Bombshell

BOMBSHELL 5 out of 10 Consistently disengaging.

Charles Randolph, co-writer of best adapted screenplay Oscar winner The Big Short (with Adam McKay, based on the book by Micheal Lewis), wrote Bombshell. He should not be allowed to write alone.

The material he had to work with in bombshell had every opportunity to be engaging, however it was horribly executed with maybe 1 good scene of tension and drama. There is a cautionary foremessage about the presence of dramatisation in the movie. There is no way the movie is less boring than the real events that occurred.

No character was given any depth, with the only distinguishing feature being the A-list actor in the part. Randolph could not choose a focus for the story, not any of the characters or even the main issue was followed to any significant degree; instead, the movie diverts to unnecessary tangents about what our characters are up to in their personal lives in what I can only assume was an attempt to humanise the cardboard cutouts. I couldn't care for any of the characters.

By an acting standpoint, I managed to spot 3 good actors, Charlize Theron, Margot Robbie and John Lithgow. Lithgow's performance was genuinely engaging as was most of Theron's. The few Australian accents in the movie from the Murdoch family were laughable as they parkoured between British, American and have-heard-of-Australia levels of accuracy.

Maybe in an earlier draft of the script Kate McKinnon served a purpose, Bill O'Reilly was more than a name or Margot Robbie wasn't reduced to an extended cameo, but these are only some of the useless elements that made this movie feel an hour longer than it was.

Thematically, the story is hollow, with the only thing the movie says is 'sexual harassment bad', delivering a message beyond safe, that it barely registers as a message. Randolph was unable to even fully commit to any political view on such a significant event, with certain scenes trying to be apolitical and political, displaying anti-trump notions whilst emphasising the reliability and integrity of Fox News, with only a slight left lean, leaving the story forgettable. (The Trump sections were played as cute references?) However, seeing how it reflects my political ideology, it must be good 10/10.

But wait. Isn't it hypocritical for such a big Hollywood movie to condemn sexual harassment whilst also practicing a far more toxic culture than a Fox News office? No because the movie is anti-sexual-harassment, so I think they learnt their lesson.

There were very few scenes of significant CGI use, but boy were those 2 scenes very distracting. An actor on a roof looked like they were floating, with surrounding buildings and rooftop antennae looking less real than their wigs, and an actor was not well composited into archive footage.

Consider me thoroughly disappointed. Should this win any of the 3 Oscars it was nominated for? Probably not.