Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Brooklyn 45' (2023)

SPOILERS!!!

I'm not going to COMPLETELY pan this movie, but it's got no teeth. There was some heavy, good meat on the plot, but the movie took a nibble and left the rest. There was SO much to work with and they did nothing with it.

Let me start off by explaining this was basically reverse Twelve Angry Men (1957). There's basically one asshole, Major Paul, who thinks a woman who was being held hostage by his friend is a Nazi spy. He spends the first fucking HOUR of the movie trying to convince his three other friends to kill the hostage for being a spy. This is a sort of unspoken request from a dead guy named Colonel Clive who killed himself rather than killing the hostage himself.

And here's the thing. Paul's motivation is really hard to believe. He KNEW Clive was sick with grief. He KNEW Clive's wife Susan killed herself because she was mentally unstable. The hostage literally kicks her way out of a closet bound and gaged. The idea that Paul would just randomly cling to his friend's delusion and try to kill the hostage is extremely far-fetched. Hell, it's far more likely that he'd be mad at his buddy for being a coward and killing himself. Either that or he'd be racked with fucking guilt from watching his grieving friend blow his own brains out. With the setup, the movie should have just moved directly on to his dead buddy's dilutional obsession with the hostage being a Nazi spy. The moment the hostage kicked her way out of the closet, the rest of the cast should have tried to leave the room with her and discovered -at that very moment- they could not. This should have immediately precipitated into the body of Clive demanding his friends kill the hostage.

It takes nearly a full fucking hour for the plot to really kick in, with Paul inexplicably trying to convince the rest to kill the hostage. In the first twenty minutes, the dead guy should have been doing the creepy voice demanding that his friends kill the hostage. This is when we should've started introducing the morbid backgrounds of the friends. Archibald blew up a school of children, Marla literally tortured people, Paul could have easily been the Colonel who ordered Archibald to blow up the school of children instead of Clive, and Bob the CIA guy could have been guilty of SO many fucking things just for being CIA. This could be a redemption arch for each of the characters facing their guilt while fighting the hate-filled spirit of their buddy Clive.

Jesus, do these fucking people need me to write their fucking movie for them? It's got no fucking teeth. Paul inexplicably becomes obsessed with killing the hostage, everyone else tries to prevent him from killing the hostage, then Bob kills Paul and the hostage. Bob literally caves to the demands of a hateful, delusional corps, just to save himself from being trapped in the room any longer. He should've just been dragged directly into hell where Clive should have been waiting for him with his fucking wife. But NO. Bob kills Paul and the hostage, then they just walk right out the front door. What the fuck is that? That's an empty fucking ending.

Look, do I think Paul was the perfect character to want to shoot the hostage? Yes. If Clive's corps stood up and told him the hostage was a Nazi spy, I could see him eventually cave just from the mind fuck. Do I believe Bob would be the one to actually kill the hostage? Yes, he's a fucking coward. I can totally see the coward finally being the one to kill the hostage. All the writer/director had to do was take the same concept and lay it out a little differently so it fit and had some chutzpah.

I abso-fucking-lutely hate movies I could have written better myself. I just can't recommend it. I can't look at this movie seriously. There is ZERO value to the story. It's a limp dick. This was a movie with SO much going for it and they didn't even remotely approach what it could have been.

A whole fucking hour of fuck-all for a limp dick.