Aftermath (2017)

Arnold Schwarzenegger is now doing a reverse Liam Neeson. Neeson started off a serious, credible actor who, later in life, became an action film star in a series of mostly terrible films where he played someone called, like, Growly Punchfist and struggled with a convincing American accent.

Schwarzenegger, a man who's spent his career apparently struggling with his own accent, started off playing physically huge death machines, normally called something like Maddox Grenade, and was never looked upon as someone with acting skills beyond his formidable physique. Now though, with this film and the recent 'Maggie', he appears to have learnt something about acting. Mostly, keeping things quiet and less explosions.

Is this a good film?

Yeah, sort of. The fact that it's based on horrific true events feels a little uneasy and exploitative, but that is something of a redundant outlook if you consider the history of films. From pretty much day one they've used true life events as inspiration for what we watch. Also, context is the key to how appropriate something is; slapstick musical about Peter Sutcliffe would be a difficult watch, but a drama highlighting the effects of his insane actions could be a powerful film.

Anyway, this films stays very much on the safe side of anything that could be considered exploitative and was actually much more watchable and involving than I was expecting. No masterpiece or anything, but pretty good.

Or possibly total arse-water and I was just in a generous mood that day.

7/10