We all know the feeling when there’s a really great movie, the credit’s are already rolling and… just what the hell? The ending didn’t seem right, as if it would have been a different a film. But don’t get me wrong, this list is not going to be about Inception, Titanic and other flicks like that, where the ending infuriated you. I don’t doubt that there are some which would deserve a way-way better one (Mr. Shymalan!) but today we’re not going to talk about simply bad endings. The following 5 are not necessarily bad, they’re just disappointing because their style differs so much from the glorious previous part of the movie. So be prepared for major SPOILERS – and enjoy this list in your style.
Tenor
Heat
1995
Directed by Michael Mann
What a movie! I’m betting there’s not a single one of you who doesn’t like at least one aspect of Heat. It’s brutally realistic and heartbreakingly emotianal, but above it has the two actors. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino finally together on the big screen! (We don’t count the Godfather Part II, because they don’t have a single common scene in it.) As you would expect, they are overwhelmingly good, and that’s the key to the endings problem. The peak of Heat is definitely the Coffee-scene. After it, it’s kind of lame. Though there are some great sequences, the ending at the airport is everything but what the flick would deserve. The cat and mouse game is a good idea, but Mr. Mann could have executed it way better.
WARNER
The Hateful Eight
2015
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
The one and only Quentin Tarantino usually writes marvelous endings. Just look at Django Unchained, Pulp Fiction and of course Reservoir Dogs. But The Hateful Eight is a different cup of tea. I have to state that it’s by far not a bad ending. But still, it doesn’t suit the stage-play part of the movie, which is so good. But even after it, the film manages to maintain the tension until the final shootout, where Channing Tatum’s whole gang is finally massacred – in the usual style of the maestro of course. But how on Earth did Sam L. Jackson and Walton Goggins (and by the way Jennifer Jason Leigh) survived that mayhem??? Unrealism was always a part of every Tarantino movie and there’s no problem with it as long as its at least a bit believable. But this… This is slightly too much.
THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY
Ransom
1996
Directed by Ron Howard
Many disagree with it, but I still think Ransom is one heck of a movie, with excellent performances both from the protagonist and the antagonist side. But from the point where the boy is finally being rescued… It doesn’t match the movie’s edge of the seat tone. Mel Gibson and Gary Sinise fail to maintain their performances on the same level and the reveal comes too easily and undeservedly.
BUENA VISTA
Non-stop
2014
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra
Stone me for this, but Non-stop is one of the most exciting movies of all time – for its first half. But when Liam Neeson – who is our air marshall this time – starts to figure out what is really going on… I mean did the same person write the second half of the script? Probably not, because no less than 5 writers worked on the screenplay and the story. After the first hour, the film transforms itself into your everyday action-flick from an edge of the seat thriller. It’s still far better than any other popcorn films in this category, but please, Mr. Producers, the next time consider that sometimes less is more.
UNIVERSAL
War of the Worlds
2005
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Why, why, why? Why do we have to change the brilliant ending of the novel, where the aliens are annihilated by microbes or I don’t know what to an over-patriotic, Independence Day-type humanity-praising, alien-ass kicking Tom Cruise parade? I know that this is a free adaptation but come’on. As long as the film is itself it’s purely great. But after Spielberg turns Schindler’s List into Saving Private Ryan (I know this was really bad), I mean the theme of terror into a war movie… things get way brighter, and this is a bad thing here.
PARAMOUNT
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