Chinese mainland's box office position is so strong that sometimes Hollywood blockbusters are the first to be released in Chinese mainland, which seems to be regarded as a market honor to some extent.
At the beginning of this year, a European film was released in Taiwan, ten months earlier than the film's home country, which is "Way Down" (aka, the Vault).
Douban translated the name "Down the Road", and the Taiwanese translation is more straightforward "Madrid Vault Theft Number 90 Minutes".
Spanish director, English film produced in Spain, the male protagonist is the Englishman Freddie Hammer.
As we said before, fresh meat that doesn't want to transform is not a good actor, except for Daniel Radcliffe, Robert Pattinson, Timothy Chalmed and others, as well as Tom Herlander who just wrote, in fact, Freddy Hammer is also a typical.
Born in 1992 in London, England, Freddy is a child actor, in 2004 with Johnny Depp in "In Search of Neverland", in 2005 again in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", quickly shortlisted for the award, quickly became famous.
In 2006's "A Beautiful Year", 2007's "August Obsession", and 2008's "Fantasy Elf Event Book", Freddy continued to participate in good films, which were either fantasy or literary, and his elf and melancholy temperament were very compatible.
But later, whether it was with Helena Bonham Carter, who was much older than herself, or with Emma Roberts, who was almost the same age as Homework, or with Odya Rush, who was a few years younger than herself, freddy's play seemed to coincide, and it was all juvenile, sensitive, shy, and confused.
But Freddy sought a breakthrough in the American drama market, starting to act in the suspense drama "Bates Hotel" in 2013, the first three seasons were only actors, the fourth season actor and screenwriter, the fifth season on the actor and screenwriter and then directed; in 2017, he began to act in the medical drama "Good Doctor", in addition to starring in the autistic male protagonist, he was also a producer, and also participated in the writing and directing work of some episodes.
In 2021, Freddy arrived with the commercial film "Down the Road", he is the producer and male lead, which is also his first R-rated film.
The story is set in 2019-2010.
Freddy's Thom appears as a genius, a 22-year-old Cambridge student, but already has an engineer aura, and single-handedly helped the oil giant solve the oil spill problem in the Gulf of Mexico.
Other graduates looking for jobs are going to job fairs for interviews, and he is sitting in schools to summon recruiters to interview him. The eight multinational companies all threw an olive branch at him, but he was unmoved by the preferential treatment and had the pride of being superior in values: "I am not helping the oil companies, but the people who live there and are deeply disturbed by the oil companies." ”
Walter, the owner of a salvage company, also took a fancy to Thom and wanted to drag him into an overseas treasure hunt.
The beauty plan combined with the radical method, a riotous operation aroused Thom's interest, and the genius's favorite was not the vanity of wealth, but the excitement of the challenge.
The Spanish Bank, which they want to rob, claims to be one of the most indestructible buildings on earth, evades the ubiquitous cameras and sensors to enter the bank vaults, steals three ancient 17th-century gold coins, and then goes to find hidden treasure.
Gustavo, the security director of the Bank of Spain, has extensive experience in counter-terrorism, and the bank is opposite the headquarters of the Spanish army, which makes the operation more difficult.
Thom assembled in Madrid with other members of the Treasure Hunt Squad: Planner Walter, the only female member, Lorraine, computer master Klaus, operation rescue leader James, and Buyer Simon.
The others were old partners and initially questioned the new young guy Thom, but Thom quickly gained recognition for his little experiment in intelligence output.
The operation coincided with the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa, and the squad set the start time on the final day – in fact, Spain had not yet reached the final, but only a gamble.
Seeing this, it is not difficult for us to find that whether it is the main line of treasure hunting or the personality of the team members, it is actually a routine of the same genre film.
The film also cues the name Danny Ocean. This is the thief character in "Eleven Arhats", "Twelve Arhats", and "Thirteen Arhats", and Danny Ocean is also the brother of Debbie Ocean in "Hide the Sky: Beauty Plan".
As for the motives for the treasure hunt, Walter explained it to Thom this way: "I can't explain this passion, millions of people coming together to cheer for men they don't know, cheering for them to score goals, unnecessarily, not important, but it means everything. Maybe as the mountaineer famously said, "The mountain is there." ”
Football is very popular in Spain, as long as there is a Spanish team in the World Cup field, it can attract the attention of the whole people, if it enters the final, it will be empty. Citizens crowding the streets around the bank to watch the big screen live broadcast together, it was the only time the treasure hunting squad could find security loopholes to infiltrate and escape the Spanish bank.
The introduction of football elements is a special feature of the film in the plot setting, and the Spanish team won a record championship in 2010 (2014 the group did not qualify, 2018 stopped in the 1/8 final), this time through the film to relive, in Spain should be quite empathetic, attract the box office.
To be commercially successful, treasure hunting movies must have three axes, or have big IP endorsements, such as "Tomb Raider" and "Pirates of the Caribbean"; or plot excitement and famous scenes, such as "Stealing the Day", "Stealing the Sky Trap"; or the luxury stars of Cass, such as "Eleven Arhats" and "Treasure Hunting Alliance".
According to this analogy, the three axes of "Down the Road" have no prominence, no IP background, there are logical loopholes in the difficulties and thrills of the treasure hunting process, and the plot reversal is not unexpected, and the most famous in the Caste is Freddie Hammer.
The heroine is the 1986 Spanish actress Astrid, who played the mermaid Serena in "Pirates of the Caribbean 4". She and Freddy still have an emotional line, some viewers complained that the two looked incompatible, and some people said that Freddy looked monotonous, a bit of his shadow in "Good Doctor".
Specific to the Chinese market, "Amazing Devil Thief Group" overseas encounter cooling in China is popular, directly boosting the capital side to focus on the Chinese market to launch "Devil Gang 2" (the director is also Chinese, and later filmed "Picking Gold"), which sold nearly 640 million yuan, and it is also rumored to make a Chinese version of the derivative movie, which means that Chinese audiences still like to watch team battles, so "Down the Road" has a score of 7.0 in Douban, which is more decent than 55% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes.
Overall, Freddie Hammer's rare commercial film "Down the Road" is just a mediocre work, but if you use Freddy Hammer's filter more well, you can still spend 118 minutes easily.