Back in the good old days when you only had one TV channel, life was easy. When you stumbled home after a night of screwdrivers, all you could do was turn on the TV and hope that whoever was in charge of programming on the single channel the coat hanger stuck into antenna portal could receive was smart enough to have ‘Gladiator’ set on repeat for the next 16 hours. Back in Peru, I was lucky because they always put the perfect show on the tube for post drinking binge/sleep watching.
These days with your plethora of viewing options, you end up scrolling through an endless stream of crap films and chances are you fall asleep before you even have a chance to pick something to watch. Heck, even channel surfing was superior because at least sometimes you got hooked on a film by accident and kept watching.
The other day I happened to hit play on a film called “Shot Caller” starring the guy who plays Jamie Lannister on Game of Thrones. He probably has a real name, but I’m just going to refer to him as Jamie Lannister for the rest of this review, because that’s funnier.
So Jamie Lannister plays this clean cut regular guy who doesn’t have a pretty enough wife, but otherwise seems to be doing well. My wife was like, “That chick with the big nose is his wife? What a waste.” I don’t know if she thought the film was believable after that. I thought it became unbelievable when Jamie Lannister got into a car wreck and ended up serving a jail sentence that totally transformed his life. So, fast forward seven years and now Jamie Lannister is this hard-assed white power gangster with a biker moustache and a semi-chiseled chest covered in prison tattoos. Actually the movie kind of jumps back and forth between the clean cut days and the biker days and you’re like, “What the heck? That’s the same guy?” And then you’re like, “Oh, that’s what happened?” Then you’re like, “Well that didn’t seem all that realistic, but Jamie Lannister’s cool so I’ll keep watching.” Then you’re like, “Ok, he got kind of bad ass, so that’s cool too.”
Lost in the mix is that Jamie Lannister gives a pretty decent performance (they must have good theatrical schools in Westeros). I guess he’s been working as a professional actor for 7 or 8 years now, so he’s gotten better than in Episode I when he was little more than a pretty boy getting schooled in bad ass acting by Sean Bean (“I don’t like for people to know what I’m capable of until it really counts”). But he’s good in this, certainly better than some of the totally BS performances that are routinely praised by paid off crticis. In short, he’s a better actor than anyone in The Last Jedi.
So, Shot Caller has a plot about a massive arms deal, and white supremacists in prison, and a parole officer who is a little more perceptive than standard, and a struggling dude who is trying to protect his family. It’s all done in a way that isn’t completely annoying. Oh, the Punisher is in this movie too and his presence is always welcome.
The reality is that you probably wouldn’t have heard of this movie if it weren’t for Amazon prime because it exists in that tier of films with something in the 5 to 10 million budget range (I couldn’t find the exact number anywhere…I only looked on Wikipedia though). But that mid to low range tier of films is where all the gems are, so I recommend watching this. Just make sure you have plenty of screwdrivers nearby so you can shank somebody if you need to (but I’m referring to the OJ and Vodka type, so they appreciate the shank).
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