Carnage

Impressions before seeing it
Never saw a single frame of preview footage. I was just excited about the cast, and the prospect of the concept, because good actors yelling at each other is fun.

How was it?
So these two couples have a meeting to smooth things over after their sons got in a fight at school. They start off friendly and polite, but eventually they begin to offend each other, then piss each other off, and the event escalates into unrelated anger tangents and everyone ganging up on each other in different combinations. I cannot imagine a better thing to do with four talented actors. This was even more fun than Attack the Block, and that's saying a lot.

Carnage is based on a French play, which shows because the whole movie takes place on one set and is very dialogue driven, but the script and performances completely sold it. As you might imagine, it gets funny when these civilized adults, even while acknowledging themselves as such, get out of control and begin behaving childishly. It's fantastic. The ending felt somewhat abrupt, but it had to be in order for the final shot to put the parental meeting into perspective. I like that basically the entire message of the movie is summed up in those last frames. That's filmmaking efficiency.

Recommendation
This is one for the people who like watching actors act. In a film like this, that's all there is to rely on. Check it out; it's immensely entertaining.