SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

fredericmartin Just a quick review as I still feel this film is a bit overrated. I am a huge fan of independent films, strange films, not-as-the-others films or whatever... and usually enjoy even average killer-related films.I did not expect much... but this film did not reach this very average level. I saw many better low budget direct-to-TV-or-DVD films than this one.Dialogs quality is going worse and worse through the film... of course there is no real action but that's not even the problem... characters are empty. We totally don't care about the sad-mother side of the killer... and the four last scenes of the film are so bad it reminds me parodies.a REAL waste of time I hope you can avoid (that's why I am making my first review on IMDb).

yeomanflood So I'm a huge watcher of movies. I've probably been going at a run rate of over 300 movies per year for the last several years. I enjoy assassin movies - who doesn't? I had relatively low expectations for this movie given the poor ratings here on IMDb. In general, I find that about 80% of the time I'm directionally aligned with IMDb scores, so I use them as a proxy for what I choose to watch, but sometimes the scores are just totally opposite of what my opinion is and I'm compelled to write a review. I haven't even written that many reviews and I only seem to be motivated enough to write them when I totally disagree with scores. Anyway, JOACK was much better than expected. The acting overall was done well. And while there were certainly aspects of the storyline that could have been better developed (such as the mother-daughter relationship), the overall storyline was quite good. Even if the acting seemed a little too flat sometimes, even for a cold-hearted killer-type movie, the dialogue and timing of the actors was done well, for the most part. I also liked the slight twists and turns of the story over all. In summary, I thought the movie, especially compared to how many bad movies are cranked out every year by Hollywood, was good and worth watching. I score it a solid 8, but give it a 9 here to try to offset the bad score average it has right now.

roguegrafix As the last reviewer said, this is not your average Hollywood show. It's a cold, calculated look at the life of a contract killer. There's not much emotion - after all, killers need no emotion - and this comes through in the film. It's a simple tale, told simply with unknown but good actors. One reviewer said we are not introduced to the characters. Well, for the first twenty minutes we basically have a monologue of the main character describing her life, her loves and all the important characters in the film. What more do you need??? Apparently it's based on real life and that's what you get here - no Hollywood soundtracks to add to the ambiance. Perhaps the only criticism I have is that the main character is so devoid of feeling that it's hard to believe she loves her child. Perhaps that could be explored a little more. But something different to watch. Give it a try -- you might be pleasantly surprised.

felipe77339 From the comments that I see on this board,it seems that some people have a problem with anything that is not the "usual" Hollywood fare. This movie kept me on my seat for the duration of it.I could name a few "big budget" movies where after a 20 minutes I felt like getting up and having a beer. "Journal of a contract killer" is quite remarkable,meaning that with a very good story,some unknown actors and the right director you can create something to remember.That's quite an achievement nowadays where just the marketing budget of some truly horrible movies (that you watch once and never again),mostly coming from,where else,the USA,is more than the budget for this movie.Well,enough said,I will recommend this movie to all my friends.