Just tell 'em I wasn't here.

Stick to what you're good at.

That's something people say, right? Sure it is. I usually hear it when I'm dancing, singing, doing anything remotely athletic, or even when I'm trying to make a valid point. While it's decent enough advice, most of the time, if you want to last, or at least be considered interesting...it's not really enough.

Say your strength is punching people in the face, slamming them to the ground, just before repeatedly stabbing them to death. Awesome. Good on you.

Or say, you write long-winded 'reviews' of movies no one's ever going to watch. That's...nice. I guess.

No matter what your trick is, eventually it's going to get old. Even if you've only been doing it for a few years.

Shit, even if you've only been doing it for eighty-three minutes.

Close Range, yet another entry in my new favorite genre, What Can I Start at Ten and Still Get Up for Work on Time? (or WCIS@10&SGUFWOT?, for short), exists somewhere between unrelentingly terrible and absolutely brilliant. Somehow earning 4 and a half stars in my Netflix queue, this action/revenge tale manages to keep the bullets to punches to spoken words ratio damn near even for the duration of its brief run time. It's starts fast and stays fast, allowing for little time to breathe. Or think.

Or, frankly, give a f--k one way or another.

Since they didn't use many words, let me keep this brief: Mexican Bad Guy has taken Girl hostage. Uncle to Girl is not a fan of such actions. Uncle former Special Ops. Uncle mad. Uncle kill. Everyone.

Yes (former) friends, you've seen this movie before, countless times if you're a thirty-six year old d-bag like me, just never quite like this. Every single aspect of this film is oddly aggressive. The fighting obviously, but the rest of the production, too. Like, I imagine the editor, after cobbling together the twenty-third slow-motion chest kick scene, backs away from his computer and f--king roundhouses it, firing off celebratory shots from an assault rifle, directly into the tire fire behind him. 


You probably only need to see (big stretch there, using only) the first five-minutes to get the point...but it just keeps going, whether f--ks are given or not.

Kind of like those pussies, the Yays and Boos, when you think about it. F--k those two and their well-intentioned words. We're all about action(s) here, and the accompanying sounds that follow them. Good, bad, whatever. It's all kind of the same...from CLOSE RANGE! *dragon punches computer screen*

This is one of the 'tender' scenes in Close Range.
No, seriously.

Hyguuuuuuuuuuh! 

(sack-punch)

• Uncle Colton MacReady (yes, that's his real name) absolutely destroys two dudes in an elevator, a hallway full of Mexicans, and finally a room full of Bad Guys with Fully-Clothed Hookers (that's how we know we're supposed to hate them)...all in the first three minutes of the, uh, film.
• Ol' Colt gets out of a freshly smashed in car in less time than it took you to read this sentence. Oh, and he's already like a quarter of a mile away, too.
• At one point, Colt has to dive over a fallen tree. Yeah, we're gonna need to see that in slo-motion.
• Speaking of, every single fight scene? Well, it will be sped up, only to be slowed down...only to be sped up again. Every. Single. Time.
• There was one particular punch to the face that sounded exactly like a cannonball blasting through a wooden pirate ship. I'm assuming that made Roger slightly less than jolly.
• Oh, and choking someone out? That sounds like an out-of-control campfire. 
• Dude, we get what feels like a twenty-minute shootout where no one gets hit. F--k you walls of house! Eat led, truck tires, crates and windows! 
• Not a single bad guy can hit Colton with a bullet. Not even to graze him. Which is surprising...when he's always running in slow-motion.
• One particularly bad Bad Guy gets the customary 'ground slam + stabbed ten times', which is fine, right? Well, it would have been. Until he is totally stabbed in the balls. For like...a minute.
• And finally, I want you to imagine yourself lifting the heaviest thing you have ever lifted, directly over a dozen sleeping puppies, all laid end-to-end. And while you're doing this, you realize you have to take the biggest shit in the history of your life. Your face during this harrowing moment? That's how everyone looks in this movie. Always.

On film, this scene is actually creepier than it looks.
(her girl boner for her uncle is massive)

Skadooooooooosh!

(soul-punch)

• The title sequence for the movie, while rather cool, might be six of the eighty-three minutes. Maybe even seven.
• You have to see the scene where the security guards are scrolling through the different camera feeds. You guys, there are only four camera feeds, three of which feature absolutely nothing happening. They examine each one as if they are looking at the code form of the f--king Matrix.
• As pictured above: Hey, Uncle, for no good reason, I got you a clean shirt. [Colton removes what looks like a rather clean shirt, revealing his massive muscles]. Oh, thanks. [proceeds to kill more guys, possibly soiling aforementioned second clean shirt]
• For being known as The Bulletproof Cartel, these guys end up...decidedly full of bullets. Did other people not try to shoot them?
• In a movie where half the characters speak Spanish, there are no forced subtitles. I was cool with this, actually, figuring I didn't really need to know what they were growling about anyway. But when I finally gave in? We're, and I shit you not, once treated to a subtitle that reads [speaking Spanish]. Holy shit that's awesome...ly terrible.
• Colton can hear a car coming from 10 miles away. No, really. Maybe that's why his pectorals are so huge. They're full of extra ears.
• Shitty Dad? Well, shocking no one...is the worst. Not only are his lines delivered with the believability of a sixth-grader who left his homework at home, but even worse, he's dressed as a long-lost, possibly retarded member of The Beach Boys.
• Girl has a Mom, who I'm pretty sure is Colton's sister. It's actually stated very clearly they're brother and sister, but Mom, like her daughter, seems all to eager to jump the muscular bones of Colton as soon as either gets the chance. Later in the film, when Mom takes a bullet, she doesn't even seem too bothered by it. Who knew incestuous longing makes you borderline invincible.
• And finally, the whole movie, the kidnapping, the killing, the nine-thousand bullets that tear through everything (except human shields), all of it's for a missing flash drive. A pink flash drive. Apparently, an entire drug cartel's business affairs are stored on one....single...flash drive. That just so happens to be attached to a necklace. Just keep reading this over and over until it makes sense.

These guys ain't paying for Trump's wall.

Gyaaaaaaaaah!

(indecipherable/impossible to classify)

• This actual line, to prove someone's level of badassery: My brother could have any hooker he wanted!
• No lie, either Jake Gyllenhaal lost a bet, or he totally has a Mexican twin brother. Holy shit. If he sees this movie? We might have an Enemy 2 [review...of part 1]. Maybe I have a chance at understanding this one.
• Okay, serious time. There's a scene where all the bad guys roll out to face Colton. Now, as you and everyone on the planet knows, Colton is going to kill every single one of these f--kers. So it totally makes sense that each guy gets a close up and his name flashed on the screen (and a still frame) to sort of celebrate all twelve of them. This is so f--king ridiculous, it might be the coolest/stupidest thing I have ever seen. Uh...it takes place around the 17-minute mark...if you have Netflix...and nothing better to do.
• The score is pretty heavy on that cowboy whistle thing that westerns so often feature. Apparently it's so ubiquitous, it occurs naturally in whatever part of Arizona this film takes place in. No, seriously. How else would a character be able to whistle along with it, hmm?
• Shit. Almost out of ammo. [wounded bad guy reaches the top of the stairs] [Colton shoots him...19 times].
• You know that sound a ghost makes when it passes in front of the frame of a bad horror movie? That's the sound the camera makes in Close Range...filming.
• There is no one else in this town. Not a single person.
• I'm positive Girl isn't an actual character, simply an amalgamation of every role Alicia Silverstone played in Aerosmith videos.
• And finally, the finale. Should Colton kill this guy or not? Well, he thought about it so long, I was kind of hoping he'd turn the gun on me.

Oh. My. God.

This is the longest, dumbest review I have ever written (which is truly saying something, I realize). I should probably apologize when I f--k things up this badly.

Eh. 

I'll just stick to what I'm good at it, instead.