Netflix has clearly missed its mark with its newest original film, The Last Days of American Crime. Released on June 5, the film currently has an abysmal 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics have called the film “not even good alligator-brain cinema,” and “no fun whatsoever,” while one reviewer even referred to it as “A colossal failure of epic proportions.”
The film was directed by French director Olivier Megaton, known for other poorly-reviewed action films such as Taken 2 and Taken 3. It seems to be heavily inspired by Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise’s classic Minority Report, focusing on a new government weapon that broadcasts a radio-like signal into the brains of criminals, stopping them from committing crimes before they even happen. We then follow Edgar Ramirez’s Graham Bricke, Michael Pitt’s Kevin Cash, and Anna Brewster’s Shelby Dupree as they attempt to pull off one last heist before the broadcast is officially omitted.
Like many of Megaton’s films, The Last Days of American Crime has also been lauded for its overuse of action-movie clichés, being too long (almost two and a half hours), and having a relatively confusing storyline filled with gaping plot holes. On top of this, the characters just aren’t that fun or relatable.
While Netflix certainly doesn’t want to make films with such low critical receptions, they probably aren’t too concerned, as the film is currently the number-one streamed film across many countries in Europe, per Forbes. It is currently ranked seventh in the U.S. today.