Review: Crime thriller ‘Mike Boy’ is unspeakably bad, but you must see it to believe it
Most terrible movies are tediously bad, not worth the effort connoisseurs of garbage would spend tracking them down. But then there are misfires like “Mike Boy,” which are so inexplicably awful that they cross over from “Don’t waste your time” to “No, seriously, you have to see this.”
Big-screen newcomer Hugh Massey plays the title character, a food-service wage-slave whose mother was murdered in front of him when he was an infant and who lived several uneventful decades before a one-eyed assassin named Agent Chris (Gerard Sanders) showed up one night to inform him of a “prophecy” that requires him to commit a string of criminal acts.
Much of the dialogue in “Mike Boy” sounds like it was cycled repeatedly through Google Translate — unless first-time feature filmmaker Hamzah Tarzan actually hangs out with people who refer to a paperback of Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist” as “an original edition” and say, “I killed the hounds of Hades to get that for you.”
Tarzan seems to be aiming for a mix of “John Wick” and “The Matrix,” set in a sunlit city populated by shadowy cabals, people with thick accents and women who drive around in pink stretch Hummers.
None of this makes a lick of sense, but it’s fascinatingly asinine. It feels wrong to encourage this kind of misbegotten DIY project, but if you’re a fan of the likes of “The Room” or “Birdemic,” honestly, you can’t miss “Mike Boy.”
-------------
‘Mike Boy’
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes.
Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills
See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour »
Movie Trailers
Only good movies
Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
