Welcome to another edition of the “The Valero Verdict” movie review. In this, I will give you a quick movie review with a couple of bullet points of which I either liked or disliked. I will end the review with a rating of the movie and short overall thoughts.
On the docket today, Dave Franco’s Directorial Debut ‘The Rental’.
Two couples rent a vacation home for what should be a celebratory weekend get-away.
Dave Franco’s directorial debut drew some eerily similarities to Joel Edgerton’s directorial debut The Gift. The films were different in some ways they are similar in their tone, their pacing, and their overall theme.
The screenplay set up was solid. We got some character development with a little background story for everyone. As the movie, progressed we started to untangle some of the troubling backgrounds of our four characters.
Where the film began to lose course, was so much was focused on the intertwining of the drugs, cheating, and relationship battles, you often forget about the house owner who is the villain. It was more about who was doing who than the actual movie at hand.
The turning point happened when the dog went missing, this was poor writing, and it infuriated me. We saw this coming a mile away as they set up with the “NO DOGS ARE ALLOWED” at the house at the beginning of the film. So the dog goes missing, and now the owner of the home is back in the scenario.
The final act was rather lame and prototypical of what we are used to seeing with these types of films which again, infuriated me.
The Verdict
The film did have some solid acting. Alison Brie is an absolute star in everything she does, and I hope to see her more in the future. The rest of the cast, including my man ‘Lip” from Shameless, Jeremy Allen White was pretty solid in the film as well.
The Rental is a solid start for Dave Franco, while the film was a swing and a miss, he has some potential for a great film within him.
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