Serial Bomber Movie DVD CoverI was looking at at some information on the web the other day while I was at work (when I should have been working) and found a list of movies filmed all or in part in the Tacoma/Puget Sound area. I wish I had the list in front of me because now I forgot how many there are, but I think it’s around 20. Having gotten that dribble out of the way, I’d like to present a series of reviews of these movies during the coming weeks and take a look at whether Hollywood has been good to the Seattle/Tacoma area and if it’s even worth advertising that movies have been filmed here.

First review: I rented the movie “Serial Bomber” from NetFlix. The “official” published summary/plot goes something like this:

Seattle’s been gifted a surprise Christmas present that’s set to explode. Psychotic serial bomber Chris Murdock ( played by Jason London) has an obsession with an old girlfriend and a sinister plan of revenge for the FBI. With only 72 hours to find the hidden gift, agent Sara Davis (Lori Petty) frantically tracks the twisted bomber to prevent the meltdown of a city held hostage.

The published summary/plot gives the movie much more credit than it deserves. I rented it and watched it with my son Matt thinking if nothing else, there would be a lot of scenes where we would remark, “Hey, we’ve been there!” That didn’t happen. I would compare this movie to a really bad version of Bruce Willis’s Diehard movie where the nasty guy threatens to blow up the world if he doesn’t get what he wants. In Serial Bomber, the nasty guy threatens to blow up a theater full of people in Seattle on Christmas if he doesn’t get his girlfriend back from the good guys who have instructions to send her back to Asia per her family’s instructions. The girlfriend is torn between her family’s needs and the attachment she has to the crack smoking nasty guy played by Jason London.

Just to make sure the good guys get the point, the nasty guy plants a series of bombs that explode at various places in the Puget Sound area. Stay with me… This is supposed to lead to a climax of sorts I guess.

There isn’t really much to say about this movie except that there’s a lot of explosions, shooting and weird techno music. I didn’t find the plot interesting; my son Matt could have written a better story. We knew how the movie was going to end five minutes after it started. The acting was as bad as cottage cheese that’s way past the pull date. I’ve never heard of any of the actors; it could be that I don’t watch enough movies but my guess is they stink and can’t get any good gigs. The only scenes filmed in Tacoma were filmed at the vacant Heidelberg Brewery. I didn’t know until I watched Serial Bomber that the inside of the brewery was such a dump.

Here’s my own short capsule of the movie: “We have serial bomber on the loose…” “You better give me what I want or I’ll blow up some f*&king thing up.” “You’re just a scumbag f%$k sicko.” “You better not kill my mom, you f$#k!” Boom. Bang. Pow. Call the fire department.

I think I’ve beaten this dead horse enough. The movie is ok if you have been on a deserted island since 1889 and haven’t seen a “talking movie,” but beyond it’s not worth renting and certainly not worth buying.

On a grading scale with A being great and E being failing and you need to repeat the school year, I’d give Serial Bomber a D. And I may be being gracious here only because it was filmed in the Seattle/Tacoma area.

Serial Bomber is a dud.

And that’s what the deal is!

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