BLU-RAY O OPERATION: ENDGAME

OPERATION: ENDGAME

Written by TroyAnderson Jul 18th 2010 Hits: 208 Favorites

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THE PLOT THUS FAR

Rival squads of sociopathic covert agents turn on each other with vicious glee when their underground facility is threatened with flaming death. The fun of Operation: Endgame lies in the cast: this is a pretty unlikely collection of assassins, played by the likes of Rob Corddry (Hot Tub Time Machine), Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover), and Emilie de Ravin (Lost), alongside more traditional Hollywood superspy types such as Maggie Q (Live Free or Die Hard), Ving Rhames (Dawn of the Dead), and Ellen Barkin (The Big Easy). Operation: Endgame also has fun with spook lingo (the agents are all named after tarot cards, ranging from the Devil to Temperance to the High Priestess) and extremely graphic violence (truly, at least half of the movie is watching the agents kill each other with improvised weapons, like paper shredders and golf putters). Corddry has the most fun with his part, giving the movie a jolt of energy whenever he appears, but the whole cast has their moment (though Rhames is wasted on a one-joke character). All in all, a bit flimsy, but Operation: Endgame knows that it's trash and revels in it. A candidate for cult film status.

WHAT WE THOUGHT

The audience is immediately taken into an unexpected world, where American covert operatives are shown to be unglamorous, ultra-jaded, and a little crazy, like your average caricature of a stereotypical office environment, complete with cubicles, water coolers and fluorescent lights. It's far from the suave and sophisticated spy life normally depicted. An extremely secret government killer agency gets attacked by a strange outsider. The boss of the agency gets murdered by the unknown killer and the hero of the movie who gets codenamed “Fool” appears just in time to get involved in this chaos.

The film is loaded with a lot of character actors, older talent and comedians that do their best with the material. It's just that the script feels so half-assed, that it's hard for the acting talent to save the material. Had there been some attempt at developing material that would be seen outside of the DTV market, you might have stumbled onto something. While I don't believe it will develop a comic following, I do see a small audience forming for this movie. But, people got behind "The Boondock Saints". There's no accounting for taste.

The Blu-Ray comes with an alternate opening and ending. There's a look behind the scenes, but it's all pretty basic. The Blu-Ray also includes a lossless audio PCM track that produces a cleaner sound than the DVD's Dolby track. The 1080p transfer is pretty sharp, but nothing happens in the film. A lot of people have made a big deal about the humor and how it's closer in spirit to the work of Steve Pink, but I don't see it. However, I'd recommend it for a rental.

RELEASE DATE: 07/27/2010