*WARNING SPOILERS*
A review of War on Everyone
A comedy that left me laughing half-heartedly, War on Everyone was a film I had been anticipating for months now. My main reasoning behind my excitement was of course Alexander Skarsgård, after seeing him in the summer blockbuster Tarzan and from the HBO Vampire show "True Blood". However, the film looked promising and interesting considering it's a different genre to what I usually watch.
The film itself sees the bad cop/ worse cop narrative play out with Skarsgård and Peña at the helm. These two cops push their level of authority to get what they want but when they push the wrong people, events don't go as planned. The "wrong people" are led by Lord James Mangan (Theo James) an upper class Englishman who has too much money and too little conscience. Of course, the Englishman was the villain in the story dominated by Americans. Keeping with the idea of stereotypes, so many filled this film that it lost its comedy element pretty quickly. Now that being gay is accepted more easily, a new victim has to be chosen. Unfortunately, that victim is the Trans community. Sometimes I just feel like a joke against a community already struggling isn't needed and there was definitely one moment in particular that was rather pointless and not helping the trans cause. 
The plot itself was rather confusing and I still don't know what everyone was talking about but I can say I got the gist of the overall storyline. This is definitely one of those films where I don't like it for the plot but instead the way it is presented to me. Dutch angles were thrust into my brain every now and then which I highly enjoyed because it perfectly conveyed the twisted domination of the cops. Transitions were abrupt yet fitting. For example, a hand was centred in on at the end of a scene before cutting to Peña's character playing the piano and focussing on his fingers. Another moment which was highly enjoyable was the tracking shot of James moving through his mansion. We follow him from the aftermath of his endeavours in bed and see him move down a grand staircase (stopping for a quick kiss on the way), pick up a sword and end standing in front of a man he intends to decapitate. The movement was flawless and real did well to put you in the scene and feel the pompous power radiating off of Lord Mangan.
The jokes themselves were rather forced resulting in only slight laughs from me and other audience members. However, I would like to remind you that I rarely laugh out loud in cinemas (as I don't wish to be one of those obnoxious people (we all know who I am talking about)). Having said this, the jokes that did succeed in making me giggle were the ones that hit quick and just screamed stupidity. One moment that stands out is when the cops go to interrogate a man working for Mangan. He makes a gesture where he lifts his arms slightly to convey power but Skarsgård's character makes a joke out of it and mocks the man by repeating the same movement (but more like a chicken) before running after the man who is rather confused. The scene is rather hard to explain, as you can tell from my poor description but it was so simple and effective in breaking my cinema rule.
Overall, I think I did enjoy the film but not for the plot. Instead, I will be filing this feature under "movies I like due to the way it's made". If you wish to spend 97mins watching a film that is slow but beautiful in it's presentation then I highly recommend War on Everyone.
Thank you for reading,
Haynes
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