After a long month of rest after frying my brain on slasher and horror movies, I’m ready for a change of pace. I might be an avid horror fan, but the gore and tension that Halloween brought on me wore my patience for another movie of the same brood out. So now, I’m back with something different, new, and hopefully good.

I could give some preface before I start the actual review, but there’s not much to say. This movie, The Crew, is an 80-minute action film. It’s short, and to the point. It’s under the banner of “A Netflix Film,” but not “Netflix Original.” Not much else lies on the surface, so let’s get right into it.

Like the movie itself, I’m going to be brief with this review. I didn’t hate The Crew, didn’t love The Crew. In fact, my feelings on the movie are painfully middle ground. There’s been a time in the past, with Tales of Halloween, that I wasn’t sure how to veil the movie in terms of good or bad. This is a similar issue. The Crew, however, is without a doubt good, but I have so many problems with it that I cannot bring myself to say I enjoyed it.

The Crew is too short for its own good. Sometimes I like a short movie, so I don’t have to deal with a lot of fluff and filler and meandering throughout. But The Crew goes through and makes everything happen so quick that some scenes just feel like they’re missing. I don’t need gratuity, but I do need to know that something happened and how sometimes, because one-off lines about things don’t give me any context or gravity. We just flew by and so much has happened, but I don’t feel like it did happen.

Where the movie shines most is chemistry between members of the main cast. The story and characters are all waters we’ve tread time and time again, but the actors make it feel new and real. I can’t say I love everything about them like I have with other movies, but I did feel interested most because of how the people in the movie played off of one another.

Tension in The Crew is pretty solid, all things considered. I would’ve liked, again, more time for it to stew so I could feel it more. Otherwise, I felt the direness of the situation when I needed to. I just needed it to last longer.

Bottom line for me is that I didn’t get much more than a base-level action movie from The Crew. There were some pluses, but overall I just find myself indifferent after the fact. Could have been worse, could have been a lot better. If you like heists and action at a passing level, this movie is something to throw on for the hell of it. Anything beyond that, however, I’d pass it by if I were in your position.

Overall Personal Rating: 5/10

 

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-Vincent

 

© 2018 Vincent C. Russo. All Rights Reserved. This post is intended for review and constitutes fair use. These films and any images used belong to their respective owners.