War Games: At the End of the Day (2011)

What a beautiful movie!

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Title: War GamesDirected by: Cosimo Alema Storyline: We're first introduced to two men planning landmines in the wet ground. We're also introduced to them as the villains as they steal dogs from a gas station and shoot them for fun. We are then introduced to a group of people who are going out into the woods to play a game of airsoft. One of the group explains the rules of airsoft to his friends. They start actually playing airsoft, they go around using military hand signals and tactics. Making it looks like a semi believable game of airsoft, it is only semi believable because the people spend more time hitting the water than they do hitting each other, which they do non of until the plot calls for it. Two of the group come across the butchering base of the two hunters who were out killing dogs, it is full of blood and body pieces. The slaughter begins with one of the guys shooting one of the group while their talking, I would be saddened by this if I could remember anything about the character, at this point all I know is that he is the only one with an actual firearm. One of the group runs off by himself and runs over the mine that was planned by the two hunters at the beginning of the movie, yet another character I do not care about. The hunters then smoke out the group to get them to run, and after this it is a basic hunting them down one by one story. The blonde one runs off by herself once they take down one of the hunters, but she is selfish and takes the gun with her as the other 2 surviving ones go to find the sister of one of them who was kidnapped first. The surviving girl is able to smoke out the last hunter and kill him before walking off home with all of her friends dead. Acting: The acting seems quite stale for the most part, stale but oddly realistic. Even if I couldn't name any of the characters personalities off the top of my head. Or even point out who was suppose to be the main character... Noticeable Camera work: Within the first 10 minutes you can see why this movie is down rated so much. The audio is not lip synced with the actors so you can see the actors mouthes stop moving before the audio stops. The shots are your standard run of the mill shots for the most part, but you do get some gems of alternative angles and shots such as voyeuristic shots and others such as focus pulls that you would miss if you blink at the wrong moment. During the airsoft fight there is a bit of shaking cam going on which I am not a fan of even when it is done correctly, which it is not in this movie.Length: 90 minutesOverall Feel: This movie disappointed me greatly, the concept of the movie could have had great potential, but it makes me watch characters I don't care about debate relationship things I don't care about. The guys in charge of camera and editing seemed to do their jobs OK. This movie surprisingly had a cinematographer and I say surprisingly because the range of shots go from more than standard to less than great. The movie also had 2 people working on sound and some how it was still un-synced. The acting was tolerable, it was at that grey point between decent acting skills and no acting skills, constantly moving up and down the point. Half of the crew looked like they worked hard on this movie, whereas the half looked like they were just doing this to make a bit of money. Disappointing to say the least, especially as the concept and box art made it out to be a great thriller movie. Thriller movies work best when you care about the characters and want them to survive.

Seven friends travel to the countryside to play airsoft simulating a war in the woods. They stumble with three paranoid and sadistic ex-soldiers and they are killed one by one. "War Games: At the End of the Day" is another stupid collection of clichés, with a imbecile group of hysterical and idiotic teenagers that does exactly the opposite that should have been done: cry when should be quiet; shoot when should wait; return when should flee. Further, the bullets in the pistol end unexpectedly in a moment of advantage for the dumb group or the shooter misses the target. There are several other movies with the same storyline ("group of friends travel to the woods to play paintball, or to fish, or to camp or whatever, and stumbles with a group of sadistic men.The music score is something dreadful and the long conclusion is absolutely predictable. Last but not the least, I should have watched the soccer game live on television instead of wasting my time seeing this crap. My vote is one (awful).Title (Brazil): "Jogos de Guerra" ("War Games")

The director for this movie is a Music Video Director and it shows with the quality of sound and the lack of Foley usage.****SPOILERS****At the beginning of the movie the bad guys are setting up mines in the rain and obviously they thought they could simply record the dialogue through the rain. Unfortunately all they did was make the words the characters were saying indecipherable to the viewer.It is a typical premise although supposedly this movie was based on a true story -- or so it says at the beginning. However, if it was based on a true story it would mean that the entire thing had to have been crafted from Forensic evidence after the investigation into what happened.The usage of music throughout the entire movie where nobody is saying anything simply screams "Music Video" and on more than one occasion I had to remove the headphones until the sound got back to the characters.Anytime I watch a movie I place myself in the same position as the actors and when I do this I can normally follow a well thought-out plot without too many problems. Unfortunately many of the characters in this movie did things that made no sense whatsoever, like a character forgetting about her gun and allowing her sister to scream like a banshee in an underground facility. She also screamed herself less than a couple of minutes after a bad guy had walked out of the room. Wait a sec, let me guess, the bad guys have "selective hearing."The actors overall did a good job with what they had to work with but the problems in sound and with some of the plot holes just made the movie difficult to watch and enjoy. Overall, I would say, take a look but don't expect something the quality of "Deliverance."

This movie fails at the most basic level of telling a story that makes any kind of sense.The premise (the good guys start off in an air-soft game, but it becomes a real 'war') sounds like it might be vaguely interesting (if you haven't already seen the much better film Severance). But the air-soft element is completely forgotten as soon as the baddies show up - the characters who are supposed to be good at the game behave just as idiotically as the rest.It's not even that they make the understandable mistakes panicking civilians might make in a deadly situation - they just do whatever random, stupid things they need to progress the 'story' to the next plot point. One character is happy to kill an injured enemy in cold blood, but then hesitates when confronted by an armed enemy coming for her two minutes later. One character who's armed with a real gun nonsensically *puts it down and forgets about it* just to let a particularly nasty and sadistic scene happen without her preventing it.The cinematographer's main trick is to have the focus wander between foreground and background - which looks classy the first time, but loses its appeal when it happens in every other shot.Not at all good.