Tag Archives: #thriller

Knock at the Cabin

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Release: Friday, February 3, 2023

👀 Theater

Written by: M. Night Shyamalan; Steve Desmond; Michael Sherman

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Dave Bautista; Ben Aldridge; Jonathan Groff; Nikki Amuka-Bird; Abby Quinn; Rupert Grint; Kristen Cui

Distributor: Universal Pictures

 

***/*****

A compelling moral dilemma takes center stage in M. Night Shyamalan‘s new film Knock at the Cabin, a home invasion thriller set in remote Pennsylvania and at the edge of the apocalypse. Adapting the 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, Shyamalan may not be working from scratch, and by all accounts the book and the movie are different beasts, but for at least the first half this is one of his stronger efforts in some time. 

Knock at the Cabin finds the 52-year-old director working in rare R-rated territory, following only 2008’s The Happening. Spoiler alert, this experiment is a little more convincing, even if it fizzles out in the end. Thirty-something dads Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Jonathan Groff) have taken their seven-year-old daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) to a quaint cabin in the Pennsylvania wilderness for some R&R. As Wen scouts the surroundings for grasshoppers to collect in her terrarium she is approached by a mountain of a man, Leonard (an outstanding Dave Bautista), who does everything he can to reassure the little girl he isn’t here to harm anyone.

The former wrestler embraces the opportunity to play a more nuanced, emotionally conflicted role and excels in it. A contradiction of menacing size and gentle demeanor, Bautista is the movie’s MVP by far. Leonard says he has urgent news to deliver and feels terrible about what it’s going to do to a nice family. Attempts to break the ice fail when three other individuals appear behind him, each carrying some kind of homemade weapon, causing Wen to flee inside to alert her parents. Leonard insists on diplomatic methods and repeatedly states a desire to avoid violence. But the best laid plans still end up with someone more fuzzy-headed than they should be, and a child bearing witness to more bloodshed than was ever intended.

The foursome — Leonard, a schoolteacher; Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), a nurse; Adriane (Abby Quinn), a restaurant cook; and Redmond (Rupert Grint), the loose cannon fresh off a stint in jail — claim to have been guided to this particular cabin after having experienced a shared vision of the end of days. They say they don’t know each other. With deep exhales they also state that the inhabitants are the only ones who can help prevent catastrophe, but in order to do so the family will have to sacrifice one of their own or else humanity will slip into an unending darkness. As if that’s not enough, the act has to be voluntary and suicide doesn’t count.

With his latest stress test Shyamalan proves to be more a master technician behind the scenes than a powerful messenger behind the pulpit. For what essentially amounts to a chamber piece, Cabin is a surprisingly dynamic viewing experience, chockablock with unconventional camera angles pulling us in further when we want to lean back. Other choices are commendably economic — once again a TV becomes an important narrative device to connect us to the outside world, although the service it provides is nowhere near as chilling as it was in Signs. And the way he integrates flashbacks is not as interruptive as it could be; in fact in some ways the unpleasantries dealt with here only add to the stress of the present.

Regrettably, it’s when the film goes big that it also gets weaker. In guiding us away from what might be to what actually is, Shyamalan struggles to make what’s preordained feel organic, to convince us that the choices being made are not the whims of a writer but rather the results of selflessness and excruciating introspection. Even worse, in choosing his own sentimental ending he invites mockery and criticism rather than profundity — not of his actors and the family they create, but of the logic that dictates who gets to live and who doesn’t. 

It’s not that Shyamalan is out of his depth thematically here; elements of faith and denialism have found their way into much of his work, whether it’s a priest having a personal crisis amidst an alien invasion or a kid coming to terms with the fact his dad is an actual superhero. (And in the aforementioned, other-R-rated offering, you just had to hold on to the hope he hadn’t lost his touch.) With Cabin, he gives us another provocative situation and draws out some great acting from his small cast. In the end, it may be a case where some things are just better left unexplained. 

Knock knock . . .

Moral of the Story: One of Shyamalan’s better efforts, despite its flaws. The performances (beyond Bautista) are all solid, as is the hook. A really strong first half gives way to a less satisfying third act where the direction becomes more forceful and in that way less natural. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 100 mins. 

Quoted: “Maybe the truth is that the end was happening long before we got to this cabin. And what we’re seeing now isn’t the fireworks. It’s just the final flickering sparks.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

Cocaine Bear

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Release: Friday, February 24, 2023

👀 Theater

Written by: Jimmy Warden

Directed by: Elizabeth Banks

Starring: Keri Russell; O’Shea Jackson Jr.; Alden Ehrenreich; Isiah Whitlock Jr.; Margo Martindale; Ray Liotta; Brooklynn Prince; Christian Convery

Distributor: Universal Pictures

 

**/*****

Touting a game cast, an interesting director in Elizabeth Banks and just enough gore to please Quentin Tarantino, Cocaine Bear has the ingredients to be a rollicking good time. Adding to the novelty is the opportunity to see Ray Liotta in one of his final roles. Frustratingly several less interesting elements compete for your attention in an already paper-thin narrative loosely based on a real event.

In September 1985 a small airplane trafficking cocaine from Colombia went down in southern Appalachia. The body of the pilot, whose parachute failed to open, was found in a Tennessee neighborhood and the goods scattered across the TN/GA state line in the wilderness. A curious black bear, some 300 pounds lighter than the impressive CGI behemoth we see here, happened upon the packages and was found dead soon thereafter, its stomach stuffed full of powder.

Notably no one was hurt or killed, which of course doesn’t make for a particularly eventful movie, so embellishment is needed. What if instead of dying the bear went on a rampage in search of its next fix? That’s the long and short of this willfully silly story. It doesn’t need to be complicated. It does, however, need to be entertaining but the sweet release that comes with watching an ursine coke fiend go apeshit is hard to come by, particularly in the first half. In fairness, Banks attempts to craft some level of humanity, but it also seems like she’s over-engineering a simple adrenaline rush.

The cast of Hollywood actors feels a little distracting for a movie taking place essentially on a hiking trail (we’re mostly hanging out at Blood Mountain, a popular hiking spot in northern Georgia) but the tradeoff is professional actors can make believers out of you, no matter how silly the situation. Stand-outs include Alden Ehrenreich moping around as a drug dealer with a broken heart, Margo Martindale juggling her romantic life with her duties as a Chattahoochee park ranger and Ray Liotta sweating hard from the heat he’s feeling from his concerned Colombian bosses.

Keri Russell gets an “emotional” arc as a single parent in pursuit of her runaway daughter (Brooklynn Prince), who skips school with her friend (Christian Convery) to have adventures in the woods, only to become the first (humans) to encounter one of the packages strewn throughout the foliage. Far less interesting is Isiah Whitlock Jr. as an overzealous detective in desperate need of a doggie sitter as he jumps jurisdictions to track down these dopey dealers.

At BEARly 90 minutes in length it is a surprisingly tedious wait for things to get good. You need some reason to care about developments but maybe a short film would have suited this material better. Cocaine Bear delivers what is expected in random bursts. However, the campiness Banks is clearly going for is reduced rather than enhanced by banal observations about relationships and the evils of drugs. At least the human-animal interactions make that of The Revenant look like a date with Winnie the Pooh. 

The bearable weight of massive talent

Moral of the Story: Just say ‘No’ to this crazy-but-not-nearly-as-crazy-as-it-could-have-been comedy-thriller. Cocaine Bear is a film at odds with itself — not quite camp enough to feel like a legitimate B-movie and too limited from a script standpoint to be considered anything other than a gimmick. The so-named Pablo Escobear looks good enough for a close-up though. Spectacular CGI work from the guys over at Wētā FX. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 95 mins. 

Quoted: “I trusted you! The state of Tennessee trusted you! The United States of America, it trusted you!”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.imdb.com 

Vengeance

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Release: Friday, July 29, 2022

👀 Amazon Prime

Written by: B.J. Novak

Directed by: B.J. Novak

Starring: B.J. Novak; Boyd Holbrook; Issa Rae; J. Smith-Cameron; Dove Cameron; Ashton Kutcher 

Distributor: Focus Features

 

 

***/*****

The Office alum B.J. Novak is no stranger to awkward situations, whether writing them or being the source of them. So it’s not that surprising he’d break into feature filmmaking with a culture clash comedy full of hilariously uncomfortable moments. Vengeance is more than a one-trick pony though; it’s an impressively assured début built around an intriguing mystery from which some sharp observations about modern society are spun off. Some developments are questionable but they mostly work in service of creating this very specific and authentic American experience.

Novak not only writes and directs but stars as Ben Manalowitz, a New York-based journalist and podcaster who lives in the high-rent district and enjoys a hedonistic lifestyle of casual hookups. As the movie begins the camera pulls in on a rooftop party where he debates the pros and cons of his noncommittal attitude with his equally unscrupulous friend John (John Mayer). Ben has had success already in his career but he doesn’t seem entirely satisfied and confides in his highflier producer-friend Eloise (Issa Rae) that he aspires to create a story that will resonate with everyone.

Eloise thinks he just lacks a human focus, arguing that people rather than ideas are what make stories interesting. That is until Ben receives a random phone call in the middle of the night from a man named Ty Shaw (a really good Boyd Holbrook) claiming that his younger sister Abilene (Lio Tipton), one of Ben’s recent one-night stands, has been found dead and he wants Ben to attend the funeral in West Texas, thinking he was a serious boyfriend. In one of the more unbelievable twists of the script he agrees to fly out and meet the family — mother Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron), younger daughters Paris (Isabella Amara) and Kansas City (Dove Cameron), sons Ty and Mason (Eli Abrams Bickel) and grandma Carole (Louanne Stephens). Somehow he makes a good impression despite delivering one of the worst eulogies you’ll ever hear.

No sooner has Ben committed his first faux pas is he being roped into a possible conspiracy surrounding the nature of Abilene’s passing. Although the death was ruled an overdose by authorities, Ty is adamant his sister never did drugs and suspects murder. He wants his city slicker pal to help him bring justice, extrajudicially of course. Ben, ever the opportunist, smells a story brewing, even if emerging themes of drug-related death and denialism feed right into his prejudiced assumptions about what goes on in backcountry Texas. Is Abilene merely another statistic or is there validity to Ty’s theories?

As Ben digs in deeper the more complicated the truth appears and the bigger the story seems to grow. Yet he can’t help but also question his own motives as he gets a better understanding of what Abilene meant to her family. As the investigation heats up Novak takes us into increasingly seedy territory and introduces a parade of capital-C characters, such as Ty’s wild-eyed friend Crawl (Clint Obenchain) who speaks ominously about “The Afterparty,” a plot of land near some oil fields where partygoers are often found dead. A low-level member of the cartel (Zach Villa) drops the act behind closed doors. There’s also the mysterious Quentin Sellers (Ashton Kutcher), an eloquently spoken record producer who has come to adopt Texas as his home. He proves to be quite the sound bite and one of the more interesting characters Kutcher has played in some time.

Vengeance begins its life as a simple misunderstanding that spirals into a broader moral conundrum that you’ve seen in a number of movies before. Novak doesn’t shy away from using tropes to carry out his central mystery and while many of them are effective (an extended scene at a rodeo is classic cringe, truly worthy of The Office) some are actually kind of problematic — the resolution in particular seems, at best, ironic and unrealistic. At worst, it’s a little self-serving and naive. Really this is no more offensive than the gentle slap on the wrist he gives the media about the role they play in shaping individual narratives and perceptions about other people.

Funny, poignant and hellaciously awkward at times, Vengeance is a black comedy that marks a confident and natural début for Novak, even accounting for the occasional lack of grace and less believable turns of fate. His film feels researched well enough to not come across as some amateurish ranting on what is ailing America. He captures the zeitgeist with something that is both entertaining and enlightening.

Gut-check time

Moral of the Story: As a commentary on the rural/urban divide, it’s nowhere near the lecture you might think it could be, but there is some on-the-nose dialogue here and there. However Vengeance is made with earnestness and though the story is not 100% convincing, the setting as a lived-in reality absolutely is. On another, maybe lesser note, it’s a good example of what Ashton Kutcher can do with solid material. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 107 mins.

Quoted: “I’d probably say that nobody writes anything. All we do is translate. So if you ever get stuck and you don’t know what to say . . . just listen. Even to the silences. Listen as hard as you can to the world around you and repeat back what you hear. That translation, that’s your voice.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

White Noise

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Release: Friday, November 25, 2022 (limited)

👀 Netflix

Written by: Noah Baumbach

Directed by: Noah Baumbach

Starring: Adam Driver; Greta Gerwig; Don Cheadle

Distributor: Netflix

 

 

***/*****

White Noise is a movie with a lot going on. Just when you think the story is about to end it finds new batteries and keeps going. Shifting through multiple themes, genres and tones, this sprawling exploration of social and existential anxiety features a lot of the elements that have made Noah Baumbach a uniquely observant filmmaker, but it also finds him stretched as he tries to cover so much ground in a reasonable amount of time.

Baumbach’s third film for Netflix (following his Oscar-winning Marriage Story and the ensemble family drama The Meyerowitz Stories) is an adaptation of a 1985 Don DeLillo novel the cognoscenti have deemed “un-filmable.” With its potpourri of themes and an assortment of characters frazzled by their own fears, quirks and suspicions, White Noise is absurdist, complicated comedy that requires a fine directorial touch. Baumbach needs to be more of a sound engineer as he searches for the right mix, moving all sorts of dials as he balances big set pieces, tricky dialogue and nuanced characters — all while perpetuating this frenzied climate of angst that feels maybe too real.

Split into three distinct acts and rolling the clock back to the 1980s, the film follows an upper-middle-class family in suburban Ohio as they try to deal with life in upheaval following a local disaster. The first forty-ish minutes lay out the pieces of a family dynamic that is both hectic and strangely stable (for a Baumbach movie). Patriarch Jack Gladney (Adam Driver) is a college professor with a dubiously specific area of focus who spends much of his day basking in the company of his fellow intellectuals, particularly amused by the poetic and quite possibly psychotic diatribes of Murray Siskind (a scene-stealing Don Cheadle), a so-called expert on American culture who just may spin off the planet one day with his crackpot theories.

Jack descends from this high throne each day and happily embraces the chaos at home with his wife Babette (Greta Gerwig), a postural therapist, and their four children. They’ve both been married multiple times before and run their marriage with a blunt honesty that manifests most memorably in their morbid pillow talk. Heinrich (Sam Nivola) and Steffie (May Nivola) are Jack’s, while Denise (Raffey Cassidy) is Babette’s and their youngest son, Wilder, they conceived together. The blended family dynamic means there’s never a dull moment and questions about the world around them abound — especially when Heinrich, who’s always on top of current events, begins hearing radio reports of a toxic chemical spill that could affect the entire area.

A major but well-handled transition leads into what feels like a different movie altogether, not to mention a total departure from anything resembling the chatterbox pictures the writer/director has built his career on. Fortunately Baumbach has his two most reliable commodities in Driver and Gerwig to help steer the way. The seasoned actors never seem fazed by the challenge, even when their characters are beginning to lose it. The so-named “airborne toxic event” prompts an evacuation and the Griswolds Gladneys load up in the family station wagon, soon swept up in the confusion and herded through a series of disorienting events that include makeshift quarantine sites, car chases through the woods (one of the best and funniest scenes by far) and strange encounters with a creepy, balding man whose face the camera can’t quite find.

White Noise is a long and meandering film — a low-key odyssey that, despite its chameleonic genre shifts, always stays anxious, always stays weird. Yet what has been for the most part entertainingly bizarre becomes more laborious down the final stretch as the story again reshapes into something more intimate and its core themes become crystallized. Everyone has been allowed to return home but life has not exactly returned to normal. The air may have cleared but the lingering effects of a traumatic event have infiltrated the house. Suddenly we’re stalking out seedy motel rooms and being treated by atheist nuns in a paranoia-fueled thriller that grows like a tumor off the main narrative. It’s the least convincing stretch of story by a muddy-river mile. 

On the whole, Baumbach succeeds in adapting someone else’s work without sacrificing his own idiosyncratic style. Ironically it’s in a passage where things are falling apart where he too seems to lose his grip. But he merges together so many concepts and pulls together three-dimensional characters such that these moments feel more like hiccups than major hang-ups. White Noise is messy, but it’s a colorful mess.

You won’t see this everyday . . .

Moral of the Story: Those who are already acclimated to the filmmaker’s unique style (specifically the way he writes dialogue and characters) will probably have an easier time navigating through White Noise‘s many and complicated movements. It’s an audacious movie that can be just as interesting in its blockbuster-y moments as it is when roaming the grocery store aisles. A uniquely whacky experience. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 136 mins. 

Quoted: “There are two kinds of people in this world, killers and diers. Most of us are diers.” 

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

Gold (2022)

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Release: Friday, March 11, 2022 (limited) 

👀 Hulu

Written by: Anthony Hayes; Polly Smyth

Directed by: Anthony Hayes

Starring: Zac Efron; Anthony Hayes; Susie Porter

Distributor: Screen Media Films

 

 

 

****/*****

Over the last few years, former Disney Channel star Zac Efron has been making some interesting moves, turning away from the eye candy roles that came to define him as a younger actor and embracing heavier dramatic material. His turn as Ted Bundy in 2019’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile proved he was eager to move beyond typecast and I’m not sure if there’s a more direct route to doing so than by playing a serial killer.

Indeed, if it were only the atrocity of Bundy that Efron had tapped into, maybe it would be easy to dismiss as gimmick — a desperate act of overcompensation. But when he commits himself in the way that he does in Gold, a viciously realistic survival thriller from Aussie director, writer and co-star Anthony Hayes, suddenly the days of High School Musical seem like prehistory. This is Efron operating on another level, evoking desperation and greed to stomach-churning effect. Sure, he benefits from Beth Halsted’s stunning make-up work, but he essentially holds the entire movie on his own and that’s no small feat.

Set sometime in the near future, Gold keeps the audience in the dark as far as the big picture is concerned. The script (by Hayes and his partner Polly Smyth) is as minimalist as the stripped-out coal mine that has become of the world. We’re post-apocalypse but we don’t know what caused humanity to be brought to its knees. A man named Virgil (Efron) train-hops his way to a remote outpost in the sprawling desert. Here he’s to catch a ride with another man, Keith (played in a gruff and world-weary manner by Hayes) who will take him to a mysterious place called The Compound, where Virgil hopes to find some stability doing hard labor. (Yeah, this movie is grim — imagine that for a happy ending.)

As the pair make their way in Keith’s weather-beaten truck we get drip fed little bits of their past and their musings on what is happening elsewhere. Not much is revealed, just enough to get an idea Virgil may be carrying around a little too much sensitivity in this place, while Keith appears/sounds the genuine article as a frontiersman. But the proof will be in the suffering when the pair make the incredible discovery of a massive chunk of gold and hatch a plan to extract it. Too big to move by hand or even truck, Virgil insists he stay behind to guard their riches while Keith will head back to get an excavator, a round trip of about five days or so.

Fine if you’re staying at the Ritz-Carlton, not so much if you’re hitching yourself to a lone, sun-parched tree with minimal food and water supplies. At least he has a satellite phone? High winds, reptiles, wild dogs — these are some of the amenities Virgil gets to enjoy as he goes full Aron Ralston in 127 even more desperate hours, squaring off against dehydration, starvation and paranoia as each passing sun and moon adds to the feeling of abandonment. It’s a startlingly authentic portrayal from Efron, who is a strong reason to see yet another movie titled Gold.

Though filmed in the Flinders Ranges of the Outback the movie is shot tightly, with a raw intimacy that never allows you to get comfortable. As director, Hayes uses the crunch of COVID-era restrictions to fashion a harrowing tale of obsession and survival where space is put to use in ways both creative and cruel. As screenwriter, his judgment of time elapsing is one of the most powerful driving forces, with a variety of cuts to Efron’s façade depicting a man utterly wasting away in the elements.

Gold is undeniably a familiar yarn, one where a carefully curated song at the end spells out the lesson learned in big letters. When a scavenger (played with sinister intent by Susie Porter) appears on the scene, the haggard signposting of where things go are as obvious as the glinting jewel. Still, the heaviness with which certain developments land is not to be discounted. Dismissing the saga as overly familiar does a disservice to the intensity and authenticity of the experience.

Gnarly and visceral, Gold is entertaining in that morbidly fascinating way movies about the corruptive power of wealth often are — it’s not full-blown Shadenfreude, but at some point sympathy drops away and yields to pity. Even with sparse personality, the technical aspects make everything feel real and hard to look away from, even when you want to.

5G coverage, my ass

Moral of the Story: 127 Hours meets The Treasure of the Sierra Madre meets The Martian (the latter, in a more painfully specific way I guess). Harsh and pretty conservative in terms of action, Gold won’t be everyone’s idea of a fun Saturday night but for those looking for proof of Zac Efron’s talent, look no further. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 91 mins.

Quoted: “I can handle it.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.screendaily.com 

All the Old Knives

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Release: Friday, April 8, 2022 (limited)

👀 Amazon Prime

Written by: Olen Steinhauer 

Directed by: Janus Metz

Starring: Chris Pine; Thandiwe Newton; Laurence Fishburne; Jonathan Pryce; David Dawson; Corey Johnson

Distributor: Amazon Studios

 

 

 

***/*****

All the Old Knives finds stars Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton locked into one of the longest dinner scenes ever put to film. You can imagine the importance of the conversation when it requires the entire length of the movie for it to transpire. Indeed the stakes are higher than your average dinner date, and it’s this back-and-forth from which director Janus Metz manages to build out a familiar but consistently engaging spy thriller, one in which profession and passion blur together in dangerous ways.

The two respectively play Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, a pair of CIA agents and ex-lovers brought back together at a luxurious restaurant where not even the spectacular Californian sunset can distract from the unpleasant business at hand. An old case, a 2012 hijacking of a Turkish Alliance passenger plane which ended in tragedy, has been reopened after new information comes to light there was a mole inside the Vienna station where Henry and Celia worked. Eight years later and Henry has been sent by station chief Vick Wallinger (Laurence Fishburne) to sniff out the leak — a task that will require Henry to face his ex for the first time since she abruptly cut ties with him and the agency following the disaster.

All the Old Knives is a talky espionage thriller that feels more like a mystery with the way it plays with perspective and strategically slips in red herrings between the rounds of red wine. Set within a world more apropos of John le Carré than Ian Fleming, the story, written by Olen Steinhauer who adapts the material from his own novel, eschews foot chases and big shoot-outs and leans more into the cerebral. Avoiding the trap of creating a stagy and static experience, Metz opens up his single-room setting with a flashback-heavy structure, peeling the layers of the onion to get to the core truth (which may or may not wow you depending on your aptitude for guessing twists).

Celia’s recollection does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of set-up, placing us amidst the chaotic scene at the Vienna branch. Yet as time progresses it becomes increasingly obvious we’re not getting the full picture. A group of four armed militants, led by Ilyas Shushani (Orli Shuka) whose backstory becomes a vital piece of the puzzle, has taken over a plane on the runway at Vienna International and is demanding the release of several of their allies from prison. Ahmed, a CIA courier, happens to be on board and feeds the team information, such as the fact the men have mounted a camera on the undercarriage of the plane and have begun using children as human shields.

Amid this walk down nightmare lane, another set of scenes fleshes out Henry’s point of view and what’s at stake for him personally and professionally. His itinerary takes him from Vienna to California by way of London where, at a pub, he corners a nervous and fidgety Bill Compton (Jonathan Pryce), a senior agent who served as a mentor to Celia. Henry has reason to believe someone inside the team leaked information to the terrorists on board which prevented a successful rescue attempt from being carried out. And there’s some suspect circumstances surrounding Bill’s office phone that compels Henry to dig his claws in.

For all the well-trodden ground found in its exploration of trauma, loyalty and betrayal, All the Old Knives has a way of keeping you invested. A lot of that comes down to the performances, with the likes of Fishburne and Pryce elevating smaller parts with their considerable gravitas. However, most of the good stuff rides on the interplay between Pine and Newton, who frequently command the screen as each successive return to the table finds their Poker faces slowly morphing into something more pained. They make the guessing game entertaining as the perceived power dynamic shifts like water sloshing in a jug. 

However there are some things good acting and palpable tension can’t cover up, like the superfluous inclusion of a so-called supporting character — not exactly a deal-breaker, but an unfortunate misstep in an otherwise taut and efficient production. Taken all together, All the Old Knives may feature a number of tricks you’ve seen before, but Metz never allows the interest to wane or the layered storytelling to become convoluted. The Danish director braids together the complicated affairs of the heart and geopolitics in a way that makes for a constantly forward-ticking narrative even when the approach is decidedly slow burn.

If looks could kill

Moral of the Story: Despite popular misconception, this is not, in fact, a sequel to the 2019 whodunnit Knives Out. (That is actually going to be a movie called Glass Onion. Go figure.) This is a throwback thriller that moves at a deliberate pace and keeps the drama at street-level. A well-chosen cast makes the familiar elements more enticing and helps bring real humanity to slightly underwritten parts. All the Old Knives is the second feature-length film from Janus Metz. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 101 mins.

Quoted: “We cannot afford the embarrassment of a prosecution. I need to know the man I send can do what’s necessary.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.indiewire.com 

The Gray Man

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Release: Friday, July 15, 2022 (limited) 

👀 Netflix

Written by: Joe Russo; Christopher Markus; Stephen McFeely

Directed by: Anthony Russo; Joe Russo

Starring: Ryan Gosling; Chris Evans; Ana de Armas; Regé-Jean Page; Julia Butters; Billy Bob Thornton; Alfre Woodard; Jessica Henwick

 

 

***/*****

Thinking is a hazard to your health in the modern action movie. The good news is when something moves as stylishly and as quickly as The Gray Man you don’t have a lot of time to do that. Distractions are in abundance in the Russo brothers’ star-studded and action-packed extravaganza based on the 2009 novel of the same name by Mark Greaney.

Featuring the ensemble cast of an Ocean’s Eleven and the globetrotting scale of a James Bond installment, The Gray Man is one of Netflix’s most expensive and ambitious undertakings to date, costing the streamer a whopping $200 million — and that’s just for this first episode, with plans for a sequel and a spin-off announced immediately. Sadly the foundation (the first movie, that is) isn’t very strong to begin with, so it’s anyone’s guess as to what quality franchise we’ll get out of translating more of the thriller novelist’s work.

In the meantime, what will likely be most remembered from this near-breathless first installment is Chris Evans hamming it up big-time as the main antagonist, the sadistic Lloyd Hansen. I’m prioritizing the villain because the pleasure he takes in making others uncomfortable is something that makes him stand out in a movie that doesn’t have much to offer personality-wise. It’s a showy if overcompensating depiction of sociopathy that suggests Evans wants to be as far removed from Cap’s shield as Daniel Radcliffe wants to be from Hogwarts. If there’s something The Gray Man does well, it’s providing a bad guy you can’t wait to see brought to his knees.

Ironically the “good” guy is less compelling, even if he is played by the enigmatic Ryan Gosling. In 2003 Court Gentry, a convicted killer, is visited in prison by a CIA official named Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton) who tells him his sentence will be commuted in exchange for his cooperation with the agency in bringing down a national security threat. Court is to join the CIA’s clandestine Sierra program, where he will assume the code name ‘Six,’ because “007 was taken.” Years later, after a botched mission in Bangkok, Six comes into possession of a thumb drive which contains some secrets the CIA, namely the ambitious Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page), would rather not let loose. So he goes rogue, sending the file to Prague where a trusted source (Alfre Woodard) will be able to decrypt it, while coming into the crosshairs of a rampaging Lloyd Hansen who will do anything to get a job done.

This includes kidnapping Fitzroy’s teenage daughter Claire (Julia Butters) for leverage in forcing her father to give the go-ahead to eliminate Six, leading to one of The Gray Man‘s stand-out action scenes aboard a cargo plane. Though fully aware of his disposability, he discovers that maybe not everyone is out to get him when he crosses paths with Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas), a CIA agent who, along with Carmichael’s underling Suzanna Brewer (Jessica Henwick), is scrambling to salvage her career thanks to the trail of destruction that has followed Hansen and his willfully unethical methods.

Piling up casualties as quickly as Thanos can snap his fingers, The Gray Man is hardly ever dull. The plot is simple and the direction propulsive but because we don’t really get to know the characters beyond their skill sets and job titles it is also a fairly impersonal affair, feeling more like a series of things that happen rather than things you care about. Attempts to humanize Gosling’s emotionally frigid Court come in the form of perfunctory flashbacks to a bad childhood and an underdeveloped dynamic with Claire, to whom he is entrusted to protect. On that note, Butters is even less fortunate, her character bearing few attributes beyond the heart condition that makes her vulnerable and serves as a plot device.

If the action genre is defined now by cold indifference, The Gray Man should be viewed as a success. The Russos have put together an adrenaline-pumping ride that doesn’t demand anything from the viewer other than a Netflix subscription and a family-sized bucket of popcorn. It may not feature any extraterrestrial threat or super-powered beings, but this is a spectacle involving some balloons, a lot of bullets, and colored smoke for some reason. The Gray Man looks every bit the money that was spent on it, but huge sums of cash don’t directly translate into strong characters and intriguing moral situations. I’m probably thinking too much about it, but this cat-and-mouse game could have — should have — been better.

For the second review in a row, we have strong Mustache representation.

Moral of the Story: I’m giving this otherwise pretty bland action thriller a 3 instead of a 2 out of 5 stars simply because Chris Evans chews the scenery so much he enlivens the entire thing. Gosling is okay; he’s not doing anything radically different, and even though there is a lot of action — the Russos definitely deliver quantity — I’m not sure if any of the big set pieces have staying power. Honestly, it’s just another Saturday night action escape. 

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 114 mins.

Quoted: “Normally at this point in the night, I wouldn’t be sticking around. With the house lights about to come on, I’d find a desperate, ugly chick to lick my wounds and split. But you have been a pebble in my shoe since the very beginning, and now I just don’t think I can walk away. Guess what I’m thinking right now . . .”

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Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

Malignant

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Release: Friday, September 10, 2021

👀 Theater

Written by: Ingrid Bisu; Akela Cooper; James Wan

Directed by: James Wan

Starring: Annabelle Wallis; Maddie Hasson; George Young; Michole Briana White; Jake Abel

 

 

 

 

***/*****

Horror maestro James Wan returns to his stomping grounds with Malignant, an unabashedly strange film with a concept stretched like Playdoh to imaginatively icky extremes. Though featuring the gritty detective subplot of Saw, the creaky house tropes of The Conjuring and the mental trauma aspects of Insidious, the Australian has put together a delirious reel that feels different from the rest of his filmography (and more than a little David Cronenberg) with its spectacle of body horror.

The original story, a collaboration between Wan, his wife Ingrid Bisu and one-time American Horror Story writer Akela Cooper, opens with a creepy, adrenaline-pumping prologue at a Seattle medical facility before seemingly ditching it for the present day. Madison (Annabelle Wallis — Annabelle; Silent Night) lives in the suburbs with husband Derek (Jake Abel). They’re trying to have a child but Madison is struggling with the pregnancy. It takes no time to learn Derek is not a good support system. Returning home early from work after not feeling well, her concerns are met with resentment and eventually violence, leading to Madison experiencing a series of troubling dreams that turn out to be anything but dreams; they’re visions of murders happening in real time, one even involving her husband.

After surviving an attack from what she believes killed Derek she awakens in a hospital to even worse news. Wallis does not miss the opportunity to sell a mother’s anguish. Yet Wan and company have much more suffering on their minds as they put their fully committed lead through the wringer, scaling up her torment and ratcheting up the tension in steady increments. Braving a return to the same lonely house despite the gestures of her sister Sydney (Maddie Hasson) and insisting it’s “the one thing that won’t be taken” from her, she continues to experience harrowing scenes of people — those in the medical field, it seems — being hacked to death in their own homes. And rather than sweaty sheets she’s constantly “waking up” in a dried pool of blood on her pillow.

Meanwhile the authorities are rubbing their eyes red trying to make sense of the attack, which has been labeled a home invasion. The problem is the lack of evidence of breaking and entering, and weirder things like fingerprints with impossible orientations. Detectives Shaw (George Young) and Moss (Michole Briana White) may not quite appreciate what they have signed up for as digging into Madison’s apparently troubled family history brings about more questions than closure.

As they search for links between the victims and Madison circumstances only become more bizarre, each twist of the directorial knife getting more personal and . . . well, more twisted. That applies on an aesthetic level as well, the filmmakers deploying a number of creative camera stunts to pull us not so much into a world but a head space that’s never less than uncomfortable. Joseph Bishara’s shrieking score amplifies the mood. Transformative VFX early on not only communicate this uniquely cinematic sensation of being “there” with Madison, the motif helps prepare us for the full-on assault of insanity Wan commits to in the final stretches.

Marking a return to horror for Wan who has spent the last several years making big budget, commercial movies, Malignant proves he is not afraid of a little experimentation. It is also proof of the amount of goodwill he has built up in Hollywood. Original stories aren’t sexy anymore. Studios and ticket buyers have an increasing lack of adventurousness in common. It is difficult to part with your hard-earned cash on an unknown entity, even one helmed by an established director, when Marvel hardly needs the word-of-mouth to convince you Loki will be fun. Warner Bros. have gambled on Wan’s concept, itself a gamble on a modern audience’s willingness to go with the flow and to become absorbed in a singular experience.

Malignant is certainly an experience, one with a knack for tattooing its bizarre imagery into the back of your brain. Though the denouement leaves something to be desired, Wan unable to tame the beast as effectively as he builds it up, the majority of the film offers a unique challenge to viewers. This is a movie that you don’t watch so much as let happen to you. Like a freakish corporeal spasm the whole thing feels a little bit out of (your) control in the way a good horror should, twisting and reconfiguring into a pretty unpredictable beast. Those looking for something that feels grounded in reality, the door is right over there. 

“Who’s this joker?”

Moral of the Story: The most divisive horror movie I can recall in some time, Malignant goes for broke and very nearly breaks. Or for some viewers, it might be broken fairly early on. Either way, and despite my three-star rating (which I feel is strong, but not quite a rave) I would describe James Wan’s “new vision of terror” as a must-see. It’s in theaters and on HBO Max. For something so visually intense I’d highly recommend the theater setting. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 111 mins. 

Quoted: “It’s time to cut out the cancer.”

Get a taste of the absurdity in the Official Trailer #2 here! 

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; www.hauntedmtl.com 

Black Widow

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Release: Friday, July 9, 2021

👀 Theater

Written by: Eric Pearson

Directed by: Cate Shortland

Starring: Scarlett Johansson; Florence Pugh; David Harbour; Rachel Weisz

 

 

 

 

***/*****

Timing is everything. This applies, painfully so, to Black Widow, a film that feels compromised in a way few Marvel movies have.

In her first foray into the Marvel Cinematic Machine director Cate Shortland finds herself in an incredibly difficult position. Twenty-four films deep into a shared universe that has now spun off multiple streaming shows, she is tasked with compressing both origins story and swan song into one entertaining package. Black Widow‘s out-of-sequence placement burdens the filmmaker with a number of difficult creative choices, most notably how much nuance she can bring to a story that ostensibly dives into the emotional interior of one of the foundational members of the Avengers.

Hey, at least they finally got the damn thing made. Scarlett Johansson* may have had to wait 11 years, 20 films and her own character’s killing off to earn what Robert Downey Jr. got three times in five years, Chris Hemsworth three in six and Chris Evans twice in three,** but the only resentment you sense from Natasha Romanoff in her eighth and likely final MCU appearance is reserved for Dreykov (Ray Winstone — Noah; The Departed), the Russian psycho who brainwashed and tortured her and her ‘sister’ Yelena Belova (a scene-stealing Florence Pugh) as young girls, along with countless others from all over the world, into becoming an army of perfect assassins.

A bittersweet prologue sets us all up for a rude awakening: a seemingly normal American family in 1995 Ohio is suddenly compelled to make a break for Cuba after being discovered as the Russian sleeper agents they actually are. ‘Father’ Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) and ‘mother’ Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) have been keeping their ‘children’ Natasha (here played by Ever Anderson) and Yelena (Violet McGraw) sheltered for as long as they can but a sad twist of fate shatters the illusion, the daughters separated and handed over to Dreykov and eventually sent to a nebulous place called the Red Room, a hovering fortress in the sky that could have been cribbed from a Pink Floyd concept album.

Cut to the present (which is still the past) and Natasha’s on the run from U.S. Secretary Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) after giving him and his Sokovia Accords the one-finger salute. Her nomadic lifestyle in Norway is short-lived with the arrival of the mysterious mercenary Taskmaster, drawn to an item our hunkering-down hero is unwittingly in possession of. After a violent showdown on a bridge, Natasha escapes to Budapest, where another David Leitch-like round of punishingly awesome fight choreography awaits. Here, reunited with her former sis, Natasha discovers the true extent of Dreykov’s control and power, along with a possible solution to the problem.

Post-Budapest and the spy thriller dynamic evolves into more of a dysfunctional family team-up as the pair resolve to get the old gang back together in order to take down the brute who irrevocably changed them and free the other Black Widows from the same violent servitude. The process of course mandates that mom and dad also confront their own separate, lived-in realities and their culpability in this whole mess, leading to the film’s signature scene (awkward family reunion, anyone?) — an emotional catharsis for all involved. Turns out, reliving the “good old days” is tricky to do when the good old days are your own Tahiti (what a magical place).

Black Widow is a Phase 4 debutante that is much better when grounded instead of going for literally atmospheric, generic spectacle, with some of the quieter moments packing as much of a punch as the intense fight sequences. However, the timing of the whole thing magnifies certain issues. Eric Pearson’s screenplay is not compelling enough for a film this late in the game. And considering the hefty themes in which it traffics and the cast of characters at its disposal there is enough content here to make two films. Instead the exploration of trauma and disillusionment feels rushed and harried by the “Make it count!” business mentality governing its singular existence.

Ultimately the performances save this from total mediocrity. Johansson has kicked ass from her Bechdel Test-failing introduction in Iron Man 2 (2010) through to this bitterly short-lived end, saving her most somber performance for last. Yet even in her own movie she is to some degree playing second fiddle. That’s less of a problem when the reason is Florence Pugh, who might well be stretching her legs for her own MCU run. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take quite as long — in real time or otherwise — to get that going. 

* I am considering reviving the Scarlett Johansson Project. I feel bad leaving that one incomplete. Would anyone be interested in seeing more of those kinds of posts? Show of hands in the comments below, please!

** I do not include Captain America: Civil War in that list considering that is more of an ensemble film than a true stand-alone entry. But, sure, go ahead and add it. Even more to my point.

Comrades in harms.

Moral of the Story: An uncharacteristic end-zone fumble for MCU President and ball-cap enthusiast Kevin Feige, Black Widow feels rather shortchanged by the finite space into which it has been forced to exist. On one hand, you might look at the movie multitasking as both origins and send-off as a unique thing. I don’t know any other MCU installment that has had to do that. On the other, you can’t help but feel Natasha Romanoff deserved more than what amounts to the cinematic equivalent of a hit single. 

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 134 mins.

Quoted: “Tell me, how did you keep your heart?” 

Check out the Final Trailer for Black Widow here!

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.forbes.com

A Quiet Place Part II

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Release: Friday, May 28, 2021

👀 Theater

Written by: John Krasinski 

Directed by: John Krasinski

Starring: Emily Blunt; Millicent Simmonds; Noah Jupe; Cillian Murphy

 

 

 

 

****/*****

Speech is silver, silence is golden.

The old proverb has turned into a post-apocalyptic motivational poster in the brave new world John Krasinski has created with A Quiet Place, one in which survivors of an alien attack must mute their every move, their every syllable to avoid being gobbled up by these terrifyingly sound-sensitive invaders. When characters do communicate words and gestures carry weight. Sorry to the aliens, but it is the human factor — fear of failure, coping with loss — that is bringing audiences back for a second helping. The question is, was the prolonged wait worth it?

Short answer: an enthusiastic (but whispered) ‘Yes.’ The secret sauce may not have the same kick twice, for now we’re expecting unbearable silence, but Krasinski has great insurance against damages done by the element of predictability: He’s got strong characters (now handled by Part 1 scribes Scott Beck and Bryan Woods) and the caliber actors to take those creations to an even higher place. Big Tuna’s genius stroke, though, is in shifting the perspective to the kids, turning Part 2 into a legacy film wherein the younger actors have much more agency and influence over events. If the original was an allegory for parental fears of failing your kids, Part 2 swings the other way — Regan’s fear of not measuring up to Dad coming through in her damn-the-torpedoes attitude as she increasingly takes matters into her own hands.

More or less picking up right from where we left off in 2018, barring a prologue that gives us the origins of the creatures in chaotic fashion, A Quiet Place Part 2 wastes no time in justifying the big-screen treatment while along the way introducing some new faces and new albeit not surprising threats. Krasinski, who returns as sole screenwriter this time (and for a brief cameo in the film), sacrifices the intimacy of Part 1‘s more insular location for a larger playing board loaded with even more hazards, some of which truly catch you off-guard, while others might have you cringe for the wrong reason.

Jump ahead 474 days and the Abbotts, the world’s most resourceful family, are now on the run, bereft of Dad and the relative safety of their farmhouse. They are down but far from out. Mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt — Edge of Tomorrow; Looper), with her surviving children Regan (Millicent Simmonds — A Quiet Place; Wonderstruck), Marcus (Noah Jupe — Honey Boy; Wonder) and newborn in tow, is hoping, perhaps against hope, for someone out there to be kind enough to let them in.

They eventually come across a grizzled man hanging out in a dilapidated factory. It turns out to be an old friend from back in the day, Lee’s buddy Emmett (Cillian Murphy — Peaky Blinders; Batman Begins), now uncannily sporting a face covering and a shell of his former self having failed to protect his own family. Understandably he’s reticent to allow anyone else in to his safe space. Of course, uh, he does (otherwise this is going to be A Very Short-lived Quiet Place). It’s not long before the kids are getting restless and Regan, by way of Marcus, discovers there may well be other people worth saving out there. Maybe, upon uniting with them, both factions can help each other. Marcus, however, is not as willing to embark on a suicidal Stand By Me-esque venture into the unknown. And Emmett has made it clear there is nothing out there left to save.

A very likable cast goes a long way in offsetting some of the movie’s shortcomings. For example, it helps to have Murphy and Djimon Hounsou (Captain Marvel; Blood Diamond) fulfill archetypes. While the latter is almost comically incidental to the plot, discarded in a third-act sequence that feels rushed at best, he at least brings a quality of calm to a movie where quietude usually does not translate to peacefulness. As a flesh-and-blood character Murphy fares better. His presence, which evolves from estranged, put-upon uncle to supportive father-figure, becomes integral to the sequel’s themes of perseverance and learning how to move on, especially when he begrudgingly agrees to return Regan to Evelyn.

Part 2 is certainly the louder film. That’s not a bad thing. As the narrative opens into a trident of nerve-racking objectives that finds each Abbott uniquely in peril Krasinski blitzes us with moments of pure thrill while never compromising the humanity at the heart of his story. In fact some of the best character work in either film can be found in Part 2, whether it’s Regan showing compassion for a man who clearly is not her father (skilled in nonverbal communication, possessed of the patience required to work through such difficulties in moments of high anxiety), or Marcus battling something more than monsters as he holds down the fort/furnace while Mama Bear goes searching for precious supplies of oxygen.

Superficially Part 2 doesn’t offer a vastly different experience than what we went through in 2018. I’m not sure it is actually a superior movie but consistency counts for a lot here. Thus far we have two films whose structural integrity very much resembles that of the Abbott’s old farmhouse: Plenty of reliable, sturdy support beams in the form of well-worn genre tropes but also a few really neat, custom bits you won’t find anywhere else. It’s those little details, the way Krasinski and company relate the characters to situations, that will make A Quiet Place worth returning to again, hopefully sooner.

Ya did good, son.

Moral of the Story: The rare sequel that truly works on a conceptual as well as emotional level, A Quiet Place Part 2 welcomes audiences back to theaters in exciting, chilling fashion while laying a clear foundation for more to come. 

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 97 mins.

Quoted: “Run!”

Check out the “nerve-shredding” Final Trailer here! 

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.buffalonews.com