By Dan Skip Allen 

There are some films where you see the trailer and like them from what you saw or the cast, and you’re like that looks good to me with all of these actors I’m familiar with. Then you see the movie, and you realize it’s not your thing at all. That “The Fix” for me. It’s not going to change my opinion of the actors or anything. It’s just the idea of what the movie is trying to say isn’t for me and my tastes. That happens sometimes. Maybe other viewers who watch will like it. Who knows? It just wasn’t my cup of tea.

This film focuses mainly on a group of CIA Operatives, played by Zachary Levi,(Tucker), Elnaaz Morouzi, Quincy Isaiah, and Wes Chatham, (Alex) who are led by Larry (Liam Neeson) from an undisclosed location as their handler. He sends them on a secret covert mission in Afghanistan, but the mission goes bad, resulting in them being disgraced and kicked out of the CIA. While Neeson’s character gets away, scott free. Years later, the Levi character comes across a deal in Tehran, Iran, that he can’t resist. So he bands together his old crew to try and steal $25 dollars and get redemption for their past mistake. 

I’ve seen a lot of movies about the Gulf War or war in Iraq. To the point now, unless they have something new or original to say, I’m about sick of them by now. This film idea was conceived by Bazzal Baz with a script from Guy Moshe and Mark Bacci and directed by Moshe. It reminded me to some extent of the David O’Russell film “Three Kings” from back in 1999. This one was a bit more complicated, though. There were a lot more moving pieces to the story. The complexities made the story more confusing to me. I got lost in the sauce somewhere in the middle of this movie. The third act was a bit of a jumbled mess.

Levi is an actor who I’ve loved in “Shazam” and it’s sequel “Shazam!: Fury of the Gods” but since then he has put out much of any circumstances worth my time or effort. He’s an actor who has had a likable vibe to him for years now. Lately, his political stance has made me not much of a fan of his, and that has translated into me not liking his latest film. It doesn’t help that the story isn’t my thing either. Levi seems to be phoning in his performance, or that could be me being lost in the story. I don’t know… I want to like movies he’s in and not to have any prejudices, but I can’t help my feelings. This performance wasn’t good and the film wasn’t very good either. That’s a shame.

Neeson has been one of my favorite action stars over the last couple of decades. He’s done a lot of cookie-cutter action movies. Ever since “Taken” he’s been shoehorned into an action star. He’s embraced this part of his career quite nicely. Roles in “The A-Team”, “Batman Begins” and “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” are the exceptions to this. I liked his earlier career much more than the stuff he’s been doing lately except for “The Naked Gun” reboot. That was hilarious. He embraced the hilarity of that character and film perfectly. Here, he seems to be going through the motions. He doesn’t seem like he is putting everything into this role. Maybe he just took the role for a paycheck. Who knows? I want to see him do better work again sooner rather than later. 

I like to talk about the technical aspects of the movies I see because I feel they have a major barring on how the film should be perceived, negatively, or positively. One particular thing I usually have good things to say about the films I see in the cinematography. In the case of this film it’s not very good. I don’t know if it’s the kind of lenses used in filming the movie or what, but the picture seemed blurry during the daytime scenes, and the nighttime scenes were hard to see at all. This is some of the worst cinematography I’ve seen this year. I hate saying bad things about movies because I know the people who make them put a lot of effort into making them, but this movie didn’t look good at all.

“The Fix” is a confusing story with mixed ideas. The cast seem like they are phoning in their performances for a paycheck. Maybe it was because of the problems behind the scenes in the production. Who knows? The camera work didn’t look very good either. This had some very bad cinematography. Levi and Neeson are two actors who have done much better work than this in the past, and I hope they get back to that in the future. They weren’t good here at all. This picture just shows that no matter how hard a filmmaker tries to make a good movie, sometimes it’s not in the cards. That’s the case here, unfortunately. 

🌟 ½ stars