When it comes to my entertainment, I’m the type of person that doesn’t want anything handed to me.

I like for there to be a payoff at the end of the journey.

For my ambition to be the key to the ignition and once I’ve made it to my destination, I can feel like I earned it.

I beat Mile High Club on Veteran Mode.

I like to play Resident Evil modes when there isn’t a lot of ammo around.

I beat Metal Gear Solid 4 on Big Boss (no it’s not the hardest level but it’s the next one from it and I’m still proud of that).

And when it comes to the “what should I watch on Netflix” conversation, I don’t really subscribe to that.

I like to find my own shows, it’s much more rewarding.

I guess this line of thinking mirrors my personality.

Life is difficult.

You might get a bone tossed your way here and there, but by and large, one must figure it out on their own terms.

That’s the perfect segue into a film I found while perusing the “Mind Games” category.

These films also fit my general philosophy on life.

Movies in these criteria offer general principles under a plot, and then they let the viewer put the pieces together.

From this point on I will be giving my thoughts on the general theme of the film and commentating on scenes as well, so it goes without saying. . .

***SPOILERS***

If these types of movies tickle your fancy (ewww) then I suggest giving it a shot before reading the rest of this blog.

Find the Dream, Find Comfort

This movie is full of bad breaks.

“The Bad Batch,” a thriller released in 2016, sets the scene with a young woman named Arlen, a prisoner labeled as one of the ‘Bad Batch’, who is tattooed and released beyond the US border.

Left with a jug of water, and a few rations, she is forced to fend for herself in a desert.

Unbeknownst to her at the time, other ‘Bad Batch’ before her were released into the arid habitat: a sect of cannibals and a sect of merchants and traders.

Arlen runs into the wrong sect, and immediately loses and arm and a leg to the cannibals.

There are others like her in the cannibal’s base camp, those who have already lost limbs, they no longer scream.

Just chained up, awaiting their fate.

Arlen, no longer wanting to be a victim, defecates herself, and uses the opportunity to escape.

Her escape was one of the more memorable scenes in the movie, the camera angle focusing in and out on a captive in the distance.

He just sits there watching Arlen put every ounce of her strength to crawl and squirm out of there.

Maybe he’s waiting for her to save him, maybe he wants to be salty and snitch on her.

Eventually Arlen finds her way to ‘Comfort’, with the help of a random traveler.

Comfort is a town, that seems to pose as a reminder of what home in the US was like, but also cynically make fun of the American mantra of the pursuit of happiness.

In fact, many scenes serve to poke fun at the American Dream.

Arlen opening a flyer in the beginning that stated “Find the Dream, Find Comfort”

The portable advertisement boards with sayings like “You Can’t Enter the Dream, Unless the Dream Enters You.”

The man dressed up in the Statue of Liberty outfit, spinning the “Find Your Dream” sign like its tax season.

Arlen discovering the answer to her philosophy early in the film, when she asks a crazy person “What’s the one thing I should never forget?”

And the crazy man replies, “How should I know? Find out for yourself. No ones going to tell you. You have to figure it out.”

So, Arlen goes to figure it out.

She turns to revenge, killing a woman from the sect of cannibals, however in the process, caused a child to lose her mother.

She turns to drugs.

But eventually, she decides on reuniting the child with her father, and creating some make-shift family.

The theme developed in this movie isn’t complex, but I love the way they go about piecing it together.

I have no other way to describe to this movie other than: unique

It’s a classified as a thriller yet the pacing is unlike any other movie of its kind; sporadic but with a method to it.

And the cast is noteworthy, yet there weren’t many memorable lines spoken by Jim Carey or Keanu Reeves or Jason Momoa.

Before he was Aquaman

There are tons of relatable moments though, watching Arlen’s progression.

Unfortunate incidents happen unfortunately, the anger we manifest and harness, but we must push our way through it, if we choose too, and discover what our own definition of happiness is.

After you watch it, lets discuss.

What underlying themes did you picked up while watching this film?

Weather Your Storm, Maintain Inner Reign -E.