The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman

Fredrik Bond's The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman (US, 2013) - While traveling abroad titular character falls for a Romanian beauty whose dark past begins to envelop him. Stars Shia LaBeouf, Evan Rachel Wood, Mads Mikkelsen, Rupert Grint, James Buckley and Til Schweiger. A profoundly unnecessary movie, "The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman" stars Shia LaBeouf as a Ratso Rizzo-impersonating American tourist bumbling through the Romanian netherworld in search of Evan Rachel Wood, whose accent and demeanor suggest that someone dumped a truckload of Ambien into the Bucharest water supply. Strained attempts at magic realism will leave viewers more irritated than enchanted; a name cast, which includes the usually wonderful Mads Mikkelsen, could well lead to theatrical play, but Fredrik Bond's direction and Matt Drake's screenplay deliver a charisma-free trip into a world of gratuitous violence, contrivances and tedium. 2013BERic, 2013SUN. RATING: 6