The bricklayer (now on Netflix) pairs director Renny Harlin with star Aaron Eckhart, and it’s kind of a perfect partnership: the former peaked in the ’90s (with die hard 2, The long good night kiss and Climactic moment) before becoming a prolific director of B-level action movies in the last decade. The latter became a solid leader or co-leader in the 2000s (The dark knight, Thanks for smoking, No reservations) before settling into a Liam Neesones-style professional career, delivering several B-level action movies in recent years. You can’t debate the acumen of either man, so the film’s success depends on the strength of its script, which adapts writer Noah Boyd’s novel of the same name into, you guessed it, a B-movie. level action. The main concern here is whether it will succeed on those modest terms, so let’s get into it.
THE MASON: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: This guy, Radek (Clifton Collins Jr.), wears a fedora on his head. You could ask if the hat is libertineand to that I would answer, have you ever met a cocked felt hat? No be libertine? It’s certainly indicative of an ego, or someone up to no good, and in fact, Radek has been roaming around Thessaloniki, Greece, murdering journalists and blaming the CIA. Here’s a prime example of Have Beef: Look, Radek is a former CIA asset whose daughter and pregnant wife were murdered after his cover was blown, and now he wants revenge. Back in the United States, we meet CIA agent Kate (Nina Dobrev), who has been tasked with locating Radek; She is perfect for the job because she has no life and works day and night, and she also stirs her coffee with a Twizzler, although it is highly debatable which of these two positive qualities of her character is more valuable.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia: Vail (Eckhart) gets off a bus and arrives at a job site, where he sets up his trowel and his level and all that, and gets to work in earnest at bricklaying. He is meticulous and detail-oriented, a total artist of the bricklayer profession. Now, I’ve never met anyone who really likes bricks, but this guy is really In fact in bricks. Do you consider masonry a metaphor for life and work? I don’t say it, because it might end up trampling on Vail’s big third-act philosophical speech, if such a thing should exist, which I’m not saying is true, but if you know anything about movie clichés, well, the question answers itself. Anyway, Vail is a retired CIA agent and former close friend of Radek, making him ripe for the position. CIA chief O’Malley (Tim Blake Nelson) wants to pair him up with Vail and send them to Greece, but Vail, you know, isn’t like that anymore. He is now just a bricklayer and the only thing he wants to do is lay bricks. (And listen to jazz. He really likes jazz too. It’s so sophisticated!) Vail is almost murdered by some assassins, one of whom he strangles with his measuring tape, you see. Without a doubt, Note is an invaluable tool for the bricklayer, to convince him to accept the job and away he goes.
Then, just when I thought I was out…and you can fill in the blanks for the rest of this cliché. As soon as Vail and the relatively green Kate arrive in Greece, he takes them out of the CIA plan and goes rogue, which is like he I would locate Vail. Kate, of course, criticizes her modus operandi: “We’re going hunting, not building a chimney,” she jokes, which I hope is a funny line. While Vail searches for some old pals: one is a greasy bastard who hangs out in the VIP section of nightclubs with hot girls running their hands through their chest hair, another is a humble, nice guy in a Thawed Caveman Lawyer wig , and then of course, there’s his sexy ex-CIA operative (Ilfenesh Hadera). Kate pulls out a document on her laptop that says “PRVILEGED COMMUNICATIONS ONLY.” That’s word for word. This fictional version of the CIEH does not have much spelling. Can’t this shit be fixed by mail? Probably, but I’m glad it’s not, because that gets more laughs than the line about building a chimney. I don’t know, whatever, since this is a movie where we just sit around waiting for The Bricklayer to kill a guy with a trowel while making his way through a convoluted and confusing plot. Why, you ask, should a master bricklayer carry such a sharp trowel? I don’t know, I only write reviews, I don’t take gossip photos.
What movies will it remind you of?: the beekeeper kicks The bricklayerIt’s got its ass all over the place: it was funnier, more stylish in its action sequences, and much, much better written, not to mention it had Jason Statham in the lead, who is at the top of the list of gifted actors in the art of selling this type of junk. It makes me want to see more movies about the action hero disguised as an average worker. Give me some money and I’ll be happy to write to you. The electrician, maintenance staff, The Drywall Boy I The landscaper by Statham or Neeson or, hell, why not Schwarzenegger? And let it be known that my scripts will be reviewed appropriately.
Performance worth seeing: Eckhart, Collins and Nelson are all astute veterans; Let’s give this dubious recognition to Eckhart, because his eyes sometimes pop out of his head while the other two work in various shades of paycheck-cashing boredom.
Memorable dialogue: Here you go: Vail’s super-deep Brick Philosophy: “When I hold a brick in my hand, I know exactly what it is and what it will do, every time. Its form is its function.”
Sex and skin: Sorry, the only thing that’s thrown around here is a brick.
Our opinion: Growing up, I met two people: two! – who pronounced “chimney†as “chimley†. I never understood why. Maybe it’s a regional dialect thing? I prefer to investigate and write an investigation about this linguistic peculiarity than sit and read The bricklayer again, as it’s a silly thing that’s serious when it should be campy and rife with brutal violence and unbelievable silliness. It’s one of those movies where you’re not sure if the plot doesn’t make sense or if you just don’t care enough to try to make sense of it. I affirm the former, although the film does not inspire us to strive either.
Of course, most of us are willing to put up with all kinds of complicated plots if the action sequences invigorate us (e.g. atomic blonde, where all the virtuoso cinema and stunts triumph over an absolutely impenetrable story). But The bricklayer, as slippery as it can be at times, is so generic that you expect it to be wrapped in a sparse black-and-white label that says ACTION FILM: NO ADDITIVES OR PRESERVATIVES. Eckhart provides the low, growling voice of The Man Who’s Seen It All, Dobrev plays a role that makes her the most inept CIA agent of all time so the title hero can save his ass, and neither seems particularly forced to make an effort. sell this material halfway.
Meanwhile, the audience is bored, wading through a plot loaded with unnecessary complications to arrive at mediocre fights, shootouts and car chases in which the good guys shoot in the head and the bad guys fail to reach the sky with a bullet, and things They explode for no logical reason. There’s an unintentionally funny sequence in which our boy, the Bricklayer, hits his head against a brick wall once, twice, three times, four times, and he just ignores it. A brick wall cannot hit the bricklayer, because he is one with the brick. He is the brick and the brick is him. This movie has brix in its fucking head.
Our call: I understand that “privileged” is a difficult word to spell. I meet him regularly. But that doesn’t mean we should forgive. The bricklayer for such stupidity, he is completely inept. SCIP ITT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
