Movie Review: Rampage (2009)
Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama, Thriller
MPAA Rating: R
Director(s): Uwe Boll
I’m one of the few people who consider Uwe Boll an important film-maker. It may be sad but it’s true. But let me explain my reasoning. Though Mr. Boll, who finances his own cinematic exploits, has not directed a single note-worthy film (except for being notoriously bad), he shows dedication and balls. It takes a certain kind of person to direct a film, denounce almost all systems of modern belief in it, and then appear on some Fox television show and denounce the cast members — but my man, Boll has done it and this is why he deserves respect. Plus he hates Michael Bay, so it shows that he has a finely tuned taste in all things cinema.
His latest film, Rampage, is surprisingly not a video game adaptation and it follows Boll’s shift from pseudo-blockbuster hits to pseudo-art house originals (which started with his film Stoic — only memorable for a scene in which the protagonist is forced to eat tooth-paste). Now, Rampage, is a sort of existentialist play. Its protagonist, Bill Williamson (Brendan Fletcher), is quite similar to the characters of the Samuel Beckett classic Waiting for Godot, in which he is tired of his tedious everyday routines — which aren’t really evident in the film as he only really spills coffee on himself and has a waitress knock his chicken dinner on the ground before going on a rage-induced killing spree, but hey, an official synopsis never lies.
It really gets interesting during the thirty minute mark in which Bill constructs a full metal armor and arms himself to the teeth with several different explosives and firearms. But this is where the real implausibilities start to flow and these are so important in proving a point that I feel compelled to list them and so I will do so:
- Williamson somehow manages to maintain extreme agility although he is wearing what one may safely assume is an immensely heavy protective suit and several pounds of explosives.
- Almost no police officers try to subdue Williamson as he freely roams across town killing innocent bystanders.
- He fires thousands of rounds but is only shown to reload once.
- Why are there cars on the roads if the radio clearly states that there is an unidentified gunman shooting in that direction? You’d think that the police would set up barriers or something.
- In one scene, he enters a crowded bingo hall in full armor while carrying machine guns and nobody even looks at him. In fact, he instigates the announcer by knocking something off her desk! You’d think that she would notice the two loaded machine guns at his sides.
But Bill isn’t the only one on the mission for change. His friend Evan Drince (Shaun Sipos) is equally as radical. However, Evan simply talks about change on the internet and never acts upon his beliefs. There is an interesting contrast between the two characters as Bill, at first seems like he’s just ranting about seemingly random things, and Evan who shows to have the realer of convictions. But tables quickly turn and Evan is shown to be more and more of a hypocrite which made me feel gullible for feeding into his bullshit at the beginning of the film.
To be honest, both of them seemed batshit insane. I never sympathized with Williamson, because like most people, I didn’t support his actions and he never seems to actually be happy so how am I supposed to believe that Bill just snapped because his life had lost its luster? He just seemed less of a psychopath when he wasn’t lining up and execution-style killing anyone that he laid his eyes on.
But for a Boll film, Rampage has some entertaining cinematography. The entire “shaky camera” effect is utilized efficiently and that my friends, is Uwe’s first step to recognition as a film director who doesn’t suck. Plus the props look less like plastic this time around.
Is Rampage Uwe Boll’s masterpiece? Depends on how you look at it. Moral implications aside, the movie is attention-grabbing and shockingly original, however, the story quickly becomes laughable for its ultra-seriousness nature and almost video-game-esque direction. That being said, Rampage is the type of film which you are scared to admit that you enjoyed for fear of being called deranged.
About the Author
- Movie Review: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
- Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
- Movie Review: The Expendables 2 (2012)
- Movie Review: Total Recall (2012)
- Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
- Movie Review: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
- Movie Review: Men in Black III (2012)
Considering the first thing he does on his rampage is blow up the police station, it makes complete sense that the police don’t respond or set up barriers. It’s hard to serve and protect when you’re dead. And he doesn’t go on this spree because he had coffee spilled on him… He does it because there are so many people in the world who are of absolutely zero value, just using up precious space and resources for productive members of society. Honestly he has the right idea. The world would be waaaaaay better off if 1 out of every 4 people dropped dead right now. 2012 is a lie. The possible eruption of yellowstone is a lie. Y2k was a lie. But running out of resources? Nuclear war for clean water and fossil fuels? Very realistic. The movie was pretty well thought out and made. But more important than being entertaining, it was intelligent.
You really don’t appear to get this movie at all, and stoped reading after the “5 points” you tried to make, key word being tried. I was so upset but so happy at the same time that at least this review has a comment box, so here we go.
1.Williamson somehow manages to maintain extreme agility
He moves very slowly but is also in amazing condition (strongly emphasized for the first half of the movie). If you are going to nitpick about something nitpick about the random people who just seem to throw themselves in front of him.
2.Almost no police officers try to subdue Williamson as he freely roams across town killing innocent bystanders.
Were you sleeping when he kickstarted the ‘rampage’ by driving a van with enough explosives to take out a city block into the local police station. You can overhear the news at some point later in the day – every single person inside that building died. What does this mean? It’s the start of the day where there probably aren’t that many police out on calls, just a few on patrol. You seem to think the setting is placed in a huge metropolitan area where there are cops everywhere and plentiful (which you are probably used to and are unable to grasp any other situation/setting for some reason). Again you are nitpicking the wrong things, or things that are more plausible about this story.
3. He fires thousands of rounds but is only shown to reload once.
Reloading is boring, and with a sub-machinegun in each hand he could probably kill ~5 civilians per gun without having to reload. There are also lots of cut scenes and or driving around. It’s plausible there is plenty of time to reload(because reloading takes 5 seconds) and probably a decision by the director to put more emphasis on corpses flying through the air as opposed to shells and clips. Pretty easy to figure out especially after he sits there for a few moments just looking at the pile of bodies in the hair salon
4.Why are there cars on the roads if the radio clearly states that there is an unidentified gunman shooting in that direction? You’d think that the police would set up barriers or something.
Again, pretty much #2 all over again, you aren’t able to grasp the situation or setting at all. I mean the “backup” consisted of the sheriff+3 and 2 vehicles which took over 30 minutes to respond, there are no god damn police left within 30 minutes, not that hard to grasp.
5. In one scene, he enters a crowded bingo hall in full armor while carrying machine guns and nobody even looks at him. In fact, he instigates the announcer by knocking something off her desk! You’d think that she would notice the two loaded machine guns at his sides.
Honestly I wouldn’t have bothered posting if it weren’t for this one. There are multiple things going on here but the most obvious one is comic relief, and when I mean obvious, I mean painfully obvious.
Anyway, I hope you don’t get paid for this garbage because I’m not even sure you could successfully review an episode of Barney.
Wow…i found this website by trying to figure out if this movie was based of actual events.
but the funny thing is, hah He would have killed all of you(figurtivly speaking ofcourse)
I mean come one, for christ sake your arguing about a movie, something meant to entertain..
who cares if he reloaded, who cares if his agility was affected or not?
Look, my point is, it was a movie…when most people watch a movie they dont sit there and attempt to pick out flaws. doing so isnt going to change anything about it. your wasting your time
you watch the movie..if you like it good, if you dont, well then thats too bad, move on to the next on.
yeah this movie was actually good like a 2 hour rampage on gta 4.
byt he had meticulously planned this out to get the money and frame the big mouth who had the packages delivered to his house.
Any one who things this movie is anything but terrible is insane. Its only redeeming quality is that a crap director managed to hold the camera correctly and purchase decent props. Dont be retards. And another thing, if this guy was Muslim people would be loosing thier isht because way deep in your subconscious if a white man goes bat sht insane and murders by the thousands its ok, art even. Skinheads unite! If I am depressed about the sht life that I live I should kill everyone because a)its thier fault my life sucks and b)killing them will make my life better. All that aside, the movie is still a disjointed mess of a narrative. There are plenty good vigilante and revenge movies out there, go explore them and stop giving this piece of isht credit.
when he is in the bingo hall and nobody notices him that symbolizes how money blinds people or in this case, makes them oblivious to he fact that an armed gunman is walking around the hall with two smgs
why even write a review if you obviously only seen the trailer and maybe 2 scenes -.- everything your complaining about is explained in the film if you actually watch it.. btw this movie was suppose to hilarious in a messed up way i laughed almost the whole way through, if you dont have a sick sense of humor or the level of intelligence to keep up dont watch something like this…. “chirp chirp chirp chirp”
and for those wondering if this is a true story, 1997 there were 2 men robbing a bank dressed in metal armor shooting at LAPD with automatic weapons. the LAPDs standard weapons wouldnt penetrate the armor, but just bounced off. if im not mistaken 1 of them killed themselves after. was this in mind when rampage was made? it was never made clear but im thinking it had an influence
btw during the beauty salon scene he did take a break sit down and drink some water, and before the bingo scene he had just gotten food, so saying his agility wasnt effected is another flaw in your review nobody has stated yet
I must say that I am extremely disappointed at the review given. There is so much symbolism and so much reality in this movie that it astounds me that you do not see it. First of all:
1. Williamson somehow manages to maintain extreme agility although he is wearing what one may safely assume is an immensely heavy protective suit and several pounds of explosives.
This is actually possible speaking that conditioning like this is done in the military. There is also the factor of adrenaline that can make 50 pounds feel like 2. There wasn’t any extreme agility just slow walking and they proved he was preparing do to him exercising in the beginning plus one weapon was about 6 pounds and the other was about 3 pounds. He did stop in the beauty salon and sat down to drink water plus he took off his helmet and was massively sweaty which shows how he was affected.
2. Almost no police officers try to subdue Williamson as he freely roams across town killing innocent bystanders.
The police station was blown up in a town that didn’t look like it can carry more then a thousand people. There aren’t many police officers in rural areas.
3. He fires thousands of rounds but is only shown to reload once.
There were breaks in the movies and one of the weapons ,Heckler & Koch MP7A1, carries up to 40 bullets in a clip and can carry 40 more if extended. The Ruger MP9 can carry 32 bullets in a clip which shows that he has plenty of bullets to shoot within the time they showed him before breaks.
4. Why are there cars on the roads if the radio clearly states that there is an unidentified gunman shooting in that direction? You’d think that the police would set up barriers or something.
If there is gun fire and mass panic in a very small town that isn’t used to any of this then most people are worrying about trying to escape so most people wouldn’t be thinking about where the gunman is but only on how to escape. Like mentioned earlier, if the police aren’t around then nobody would be there to do anything.
5. In one scene, he enters a crowded bingo hall in full armor while carrying machine guns and nobody even looks at him. In fact, he instigates the announcer by knocking something off her desk! You’d think that she would notice the two loaded machine guns at his sides.
This part symbolizes the greed of humanity and how people think about luxury to much to pay attention about what is around them.
Now this is where I believe you don’t understand the movie in the slightest way. The statement you made “I didn’t support his actions and he never seems to actually be happy so how am I supposed to believe that Bill just snapped because his life had lost its luster?” is very mindless of you for the fact is that he was fed up. You don’t need to lose a good life to say you hate your life. He had to deal with the bad so much and it ended up making him into a psychopath. I can say from his stand point that I know how he feels. All murders get pushed to insanity not because they had a great life then it went bad. Columbine, Virginia tech, even Jeffrey Dahmer all had terrible lives from the jump. You have proven your inexperience and ignorance towards idea that you do not understand. If you do not have an open minded view point along with facts to back it up then your opinion is considered FUBAR and just a waste of time.
erh,, if you look closely youll notice he reloades more than once;) the agility part,, he trained alot, and a suit like he wore weight about 30/45 kilo’s,, trust me,, you can still run a great while with that, especially when fed by adrenaline and anger. interesting movie, but also very disturbing
to the people whom liked this movie,, ii can understand you agree to some of the strong points of this movie… but think about it,, if 7 billion people is to much,, and you think some have to ” go ” dont you realise its you aswell that has to go????? what about someone agrees to this movie and start rampaging YOUR town, your friends , your family,, and even you? thats not cool right?? there are always other sollutions than the murdering of random inocent people.. if you want to do things like this, start by rampaging the wicked (boondock saints)
live life living, be brave and honor the balance.
Mari and i know that is not your name, let me start with your 5 little unrealistic points in this movie. First its obvious that this kid if bright seeing how he pulls all of this off so he should be smart enough to realize that its only small caliber fire arms that he is going up against so he would be warring “light” armor to protect himself so he could stay agile. Second, Most of the police were killed when he pursued to blow up the police station. Now using that big imagination that you must have you would have come to the conclusion that most of the officers were in the station when it blew up. Next is point three. He reloaded multiple times not just once. Just because you only noticed it once dosent mean its true and of all the times that hes off screen dont you think he could have i dano reloaded? As for point four the police were all but gone and dead so no road block, but as for the people still on the roads… well people are genuinely stupid. As for number five i have no defense for that except for the fact that people are dumb as fuck. Next bill dident just snap. You really missed the whole point of the story dident you? He was planing this for god knows how long! i mean really how the hell would he have found and purchased a suit of armor and than finished creating a remote controlled circuit to control the truck if he just randomly snapped? Its population control and to show how easy it is. Also he got a shit ton of money so that helps. This whole movie was about how the world is being crowded and i for one believe that something in the lines of population control should be established. Maby not that drastic but still. Thats my opinion and thats what counts.
Point 1) He was never carrying explosives. He also was not very agile as he only jogged a couple of times which is very possible. AND it is shown that he works out often and is a very strong young man.
Point 2) He killed most of the cops in the beginning when he car bombed the police station which is already in a small town and a rural state.
Point 3) What you said is just wrong. He was shown reloading many times if you paid attention. Plus it’s an action which did cut scenes early during the street wide murders. The scenes jumped to show a passing of time and how long he was out there.
Point 4) People are not constantly listening to the radio so how would they know? Plus you’d be safer driving away from the town center rather than bunkering down where he is reported to be killing people. And if he killed majority if not all the cops in the town at the beginning how would they set up road blocks.
Point 5) The BINGO hall is filled with elderly who are deep into their game of bingo. If you ever went to a nursing home, you’d see how important bingo is to them. It’s practically all that they have. And the scene was in there to prove a point, not to be funny. He was killing the people who thought that their lives were important and essential to the world which he despises in the movie. Because he can see that they are not afraid of him he find no point in killing them to prove a message. Plus, they’re old so they’re going to die soon anyway.
Final Point) It’s a movie. When was the last movie you watched which was bullet proof on common sense? If you type “Rampage movie” on Google, the next words that come up are “true story”. I suppose a lot of people found this story to be convincing and believable. The ending was a nice cherry on top as well. LA, who has a much stronger and organized police force was unable to handle two shooters who stood in front of a bank for a half an hour just shooting and not even moving in 1997. How is this movie so far fetched again?
32 comments and still going? This review has been popular. In fact, just for you, I might do a reprisal critique, taking into account all of your points.
i agree with the people who actually payed attention to the movie he reloaded a few times, he worked out he would be able to handle the weight, also after he blew up the police station he did have to deal with a few cops there was three squad cars and from the looks of that was like 7-8 cops and most people who listen to the radio are listening to music not the news and finally the bingo hall they couldve also thought it was jes some kid messing around tho thats unlikely
The movie was great! If you had any politacal knowledge, or knew anything about our current world issues, you would understand that Evan has a lot of the same views and worries as most Americans, but he is concerned with his image and likes to hear himself talk almost as much as a batshit insane critic. As for the police, he blew up the local police station and shot 2 cops on patrol, in a small town, thats about all the police you’re going to have. Also not everyone listens to the radio, people listen to cd’s and i-pods, and even your issue about reloading, just because you didnt see him reload, doesnt mean he didnt reload.
Im sorry but the review seems to be a little bad for example he didn’t drop something off her desk he took a bingo ball and about the reloading and ect… i’ll give the movie a 9/10 but the review a 6/10.
look the entire point of the bingo hall scene was to point out the incredible ignorance and pacifistic nature of elderly people. Hence his comment “you people don’t need my help” (because everyone in the hall was either going to die soon or a complete idiot). you will also notice that the only reason he murdered the women in the nail salon was because he took off his mask. He actually makes a remark about it before he executes them. As for the police aspect, he blew up the station on a week day during normal office hours. This shows that most officers, especially in this docile town, would be at their desks due to the low rate of crime in such a setting during that hour. This point is even reinforced later in the movie because neighboring authorities are only notified when he is about to meet his friend in the woods to frame him. NOTE: this is AFTER he is done gunning down innocent civilians. The character even shows his outsmarting of the killing spree by planting explosives at the border just in time for the police to cross into town. Also, with an explosion of that magnitude at a city/state building all the attention of media, ambulances and bystanders would be focused on the potential terrorist attack, not a man running around in an armor suit gunning down people. as far as the other original points are made, I have to agree with an aforementioned post: its a fucking movie dude, of course the protagonist is gonna make the perfect moves and not get caught, and have just enough ammo, and be able to withstand gunfire from 30 ft out. thats the difference between hollywood and real life.
this review is losey you never once connected with the shooter not once that is unbelievable i love this movie because iam one of the whos who has thought about doing what the shooter does in this film and not everyone that thinks about these things are raving pychos we tend to hold everything in and it comes out all at once just like in this film i mean take me for example i have been to baghdad i have served my country i have saved innocent life yet i come home to where i should be concidered a hero and all i can think about is how i want to go on a rampage iv thought there is no one to stop me and iam trained deadly combination in the movie unthinkable this man also served his country just because you don’t believe in his actions doesn’t mean you believe him as a character we all have that one person in our lives that if we could we would cut their face off while they were still alive and if you notice he drove a van into the police station killing all the lazy pigs inside and then he proceeded to take out the support that had managed to acually get a call see one thing i noticed about civilians you never believe the worse can happen to you the cops probably thought if this were true itd be all over the news. and another point you talk about his enegery notice while inside the head cam he is breathing heavy but before he suited up he did workout i had to run around in 100 degree weather in full battle rattle with an 80 pound roksack on my back kicking in doors for 15 – 20 hours a day for weeks at a time sometimes so the energy is plousable and plus when you kill somebody you heart rate sky rockets see they dont tell you that about war everybody can kill but there are those of us that pervously like it and get off on it its like a steriod you take the drug (you kill the person) and you can blast through your workout in order to understand and relate to this movie you must first connect with your inner killer we all have them even civilians can relate to. another person is talking about him with standing gun fire he was only shot by an m-9 berreta pistol with his armor that would of felt like a baseball hitting him in the chest iv takinen shots from a 9 millimeter to my iba just playing around while on my deployment if left a bruise that is all its not like the police officer had an ak47 now i took a round from that rifle and even with an iba (individual body armor) or bullet proof vest for you civilians the round when i got hit knocked me off my feet and cost me my breath for a few short seconds but a round from a 9 mil try on a bullet proof vest and let someone shoot you dont worry your not going to die just feel like someone punched you i know it sounds crazy but youll understand why when the shooter gets shot he just staggers back a few feet then kills the pig