Misconduct (2016) Reviews

• Please pardon the theatrics

  petra_ste2016-07-05

  Misconduct is the most disappointing type of drama/thriller, the one which seems kind of watchable for thirty minutes or so and then, twist after twist, turns into a moronic potboiler. Lawyer Ben (Josh Duhamel), whose marriage with Charlotte (Alice Eve) has seen better days, meets old flame Emily (Malin Akerman), who teases him into rekindling a relationship and at the same time turns out to be the current girlfriend of rich executive Denning (Anthony Hopkins), against whom Ben's firm, led by Abrams (Al Pacino), has clashed before. Emily shows Ben incriminating data from Denning's personal files, but is then abducted... or is she? And that's just the beginning of a series of labyrinthine, increasingly silly events. The movie is a ball of noir tropes crumpled together, like a dead-serious version of The Big Lebowski, with femme fatales, trophy partners of smug millionaires, fake kidnappings, mysterious henchmen and a befuddled protagonist stumbling into a string of red herrings and non-sequiturs. Unlike the Coens' sharp, hilarious classic, Misconduct oozes stupidity from every frame. Duhamel portrays his amoral lawyer doing an effective "Timothy Olyphant passing a kidney stone" impression - at least I suppose that was the intended goal. Byung-hun Lee plays the world's least proficient hit-man, one who attacks his victims by punching them while riding a motorcycle and yet fails to kill someone tied to a chair. Former titans Hopkins and Pacino probably high-fived between takes at the thought of the umpteenth easy paycheck. Although Pacino does get to utter the line I put in the review title, which serves as a nice meta commentary on the last part of his career. Poor Alice Eve is uncannily stiff and dead-eyed - not the world's greatest actress to begin with, she gets saddled with an absurd character. Also, casting lookalikes Eve and Akerman (both statuesque, clear-eyed, round-faced, long-haired blondes in their mid-thirties) as, respectively, the protagonist's spouse and potential lover, was an idiotic choice. You want COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TYPES for the contrasting roles of the Wife and the Temptress (think Emily Mortimer/Scarlett Johansson in Match Point), not clones. Add Julia Stiles (in a minor part as a detective) as another long-haired blonde of similar age and facial structure, and this is starting to look like The Stepford Wives. 5/10

• Do not waste your time

  elineger2016-02-07

  This movie was horrible. It's shocking to take so many good actors and make them look like they should be acting in a school play instead of Hollywood. This is my first ever review and I felt I owed it to the public to help save themselves.besides for the horrible acting there was nothing in the plot that made sense. Nothing in the Way each actor reacted to their situation would have ever happened Even the final twist which is supposed to be so shocking that you never saw coming is because it never made sense to ever have happened. Please don't waste your time go watch the Kardashians. You'll feel smarter.

• AVOID. Please do something more worthwhile

  whoeveriswithoutsin2016-08-30

  Spoiler Alert! Let's clear a few things up. I don't see any haters here including myself. I specifically registered with this site to make my first comment to save some people time and frustration from seeing a truly awful movie. This is by far one of the worst movies I have ever seen. There are so many logic errors within the entire movie it detracts from the already miserable script. The basic premise was sound but was executed so poorly it is amazing to think people can produce this and say "that'll do" or even worse everyone involved thought this was an outstanding piece of work and they are actually deluded. The only notable performance was that of Josh Duhamel who staggers from one bad scene to another and still comes across as a good actor. Alice Eve's performance of someone who is depressed was entirely comical; her acting was so wooden she would put a tree to shame. Also landing the absolutely absurd cliff hanging twist on the poor girl tested her non facial expression to the limits. From the picture you would think the two major actors of Al Pacino and Anthony Hopkins would elevate this diatribe to something just above puerile but both fail miserably. They both have such a minor role that they are shoe horned into the role as vehicle for a really bad script. There is even a laughable school yard exchange between Josh Duhamel and Al Pacino in a cafe "your finished" "no your finished" "no you're so finished you'll never work again" "some arbitrary quote from Al" followed by Al Pacino boasting "how's that some Shakespeare for you". These are stellar actors who have both made a bad decision apart from taking the money of course. Bad Script Bad Acting Bad Directing Bizarre and Bad Ending Truly Bad Movie

• Tony & Al sell soul, destroy legacy

  Filboid_Studge2016-02-06

  What dark deals were struck to persuade two of the greatest screen actors of all time to appear in this stillborn nonsense? What dirt do they have on Messrs Hopkins & Pacino that they can be lured into this manure-filled paddock? The script for "Misconduct" seems to have been pieced together from scraps of paper harvested from the bin of a ten-year-old struggling to produce a piece of creative writing homework. Someone should take this ten-year-old to one side and have a quiet word about the rudiments of drama; firstly, have a protagonist who we care about. Secondly, don't expect us to believe an intelligent lawyer would make the most catastrophic, rudimentary slip-ups when committing a crime; thirdly, have the story make even a little bit of sense, without plot holes big enough for the orbit of Halley's comet. Special mention must go to Alice Eve, an actress so monumentally bad that in a just world she would be laughed out of the room if she auditioned for the part of the back end of the donkey in her local comprehensive school's nativity play. She seems to think that what's required for this role is to approximate one of those kittens you see on Youtube falling asleep in its food bowl. Only go to see "Misconduct" if you're atoning for sins committed in a previous life.

• A movie you can skip in my humble opinion.

  nickpeev2016-02-05

  I didn't liked this movie. The acting seemed to me unnatural, all of the actors were over-calm an emotionless, it was like a film for androids, at least in most of it. The plot had a potential but it was unrealized for a lot of reasons, I think mostly the directing. As the action was moving towards the end the whole thing became even more messy and sporadic and it all ended with a grand finale of nonsense. Sorry about my poor English but I felt obliged to prevent other people from seeing that movie. I'm a simple man and I don't know much about the art cinematography but I can distinguish a bad movie when I see it, believe me.