I Care a Lot Review

 

I Care a Lot is a dark comedy thriller movie. The film is produced by STXfilms, Black Bear Pictures, and Crimple Beck and distributed by Netflix. I Care a Lot is written and directed by J Blakeson.

The story is a woman named Marla Grayson makes her living stealing from the elderly by having judges make her their "legal guardian". One day it seems like her routine is going to be a normal way until it turns out to be very different. You see, her latest victim has ties to a very powerful gangster. Now Marla must find a way out of this situation.

Initial Reaction

Now the sole reason I wanted to see this movie was because it's a black comedy (or dark comedy same difference really) and well I love dark humor. I mean look at the some of the movies I reviewed. Black Sheep and Tucker & Dale vs. Evil are two films that can fall into that category.

Cons

One huge issue with the movie is everything that happens to our main characters (Marla and Fran) comes from convenience. I mean it these have to be the luckiest villains ever! For instance not one but two mob assassins try to kill them and they're professionals mind you but I guess when it came to these two their skills just suck now. And stuff like that just keeps happening, sure with movies you gotta suspend your disbelief but you can only do that for so long. Another issue that came is when the film started to want us to view Marla as the hero. Yeah no. This character abuses the elderly and drains them of their money. Just because the mob are now after her and making her life a living hell that doesn't mean I'm gonna feel sympathy for her. Hell you can't even put her into the anti-hero category because she's not doing bad things for a good reason, her reason is I want to be super duper rich. So trying to make me feel bad for her doesn't work because by the end of the day she's still an awful person. The last thing I'll criticize I Care a Lot is the ending. Throughout the entirety of the movie you want to see Marla get her comeuppance but the way they went about was very unsatisfying. Because Marla didn't really lose anything at the end. Her employees don't hate her, there's no protest demanding her to be put on death row, she doesn't lose all of the money she gained, and her reputation isn't destroyed. She essentially got away with every crime she committed.

Middle Ground

Now there are bits of humor spread in this dark comedy and they're fine. And that's the best way to describe the humor. It'll get you a good chuckle and I think that'll work.

Pros

One positive I'll give the movie is Rosamund Pike's performance. She was really great in this, in matter of fact her performance is the only REAL highlight of the entire movie. Another thing I'll give it credit for is despite the story the filmmakers did do a good job making Marla Grayson a good villain. She's the type of character that you'll just hate. Not love to hate you'll just despise this lady. The last thing I'll give I Care a Lot credit for is J Blakeson's directing. He directed a nicely crafted movie even if the writing was bad.

I Care a Lot is a huge letdown. It started off promising enough but soon things just go down hill. What with our main characters not being the smarts of the bunch it's just things are convenient for them or everyone else is kind of dumb, the movie doesn't make us feel for Marla because no matter what she's terrible, and the ending is blows. Humor is alright. The only saving graces were Rosamund Pike's acting, the fact that Marla is actually good villain, and Blakeson's directing isn't bad. But sadly those good to mix things can't save the movie's awful story.

My final rating is Bad.

So that's all for me. Come back on Monday, Feb 22nd for A Look Back at review of season one of Close Enough. Until then enjoy the rest of your day.