar Torres. Oscar has taken elements of Footloose, Flashdance, Step Up and every maudlin family drama from the Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel and clumsily mixed them into this rotting carcass of a script. Josh, a 17 year old Electronica DJ at a club in the big city by night, is sullen and unhappy because daddy left, and his single and working mom doesn't keep milk in the fridge. Meanwhile he spends his nights partying like a boss at the club, scoring with a hot groupie and getting millions of views on line while popping pills left and right until he overdoses. In an unintentionally hilarious scene, Josh appears before a judge, who reads a long list of priors and then sentences him to spend a year in North Dakota with his estranged dad. Sure, that would happen. Before you know it, Josh is the toast of little town America with his dance grooves. There are plenty of tear filled side plots about people who have lost family and friends in various wars and can't get past their grief. Until our own little Pollyanna, that's Josh folks, comes into their lives and starts to heal them while he himself is healed. And it's all done so simply and quickly through bad movie magic! But the real capper is the big dance finale. In a small town that has lost many citizens to various wars, Josh decides to get the dance team, who have made it to the state finals (is this really a thing? I mean, I thought Bring It On was just a fever dream), to dance to his electronica take on the score of Platoon. When my jaw hit the floor, I picked it up so I could stifle the laughter. Honestly, I felt like I had popped one of the pills that sent Josh to North Dakota. It is so cynical and wrong headed of the makers of the film that it would leave a bad taste in your mouth if the whole enterprise wasn't so moronically stupid and ridiculous. Bravetown works better as a comedy than drama, but really fails even at that. I'm giving it 2 stars rather than zero because it made me laugh really hard at certain scenes throughout.

The slow start with a story of any kind, then it got worse. It is not worth your time.

Proving Hollywood is will to sell out war vets for ticket sales. I don't really know how to classify this film under any one particular genre. I guess it's more or less a teen-romance, but it has elements of other emotion based films. Anti-war stance, coming of age, bad boy turns good, dance off, and the classic redemption tale are all part of this jumbled mess. It's not great... yeah... it's just not very good either. Outside of the thematic issues, the characters are pretty awful. The main couple aren't really to be admired in this film. I found the young heart-throb to be a pretty awful person. I get that he has had a rough life, but a 18 year old NY DJ with drug issues and a whiny personality isn't someone who I felt any apathy for. His girlfriend isn't much better, and her acting skills were pretty off. She couldn't look a single person in the eye the whole film, which really throws off any of the argumentative scenes she's involved with. There is a scene where they are both hurling "WHO'S GOT THE HARDER LIFE," moments which is really just painful to watch. Josh Duhamel isn't half bad, as the PTSD recovering soldier returned home to council underprivileged kids. He's the only believable character. There is a massive problem with this film, as anyone who watched it through till the end will know. It has possibly the most redundant ending of any film I've seen. SPOILERS HERE: Outside of the relationship that is formed between the two main characters, they may have changed (SLIGHTLY) as individuals, but what about their real problems? You might think they have come to accept the death of a loved one, but what about the boy's relationship with his father and mother? The daughter's mentally ill mother, and her deepening depression? His drug addiction? It leaves all of these huge problems still hanging at the end. I know... movies don't have to summarize all the problems and should leave some questions at the end, but those are for IDEA films, and this is most definitely not one of those. Anyways, I rated it pretty low for it's use of war vets in a dance off, for WAY MORE BEATS HEADPHONES SHOTS THAN ARE NECESSARY (I don't know a single DJ who uses those, buy some freaking marshals man), and the constant references to Platoon. Which is a much better film. You're better off watching that. 3/10