Operation: Endgame

Theatrical Release Date: 2010 07 16 (USA - Limited)

UPC: 013132174990

Studio: Starz/Anchor Bay

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Graphic Violence, Profanity]

Summary: A satirical workplace comedy with a slick action twist, Fouad Mikati's Operation: Endgame explores the violence that erupts when the organization charged with protecting America implodes, and the employees turn their guns on each other instead of their enemies. Somewhere beneath Washington, D.C., an intense rivalry is heating up between two opposing teams of government assassins. The hired killers in the organizations take their names from Tarot cards. The Fool (Joe Anderson) is the latest recruit. Reporting for his first day on the job, The Fool is shocked to find that his boss is dead, and the office is on lockdown. To make matters worse, the building has been rigged with explosives, and it's going to blow soon. Now, in order to get out alive, The Fool will have to root out the killer in his midst, and make a quick escape before his co-workers catch him in their crosshairs. Ellen Barkin, Zach Galifianakis, Rob Corddry, and Jeffrey Tambor star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Category: Comedy

Features: Behind the scenes of Operation: Endgame
Alternate opening
Alternate ending

Operation: Endgame

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 07/27/2010

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 2.40:1

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, PCM null

Runtime: 82 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Subtitles: English,Spanish

Cammila Collar

Judging from the dark opening credits and earnestly scripted initial scene, you might wonder if Operation: Endgame is supposed to be an actual action drama. But don't worry -- even though the film maintains the modest tone and earnest score of a totally serious spy thriller, this movie is a satire, and a funny one at that. Not that you'd have any trouble discerning this by five minutes into the story. We begin with a new recruit (Joe Anderson) to the government's most top-secret spy organization, The Factory, receiving an awesomely severe verbal beating from his new co-worker, code-named "Chariot" (Rob Corddry). In between sips from a revolver-shaped flask, strategically orchestrated "your mom" jokes, and an ongoing carpet f-bombing, Chariot explains to the new hire (who receives the code name "the Fool") how their covert network of assassins works. The whole program is divided into two teams, Alpha and Omega, who keep the military-industrial complex alive by tackling opposing sides of every issue and conflict, competing with each other to perpetuate the cycle that keeps them all employed. Both teams are overseen by a single boss, the Devil (Jeffrey Tambor), who has official sway over everyone, from demolitions expert Judgement (Ving Rhames) to red-hot vixen and consummate smack-talker the Empress (Ellen Barkin). The Devil starts the day by calling everyone to a meeting in their locked-down underground bunker of an office, forcing everyone to deposit their guns in an inaccessible safe so that nobody can kill him. But he turns up dead anyway, setting off a self-destruct sequence for the bunker, and leading all the Alpha and Omega members to respectively turn on each other, attacking their adversaries with table legs and staple removers in lieu of pistols. All this chaos is being watched by mild-mannered surveillance techs Neal (Michael Hitchcock) and Carl (Tim Bagley), who provide hilariously aghast and decidedly non-jaded reactions, peppered with weird banalities and non sequitur observations during their ongoing commentary on the fiasco. The two end up stealing the show, and their most-likely improvised reactions are some of the funniest content in the movie. Though Rob Corddry, with his constant stream of epithets, is also pretty fantastic, it's a schtick that could easily have fallen flat after being worked so hard in painfully average fare like Hot Tub Time Machine, but in this expertly enacted format it's hysterical. Said format is this: Operation: Endgame is directed with a straight face, meaning if it weren't for the crazy words coming out of people's mouths, this would for all intents and purposes be a serious movie. The film is shot -- not to mention edited -- within an inch of its life, orchestrated with expert cuts and a tense string score that could have been lifted out of a De Palma movie. There's never a pause for laughter or acknowledgment of the comedy, which of course makes the comedy even funnier. The only problem is that as the plot progresses, the humor takes more of a backseat, leaving us to rely on the action. That action is mostly constrained to melee (people trapped in a confined space, fighting each other with handheld objects), though while it's far from skillful martial arts choreography, the film still wins points for fully exercising its R rating for the purposes of gratifying, curse word-laden fight banter. The final act of the movie also comes to rely a little heavier on the plot, and though the story is pretty novel (pondering whether the brand-new Obama administration entering the White House will have any major effect on the Factory's future status as an integral function of the U.S. government), you can't help wishing the filmmakers would keep the humor coming at a steady rate. It's not so much that the narrative isn't good, it's just that the jokes are better -- but at least the jokes are still there. The plot is smart, but the humor (when it's not delightfully crude) is smarter. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Sam Levinson  Screenwriter 
Albert T. Dickerson  Executive Producer 
Bill Johnson  Executive Producer 
Abe Levy  Screenwriter 
Richard Kelly  Executive Producer 
Richard Kelly  Producer 
Michael Ohoven  Producer 
Ted Hamm  Executive Producer 
Jeff Abberley  Executive Producer 
Julia Blackman  Executive Producer 
Sean McKittrick  Producer 
Jim Seibel  Executive Producer 
Kevin Turen  Producer 
Ian Honeyman  Composer (Music Score) 
Kevin Kasha  Executive Producer 
Chadwick Clough  Executive Producer 
Fouad Mikati  Director 
Jeff Culotta  Executive Producer 
Andy Ross  Composer (Music Score) 
Joe Anderson  Actor 
Ellen Barkin  Actor 
Ving Rhames  Actor 
Zach Galifianakis  Actor 
Rob Corddry  Actor 
Emilie de Ravin  Actor 
Odette Yustman  Actor 
Adam Scott  Actor 
Maggie Q  Actor 
Brandon T. Jackson  Actor 
Michael Hitchcock  Actor 
Bob Odenkirk  Actor 
Jeffrey Tambor  Actor 
Beth Grant  Actor 
Tim Bagley  Actor 
Matt Baker  Actor 

Country: USA