*Top Fun* indeed.

This is a pretty great mad-cap real-life adventure story.  From the second it does a destruction on the studio titles (all the cool kids are doing it!) the scene is set for a less than entirely serious unfolding of a natural, yet cinematic story.  It’s a late 70s period piece, and draws heavily on real news footage and that faded 80s photo type filtering to really set the vibe.  But visually it’s a pretty cool pastiche, there’s some comedy animated maps, some more serious but hilarious maps, some video diary kinda stunt-doubling for narration… some CIA/DEA/drug cartel cliches done small, some done big… it’s a little bit melting pot but that’s okay.

I guess in some way’s it’s a bit of a heist movie, and the gringo sure does deliver.  I really loved the incessant sense of drowning in all the cash.  There was a really great sense of both comedy and tension through most of it… and I tend to think it drew a lot more audience responsiveness than a lot of movies – the “what the” laughing, the “omg” groaning… the sighs of relief and cringey waiting breaths.  A shout out to Caleb Landry Jones for being an amazing, amazing side problem.  There are a lot of planes, a lot of cocaine, a lot of guns and a lot of fun. 

J* gives it 4 stars.

PS.  It has a really weird collection of end-credit studio titles…. As if to make up for the disrespect they copped at the start.  And while there isn’t an end-credit scene, there is a written final credit joke… in some ways those are nearly as good.  I don’t know why you’d make a movie and not leave with a final joke of some kind. 

PPS.  Two people died in a plane crash during filming.

<Review written in 2017>