Movie review: 'Blackout' is atrocious

Two out of Five Stars

By Jayden Hewitt
Staff Writer

In this review, I’ll be talking about the film “Blackout,” released in October of this year. The film was released on Netflix and is available to watch on Netflix as well.

This action-packed thriller includes Josh Duhamel (who plays Cain) and Nick Nolte (who plays Ethan McCoy). The film is rated TV-MA and is one hour and 21 minutes long.

The movie is based around the main character, Cain. Cain is a man who viewers are introduced to in heavy action in the beginning of the movie, ultimately leading to him suffering a major head injury in a car accident.

This injury lands Cain in a hospital in Mexico. In that hospital viewers are introduced to Anna (played by Abbie Cornish) and Eddie (played by Omar Chaparro).

Eddie claims to be a good friend of Cain’s and Anna claims to be his wife.

Cain is then repeatedly asked about what happened, and how he got there, but Cain cannot remember much of anything.

As the movie goes on, Cain struggles to make out what is real and what is not, and whether the people he meets are really who they say they are.

While Cain tries to figure out his way, things feel off, and we see a lot of gory action while Cain is chased by a drug cartel because of information he knows, but cannot remember.

Cain then tries to figure out who he is affiliated with, who the bad men are, who the good men are, and who he is. This lasts for most of the movie.

Viewers are subjected to a fever dream-like movie, with constant action. What is going on is never entirely explained, partly because of the plot, and partly because the movie is rushed, with not much backstory until later on.

This movie is an awful attempt at Josh Duhamel being his own version of “John Wick” or “Jason Bourne.” The action is good, and very gory, but it never comes quite close despite the film’s obvious attempt at making a similar film.

I rated this movie 2 out of 5 stars. It’s not a good film because of a few reasons. One is its lightning fast pace, with no explanation. The movie is simply too short.

Another reason this film is not good: It’s corny, for lack of a better word. It is almost every other mediocre action movie with lackluster dialogue, and over-sensationalized action and fighting.

The final reason this is not a good film is how flip-flopped it becomes. Viewers have no clue whether to love or hate a certain character, which can be good if done well. The problem is, it’s not done well. Who each character is to Cain leaves us just as confused as Cain is himself, which makes the movie extremely hard to follow.

Director Sam Macaroni had the right idea, an idea that was already done right with the film, “The Bourne Identity.” But it was not done right this time.

I enjoy action-packed movies, and did like the fighting. And I quite enjoyed the thinking I had to do, until it got to be too much.

I wasn’t able to predict the ending, and that does count for some stars for me, because I like to be surprised. It has low re-watchability value, and that hurts the film for me.