MovieChat Forums > Green Room (2016) Discussion > How is this movie 7.5 material? (spoiler...

How is this movie 7.5 material? (spoilers)

posted 8 years ago by BrandonFrazier
8 replies | jump to latest

I will say that the movie is well shot and well acted, but it has the dumbest plot and character decision making I've ever seen. The movie starts out interesting with a punk group traveling across country to put out their music. They bomb out at a show but get hooked up with a gig at a Neo-Nazi club. Everything seems to be going well when they play their music (except their first song, which was *beep* Nazi punks at a Nazi club; very odd.)and even get paid pretty well for a short gig. However one of the characters leaves their cellphone in the prep room and one of the band members goes back to get it. Surprise, surprise! He walks in on a murder, grabs the phone, runs and tries to call 911. Why they would murder someone or even be in the band prep room when this place is massive and even includes an underground bunker; is beyond me.

Anyway, one of the Nazi' club bosses grabs the phone and hangs up 911, then ushers the band members back into the same room they witnessed the murder and locks the door. They leave a large man holding a large gun inside to watch them until one of the bosses can call 911 and set up a fake stabbing; telling 911 he got cut off when he was reporting it earlier. This is probably the only smart thing anyone does in the entire movie.

So after the cops are dealt with, the main boss and sub-boss go up to the door of the room and speak through it. The main boss tells the large man with the gun to hand it over to his captives on good faith. This is probably the dumbest thing in the entire movie and basically what the entire plot falls back on. Without this moment, the rest of the movie couldn't happen.

So why do that? Why would you give a bunch of scared people a gun. Why does it instantly turn into "Well, we're going to kill you all since you won't come out without the police."; just...seriously? Why wouldn't you just have the large guy with the gun open the door without handing over the gun? How hard is that? You can give good faith later.

Here's an idea boss-man, do what you do to every other person in this movie and fork over cash for their silence. These are a bunch of down on their luck punk rockers who siphon gas to get where they need to go. Their moral barometer isn't that great in the first place.

If he really wanted to just kill them, why not line up a group of people and fire through the wall/door until you think their dead? The entire place is surrounded by forest anyway. Or maybe you could just bust the door down and send in a couple dogs one by one, because fighting dogs..am i right? Then rush in afterwards. They only have five bullets, I'm sure the untrained bandies would miss most of their shots in the first place.

So anyway, after they get the gun and wont be let out, they kill the large Nazi that was locked in with them. After a while of pointless planning from boss-man and pointless attempts to escape through concrete when there is a shoddy wood floor below; boss-man comes back and tells them to hand over the gun on good faith.

Holy..what? One of the band members puts his arm out the door to hand over the gun and gets his hand nearly sliced off. With that plan having failed they slam the door shut and put a sofa in front of the door; leaving them defenseless.

The obvious course of action here would be to break down the door and flood in like the Nazi's did to Germany but nope! Boss-man and his cronies just leave and get their best guys to 'handle this'. The Nazi group just waits outside and leaves the door unguarded. They escape the room, bunch of them die, get a shotgun and the group learns the girl that was murdered was going to escape with one of the Nazi's with a blood covered bat to put boss-man away. They figure since they have one shot gun that their best plan is to run right out the front door...cue deaths. Blah blah blah...this is where I skipped to the end, boss-man gets shot and dies. The least two likable characters out of the entire movie survive. How the hell is this not 4.5-5.5 material? Is it just because it has Patrick Stewart? I don't get it.

[–] tresm87 8 years ago

I completely agree. I think a lot of the overrating is because anything with People going up against nazis or white supremacists gets high ratings usually. I'm all for Nazis and white supremacists going down but there isn't much more to the product and its a mostly dull effort.

[–] WalterSoprano 8 years ago

What? That isn't it at all. Read my review that is why. Plus after rewatches the movie really holds up and makes perfect sense. There is a lot of subtle unspoken things done in the movie which only adds to my enjoyment on re watches.

[–] ashersam 8 years ago

The IMDB rating isn't 7.5 It's 7.1 last time I checked which was about 120 seconds ago. I largely agree except for this part

Here's an idea boss-man, do what you do to every other person in this movie and fork over cash for their silence.

Paying the band for their silence makes even less sense than handing them the gun. I was under the impression that the cash was given to 1 skinhead for getting stabbed and another one to take fall... why it's necessary for there to be a fall guy when they could just say his assailant escaped and give a fake description, I have no idea?

Father wrote about this in his book Ch1Pg1Par1 What is the answer to 99 out of 100 questions? Money.

[–] neiljwd 8 years ago

You might not see this but I'll answer anyway.

Because if you give the police a victim, a crime and a suspect, they wrap it all up in a little bow, file some paperwork and go home for tea, job done.

However, give them a violent offender on the loose, and unsolved attempted murder and then you've got hoards of police descending upon your meth lab going over it with a fine tooth comb looking for clues and asking question you don't want to answer.

I hate to say it because I know it sounds douchey- but I think some of the characters in the film are brighter than the viewers.

[–] CharlotteGoldenblatt 8 years ago

Ugh, they could've done the exact same thing without the kids knowing.

Tell the band they're free to go, police are on their way to take care of things. No need to lock them in.

*After the band leaves*

Pull that same fake stabbing between the two skin head kids in front of the cops. The "victim" and perpetrators get arrested. Everyone goes home. End of story. The meth lab is not jeopardized whatsoever. I doubt the band would even bother to speculate what happens after. They're not even from that town.

But guess what, then there wouldnt be a movie.

Don't try to put other viewers down. The characters in the movie are definitely NOT smarter than the viewers, they just created an unnecessary situation (and more deaths) so there'd BE a movie.

[–] CharlotteGoldenblatt 8 years ago

Meant to add: then get rid of Emily's body. The cops wOuld never find out.

[–] tangozled 8 years ago

The cover up wasn't necessary until after the band had found, and the neo-nazis reacted in the moment by immediately containing the situation rather than letting the band go.

Once they've taken the phone away from the band and kept them from leaving then it's incredibly unlikely they'd believe the neo-nazis actually called the police, sure they might say so to get out of the situation (the green-haired singer even tried this), but the neo-nazis have no reason to trust the band wouldn't call the police once they had been let go, and even if they covered up the murder in time for the cops arriving they don't want the club inspected in anyway considering there's a heroin lab in the basement.

The neo-nazi plan wasn't unrealistic, they were restricted from using guns because they needed any wounds to be covered up by dog bites to suitably cover up why the entire band died. They had no idea who knew they were there and if they were expected to be somewhere so they couldn't just dispose of the bodies because there would be an investigation. All the choices made were so that there wouldn't be any searches on the club, and they mention this repeatedly. They can't let the band go because they can't trust them not to tell the police. They can't just shoot them because that will bring a heavier investigation and will lead back to the club. This isn't a plot hole or a problem with the film.

[–] fullmoon7461-908-439866 8 years ago

I just watched it because people said it was really chilling and scary. Mostly just a lot of senseless violence for nothing, but maybe that was the whole point of the film, that skinheads engage in a lot of pointless violence.

Maybe I missed something, but why were the traitors going to leave, were they taking drugs with them? or just getting out of the organization?

Seems at the end they had nothing but a lot of dead bodies on their hands and a drug lab.