NateWatchesCoolMovies Rogue's Gallery, given the slightly lamer title of Operation: Endgame, is a very odd little amalgamation of extreme violence, comedic banter and wannabe spy intrigue. It concerns a group of government agents holed up in some remote bunker, basically taking each other out one by one after someone among them murders their boss, Emporer (Bob Odenkirk). The cast is made up of two types of actors: sleek, distinct genre bad asses and quirky, less aesthetically streamlined comedians who stand out in this type of material very strangely. Fool (Joe Anderson) is the rookie, being shown the ropes of his first day by Chariot (a hilarious Rob Cordry). That's where the plot starts, and that is also where it lost me. The rest of the film is just all of them bickering until it gets way beyond words, and then murdering each other in shamelessly gratuitous ways. Ellen Barkin stands out as Empress, a b&@tchy old tart who has it in for Devil (Jeffrey Tambor) another senior operative. Emilie De Ravin steps wayyyy outside her comfort zone as Hierophant, a psychotic little doll faced southern Belle who gives hulking Juggernaut (Ving Rhames) a run for his money. There's also work from Odette Yustman, Maggie Q, Adam Scott, Brandon T. Jackson, and Zach Galifianakis as a weird character that I still can't figure out, perhaps because he does not much of anything at all except mope around wearing a hazmat suit and looking very hungover. It's cool to see these actors give each other hell and fight like two raccoons in a burlap sack (the violence in this is really vicious, especially when Ravin is involved), if not much else. Very odd stuff.

spelman-924-640368 Sorry to admit that I watched this to he end in the hope that it would get better ("but hell no") Great if you want to know how many ways you can hack someone to death with so many different weapons. No great plot just a sick game to see how much you could abuse and belittle everyone else. Then when you have finished belittling them in front of everyone else see how many people could be killed in time it takes to run the film. I would imagine it took longer to cleanup the blood (and body's) on the set than the length of the film - mind you the set (if you could call it that) was a labyrinth of rooms and passages that were re-shot in scenes with monotonous regularity. This would rank up there as one of the worst (could even be the worst) films I have ever sat through.

Jeff Allen This movie gets a 10 because Joe Anderson is in it! He is an excellent actor! I have enjoyed his performances every since I first saw him in "The Crazies". He is wonderful in everything he does. I am slowly buying every DVD he is in. He is a beautiful man with wonderful talents. Did you know he sings? How about that he's a gymnast? Just gaze into those beautiful blue eyes and I guarantee you will be swept away too! I don't know how his wife handles having that sexy man around all the time!? Please begin watching Joe Anderson's performances. Let's make him a SUPER star! I'm sure he is enjoying the movies he is making now, but I believe he deserves so much more. I wish I knew how I could help his career.

zardoz-13 Freshman director Fouad Mikati's "Operation Endgame" is a contrived actioneer about two rival teams of top secret government assassins who try to wipe out each other with extreme prejudice. Okay, this mildly funny 81-minute thriller never scrapes the bottom of the barrel, but it squanders a good cast. Ellen Barkin, Maggie Q, Zach Galifianakis, Ving Rhames, Rob Corddry, and Jeffrey Tabor struggle to make the best of a second-rate situation. Some of the close quarters combat scenes conclude with a surprise or two. Corddry spouts the best lines of dialogue laced with profanity. Mikati and "Bandits" scenarist Sam Levinson spend the first twenty minutes providing hopelessly loquacious exposition about the Factory as well as the agents and their reputations. They do an adequate job of sketching at least one dimension into a gallery of oddball characters, but they emerge a little more than caricatures. Mikati alternates the action between the personnel in the underground facility and two men and one woman who maintain surveillance above them. These two guys furnish commentary about what happens in "Operation Endgame." Essentially, they represent another perspective on the plot that we would not get from the assassins below them. The CGI depiction of the Factory is reminiscent of the graphic depiction of the Hive in the first "Resident Evil" epic."Operation Endgame" opens as a new agent, Fool (Jon Anderson of "The Grey"), spends his first day at work. Undoubtedly, some of the comedy is fueled by this irony that the first day at work for our hero could be his last day. According to Alpha agent High Priestess (Maggie Q of "Priest"), the Factory is an elite espionage cell that the U.S. government doesn't acknowledge. Unofficial covert operatives staff the agency. Another agent, Chariot (Rob Corddry of "Semi-Pro") informs the naïve Fool that the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff created the Factory in 1962 primarily for 'false flag operations. He adds that President Lyndon Johnson instituted the two team system in 1967 to create a balance the power. The Alpha team intervenes when presidents, UN officials, and American politicians condemn the military industrial complex and urge Congress to halt the spending hundreds of billions of dollars on endless wars. Conversely, Alpha exists to thwart Omega "from bringing forth the apocalypse. Fool concludes that the two team systems achieve nothing but a stalemate. One individual designated as 'the Devil' supervises both teams. According to Chariot, the Devil is "a portly bastard with manicured nails, no real field experience, and the sharp wit of a six-year of autistic boy." The agents must disarm themselves and place their firearms and other weapons into lockers before they can descend by elevator into the bowels of the Factory. The Devil makes them disarm themselves because he fears one of them may attempt to kill him. Despite this precaution, somebody does kill the Devil and all Hell breaks loose. The action takes place in an underground base called 'The Factory' and the opposing bands of killers draw their names from Tarot cards. Devil calls a conference, but he doesn't live to convene it because Hermit (Zach Galifianakis of "The Hangover") kills Devil by stabbing him with several pencils. The demise of Devil, however, triggers a system the augurs ill for the Alpha and Omega agents. Operation Endgame commences with a two hour countdown to destruction. According to Alpha agent Magician (Adam Scott of "Step Brothers"), "Project Endgame is The Factory's be-all, end-all contingency device. It activates a physical and communicative lockdown before setting a time that will vaporize this place at the end of two hours." The two teams decide to team up to find Hermit and try to escape before everything blows. The most imaginative that "Operation Endgame" gets occurs when the assassins have to improvise to create weapons so they can kill each other.Altogether, "Operation Endgame" is like "Reservoir Dogs" done with a government spin. Something goes horribly wrong in the first half-hour, and everybody tries to slaughter each other out of a warped sense of paranoia. Mikati does a fair-to-middling job staging the action scenes. He doesn't shrink from showing blood and gore, but not enough occurs here to gross anybody out. Unfortunately, despite its modest production values and its competent but misused cast, "Operation Endgame" isn't memorable, either for its combat sequences or its profanity. The sight of Chariot swilling liquor from a bottle shaped like an automatic pistol runs out of spontaneity. The gals all look pretty good, except for Ellen Barkin. She looks like a monster in her tight-fitting outfit. I bought this lackluster shoot'em up on Blu-ray from a discount bin at Walgreen's Drug Store and paid $5.99 plus tax for it. As comedies go, "Operation Endgame" is neither funny nor fresh. This film fares better as a standard issue shoot'em up rather than a satire.