BLACKOUT. Superbly bad movie
I don’t know about you, but I sometimes like to consciously choose a bad movie to watch. One that offers no hope of success, yet asks viewer to give it a chance. Netflix seems to know this, because last night it recommended me Blackout, a film by a gentleman gracefully named Macaroni. Ah, what a feast of bad cinema it was!
Mr. Sam Macaroni is a filmmaker with a powerful body of work: IMDb states that he starred in 108 films, 89 he directed, 84 he wrote, 74 he produced, and as if that wasn’t enough, he edited 82 more. Have we just discovered a cinematic genius? Not necessarily. As it turns out, the vast majority of Macaroni’s “output” is short films recorded for a joke among buddies, often parodying film hits. Full-length films, especially professional ones, are scarce in Macaroni’s filmography, so one may wonder what prompted the streaming giant to include Mr. Sam’s new creation in its library.
Without dwelling too much on this question, I will try to briefly outline the intricately woven plot intrigue in Blackout. Well, the main character is John Cain (Josh Duhamel), who, after waking up in a Mexican hospital, discovers that… he has lost his memory (shock!). Next to his bedside is Anna (Abbie Cornish), claiming to be his wife, and Eddie (Omar Chaparro), a supposed buddy, a suspicious type with a disastrously dyed hair, also stops by to visit. Not even a few minutes pass (you have to hurry, after all, we have less than an hour and a half of square footage at our disposal!), and John, lying on a hospital bed, is attacked by two armed thugs. What is this all about? What is going on here!!!?
Blackout is a delightfully botched amalgamation of the most cliched clichés found in action cinema or spy thrillers. Mr. Macaroni has fast-forwarded through 100 of the most popular titles in these genres, picked out every easy morsel and put them – in a mercilessly shallow version – in his film-like product. So there’s an agent with almost superhuman skills of the likes of John Wick, a morally ambiguous mission, a woman with not entirely clear intentions, a treacherous buddy and even an aged mentor (Nick Nolte, who struggles to speak even single words). It’s all also horribly edited and shot – I don’t know what equipment Sam Macaroni used to shoot this marvel, but the quality of individual shots lies somewhere between cut scenes from a freshman student etude and a not-so-successful episode of a docudrama. On top of that, the fight or shooting scenes were probably designed on Windows 95 hardware, because in some sequences you can successfully count the pixels.
So is it possible to enjoy a screening of Blackout? With a genuine suspension of disbelief – you can! Of course, assuming that the monstrous realization shortcomings or wooden acting do not make you twitch. but laugh. Sam Macaroni’s film will undoubtedly end up at some point in one of the numerous reviews of cinema so bad that it’s good, because in this horrendously chaotic mass you will find plenty of scenes during which you will either catch your head or parry with laughter. The important thing is to approach the screening of Blackout with the right attitude, at ease, preferably in the company of friends. Then, without a doubt, you will not consider these 81 minutes spent with Macaroni’s film as a waste of time, but at most as a de-stressing, resetting entertainment.
Dawid Myśliwiec