After robbing a Federal Reserve Bank branch and leading the LAPD on a televised freeway chase (“like O.J., Holmes”), four luckless desperadoes find themselves stranded without a car in East L.A., pursued both by the authorities and – after a “ghetto APB” and word of their loot gets out – their greedy fellow gangstas as well.
Writer-director John Azpilicueta stars as the bereaved Lucky, dismissed from a SEALs training camp for “emotional problems”; Jacob Martinez is Smiley, a chubby old thug who tried in vain to go straight, but whose financial troubles have thrust him back into a life of crime; and Pablo Hernandez is Psycho, a hitman who pretty much lives up to his name. The most interesting character, dishonorably discharged Ranger and Coolio haircut hood rat Sniper, is played by Bless May, who unfortunately receives the least screen time of the foursome.
Azpilicueta’s film, typical for an Asylum release, is shoddy and rough-hewn, with crap special effects, some substandard acting, too little coverage for action scenes, and overreliance on quick cuts and shaky-cam cinematography. A series of black-and-white flashbacks, intended to humanize the leads, only succeeds in stalling the action; but sleazebags attracted to a movie as underachievingly titled as Ready 2 Die will no doubt be entertained by its ready abundance of murder, profanity, rape, and pandemic nastiness.
3.5 out of 5 stars. Ideological Content Analysis indicates that Ready 2 Die is:
7. Anti-Christian. More than one thug is adorned with a cross, either as a necklace or a tacky tattoo.
6. Anti-marriage. A mulatto wife is a lazy, unfaithful freeloader.
5. Miscegenation-ambivalent. The aforementioned wife is, however, depicted as quite the sexual trophy and gets the hiding heroes excited as they voyeuristically enjoy the sight of her in the act of adultery.
4. Anti-bankster. The fact that the crooks attack a Federal Reserve bank makes them, if not quite sympathetic, at least not as dastardly as if they had robbed a small business like a liquor store. Ready 2 Die conveys a generalized anger at the economic plight of the country; and, without articulating any particular argument, the movie seems to be suggesting blame by flashing the Federal Reserve Bank sign during the opening robbery. Sniper is unemployed, and the fact that Smiley is behind on his house payments reminds viewers of banks’ predatory lending tactics.
3. Anti-police. Ready 2 Die evinces either indifference toward the “fucking po-po” or, if anything, actual hostility, casting them as the pesky antagonists who pursue the central characters.
2. Anti-war. Sniper expresses the nihilism of war brought home when he says that shooting at police cars and helicopters is “just like Fallujah, baby – just different motherfuckers.”
1. Racist! Ready 2 Die demonstrates as well as a movie could why even minorities have reason to fear the eventuality of their neighborhoods going majority non-white. Gangs, drugs, and scary tattoos are the norm, with mothers living in fear that their children will be murdered not by white supremacist pigs, but by members of their own wretched raza. Furthermore, blacks appear in an almost uniformly unfavorable light in the film. Sniper is one of the movie’s most coldblooded killers. “Fuck that funny-lookin’ bitch,” he excuses himself for shooting a bank teller. “She was lookin’ at me all crazy and shit.” He robs and kills because he would rather do this than “flip some burgers”. A black cop lounges around his home milking “disability”, while his misbehaving son ludicrously claims to have been suspended from school just for being black.
Wow, Libertarian Realist is begging his viewers for money. I’m shocked. I couldn’t bring myself to beg even when I was living in my car. I had assumed, because he does so much travel in his videos that he had a good job of some kind. I guess I was wrong.
Anyway, I’m impressed that you forced yourself to sit through this horrible film. When I was younger I’d visit the video store drunk and grab crap like this off the shelves thinking it would be somewhat entertaining, but, even though I was buzzed and should have been easily amused, I’d invariably end up sorely disappointed.
Are there any big films coming out that you can’t wait to see? I wanted to see Avatar but I’ve yet to do so.
I can’t afford to go to new movies regularly anymore, so I haven’t been following upcoming releases too closely. I just wait until I can rent one or check it out from the library. I watched an awesome post-apocalyptic movie last night that would probably be pretty fun to watch if you were drunk: Ultra Warrior (1992). I got a used VHS tape of it, so I haven’t checked to see if it’s viewable online; but it’s pretty outrageous at times. Part of it takes place in my own Kansas City, which in the future is a frontier town on the edge of a nuked wasteland, but the crude onscreen caption renders it “Kansas, City”. They didn’t actually film it here, though. All you see of what is allegedly KC is the inside of a strip club.
Maybe you should beg viewers for money to go see new movies. I think Amazing Atheist’s viewers keep him amply stocked with plenty of bananas!
I wouldn’t feel right asking for donations. People interested in helping me can save their money for when my book comes out.
So it’s going to be a very expensive book? Lots of full color illustrations? Maybe with a complimentary DVD in it?
No, it’ll just be text for the most part, though I am planning on creating a collage to adorn the front cover. I think I’m about three years out from having the book ready. I still have a lot of research to do (i.e., movies to watch). My plan is to use Amazon’s feature, CreateSpace, which is how Arthur Kemp publishes his stuff. You get next to nothing in terms of royalties, and I don’t kid myself that I’ll make much money; but I’ve got things to say and, let’s face it, no “reputable” publisher is going to take my stuff.
So you dont even get a percentage of the sales from your own book? How semitic of amazon.
I think you get a percentage, but Amazon keeps the lion’s share.
It all goes directly to israel
I think what you meant to do was rate it 3.5 out of 10 and not out of 5… Even though in all honesty it’s not even worth that, they spend more money and thought on the poster than they did on the movie