Hypocritical Drinker
Rough Elements is a short political thriller film written by the Critical Drinker. It was a film adoption of his Ryan Drake novels that was aimed to take down Hollywood. When it failed to live up to that hype, it was rebranded as essentially TV pilot.
As someone who finally decided to watch the movie, I thought I’d also take a jab at his response to criticism much like Eagier Than Thou did a few months back. If you’re not already aware, they’ve spent a lot criticizing Hollywood for lead characters who are a person of colour, a girl boss or both.
I used to be one of his viewers after Phase 4 of the MCU turned out to be an exhausting train wreck and I needed to know that I wasn’t going insane because the majority of what his content. (And Disney in general.) So even though he is low-hanging fruit for a lot of YouTubers, I watched a good chunk of his videos through the early 2020s.
Drinker’s Response Video
Right off the bat we’re off to a great start with his response to criticism is unlisted on YouTube and can only be viewed by digging deep into his second Kickstarter, Trial by Fire. Raise your red flags high up into the air for everyone to see.
After he goes on to praising the look and feel of the film, Drinker addresses the budget and logistics of the film. Put a pin on that second one. He always spends the first minute or two going into broad strokes introduction of each point means before actually getting to the crux of his “issue” that it comes off as quite condescending.
Like I said in my review, Anya returns to save Ryan Drake Deus ex Machina-style and his viewers pointed out how much it reminded them of a girl bosses he often criticizes. She single-handedly takes down the enemy goons after deploying tear gas while Frost is stuck trying to defend herself against a man twice as big as her with a knife.
His viewers justifiably criticized Anya’s portrayal because they were conditioned to see this girl boss trope as a bad thing. Drinker tries to argue that teargas is somehow an advantage. While I agree, it doesn’t change the fact that she somehow swooped in out of nowhere and managed to take down a group of goons that were targeting Drake.
The actress who played Anya is brought up again in the logistics point. She is thrown under the bus about how she supposedly had trouble reading her dialogue that contributed to reshoots and a rewritten ending which ballooned to the budget. Um, Drinker, you wrote this film. Not her fault she can’t make sense of the script.
Final Thoughts
Although he acknowledged the script was a little bloated when the budget skyrocketed in his next point, it is immediately undercut after that when he argues that haters will find any reason to dislike his film. To quote Eagier Than Thou, “do you not see the irony?”
I noticed his rise to fame came after his criticisms of Captain Marvel for being a freakin’ girl boss that cemented his hatred of Brie Larson that it’s practically a running gag, at this point. He became infamous for hating the MCU post-Endgame as he tries to connect the rise of a diverse cast to the terrible writing. Then he got a taste of his own medicine with Rough Elements and I’m pretty sure this is what tanked his already sinking reputation.
Overall, he is just a grifter trying to push you into hating the concept of diversity by masking it under something more ominous.