Antony T
It's one of those invite your friends movie nights. There's a landfill of clichés that not even Spillane would dare to climb, and amidst the risible teeth-grating gross you get two brilliant gems. 1) Flatley seemingly has a lackey on standby at every key entrance, with a hat ready for jaunty angle wearing. 2) A ludicrous fight scene where Flatley takes on some hoods, but all the action is behind canvas, leaving you to guess what's happening amidst the sound effects of fists flying and breaking furniture. Then Flatley appears, dusting off his hands as if he's just finished a difficult cake mix.
But let's all give a wave to Eric Roberts, who, just when we thought he'd reached his career nosedive with 'Human Centipede 3', pops up here as the obligatory slimy villain. What a waste of talent. Said nobody.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
08/21/25
Full Review
Some G
This movie is bad, and not in a so-bad-its-good kind of way.
>>I enjoy watching and making fun of those types of movies This got compared to The Room. The Room is fun; this isnt. Yes it has many tropes, dialogue written by a person that spent all of life doing something other than writing dialogue, ridiculous scenes, and a few thigh slapping moments of stupidity, but most of it is annoying because the plot and character development is inexplicably held back.
One thigh slapper example: a bad guy, who's staying at the hotel, walks into the empty hotel bar yelling Flatley's characters name for some reason, rather than just walking up to him. So Flatley downs a shot before he takes on a guy twice his size and 30 years younger than him. Flatley dishes out a couple of lefts, rights, and some hooks. The bad guy falls down. "He's dead.." I say deapan as if a character in the movie, as a joke. The actual character takes his pulse and nods. He is indeed dead. Flatley then walks off and decides to down a whole bottle of liquor. There are at least 2 other bad guys, who are staying at the same hotel, who apparently wont be looking for their associate who just died. Flatley leaves the body for his friends presumably to get rid of. He passes out drunk on the beach. And by morning time there has been no repercussions for killing this guy in the hotel. When you realise that an upcoming deadly confrontation with the bad guys must have been done with a blistering hangover, it makes this future scene funnier.
>>The film's pacing is off. Shots are too long and leave you wondering what they're about. They linger on characters for no reason. People look at the camera. Some shots that feel like they would be better suited as tv advertising for the hotel. There's overuse of emotional music (maybe to try to help explain the story, or to add depth to Flatley's wooden acting). You're left to assume too much. Yea we know they must be a spy group but none of it is really explained, and the name of the group is only mentioned maybe 2/3 way into the film. Theres a lot of talk about London - theyve got to call London. Theres a mysterious guy in a telephone box in London. Something something London.
>>The bad guys sure are bad too. We see a random torture scene to show how bad these men are, and the lead bad guy of the scene tells the soon-to-be-stiff that he's dead. He does this while drinking a rosé (surely the drink of choice of baddies), and sits so close to the guy that you cant help but yell out in disbelief when the guy with a machette lines up behind him to take his head off. There is no way this guy wants this guys head and blood on his nice suit, and how is going to protect his rosé from the inevitable blood splatter? Surely the rosé is ruined. What do we eventually work out the bad guys want?: Theres some secret recipe for life that if you change one ingredient it brings death. Yerp. The bad guys are going to kill a bunch of the population for profit. It's very early Bond movie SPECTRE-esque, and even that is very dated now. The recipe is on a secret coin-disk thats been stolen, and people die for it before we know what any of this is or why we should care. And somehow Flatley has the ability to copy this ridiculously uncommon format at his hotel. And theres just so many cobbled together plot points that you get tired of the whole thing. Its as if this spy movie was written by an actual spy who didnt want to give anything away. You dont have to keep everything a secret from us Flatley.
But, yes the bad guys are bad. They are on a yacht, and the lead henchman throws their banker into the water, to show his boss's annoyance. A yacht worker tells them theyre not allowed to throw people into the water. He promptly then has his neck snapped and his body is thrown into the water. This is in daylight, not that far from other boats and the shore. Eric Roberts' character tells his henchman he's done a good job. Definitely didn't randomly and potentially catastrophically jeopardise the whole deal he's got going on in a day or so. The babes or other workers on the boat presumably arent fazed about murder, his workmates at the hire company wont miss him, and the police surely wont investigate. They'll probably just leave him bobbing in the bay, its fine.
>>The dialogue is so stupid too - you can see where Flatley has tried to make punchy tough guy lines but theyre so obvious and cliche that theyre groanable rather than memorable. People say lines like "Nothing good has ever come from all of this!". And they argue about how they moved here to get away from it all, not to be sucked back in. Eric Roberts' bad guy invites Flatley to play poker, and goads him into playing aggressively. Flatley loses. They talk tough and Flatley says "Who I am is none of your concern. And what I do is out of your control", which is presumably another line he wrote before he wrote the movie after one too many rosés. Then another round of cards have been dealt without them even asking or indicating theyre playing another round. Guess who wins this time. As they leave Roberts tells him hes not prepared for the stakes this time. Its such a shoddy, tired, imitation of old bond movies.
>>Flatley Loves 2 things: His dead wife, and Hats. He thinks they make him look suave and mysterious. There is a lady on standby at the door of the hotel that swaps his hat for a different driving hat as he leaves. I saw a review before I watched it that laughed at how many different hats he wears all at the same angle, and yes that gets funnier as the movie goes on.
>>The final shoot out scene has some of the most inept shooters that cinema has seen. (I wont tell you who wins, even though its obvious). This was probably the highlight. He says "Lets dance" (as a possible nod to his significantly more successful previous career) and then as the camera zooms out he has a side shooting wriggly action that Im probably unlikely to ever see on film again. That, and some of the other things i mentioned maybe sounds fun enough to watch, but its not worth it. If the plot was better explained and organised it might be so bad its good, but as it is, its just poorly explained, confusing, and tedious.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
08/07/25
Full Review
Brett R
This movie is an unmitigated disaster! I highly recommend watching it.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/27/24
Full Review
Audience Member
I can't not recommend this enough!!!
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
09/13/24
Full Review
Stuart B
Blackbird was one of those viewing experiences that I'm sure we have all had, you know the one. Where you are watching a film and early on know that its not a great film and that you should really hit the off switch and try something else, but you end up watching the full film anyway and then thinking. You know what? I didn't like it, but I'm glad I watched it. Clearly Blackbird is a passion project for Michael Flatley and that's fine, I'm sure everyone has something they would class as a ‘passion project' . Blackbird was such an odd film and whilst it did have its fun silliness and curiosity about it for me. I'm not sure its a film Id recommend unless someone says to me ‘I want to watch something odd, that'll make my head tilt like a confused puppy' in which case I might answer with ‘watch Blackbird' Also if you are a fan of Eric Roberts then he's definitely full on Eric Roberts in this film too and that's always fun to watch. It also has one of (if not the) most ridiculous fight scenes that youll see (or actually not see) on screen where the hero of the film is taken off camera by a couple of thugs, and a few seconds later he returns onscreen, blood soaked having just won a fight with the thugs but we don't ever get to see any of the fight at all. totally bonkers!
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
03/17/24
Full Review
Zach F
It had 0 tap dancing.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
03/12/24
Full Review
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