Quick Synopsis: An NBA star, a corrupt cop, a female rap duo, teenage punks, neo-Nazis and a debt collector embark on a collision course in 1987 Oakland.

I think this is the first anthology film I’ve reviewed. I have to be honest, it’s difficult to figure out how to review a film like this. Do I review each one individually, or take it as a whole? I’ve decided to try to do each segment in turn. If it were something like the VHS series, where there’s A LOT of segments, I’d do it as a whole (or just not watch it), but with only four segments? That seems doable. This will be more stream-of-consciousness than most of my reviews, so fair warning for that.

Strength In Numbers: The Gilman Strikes Back

Ah, this really made me wish we had a local music community. There’s so much togetherness displayed among the characters. Jack Champion has played the worst character in at least two movies (Avatar: The Way Of Water and Scream VI), but his performance in this shows that it was ALL due to bad writing. He is charming and sweet in this. I love Tina, though. Ji-Young Yoo is full of energy and repressed anger.

I appreciate that in an age where “don’t be a dick” is taken as “woke political correctness”, I appreciate how this segment (the entire film, in fact) is not subtle. This is not subtle, one character outright says “the rules don’t apply to nazis” when they discuss their “no hate” rule. But when we have politicians outwardly saying they want to put the unemployed in concentration camps, we can’t afford to be subtle. I have seen one person say that the portrayal of nazi’s in this segment made them “cartoonishly evil”, especially when they beat up someone on crutches. Got news for ya, that’s far from the worst thing Nazi’s did to people.

The fight itself is brutal. Doesn’t shy away from the blood and anger. It plays up some of it by making it slightly comic booky, but you are left in no doubt that these are real people (and nazi’s). The message here, “You can’t afford to be a pacifist if you’re being attacked”, is vital in 2025 (and yes, that is depressing). The relevance and importance of the message wouldn’t matter if the other components weren’t good. Obviously, the soundtrack is brilliant, with tracks from Operation Ivy and Black Flag suiting both the tone and the time. The visuals are pretty fun too, a standard conversation between the two characters is made visually interesting with animated overlays (very similar to Ninjababy, if you ever saw that). There’s some great stuff with aspect ratio too, with the frame pushing in at the start, making the whole thing seem like an 80’s VHS tape (that’s helped by the slight grain to the footage too). On the downside, the grainy nature of the visuals does make it difficult to see things at times. But I suppose it’s in a dark room, everybody is wearing black, so if you combine that with the 80’s filter, it’s difficult to see how it could be brighter without looking fake.

My other problem was a singular scene just before the chaos started. There’s a conversation between two punks outside when the nazi’s arrive, it feels stilted and is the only part that doesn’t feel real. If I were told “these two actors won a competition/are the crew”, I’d believe it.

Don’t Fight The Feeling

It’s certainly a choice that the nazi story was followed by a story about two black women. Just to showcase how shitty the 80s were, there wasn’t just racism, there was also sexism. Their race never drives the narrative, though, I suppose if it did, then it would have risked repeating the lessons from the first section.

It’s not just the themes; tonally, this is completely different. That’s what you want from a film like this. You want to showcase the diverse group of characters, and it’s no point doing that if every section feels the same. There are connecting themes and settings, but they’re not even in the same genre or sharing a visual technique. The soundtrack is also completely different, with this section taking on more of a hip-hop slant.

It’s not as satisfying an end, though. They defeat a battle rapper who only hired them to humiliate them. His rhymes are hateful and sexist as fuck, and he deserves to be beaten. But, you don’t get the feeling that he’s learned his lesson. He’s still going to be misogynistic as fuck, just not to these two particular women.

Born To Mack

After the youth-oriented previous chapters, it’s a surprise that the opening of this consists of Tom Hanks and Pedro Pascal. I knew Pedro was in this, genuinely had no idea Tom Hanks was. Explains all the references to the previous segments made to him.

There’s a “but you’re the owner, you’ve always been the owner” spooky fake-out was brilliant and I loved it. This is a much more deliberate and slower story than the previous two. It’s strange, it has the most story, more happens (and it’s certainly the only one so far that you could imagine becoming a feature on its own), but it somehow feels like it stagnates more. In the previous sections, not much happened, but it happened quickly. If the previous two were sprints, this is a marathon. It’s not quite as entertaining, but ot is much more fascinating.

The Legend Of Sleepy Floyd

And we’re back with the nazi cunts (fuck off). This is an excellent culmination of everything we’ve seen. The sci-fi undertones become more obvious, with the references to telekinesis finally becoming meaningful. This is how the final section of an anthology should be; the previous scenes all crashing together in a magnificently meaningful coda.

I can see why people would hate this movie. I found it oddly charming. The opening leads you to think that the science-fiction elements may be more prevalent than they actually are, but that’s a minor issue. If you take it with no expectations, it’s a collection of stories which you’ll love to watch.