The Creator (2023)

Since I lowered my frequency of blog entries, I'm trying for the few I'm posting to close these with a rating above average. This means finding a movie that deserves recommending. And this is the reason why I was very close this time to turn back again to a South-Korean title from the 2000's, but finally the "payback" urge for two hours lost with "The Creator" won. So...

What we have here is a SciFi set in a future where the Western world banned AI, apparently guilty for a nuclear blast that swiped Los Angeles. The Eastern World doesn't really agree with the general opinion that AI is bad, the result being some sort of war targeting an android population made in Asia, persecuted by the US army through incursions within the enemy territory. In all this context we have a romance between an US sergeant and the daughter of the main mysterious AI architect. Long story short (and it is short, because there's not much else), she dies in an attack, he gets back home, and after some years he's sent back to get "the weapon" - some device developed by the AI camp, which would be capable to disable the entire armed power of the West. As we find out from the trailers, the weapon is a child, and from here onwards we have a couple of predictable mini-twists, which I'll leave aside to keep something left for watching.

The humanity vs AI conflict is a SciFi theme since the notion of AI emerged, meaning decades. In cinema this theme catched traction mostly by positioning AI on the negative side: Terminator, Matrix, etc which is probably the simpler perspective = it's more natural for the average person watching a movie to empathize with the man than with the machine. "The Creator" wants the opposite, and probably attempts to build up on the ongoing trend where we have AI everywhere. I'm not saying that good AI vs bad people is something to be excluded, having elements of this kind in SciFis like "Blade Runner" or "I, Robot", or more precisely in the classic writings which these are based on, by P.K. Dick and Asimov, respectively. But there the story is much, much more nuanced than what we get here. What we receive in this movie is just some pale recycling of bits like the robotic laws where the android is not capable to commit murder, but that's something quite selective which we find out in the end. What we really do get in the movie is the Hollywood standard from the last years thrown over this shallow base of SciFi, transforming everything in a very politically correct class fight, where the AI become an actual social category ostracized by others and demanding its rights. Everything is one-side and black and white. It's probably enough for a public used to not bother anymore with thinking about the grey nuances in a story, preferring to get some shooting and explosions VFX instead. But well... maybe you can't expect from Gareth Edwards (director + screenwriter), who started from VFX in his career, to be an Asimov.

Probably someone could argue against the above, saying that we have the main character who's the good human, capable to understand that AI is not evil. Well, the problem is, if I would compare John David Washington with Arnold Schwarzenegger from the 30 years old Terminator 2, I don't think there's any doubt who of the two characters brings more balance. The acting doesn't help at all, and I really don't want to comment on what could be the reason behind the casting, but after all the script is still the root of all evil. The rigidity of T-800 that changes slowly over the course of Terminator 2 gives a much more human and credible side to the killing machine there, than the hysterical sergeant who moves here suddenly from extremes of threatening with a "shut down" to others with scenes drowned in tears. Add to this a terrible dosage of comic relief that's limited to the start of the movie followed by a continuous, totally opposed, tragedy feeling towards the end. The clip I added besides the trailer is relevant, despite the praising regarding the director's capacity of empathic infusion (didn't catch for me, sorry). All this is garnished with an editing including some flashbacks that are breaking the developing action thread and could've very well be placed in the normal chronological order. The only part that saves a bit what we get here are the visuals and the production desing, which indeed give a feeling alternating between a dystopic setting a la "Blade Runner" and bits of "Star Wars". Moreover, this looks like somehow trying to tell you, despite everything else, that if you had a different script and directing, the movie could've been actually good. But it's not.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

It's probably a bit late for this review, but I'm not used anymore to jump up to watch a box-office title in its first day of release. Actually, for a few years already, I'm more like avoiding these. "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" was an exception, but one still far from exceptional. The perfect artificial rejuvenation of Harisson Ford in the beginning of the movie is pretty much the single memorable thing about it. Besides that, you can still appreciate that it's a bit above the common superficiality found in most summer movies. But not with much.

The above appreciation stems from the story the movie offers. Not spectacular, but it's pretty consistent. The object of the quest this time, is a mechanism, Antikythera, fictitiously conceived in the movie by Archimedes and capable to predict temporal fissures. The reality about the artifact is obviously a different one, but let's move over it (you can Google it). The nice part in the movie, especially if you didn't have much of a vacation, is that it gets you through a classic quest moving between various touristic locations, until the tangled puzzle is completed. After which, finally (spoiler) we also have a brief travel back in time to the ancient Greece.

Initially the movie seems catchy, throwing at you familiar facts and faces from the Indiana Jones universe, the end of WW2 introducing the villain - a nazi physicist, the return of Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) - migrated from the first movie's Egypt to New York, the tour of an exotic location - Morroco in this case, the well-known melodic line by John Williams, and others. But slowly, this starts to drag, and the action becomes somehow dull. What saves it, more or less, is the time travel element in the end, but the fact you know from the start where the quest goes, doesn't make it a surprise anymore. Unlike, for instance, "Raiders of the Lost Ark", where you have no clue up to the end what exactly happens when the ark will open. Here, the final feeling, after more than two hours of movie, is somehow similar to the main character who being at the age of retirement complains that he doesn't fit anymore in such a story - the movie's sort of meeting the base expectations through its background elements, but seems a bit too "tired" to deliver enough impact. Even so, compared with the precedent exaggeration atempted by Spielberg in 2008 for reviving the character, what we got here seemed to me more in tone with the Indiana Jones I remember from when I was a kid.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish vs. John Wick: Chapter 4

I wanted to write this entry, or at least the first half of it = "Puss in Boots", before the holidays but I couldn't find the time. So, since then I added to the pack the last episode of "John Wick". Where do these two connect? There's not much in common apparently, but wait... First, both somehow seem to end their series, or at least try to send a "good bye" (not really an "adieu") from their main character. Besides that, more or less ironically, after watching JW, I can't say it's very far from an animated movie.

I've never been very caught by the DreamWorks' fairytale universe that began with "Shrek", maybe except "Shrek 3" (despite what critics said about it). So, I didn't rush watching the last "Puss in Boots", but finally I can say that's probably the best animation I've seen since "Isle of Dogs", 5 years ago. The story goes like this: Puss in Boots finds itself reaching the last of the nine standard cat lifes, and followed by Death impersonated by a bounty hunter armed with two sickles, decides to move out from the public life of a fairytale hero. That's until finding out about a star fulfilling any wish, but only one, and implicitly opening a path to gaining back the peace of mind in front of the deathly perils of the world. However, Puss in Boots is not the only one wishing for that wish - so we end up with a race of who's the first to find the magic star. And obviously to a duel when we're finally getting there.

I didn't find either the "John Wick" universe too compelling, the notable exception being the second part, which clearly stands out in comparison to the rest. Here the story goes pretty much as it went before: John Wick has a big price on his head and a bunch of bounty hunters on his tracks, and he also tries to find some peace getting through the intricate customs of the assassins guild of which he's part of. The quest implies reaching various locations. So finally, we have again a race from death, heading up to a final duel - an actual classic one this time = pistols, 30 steps, witnesses, and all the rest. Well, does the title of the entry make more sense now?

Ok, let's be fair. Looking at the reviews I was expecting much more from JW4, and after what I've seen I felt it deserves this comparison. Practically, it recycles a lot from previous movies, from some locations = clubs, mirror or glass walls rooms, etc. up to the same tiringly long sequences of gratuitous violence = I ask myself how do screenwriters, directors, or whoever decides, choose the optimal number of henchmen beaten in an action movie scene. Really, does it make any difference if we see more than 7-8? In this type of movie, I can get over inconsistent plot parts or story threads left hanging, but it's hard to accept senseless attempts to get a record on the body count. I don't have an issue with violence in a movie, but when it takes, in a repetitive manner, over a quarter of the movie time, I think it's legitimate to ask yourself if it wouldn't be more reasonable to watch wrestling, mma, or some other contact sports instead.

There are some good parts in the last JW - especially concerning the camera work. But unfortunately it's not enough. We have some witty lines, but overall the script is quite shallow. In "Puss in Boots" at least I found enough humor to make me smile a bit, not that I was expecting this from JW4, but it seemed even more dry than the previous installments. Even the soundtrack in JW4 has its ground in the one introduced in Chapter 2, an excellent one otherwise, but there's not much novelty here. For instance, "Puss in Boots" comes up with a memorable score (composed by Heitor Pereira), at least for the pieces where Death makes an entrance, reminding somehow of Morricone's western music tones. If we're to talk about villainous characters, again JW4 fades when compared to "Puss in Boots". I would've never believed that an antropomorphic wolf with red eyes and two sickles can have more charisma than the head of a criminal organization, but well... it does. Fortunately there are more in the JW cast that somehow compensate, but I found Bill Skarsgard to be a very poor choice for the main villain.

To sum up the comparative overview, as forced or hilarious this might seem, there's the substance of the story, which in essence is represented by running out from death in both movies. As unlikely it might sound, I'd say this is much more maturely presented in "Puss in Boots" then in "John Wick". The sense you get from there is stop de run, face the problem, live your current life and not the past one. We even have a symbolic "ressurection" of Puss in Boots at some point. Probably JW's action attempts some similar direction, but the whole idea is much more fuzzy and lost between fistfights and guns + (spoiler) it "encouragingly" wraps up with a tombstone. So, surprisingly.. in the end, at least for now, Puss vs. John: 1-0.

Rating:
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - 4 out of 5
John Wick: Chapter 4 - 2.5 out of 5

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)

The shortest summary for "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" would be: a larger budget replica for what was "JCVD" for Jean-Claude Van Damme in 2008, but this time dedicated to Nicolas Cage. In a slightly longer summary, we have a fiction where the main character is the real actor that gets into a "filmic" situation. The concept is not new, but is so rarely used that looking at what we had on the big screen during latest years it's quite refreshing (ironically, given the amount "historical" references).

Nicolas Cage is.. Nicolas Cage, an actor with a declining career path, taking a "job" as special guest to the anniversary party of a superfan, who is also super rich, living on the coast of Spain. We quickly get to find out that the guy is the main target of an entangled investigation covering the kidnapping of a politician's daughter, contacts with the Napoli mafia, and pretty much everything we could find in a classic "action movie". Like that, Nicolas Cage gets promoted from action hero to real agent working for the CIA. And from there the real life starts mixing with the movie life, up to reaching a classic happy end.

The movie doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's good that gets clear from start in a script with a bunch of self-irony, the typical exaggerations found in a '90s action movie, and lots of references to the top box-office roles made by Nicolas Cage during that time. I imagine that quite a lot of the younger public would be lost and not get all the references to "Face Off", "The Rock" or others. It's clearly a movie dedicated to who has watched Nicolas Cage in his top action star period. That's the main ingredient required for getting a real taste of this movie. If you cut this part, what's left is a light comedy with plenty of action, relatively fine as script complexity for this genre. This is different from "JCVD", which I'm not remembering that well, but it left me an impression of more substance within the self-irony at the time I watched it. In the current case, what we have fits to the category "guilty pleasure, fun to watch", but not more than that. Which is perfectly ok, if that's what you'd expect ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5 (I'm nostalgic = quite subjective on this one)

Wrath of Man (2021)

I had a theory that Guy Ritchie makes one-two good movies followed by a bad one, and the most recent, "The Gentlement" was one I liked. So, I had my second thoughts about "Wrath of Man". After I finally watched, I'm wondering if I got too picky, or if it wouldn't have been better to merge it in the same entry I wrote last month with "Pig" and "Nobody"...

Yet another revenge movie. It's actually a remake of a French film from 2004. It starts with an intro where an armored van is robbed, the guards are killed during the incident, as well as a kid in the area, a collateral victim. Fast-forward to the moment when a mysterious fellow is hired as a guard by the same security firm. It becomes obvious fast enough that the guy has his own agenda. After that, we're slowly getting more details, leading to the motivation, revenge for his son, the collateral victim above. There are other background elements of the man in the title that we're given one by one as the action evolves, but as usual I won't spoil the most engaging part of the story.

The problem with "Wrath of Man" is probably in the script, which.. I don't know... it's a bit too "theatrical". I can't find a better term now. The density of lines that are surpass the realistic level in the dialogue seemed too high for me, some exchanges being close too stupid. Maybe there's some intention for that, as a relief for the darkness we have in the rest, but it still feels exaggerated. Especially since the dark feeling is probably the plus side of the movie; both visually and mostly the audio support very well the tension we get from the story development. It's like having one of David Ayer's movies ("Harsh Times", "Street Kings", "End of Watch", etc.), which are usually very harsh, over which you're getting the the typical English humor of Guy Ritchie. The result is fine, but there's still something that doesn't fit well there.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Pig (2021) vs. Nobody (2021)

If I would've watched only one of the two movies, either "Pig" or "Nobody", probably I wouldn't have written anything. By chance though, I've seen them both recently, and I think this context deserves a blog entry.

"Pig" starts as a low budget John Wick. Some guy (Nicolas Cage) lives like a hermit deep in the forest, with his truffle pig, his only contact with the outside world being the distributor who sells the mushrooms. All nice and well until one night when two thieves beat him up and steal the animal. From here on, it looks like what you would expect - the payback - the guy wants his pig back. What you would not expect is how this moves on. I didn't see the trailer before the movie, and I think it tells too much already. "Pig" deserves watching mostly for the surprise you'll get, delivered piece by piece. It starts with some minor details about the guy in the woods: a name that still seems to open doors in the city he had left 15 years back, a beating taken in the some sort of an "underground fight club" in the basement of a former hotel just to receive a clue for his search, after which at some point his former job comes up, moving further on with a confrontation with an "underboss" and finally "the showdown" with "the big boss". It looks like a typical template for a revenge story :) Well, it's not.. We don't get guns and explosions, what we have here is.. knives and forks. And I won't say more.

"Nobody" is a John Wick, or better said a retired John Wick (Bob Odenkirk), working a management job in a company owned by his father-in-law, and living a monotonous life. All nice and well though until one night when two thieves break his home, steal his change from the living room and his wristwatch, give a black eye to his son, and leave our guy being asked by cops, relatives and his kid why he didn't use his golf cross. From here on is what you would expect - the payback - but this ends quickly. So quickly that being already in the kick-ass mood, "the nobody" breaks the bones of a five member gang harassing a lone girl in a bus. One of them, unfortunately, being the brother of the local Russian mafia kingpin. Obviously, now the bad guy wants revenge. And now, we're getting here too some details about our "nobody": again somebody who's identity is blurry but freaks everybody out, again somebody who retired a long ago, having his basement secured as a nuclear bunker that not even his kids seem to know about, and again at some point we're given more info on his former job, and we move further on to fighting the Russian army an finally "the big boss". From its half onward the movie gets very similar to John Wick (first), which can be explained by having the same screenwriter who didn't even bother to use, I don't know.. yakuza, or some other mob organization as bad guys (it's probably more politically correct to be the Russians lately in this position). What else to say... Obviously we have lots of guns and explosions. Practically, the only original part of the movie is the main character - who indeed at a first sight is in a total contract with the classic image of an action hero.

"Pig" is a movie that's a bit too pretentious for what's left in the end, and there are parts where it's a bit exaggerated, but it gets as much as possible from a surprise character, and not a "surprise" like a former secret agent/assassin/etc who, wow, we find out what army skills possesses. Objectively, that's the impression I was left with after my initial view. Which, unfortunately was before "Nobody". Because if it would have been after, probably I would have seen it more positively in the above comparison. It's too much to say that "Pig" is a "thriller" as IMDB labels it, but that completes well the subliminal irony towards the typical action movie. We don't have any gratuitous violence in "Pig", where we could draw statistics on shot bullets vs. "Rambo III". Such as we could do for "Nobody", which even if it tries in its first part to make fun of some cliches, finally it ends up with the ususal liniar development of the genre, where bad guys are taken out one by one until the last who obviously needs the "boss fight". For its first part that seems promising, it's probably acceptable as an average popcorn movie, but that's all of it. So, "Pig" wins :)

Rating:
Pig - 3.5 out of 5
Nobody - 2.5 out of 5

Till Death (2021)

It's been a while since I'm counting the length when selecting a movie for watching. It's probably not the best criteria, but it's practical when the allocated time for this starts after 1 AM. "Till Death" is a short movie, otherwise I probably wouldn't have watched it. It would've been a loss. Not that we're talking about a masterpiece, but it was surprisingly original.

What we have here is a more peculiar revenge story, which rapidly turns into a survival movie. Moving 10 years back, we find Emma (Megan Fox) as victim of a violent robbery attempt, ending up marrying the young attorney who's sending the attacker behind bars. Years pass, and he's advancing his career to owning a successful law firm, but their relation gets cold. The movie actually starts when Emma's ending an extramarital affair, just before her marriage anniversary. Her husband organizes a "gift" for this occasion in the form of a romantic evening in a vacation house by a lake, but that's just a prequel for what follows. He decides to put a bullet to his head the following morning, after handcuffing himself to his wife. Well, I already said something you don't get from the trailer :) Something else we don't see there is how elaborate is the sick payback plan. Light spoiler - eventually we find that the deceased probably experienced some "remorse" after sending his wife's attacker to jail and decides to end his life only after the guy's release, leaving him some diamonds as compensation. The clause for getting into possession of these, however, is not that simple.

All the context and whatever else the trailer provides might seem a bit unrealistic, but the the movie slowly delivers small parts that add sense, turning the action in a tensed race for survival. That's actually the catchy factor here - the action is unpredictable enough, although you might not expect that. Emma must deal with the isolated house during a cold winter, carrying a dead heavy husband, who's brain was passed before the bullet by all kinds of thoughts on how to make the "separation" from his wife harder to accomplish. And I can say that either Megan Fox fits perfectly to the role, or she took some acting lessons since last time I saw her in a movie ( I know I'm mean :-) ). Not the last thing: although we clearly have a macabre element, and despite what the trailer might suggest, the violence level in the movie is probably at a third of the average "The Walking Dead" episode. So, to conclude, I think the movie is quite underrated. It's not so easy these days to find a complex enough story, starting from a complicated idea - how to survive a post-mortem revenge - within a thriller that respects its genre = more tension, less VFX.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Boss Level (2021)

It's been a while since a I posted at such short intervals, but that will compensate a longer pause following this entry. Besides, for some time the interval between watching the movie and writing about it got longer and longer, and I start forgetting what I want to say. "Boss Level" was also too "motivating" too lose it among the messed up neurons and lack of lecithin.

Roy is a guy in his 40s, an ex member of the special forces, with an ex wife working in a super-secret lab for another ex military. A dude who fits very well the arch-villain pattern with a wish for world domination. In all this context we have a phenomenon going on that resembles Groundhog Day = each morning Roy wakes up at the same time, in the same place, and spends his day with an army of assassins chasing him and trying to shorten his suffering of non-stop repeating the same activity. Obviously this happens just for Roy, who struggles to advance in his last 24 hours as much as to be able to understand how the visit he paid his ex wife a day before fits in all this story. And I won't say more about it. The trailer reveals already enough, and I was inspired not to watch it before the movie.

From start I probably had a positive subjective approach on this, knowing from the two lines describing it on IMDb (very underrated there by the way) that's a time travel movie, subgenre on which I have an obvious thing for. In a different context I might've been bothered by the lack of rigor, and I would've looked for loopholes. It's however obvious from the first scene that the movie doesn't take itself too seriously, and you shouldn't to it either. It's built as the title suggests, like it's video game adaptation, although it's not. It's very very fresh though, and the script construction is just simplistic in appearance. Indeed, it won't tell you much about the time technology behind the Osiris spindle that creates the phenomenon and which looks as a new Stargate. But it will take enough time to build a solid puzzle that Roy has to solve in order to reach the "boss level". And the twist there, which you might not feel as a twist, so I'll endulge myself a spoiler, is that the "boss level" it's actually a different one. "The secret level" :-) - for which Roy needs even more repeats to figure it out. Moment where the movie does what I was complaining last time that "Love and Monsters" doesn't - a short exit from the light area more towards drama, but with enough force here to feel it. Or, well, being about passed time, turning points, and what could you do with a time machine, I might be subjective again ;-)

Rating: 4 out of 5

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)

I had in mind to write an entry on "Nomadland". Before watching the movie. After I did, I changed my plan. There are a couple days since seeing this and I already don't know what I've watched, so I don't have anything to write about. In brief, "Nomadland" is a movie that if you cut in pieces of ~10-20 minute, and watch these in random order you'll probably get pretty much the same thing, whatever that might be. It would be interesting if the experienced critics could do a simple exercise before throwing too much praise on a movie: just to ask themselves what is so memorable about it that they can punctually reference in three years from viewing it. Well, there's some stuff in "Remo Williams" :)...

I shifted 180 degrees with the movie genre - but I really felt the need for a popcorn movie in its more obvious shape as an antidote to the pretentious "artistic" production named above. And not so long ago I've watched "Remo Williams" as part of my '80s detour, and I actually wanted to write a couple words about it but I didn't have the time. Remo Williams is pretty much like a "Commando", but for the super-hero niche, before it became so popular as it is today. Meaning that's funny enough to not be bad, although clearly far from masterpiece level. The main character origin is in some series of pulp novels, being some kind of a super-agent for a super-secret organization, who fights all kinds of super-villains. The movie takes a bit more light the "super" part, our agent being nothing more than a hamburger eating cop, trained in a "Karate Kid" fashion by a Korean master, in order to dismantle the unlawful profits plan of an arms dealer (without other super-powers than money and relations).

What stands out in Remo Williams, to support my claim above, are the script lines: from "Your reflexes are pitiful. The seasons move faster." to "You know why Americans call it fast food? Because it speeds them on the way to the grave.", such stuff makes you remember it as quotes source. It's probably one of the most witty scripts I've seen lately. There are also plenty of action scenes, which for the '80s are comparable with what you can find in "Mission Impossible" - in particular one is filmed on top of the Statue of Liberty and sticks as a reference beyond the poster. Not last about it, the characters, or more precisely the actors, is something you'll probably remember. It was hard for me to imagine Fred Ward as a wannabe super-hero, and such casting is so weird that after seeing the movie, it's still hard to imagine. The most memorable part is though the Korean's master, Chiun (the one delivering the witty lines above), where the actor is... Joel Grey. Without ant Asian genes, it would probably make the movie to be labeled today as non-ethical, stereotypical, even rasist, despite the fact that the acting is so good that at the time got a nomination for a Golden Globe. Objectively I have to admit that I found myself the casting to be a bit unnatural, but again objectively the actor did his job close to perfection.

Long story short: it's a popcorn movie. A bit old, but enough funny and with more substance than what we have in today's Marvel productions.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

The Sting (1973)

 

After I watched "The Verdict" about three weeks ago, I remembered that I still have something on my list of classics, "The Sting", of which I've seen bits and pieces on TV a couple times, but never the whole thing.

Honestly, it's quite hard to write a review for "The Sting". The subject revolves around the planning and execution of an an elaborate extortion scheme against a ruthless banker with connections in the underworld of the '30s Chicago. Everything starts with smaller scheme targeting a money courier working for the guy, a payback paid in blood, followed by the revenge that brings us into the main subject. The movie develops bit by bit in a puzzle that slowly puts itself together towards the end, and revealing more of it would spoil all the charm it has.

If I should compare "The Sting" with something else, as I often do, to see where we stand, it would be a Guy Ritchie with an episodic structure a la Tarantino but released in 1973, meaning much more calm and peaceful. Besides the stellar cast on the poster, what was the real positive surprise about this is the camera work. Even though it mostly runs as an "old movie", maybe even closer to a '50-'60s feeling than of the '70s, this line is sometimes abruptly cut by some scene that looks revolutionary compared to the rest. It's either a zoom in, or a kinetic camera coming from nowhere, or just the way a scene is organized like a chase where two people run in opposite directions one on a platform above the other. It's not something extraordinary if we check out the best stuff these days, but for '73 I found it remarkable. To conclude: a solid cast and subject + an excellent technique = a movie that for an age of almost '50, it still definitely deserves watching.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Guest (2014)

For the first 20-30 minutes "The Guest" looks like an average thriller. David Collins, just left home by the US Army after being sent to Afghanistan, pays a visit to the family of a former friend, Caleb Peterson, killed in action. It's more than obvious from scene 1 that the guy doesn't have the best intentions, and the first night he spends at the Petersons turns into a longer stay. David has a particular talent in getting close to each of the family members, either taking the role of the lost son, or resolving the issues the little brother has at school. Everything seems to be a cheap clone of many other movies (the one that pops into my mind now is "The Gift") where you can see a grim end coming where the very friendly stranger turns into a very dangerous villain. Well... the ending is indeed predictable. How we get there though...

After a first part that doesn't announce anything unusual in the expected line of above, besides maybe the fact that it sets a slightly retro feeling via its soundtrack (lots of synth there), there comes the moment when what we have here gets a different color. And the moment is a phone call to the military base took by Caleb's sister, who's the only one not to trust David completely. The phone call transfers us to an instant start of an armed operation meant to neutralize the danger, and we realize that David is not exactly the average character with mental issues. Actually David is not David, but let's not spoil the entire story.

And like that, from the start feeling of a low-budget "The Gift", at the end I was left between "Firestarter" and "Halloween" (the originals). It doesn't really have the supernatural element of the first, and also it's not really crossing the horror line of the latter, but it definitely has the feeling of a '70s-'80s thriller (a good one), and it's not only the retro score. I've seen Dan Stevens (the main role) before, but since I don't remember where, he probably seemed to me as just an extra cast member type-of-actor, while here he's probably comparable with Rutger Hauer in "The Hitcher" for the villain-esque value he brings to the character (just to put another '80s reference on the list). We also have a bit of dark dry humor, hardly noticeable, in just a couple scenes - but which you find very seldom these days in the recent productions of the genre, which either don't have any or they choose a much more open comic stance as tension relief element. Overall, the movie was a nice surprise, although I was disappointed by the ending = obviously it would've worked with less violence + I was expecting a twist that didn't come up, but there's room for a sequel ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Gentlemen (2019)

I finally watched "The Gentlemen" or otherwise said, the return of Guy Ritchie to his main genre, probably something that could be called "British gangster action/comedy/thriller". Even though we had some bits and pieces of that also in "Sherlock Holmes" or in "The Man from UNCLE", the series that practically defined the genre started in '98 with "Lock, Stock..." and took a break in 2008 with "RocknRolla", hitting a peak with "Snatch", which stays as definitive reference.

"The Gentlemen" starts slowly, with a story told one evening by a private investigator who bring together the tangled pieces connecting a pot grower who wants to sell his business with his potential clients - actually only one. The purpose of the whole story is a simple blackmail for start, undoubtedly getting more complicated as we get through it. But to stick to my spoilers free rule, let's let the movie do his job for the rest of the story. In summary, we have the typical entanglement present also in the above titles, which is part of their charm after all, adding new threads to the subject as it evolves and more and more colorful characters.

All the build-up part in "The Gentlemen" up to the first scene, so to the present day, goes on for as much as three quarters of the movie, and the action really pushes the acceleration pedal only in its last quarter, which might make the rhythm to seem a bit aged compared to its younger predecessors. That was the reason of complaint for some early reviews as far as I remember. But if we check the composing pieces, some artificially introduced - fake story in the story, these maintain a certain dynamic which I find to be more than decent. Add to that the editing style which makes up for half of the movie - besides James Herbert, the editor who's working with Ritchie since long ago (you can notice similarities with "The Man form UNCLE", "Sherlock Holmes", etc), we also have Paul Machliss on the credits ("Baby Driver", "Scott Pilgrim"), so you can imagine the result. Top that with the brilliant ensemble cast, where again I'd rather let the movie tell what's to be told. Even though the story is rather predictable and clearly not as consistent as "Snatch", everything besides it dresses is extremely well. To conclude, we have a revival of the genre + in general an example of how a movie targeting pure entertainment should look like.

Rating: 4 out of 5

La French (2014)

I think that I've watched "The French Connection" (and its sequel) like 3-4 times until I was 14-15 years old. I remember nothing. Just that at that time I liked it, and for a while was my first reference for Gene Hackman. When I heard for the first time about "The French" I didn't get that's set in the same context. I only understood that when I've seen the English title: "The Connection".

A bit of trivia. The period: '60s-'80s; the path: Turkey - South of France - New York; the context: one of the best organized networks specialized in heroin traffic. In brief, opium growing was still legal in Turkey at the time, the raw product was shipped to Corsica and Marseilles, and then refined as final drug and exported in the USA. The history of "the connection" goes back in time before WW2, involving a bunch of interconnected clans. All the story has obviously many episodes that fit to a movie, and "La French" just picks one of these, toward the end of the period, when after years the DEA in the US and the French police were slowly getting close to an end with disbanding the network. And like that we get to know Pierre Michel, a judge in Marseilles specialized on juvenile matters. One day he gets a promotion to organized crime, and obviously the first case he gets is the "La French" problem. Not for long though. After some success in his investigation leading up to the mayor's office he's quickly taken off the case. That's the extremely brief summary for the first part of the movie. For the second, I wouldn't give any spoilers...

...But unfortunately the beginning of the movie it's telling you almost too clearly where all this is going. Anyway, the build-up of the action is relatively slow, surprisingly calm and realistic for the subject it has. Especially since the production design helps a lot = everything looks really authentic for the time it's set in (the cars, the music, the locations, etc.). The script drives you from work matters to their effects in the personal life, so we have also quite some drama packed in, which sort of saves the movie of extra senseless action scenes (it doesn't mean we don't have action). On the other hand, the characters, who are real persons - Pierre Michel (Jean Dujardin) and Tany Zampa (Gilles Lellouche), the local drug lord - are taken to the level of some sort of sort of extremely gritty cold war, stuff that somehow seems a bit artificial. But well... it's a movie, it's not meant to put you to sleep :) Finally, I could say it's a solid movie, but I can't say it left me such an impression to motivate re-watching it 3-4 times as with "The French Connection". However, I'm not 15 years old anymore, and I neither have the time I had back then ;).

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Jack Strong (2014)

Again I didn't have much time for movies this week, and I decided to vary a bit. "Jack Strong" is mostly a Polish production, having a historic fact as subject. Ryszard Kuklinski, aka "The Seagull" aka Jack Strong, was a colonel in the Polish army during the cold war, who sick of the Soviet domination and apparently scared by the increasing chances for a WW3 decided to give the Americans everything he could get from Kremlin.

The movie is a spy story in the most classic sense, where classic doesn't mean James Bond by Ian Fleming, but more something like John LeCarre or Frederick Forsyth, only that there's no literature here but a real case. This might make it seem slow in the beginning, until Kuklinski decides to spy for the West, but it slowly gains some dynamic once the tension rises after the Russians find out they have a leak. I'd even say that while in the first part seemed a bit boring, in the end I got to think that the dynamic of the actions spoils the realism of it.

There are some elements that are clearly added extra to what happened, but overall the movie is surprising authentic and credible, starting with the people, cars, furniture, even the weather (= when the winter was really winter), all specific for that time. Even though it romances a bit the history of the main character, it has some documentary value too. Clearly it's a better option than the average Hollywood action movie, but also clearly it's not the most engaging production ever. Depends on your mood.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Escape from Pretoria (2020)

"Escape from Pretoria" doesn't get to remove "Shawshank Redemption" from the top of "prison escape movies", but I'd say it's over "Shawshank Redemption" at least for one thing: how incredible is the actual escape. Especially since it's a real escape ;)...

In 1979, in the middle of Apartheid in South Africa, two white people, Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, got sentenced to some long years in jail for activism + bombing with anti-segregation pamphlets. Sent to a prison with a section dedicated to political convicts, the first thought seemed naturally how to escape the place. And that's the topic for the entire movie - the elaborate planning of an escape. The only spoiler that I'll give (half of which is in the trailer, the other half in a book), is that the whole action involved wooden keys and passing through 15 doors. At a quick search, it's the only escape for 43 years during the Apartheid from that prison. There was one more, but in the more recent years, after the renovation of the institution and funny enough from its max security wing.

I've seen some criticism on the fact that the movie's losing too much of the social aspect and gets too focused on the action part. The social/political aspect is not missing, but indeed the escape comes on top. After all that's the primary theme of the movie, so I can't understand such criticism. If you want something else, there are options: "Invictus", "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom", etc. We have other problems here. Except the camera work, I found the technical part a bit disappointing for how much potential the subject has. The actors are ok, but there are moments when we have a bit of overacting. And maybe the most 'complex' problem to call it so, is the somehow confusing mingling between what's real and what's invented...

Apparently Tim Jenkin, the brain behind the escape plan contributed directly as a consultant to the production, mostly based on a book with the same name published by him in the '80s, which describes in detail the entire action. In some parts though the movie changes a bit the reality. A third escapee for instance, Alex Moumbaris, is replaced by a fictitious character at least name-wise. It's rather unclear why, especially since when we get to the end we're presented in parallel the real characters and the actors in the movie, minus that guy. But if you search Wikipedia, you can uncover quickly some post-escape biography that's a bit pro-communist, and that gives some room for speculating.

We have a couple more elements in the final escape attempt where luck seem to have a too bigger impact, and some pieces do not fit very well together. You can't make a clear difference between what's real and what's not unless you give a look to the corresponding chapter in the book (easily found online). And when you see what's extra, surprisingly you find out that isn't so much. So, assuming the written material is true to the facts, the outcome is indeed one of the most spectacular prison escapes in the previous century, added that was also a perfectly justified one = overall, this was enjoyable ;)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Bad Boys for Life (2020)

A couple days ago, I was wondering if the there's some crossed digits typo in the Mayan calendar. Hopefully not... or at least not the digits I was thinking about. In any case, I said it might be a good idea to check a title of this year, since anyway, the number of new releases will most probably be smaller than usual. Besides that, I was complaining last time that I don't really have comedies in my schedule as an alternative material to the "apocalypse" genre promoted by most TV stations in their movie schedule these days. Well, I found an option that seemed perfect - "Bad Boys for Life" ... at least until I got to choose what poster to pick: one with "Ride Together. Die Together" as tagline or with a sober dark background. The clothing choice wins - when in doubt, wear black.

The latest "Bad Boys" was a nice surprise - 17 years since the previous one (damn, I'm getting old...), and 25 year since the first one (so old...), when I heard they're making another movie I didn't expect anything else than lots of hype, cheap story and exaggerated screen time for shooting and explosions. I don't know how much hype this got, the story is debatable on how cheap it is, and we have shooting and explosions, but thank God, the movie is not directed anymore by Michael Bay (if you watched any of the Transformers you should know what I mean). In the first part it still gives you the same feeling of an exaggerated action movie with lots of potential for eye-rolling at each third scene. Still, slowly, it did grow on me quite a bit.

If you don't know who the two bad boys in the tile are, it's probably recommended to watch the first two movies, which I'd say are "classics" of the '90s and respectively of the beginning of this century (even though I always found the first one overrated). In brief, Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are two detectives in Miami PD, who make a funny cop duo involved in actions where they need to deal with some really bad guys. Basically, the same trend as many of the movies of the period (for which I think that the "Lethal Weapon" series is the reference). Even though I only vaguely remember what the plot in the first two is, I'd risk saying that the in this third movie we have the most complex subject of them all. And that helps a lot, even though at some point it might start looking as a telenovela. I will only say that we have a revenge story, where the target is one of the two - Mike, who after escaping the bullets struggles to find out who and why shot him. And that in a context of his partner dreaming of nothing else than a quite retirement.

First thing first, the movie is funny. I really laughed, which happens rarely. But it also depends if you taste the kind of jokes you have here, and also maybe the advantage of the age has a role ;) = you've watched sometime, long ago, the other movies, and you see in a certain light the bunch of references in the range of "we're old & obsolete". Besides that, it also creates a bit of nostalgic feeling that might help. And on top of everything, in moments when you're ready to say that this is too exaggerated, it applies the only valid recipe for such situations - the movie makes fun of itself. Keep in mind having Kate del Castillo as main villain and the reference to telenovelas regarding the story ;). Even so, we're still left with some over-the-top moments, and probably the worst part is that unlike the other movies we have a main bad boy, the other getting lost a bit too often from the action.

Anyway, I don't have any psychotherapy experience, but I'll stick to my opinion that to stay as lucid as possible in though real life moments, you need some time off from the real life. Not too much, to not lose the contact completely :) And what we have here, I think it's a good option to remove a bit of the current days stress. .

Rating: 4 out of 5

El Camino (2019)

A more educational topic for the current global context would've probably been an appropriate episode of TWD (very useful generally for analyzing the group psychology during crisis, even though it's just fiction). On the other hand maybe not = let's not add more panic. Anyway, it's another week when I don't have a proper subject, but I told myself maybe find something to keep the usual blog frequency + watching movies fits with solitary indoor activities, which doesn't hurt promoting these days. So I got to "El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie" to provide the complete title - which I've recently watched.

To start with, it doesn't make much sense to watch the movie if you didn't watch the series (++more solitary indoor activity :P). Ergo, if you didn't see "Breaking Bad", also what follows it won't make much sense. As in "Deadwood"'s case, I've seen the series at 6-7 years after ending (long live project-free periods!). In different words is quite fresh, thing that might count on how much you'll like the movie. For me it was like a sort of epilogue for the finale episode - quick recap: Walter White guns down pretty much everybody who's "bad", including himself. Except Jesse Pinkman, his oldest associate, who we could say redeemed himself after a year of solitary confinement and slavery as an expert meth cook. That's the story of "El Camino": the torment of Pinkman during that time and his run for a new life after the end of the series, in chronological order: find car, find money, lose money, find escape route to Alaska, find money again and wrap up some unfinished business, final escape.

There's enough post-"Breaking Bad" material, but we also have plenty of flashbacks with former characters in the series. That's why I was saying that the time when you watched that has probably an impact in how much you'll like "El Camino". After a 6 years break from the series finale there are chances to like this more, and after all the "retro" material has also the role to remind you of stuff you might have forgot. If you watch "El Camino" immediately after the series it might seem that such extra sequences inserted here and there don't add any value to it. As example, there's a scene with some lunch in a diner from when Walter White & Jesse Pinkman were meth cooking partners. It would've been terribly disappointing to have zero Walter White in "El Camino" for somebody who took a break from "Breaking Bad" since 2013. On the other hand, as I said, that's just an extra sequence = it doesn't bring any significant content to the rest of the movie. Anyway, overall it's an ok movie, and it brings some "closure" feeling, which might have seemed a bit incomplete at the end of the series. That's all for today, 'til next time: stay safe ;)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)

After watching "Bone Tomahawk", the topic of last time + "Dragged Across Concrete" a while ago, I decided to try what was left in the brief list of movies by S. Craig Zahler: "Brawl in Cell Block 99". Especially given the ratings, which are quite good. Well, the choice was bad. But I doubt I have the time for another for what's left of this week, so we're stuck with this as subject.

Bradley Thomas is a guy with principles, who getting fired from an auto repair shop, and almost left by his wife, takes a radical decision to start a much more profitable career as a drug runner. The new job makes his life better indeed for a short while - new house, happy marriage, a child on the way. Until a transport gets bad due to some of his less trusted co-workers who attack a police crew. Between deciding to either run away or join them, Bradly picks the worst option for himself - he takes the part of the police in the gunfire. Action that first seems to get him a lighter sentence or even get him close to escape it completely. But since Bradley is a guy with principles, he refuses to confess on his boss involvement, and gets locked away for seven years. The bad part though comes one day after sentencing - an unknown visitor tasks him with an impossible mission - to kill somebody in a different prison, under the threat of losing his wife and unborn child.

As in the other two movies mentioned before, on the negative side here we're again served with a bit two much violence (somehow better dosed though...), and not receiving a very happy ending. Unfortunately, unlike "Bone Tomahawk", the positive side is missing. The dialogues are ok-ish, but "the witty factor" is far from what we had there. The acting is the same: ok-ish. Above all the film feels like a cheap B movie, feeling that was not obvious in the other cases despite the similar low budget. We also have some exaggerated scenery more close to middle ages, from a maximum security prison with some underground cells, which maybe you could find in some other place but doubtfully in the US. The only plus to count on the action is a sort of twist that cuts what otherwise looks like a linear development. Although, if I think better where this twist leads...

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Not long ago I watched "Dragged Across Concrete", another movie directed by S. Craig Zahler, as well as "Bone Tomahawk". Two things I didn't like there, the ending a bit too "unhappy" + a couple scenes that were over the top as violence level. The same issues - especially the latter - I have also with "Bone Tomahawk". On the other hand, what I liked in "Dragged Across Concrete" were the dialogues. And "Bone Tomahawk" it's even better on that account, this being the main reason that convinced me to choose the movie for this entry.

The context is set somewhere in the wild west, close to the Mexican border. The movie starts with two thieves who ravage a camp in the dessert and find themselves after attacked while crossing some Indian territory. Only one of them escapes, and the action moves a couple days later, in the evening, in a tiny town, where the brigand ends up in a bar. There's not long until he gets a place on the "suspects" list of the backup deputy, an old widower, who seems to get bored of too much free time. And like that we're getting in a situation where the thief gets a bullet in his leg shot by the local sheriff, who has the unfortunate habit to do that too often with who tries to run instead answering his questions. Unfortunate business also for the wife of a local cowboy, the only apparently qualified for bullet extractions and consequently summoned to do that in the middle of the night. The problem is that in the morning she's still not back home, and the missing list is joined by the thief, the first deputy left to guard them and a couple horses in a stable. The tracks left: some arrows and a corpse in messed up state, analyzed by the local Indian expert lead to a somber conclusion - the attack was carried out by an isolated tribe of cannibals, living in caves and led to the town by the trespassing thief. Despite the warnings, the sheriff doesn't have much choice and forms a posse to recover the taken together with his backup deputy, the missing woman's cripple husband and another guy with some childhood trauma after his interaction with the Indians. And so, we get on our way...

As I was saying, the strength of the movie is mainly in the dialogues, and secondly in the acting. But the script is the base for that. You can feel that the author is also a writer. I've seen some comparison with Tarantino, given that the movie was released the same year as "Hateful Eight", but it's not in the same category. I found it much more clever in the lines construction. We have a sort of humor that alternates somewhere between dry and dark, which maybe can be seen also in the movies of Jim Jarmusch ("Ghost Dog") or Martin McDonagh ("Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri", "Seven Psychopats", "In Bruges"), although it has something particular here. We're left however with the problem of the excessive violence, which actually is mostly about a single scene, but a really hard to watch one. Practically, it stands out in the movie, in strong contrast with the rest. I can understand the intent of shock, but I doubt it serves to anything else here than marketing, and it's not even very honest, since the rest of the action runs relatively peacefully in comparison. I even had to search for a poster to not include "brutal" as tagline. Well... maybe it's catchy for some audience, for me it spoiled my rating, but the movie definitely deserves watching for the rest of it.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Prospect (2018)

I intended to go watch "Ad Astra" in cinema this weekend, but I didn't find time for it, so I turned to another SciFi that I found easier to get to = "Prospect". Not that bad, just that I'm not sure the SciFi tag is fit for it...

Somewhere in the future, on a far away planet with a toxic atmosphere, a guy and his daughter try a "prospecting" operation (to quote the title), more precisely the harvesting of some sort of gems grown by an indigenous plant. Something like the production of pearls, just with an extra acid ingredient thrown in to make the operation highly difficult. Up to this point, yes, we have a SciFi. Further, we find out that the prospectors are not alone searching for a fortune on the planet, and (light spoiler) the wish of getting rich fast doesn't bring a good end to the guy. Even more, the shuttle for leaving breaks, the oxygen filters run off, and the girl left alone is sort of forced to team up to escape with a rival prospector. Well, we're already at half the movie :) So let's leave the rest to be seen...

As I was telling, although thinking back now there are actually quite a few SciFi elements in it, the feeling you have at the end it's a of sort of action/thriller that could as well take place somewhere in the Amazonian jungle. The story is pretty simple and linear, but somehow the movie doesn't bore. There's some gun with one shot and obviously you need more, there's some oxygen filter running out, there's some need for an ointment for infected wounds, there's some indigenous settler with hidden intentions, there's some other mercs looking for fortune. In brief, there's sort of a ride of one hour and a half in a totally unfriendly environment, with small, but not big surprises. Which is still catchy :)...

Rating: 3.5 out of 5