Bullet Points: Sixty Minutes

I am not Mike Wallace. I am not Morley Safer. I am not Harry Reasoner. I am not Ed Bradley. And I am certainly not Diane Sawyer… but I am Chris the Brain and this is a review of Sixty Minutes.

2024’s Sixty Minutes, a German action import, dropped on Netflix last week and after seeing some positive comments about it on social media, I decided to check it out for myself…

• Scheduling Conflict: Emilio Sakraya plays MMA fighter Octavio Bergman. When we first see Octavio he is in the locker room of the gym he owns along with his best friend, Paul. Octavio is attempting to fill out a birthday card for his young daughter, Leonie, but is having trouble finding the words. Octavio is interrupted by his trainer Cosima, who wants to get Octavio warmed up for his fight… yes, that’s right Octavio has a fight on the same day as his daughter’s birthday… something that does not sit well with Leonie or her mother/Octavio’s ex, Mina. This scheduling conflict is also creating an internal conflict for Octavio.
• The Countdown Is On: Paul gets the call that Octavio’s big fight with the brutal Benko is about to go down, so Paul, Octavio and Cosima make their way to the nearby venue. When they get inside Octavio immediately has to deal with Benko’s macho head games, then Paul introduces him to Chino, who is excited to meet the fighter that he has bet on. Octavio prepares for his fight and just before he goes out to the cage, he gets a call from Mina with an ultimatum, if he is not at Leonie’s birthday party by 6, she is going to file for sole custody and Octavio will never see Leonie again! Octavio freaks out, goes back to the locker room, gets his stuff and he is getting the hell out of there. Paul is desperately trying to get Octavio to reconsider, but the clock is ticking and he has exactly 60 minutes (DING!) to get to Leonie’s party… and he still needs to pick up the cake he promised her and her birthday surprise.

• From Bad to Worse: Getting to his daughter’s birthday party and running all the errands would be challenging enough, especially during rush hour traffic in Berlin, but the time crunch is not the only challenge Octavio has to deal with. It turns out that Chino is not just a degenerate gambler, he’s a straight up degenerate, who was so sure that Octavio was going to win (because Benko was going to take a dive) that he made a big money deal with some very dangerous and powerful people and now thanks to Octavio dipping out before the fight… Chino is going to be on the hook with these very dangerous and powerful people, so needless to say he is not about to let Octavio just walk away and his goons give chase and are looking to force Octavio to fight. Everywhere Octavio goes, Chino or his goons seem to be there waiting for him, on the street, in his gym, at the cake shop, at the subway station… this is bad news for Octavio, but good news for us since it gives us a chance to see Octavio kick ass with his MMA skills. My favorite Octavio fight takes place at a dance club.
• Super Chino: One aspect of Sixty Minutes that took me by surprise was Chino… when we first meet him he comes across as a bit of a goof, but as the movie progresses he gets more and more dangerous. By the end, I wasn’t sure if adrenaline was making Chino almost invincible or if he had taken/snorted some “performance enhancers” or possibly a combination of both. Either way, Chino proves to be more trouble than I initially expected.

As someone who leans more into the golden age of action, Netflix is not usually the first place I look when I am looking for movies to review for the site. But there’s no denying that Netflix really shines with their international offerings. Over the years we have featured numerous action movies from around the world thanks to Netflix, like The Night Comes For Us and The Last Mercenary.

Emilio Sakraya is Sixty Minutes biggest strength. As a father trying not to lose his daughter, Octavio is an easy character to root for. Emilio also looks like an MMA bad ass, plus has a legitimate martial arts background and that really allowed him to shine in the fight scenes. I know this, I’m going to check if he had any previous action movies on his CV and hope that he makes more action movies going forward.

Now let me throw it to Bulletproof Action’s version of Andy Rooney, the Bonus Bullet Points…

• Missed Opportunity: While it probably wasn’t in the budget, I would have loved if there was a classic 90s dance song playing in the club or even the Euro Club mix of “Scotty Doesn’t Know”.
• Familiar Quote: “Come with me if you want to live!” – The motorcycle riding Rico to Octavio.
• Most Hated: You may be wondering why Octavio didn’t just go to the cops, after all he didn’t do anything wrong, well he actually does at one point and interacts with two cops that were easily my least favorite people in the entire movie. Just awful and incompetent at their chosen profession.
• Fontastic: I enjoyed the “digital clock font” that was used for the credits. It reminded me of Terror Squad and its use of the “calculator font”.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see a guy that is zip tied to a chair jump into a subway car, then Sixty Minutes is the movie for you.