Although it is a movie that was “destined for Tubi” according to some of its 10 “rotten” reviews, The Painter has become the action movie of the moment on Paramount+, as it climbed into the Top 10 after 100 days on the platform. An action movie that falls into the “been there, done that, got the bloodstains” category, the 2024 movie starring Charlie Weber and Jon Voight was a complete misfire with critics – and most audiences – but has still found a place amongst the most-streamed movies on the platform right now.
Surrounded by movies such as Blade, Step Brothers, and the mighty Top Gun: Maverick, The Painter is one of those movies that failed to raise its Rotten Tomatoes score above zero, with all critics’ reviews being unanimous in their negativity towards the movie. With less than complimentary verbiage such as “inept garbage,” “extremely difficult to take seriously,” and “uninspired, overstuffed and forgettable B-movie,” it is surprising that anyone has even bothered watching The Painter, but, when it appears on a banner at the top of the screen, it is hard to resist the click.
In the movie, Weber plays a retired Agency asset trying to live quietly as, who would have guessed, a painter, until a woman from his past reappears and drags him back into a kill-or-be-killed mess involving a rogue program and a relentless assassin. The relatively short 100-minute movie is the stuff of contrivance and rinse-and-repeat actioners of the last several decades – you know, the ones that keep people coming back no matter how repetitive and unoriginal it all is.
The Painter received a (very) limited release in January 2024, which preceded its VOD release just a few days later. Having disappeared without trace, it briefly surfaced on Paramount when it joined the platform’s library earlier in the year, but has now had an unexpected resurgence – as these things often do.
Reviews for ‘The Painter’ Were Terrible
Republic Pictures /Courtesy Everett Collection
It takes a special kind of movie to land a perfectly dreadful 0% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes almost two years on from its initial release – there’s always someone willing to break the “rotten” chain after a while. However, The Painter has maintained its non-existent rating without exception. What do audiences think of the movie, though?
The Painter’s 36% audience score may seem like it is on par with several of Liam Neeson’s popular streaming movies, and that could be because the film is a “horrific copy of any and every great action movie ever made.” While that could sound like comfort food to some fans of the genre, it seems that there is only so much of that particular meal you can eat before saying enough is enough.
One review reads, “This is the kind of movie that reveals how bad it is within the first five minutes. Bad acting, horrible writing, implausible, cinematography feels cheap.” Another added, “Oh man, what a terrible film. The acting was terrible, the dramatic scenes and flashbacks were cheesy, the fight scenes just looked like practice sessions of them training for a movie fight scene.” Meanwhile, one five-star review reads, “Fantastically horrendous! Amazingly stupefying! Aromatically stenchifying! Painfully torturous! A must see!” Yep, no idea what that thinks it is doing other than proving that perhaps some reviews are about as serious as this movie was about making a decent action film.
Of course, this has not stopped many people deciding to ignore the consensus and see for themselves whether the movie is worth their time. While it looks like this could be one of those instances when the warnings should be heeded, feel free to check it out yourself if you have a Paramount+ subscription.
Release Date
January 5, 2024
Runtime
100 Minutes
Director
Kimani Ray Smith
Writers
Brian Buccellato
