American Made

American Made is about a selfish guy who doesn't have the sense to quit when he's ahead. The camerawork is atrocious, and as with so many other movies, the point of making or watching it escapes me.

American Made is so forgettable that by the next day, I had completely forgotten that I had even seen it, if that tells you anything. I'm not a fan of Tom Cruise. I can't even think of a movie I've seen him in other than Rain Man, and I had to watch that for a class in college. American Made didn't interest me based on the trailer, or, it turns out, the movie, either.

It's understandable how Seal got roped into everything, but he should have gotten out of it a lot sooner. He was just being greedy. He didn't even have a use for all of that money. He should have taken it and moved his family to another country where the government and the Contras wouldn't find them.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Solider Spy is apparently about how pointless the Cold War was, or what a drag it is to be a spy, which doesn't exactly make for an enjoyable movie. It was interesting about half the time, though, and Gary Oldman's performance was great.

I wasn't interested in this when it came out; or before I watched it, frankly. I heard it was supposed to be good, but it just seemed boring. It did turn out to be about 50% boring. There were some parts where the suspense or storyline kicked in and it got interesting, mostly because of Tom Hardy or Gary Oldman.

The Berlin File

 If you know Korean, you should definitely watch The Berlin File. Otherwise, it's probably going to be confusing. I didn't know what was going on at least half the time, but there was some cool action/spy stuff, and the plot reveal was satisfying. 

I was interested in The Berlin File after I saw the trailer for it, but Roeper never reviewed it, so I had to rely on IMDb. It was rated 6.6, so that was inconclusive, but the top reviewer liked it, so that was good enough for me. It turned out to be insanely confusing. I think you have to watch it twice if you don't speak Korean. They showed text with people's names/professions when we first saw them at the beginning, but it didn't help at all; there wasn't time to commit any part of that to memory, and then I spent the entire rest of the movie just trying to figure out who was who/what was going on.

That made it more satisfying when it was all revealed at the end, though. Every bit of information I managed to figure out was a triumph. It didn't help that there were North Koreans and South Koreans that were all Korean. At least Myeong-soo Dong was wearing a hat for a while so I could get a handle on who he was.