SoftInloveRox
Horrible, fascist and poorly acted
SpunkySelfTwitter
It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.
Jemima
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
Nadine Salakov
"Setup" is about three friends who are into criminal activity and one of the three friends betray the other two."Sonny" (50 Cent) stops at nothing to find the former friend/betrayer "Vincent" (Ryan Phillippe). We find out near the end of the movie that "Vincent" betrayed his friends for money to pay to keep his father "William" (James Remar) in protective custody in prison. "Vincent" is the most stupidest character, it looks like his father is going to be in prison for a very long time, so you're just going to keep paying thousands of dollars every single month to keep him protected? very silly, "Vincent" is acting like the parent which is very patronising, bottom line his dad is in prison because of the choices that he made, it isn't the son's problem, if the situation were reversed it's unlikely that his dad would do the same for him, considering the way he talks to his son when he visits him in prison, there doesn't seem to be any love at all for his son.All the characters are foolish at one point due to getting involved in crime, but "Sonny" has a change of heart and chooses not to kill "Vincent" out of revenge, the Christian theme is good, but a major error is when the priest says "God can ALMOST forgive anything", there is no "almost", God forgives anything and everything, no matter how dark it is, when people ask God for forgiveness, He forgives!The famous sentence "No honour among thieves" is proved in this motion picture, so it shouldn't actually be surprising to the characters and to the viewers that one would turn against the others."Setup" is only about an hour and a half, it is fast-paced and never boring, the mob aspect doesn't outweigh the rest of the plot, thank God (it doesn't get anymore boring than mob depictions) Bruce Willis playing a mobster is annoying, but he is just a supporting character.Cinematographer Steve Gainer does a good job with the blue tint, it gives the movie a down to earth gritty vibe.There are not many interesting crime thrillers out there, but "Setup" is a must-watch.
Leofwine_draca
SETUP is a very cheap heist thriller shot in the wilds of Michigan. There are a lot of familiar actors on board but most just turn up to get the pay cheque and go again. The story feels half hearted and the greyed-out look works against it, giving it a cookie cutter feel. However, the film isn't quite as bad as I was fearing, and at least it's short and fast-paced, which means you won't really get bored about it.The story is about the familiar fall-out among thieves that takes place early on. The heist scene is well shot and brings to mind HEAT in its depiction of a large-scale shoot-out, definitely the best part of the movie. However, 50 Cent is a poor choice for the lead and quite unlikeable, while Ryan Philippe is miscast for his part. Bruce Willis is prominently featured on the cover but gets little screen time other than to intone gruff dialogue in a room for ten minutes or so. Randy Couture has a very small role too. At least the action's okay, with a foot chase in the second half that really captivates.
topbananas
This is quite possibly one of the best examples you could find of film making at its worst. I managed 35 minutes and the insult to my intelligence could not take anymore. How any of the seasoned actors (and there are a few) who appear in this did not question the shoddy dialogue is a mystery. At first I thought the sound recording was poor - then I realised that its just Curtis 'fiddy cent' s voice is completely monotone - when his mate gets shot, when he gets shot, when he's about to shoot somebody.... it's like he's reading aloud a menu at the drive thru. And whats with the Guy Ritchie stuff - the spinning freeze frame and the cartoon script - not to mention the scenarios pretty much exactly stolen from lock stock and snatch - very lazy. One scene I have to mention is a point where they hijack some Russian gangsters who are digging buried loot from a grave. 50 and another guy literally roll up in a truck, come to a halt, look out of the window and go - 'okay-there they are', then they run over and knock them out stealing the booty. Now I don't know about you, but if I was a professional mobster from Russia who had gone halfway around the world and carved a corrupt empire into a foreign country, I would not let two muppets driving a van into the middle of a cemetery at night with the radio blasting and headlights on 'sneak' up to 15 yards away, park, and then 'surprise' me. I imagine much of the 20million budget of this movie was spent hiring Bruce Willis for one afternoon so they could get his face on the poster.
canadiancole-92-872935
I could use a lot more than 10,000 words telling you how bad this movie is, but I think I will focus on the worst parts to save time.3 friends from high school get together and commit crimes to support themselves and their families in "Detroit", a city so down on it's luck it can't afford police officers anymore. (Seriously...There is a 10 minute "chase scene" with gunfire through crowded malls and café's and never once do you hear a siren) After successfully completing a "5 million" dollar diamond heist, done in a crowded intersection and shooting up half the cars and buildings on the street in the process, one of the three happy high school comrades goes "Brutus" on his pals and shoots them both in the head. Err...Shoulders....killing one instantly (obviously. Shoulders are where criminals hearts are.)At this point "50 Cent", stumbles through 60 minutes of terrible dialogue and music, seeking vengeance, and casually dropping off corpses at a place where a weird guy grinds them into hamburger. (There should be one on every corner IMO.) At some point you learn that the "betrayer" killed his best friends because he wanted to pay a 100,000 dollar bribe to keep his deadbeat dad alive in prison. OH! By the way, he also has a sister who was the driver of the private car that they heisted at the beginning. (Shocker....you'd think his high school buddies would know her and recognize her...)Finally...The strange religious under-tones and random 1 on 1 therapy with the local priest...combined with the "random acts of kindness and charity" around every corner makes me feel like the movie is just Bible Thumper Propaganda.In the end...50 Cent drives off into the night in the most "unrecognizable/inconspicuous powder blue Classical car in the world" with 1 million in cash, after a diamond heist, a snatch and grab, a gun battle/foot chase, grinding up a corpse, buying drugs, arranging for an organized crime mass culling that he manages to just duck his head and run through. Yeah...At least he doesn't kill his friend! 50 cent be too good for that --- you feel me?
