User Reviews

The Oodie brothers are three redneck hitmen living near Montgomery Alabama. They are in cahoots with the local sheriff (Andre Braugher). When Celeste (Eva Longoria) offers them $25,000 to retrieve her godson (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) from crime boss Carlos (Billy Bob Thornton) they free lance.

The boys are Brick, the leader (Clayne Crawford); McQueen, nearly illiterate (Travis Fimmel) and Lincoln aka The Dixie Reaper (Daniel Cudmore). Carlos is the "Wal- Mart of crime." Once the godson is taken, he sends out gangs to retrieve him, including a gang of biker prostitutes. Meanwhile the sheriff is being hounded by a "Yankee ATF" (Paul Wesley) who is putting the pieces together.

This is a great shoot 'em grindhouse film. If you are not a grindhouse action fan, then don't bother with this film. This production includes colorful characters, a great soundtrack, and an improbable plot...everything we want in a grindhouse except Danny Trejo.

Parental Guide: F-bombs, brief rear nudity, brief sex on a video.

I just stumbled across another guilty pleasure, that I truly enjoyed. Filmed in a "B Movie" genre style, this movie is a combination 'Mad Max' meets 'The Warriors' with plenty of blood, guts, and raw carnage to go around. Budgeted at only $4 Million dollars, Writer/Director Barry Battles does an excellent job of getting plenty of bang for his buck with his limited resources. This film was highly entertaining, brought depth to it characters, and was a totally unexpected pleasure to view.

The film centers around three unlikely heroes/anti-heroes, Brick, McQueen and Lincoln Oodie. Not the sharpest crayons in the box; however, after watching the film you will see that they mean well, and that these boys actually have hearts of gold. Orphaned at a relatively young age and forced to raise themselves; the Oodie brothers are vigilante guns for hire. Without giving too much away, let's just say that the Oodie brothers are paid to eliminate the seedy underbelly world of drugs, organized crime, and all things that are bad (and under the radar) in Montgomery, Alabama. Their world is turned underside down once they accept a job from Celeste (Eva Longoria) to kidnap her son, Rob (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) from her ex, Carlos (Billy Bob Thornton).

Once our trio of misfits successfully secured Rob in their possession, all hell breaks loose as Carlos puts out a contract on the Oodie brothers for Rob's returns. The gangs called upon to ensure Rob's return include a group of hooker biker chicks, a post apocalyptic road warrior crew, and a scalp hungry Indian clan complete with bow and arrows. It's pure unadulterated gratification as the body count and blood splatter action sequences are top notch and exceptionally executed, and totally unforeseen in a film with such a small budget. Clayne Crawford (Brick), Travis Fimmel (McQueen), and Daniel Cudmore (Lincoln) do an unbelievable job breathing life into their blood encrusted characters. Kudos to writer/director Barry Battles for successfully building characters that the audience actually cares about; character development in a film of this variety was definitely not expected, and absolutely great to see.

I highly recommend seeing this film; however, this is definitely not a film for everyone. Fans of the 'B Movie' / blood splatter bullet blaring action genre will find true delight in this film.

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15 minutes into this movie it really came off like a Quentin Tarentino movie. It has many plot elements that Tarentino uses, anti-social psychotic anti-hero's, violent groups of women, cheesy over the top violence, revenge and vengeance, an interesting plot twist, politically incorrect language.... Even some of the camera angles and camera shots reassembled Tarentino movies.

This isn't a thinking man's movie... There's no moral or message to be gotten out of it that you can't see in any number of movies. It did hit the spot though as far as entertainment goes... While there isn't much of a plot to speak of, there was no shortage of action. That action was mixed and varied enough to keep my attention. Over all it came off like "Kill Bill" meets "The Devils Rejects" (With even a nod to the Devils Rejects with the use of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird which I caught and thoroughly enjoyed)

I'm not much of Billy Bob Thorton fan, with very few exceptions he's always come off as stiff and awkward. I felt the same about his performance in this and it seemed like he just phoned in his performance to me. I'm sure if your a fan of his, you might enjoy him in it though. I felt Eva Longoria's performance wasn't much better. Fortunately their screen time was limited and the actors that played the 3 brothers were the stars, and the action of the movie carried it.

In spite of my criticism, I'd definitely give the movie a thumbs up and recommend it.

The Plot: 3 killers use to kill other killers in the name of justice, and in return for some money (paid by a cop). Some other killers kidnap a kid for big sum of money. The 3 killers go to kill the other killers to regain the kid, for little sum of money. Those other killers send different teams of killers to kill the 3 killers and get the kid back. The 3 killers kill all, save the boy, go to jail, and get free after 57 months. To tell you the truth, it isn't that silly, however its last part is!

The Production: They cast 3 unknown actors to be the title characters and shoot everybody down, Eva Longoria to act as the lady who hires them (in maybe 4 scenes), and Billy Bob Thornton to talk filthily and look evil (in maybe 5 scenes). They designed a poster that bears a resemblance to the posters of the 1970s action movies, where the aforementioned 2 stars, who are in it as nearly cameos, have the whole picture. They made references to the graphic novels, the comics, the cartoon a la many violent movies lately, as Kill Bill (2003, 2004) and Revolver (2005), to assure the nature and the origin of their movie. And, finally, they weren't any short of blood and gore!

The Good Points: The character of Lincoln Oidie; the sane, steely and mute brother, played by Daniel Cudmore, was interesting. The 3 leads were charismatic, having some wittiness. The young actor, who played the disabled kid, did fine. And the directing handled the action well; the climactic fight was smartly choreographed, and effectively done.

The Bad Points: The movie looks like a joined levels of Grand Theft Auto, bloody road movie, or The Dukes of Hazzard for adults. It's nothing but mindless violence, with bad guys, and less bad guys. Speaking of which, I hate those 3 outlaw brothers; they're scary killers. Work for good or not, look nice or not, THEY ARE SCARY KILLERS. The way how they murder ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE then get away with it, within 57 months, is idiot and unbelievable. It fits an old lawless age in a western movie, or an illogical realm of a Tom and Jerry short. Otherwise, you must feel massive anger towards the justice system of America after the movie ends! Although the script is straight crazy action from start to finish, it leans to wise talking in totally strange, laconic, and never understood scene with Natalie Martinez! The attempt of squeezing a relief from Michael Rapaport's side ended up as painful, and showing extra shots for him at the closing credits was yet more painful! Billy Bob Thornton was / is hellishly silly. He did one of the worst evil men ever appeared on the screen. And the way how he got killed at the end is taaaaaaaaacky, enough to say that I have watched it in the end of 2 Rod Steiger movies before!

The Verdict: This is exploitive nonsense. Though, it wanted to show some mindless violence, and fairly did. It has killings, with bad killers and good killers, all to make you unchain some, rather huge, negative feelings, while killing some time with it too. Well, as for me, all what it did kill, else my time, was the possibility of me liking it. Too mindless and too violent for my taste I believe!

My only Consolation: it's more catchy than another mindless violence feast of a movie named (The Boondock Saints - 1999).