Review – Page 188 – We Are Movie Geeks

THE INVITATION – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

Suspense is difficult to build, and truly tricking your audience is hard. THE INVITATION is a film that proposes an ending for itself within the first thirty minutes, and immediately gets the audience rooting for it to get there. It then introduces a number of new plot elements calling that ending into question, and becomes an even richer work in the process.

Now, that’s how you create thematic suspense that’s immediately built into your movie. Proposing two possible interesting endings leaves an audience in desperation of what could possibly happen, and isn’t that the purpose of a vicious thriller?

And THE INVITATION is a vicious thriller. The way it jolts you around is inspired, but the fact that it has layers of built in suspense makes it even better. It’s about a group of friends who meet up for a dinner party two years after a traumatic event lead them on different paths. The result is a typical dinner party conversation, with all the unhinged energy that one might hold. The Invitation understands that meeting up with people, especially ones that you’ve had experiences with can be a little bit awkward, and it plays that to the film’s advantage. These people are comfortable with each other so any pretense toward otherwise eccentric stuff being dangerous seems to go out the window. Yet, something seems off. Something that could end in a gorefest. The film leaves you wondering how everything is going to end, and builds its suspense around which way it will go.

The ending pays everything off in surprising, and even a little bit silly, ways (the final shot seems a bit preposterous), and everything else about the film is there to boost the audiences indecisiveness. St. Louis native Karyn Kusama’s direction plays to the warmth of the surrounding, but the actors are constantly exploiting the awkwardness of a dinner party. The film easily exploits the perspective of its main character, the ex husband of the host, to keep the tone unnerved, but most of the other characters seem to be very receptive of the events. The actors work their roles beautifully as some of them create characters that both increase, and decrease the unnerving, splitting the way the film could go in many directions. Tom Hardy look alike, Logan Marshall-Green serves perfectly as the ex husband, Will. As the audience POV character it’s almost completely up to him to guide the audience’s ideas of each character. It’s so easy to side with Green that the necessary themes needed to build the film’s suspense are already built into the movie as the party like attitude of the people breaks every once in awhile. Another notable player is John Carroll Lynch, who from moment one fills the film with dread. If one problem does arise (other than the sillier aspects of the ending) it might be the front load of expositional dialogue. The actors still work with what they’re given, but it’s such a sloppy move in an otherwise well-planned production.

THE INVITATION makes for a tale of suspense that you don’t often see. It invites you think about what could happen, and plays the thematic undertones of its own payoff against you until it finally does so in sublime fashion. THE INVITATION is a testament to how well-planned thrillers by way of Hitchcock can still leave us shivering and in awe.

4 1/2 out of 5 stars

THE INVITATION plays excluisively in St. Louis at The Chase Park Plaza Cinema (212 Kingshighway Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63108) beginning April 22nd. . The film’s director Karyn Kusama, a St. Louis native, will be appearing at the Chase Park Plaza Cinema for two showings. She will be introducing the film and taking part in a post-film Q&A with Andy Triefenbach of DestroytheBrain.com SATURDAY, APRIL 23 at 7:20pm and SUNDAY, APRIL 24 at 2:50pm.

HUSH – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

One can just imagine Mike Flanagan holding a checklist that has horror movie genres to master on it with the “Psychological/supernatural” and “slasher” checked off. Two years ago Flanagan brought us one of the the scariest horror films of recent years, OCULUS. Now, Flanagan has brought us HUSH , one of the most lean, but endearing slasher movies of late.

The reasons are truly not difficult to figure out either. Flanagan attacks the first 20 minutes in the best way possible using very obvious and over the top emotions to set up how broken the protagonist that we start out with is. Kate Sigel (who’s also one of the writers) plays Maddie, a deaf writer, who is longing for so much, yet can’t seem to catch the break she needs. Sigel’s smart enough to play Maddie with very on the nose emotions near the beginning of the film. That’s absolutely perfect for a slasher movie because the emotions that come with a guy stabbing a bunch of people are generally over the top as well. Plus, it gets everything in the way of exposition dealt with in an intelligent if unsubtle way.

After this simple, but effective beginning HUSH goes crazy. The introduction of the silent killer is played off incredibly. Flanagan shoots this introduction in a way that almost creates an air of comedy which simply makes the film more fun to watch. It never slips back into that realm, as the rest of the film turns into a more grounded and slowly brutal horror experience, but both are at least interesting tones for a slasher film. As the film continues the central conceit of Maddie’s deafness continues to help keep the film as lean as it can be while also presenting well thought out reasons for character choices that might have been questionable in other slasher films. Flanagan presents the violence realistically, and the shock of the down the earth violence keeps things wonderfully tense. The Killer actually takes off his mask pretty early in the movie, and while you won’t hear who it is from here there’s a palpable surprise that such a dramatic actor would be cast here as the villain. The actor is impressive though, and the film suggests through its on the nose emotions that the Killer is almost a perfect foil to Maddie. Everything that needs to be set up is, and it all falls into perfect place.

It’s almost as simple as that. HUSH is a sparse, but tense piece of work. Anymore elaboration confounds the purpose of the film. It’s not perfect as a lot of action is placed in the dialogue, and there’s not really a middle act, but it comes in like OCULUS did a few years ago to remind us that Flanagan, and horror movies can only get better.

HUSH is currently streaming on Netflix

COLONIA Review

COLONIA is a romance/thriller starring Emma Watson and Daniel Bruhl as a young couple caught up in the 1973 Chilean military coup, when General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically-elected but left-leaning Allende government. The event launched a period of harsh repression during which thousands of people were “disappeared,” and torture and murder of suspected dissidents was common, a time that still haunts Chileans today. One of the dictator’s favor places for those interrogations was a remote compound occupied a shadowy religious cult with reported neo-Nazi leanings, known as Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony), whose leader Paul Schafer was an influential supporter of Pinochet.

This is real history and it sounds like a great premise for a gripping historical/political drama but COLONIA fails to capitalize on that potential. Instead, we get a fitful thriller that focuses more on a romance between the lead characters and less on the history. With a limp script and indifferent direction by Florian Gallenberger (who co-wrote the script), the film makes little use of either its talented cast or the inherent drama of the time and setting.

Emma Watson plays Lena, a flight attendant who is a regular on the Chile to Germany flights. Her German boyfriend Daniel (Daniel Bruhl), a photographer and activist, recently moved to Chile to work with the Allende campaign. His elation at the election of Allende quickly turns to panic, after the military coup and its subsequent rounding up of Allende officials and supporters. Tipped off that police are coming to arrest him, the couple sneak out of Daniel’s apartment but are captured anyway. Daniel is taken away in a van with a unique insignia on its side, which Lena eventually learns belongs to Colonia Dignidad, a mysterious cult from which members never return once they join. Nonetheless, when no one else will help, Lena joins the cult with hopes of finding and freeing Daniel. Her introduction to the religious community includes meeting its founder and leader, Paul Schafer (a very scary Michael Nyqvist), who is known in the colony as “Pius.”

The film starts well, with a nice thriller buzz and romantic chemistry between the leads, but fizzles almost as soon as Lena enters the Colonia compound. After being captured Daniel is tortured but is later released into the compound population when his captors think he is brain-damaged. The thriller tension dissipates after Lena’s very edgy entry interview with its chilling leader, who comes across as a mix of psychotherapist and madman, an unsettling combination. Nyqvist’s scene with Watson is frightening but as she settles into to the hard, oppressive life in the cult, the energy drains out of the film.

Oddly, hard as it is, there is something generic about the drudgery, restrictions and overbearing oppression in the religious community, and one gets little sense this is a real cult. Men and women are separated and minor infractions lead to harsh punishment. Apart from a lot of German names and German lederhosen and dancing in a show put on for visiting Pinochet dignitaries, there is nothing to suggest the actual colony’s purported neo-Nazi beliefs. The only specifics are underdeveloped plot elements about Schafer supplying poison gas and weapons to Pinochet, and creepy but mercifully brief hints about pedophilia.

Once in the compound, the story becomes increasingly far-fetched, but when the couple do find each other and plan an escape, at least the film returns to its thriller side and finds some energy. Even then it seems more conventional that one might wish.

The film is surprisingly light on historical detail, and the audience learns more about both Pinochet or Colonia Dignidad in the title cards at the end of the film than during the rest of the movie.

There is little the actors can do to rescue the script. Nyqvist tries, perhaps too hard, to interject menace into the compound scenes. Bruhl and Watson generate some nice romantic heat in early scenes but spend the later part of the film mostly just running.

COLONIA is a disappointing film that squanders a terrific opportunity to explore a horrendous, still murky historical time or to reveal more about the shadowy cult that aided Pinochet in his dirty work.

COLONIA opens on April 15th, 2016

OVERALL RATING: 2 OUT OF 5 STARS

RIO, I LOVE YOU Review

RIO, I LOVE YOU is the third in the “Cities of Love” series begun with “Paris, Je T’Aime” (“Paris, I Love You”), which bring together famous directors and stars to create a series of little romantic stories around one city. The city getting the love-letter this time is Rio, home of the upcoming Olympics. However, despite its impressive list of directors, there is little to impress in “Rio, I Love You.”

RIO, I LOVE YOU boasts a more impressive line up of directors that the last one, “New York, I Love You,” but nonetheless continues the series decline in quality from the first one. Directors include Paolo Sorrentino (“Youth”), Fernando Meirelles (“City of God”), and Sang-Soo Im (“The Housemaid”), among others, but none of them shine in this mixed-up film. Rather than having the stories start and end clearly, as in the first two films, several stories make false starts or overlap with characters from others, and are blended in with mostly aerial picture-postcard shots of Rio’s distinct landscape or beaches. Besides making it look like a tourist ad, it makes it difficult to tell when stories start or end.

The international cast includes Emily Mortimer, Vincent Cassel, Harvey Keitel, Jason Isaacs, John Turturro (who wrote, directs and stars in his segment) and Fernanda Montenegro, but the stories, some of which make little sense, hardly make good use of them. Most disappointing is Paolo Sorrentino’s segment “La Fortuna,” which stars Emily Mortimer as a much younger trophy wife who needles her older, wheelchair-bound architect husband (Basil Hoffman) until the segment comes to a chillingly cold end. The great actress Fernanda Montenegro stars in an odd bit as a grandmother who chooses to live as a homeless person, trying to convince her grandson that bathing in a fountain is much more fun.

Director Sang-Soo Im’s fantasy segment features a waiter/vampire who leads a parade of dancing prostitute/vampires down a street. Another nonsensical segment has an Australian movie star ditching his appearance at a film festival to impulsively free-climb Sugarloaf mountain. Turturro’s segment stars him and singer Vanessa Paradis as a longtime couple breaking up, which ends with her singing like a music video. A segment about a hang-glider soaring Rio’s iconic Christ statue while criticizing the city seems pointless.

There are a few segments that work a little better, although they are not enough to save the film. One is a brief, wordless segment starring Vincent Cassel and featuring interesting camera angles, as a beach sand sculptor instantly falls in love and immediately has his heart broken, but is inspired to make his art better. The sweetest story, directed and co-starring Nadine Labaki, features a little boy who has staked out a pay phone in a train station, because he is waiting for a call from Jesus, and Harvey Keitel as an actor playing a priest, who helps that dream come true.

Guillermo Arriaga’s “Texas” is the strongest drama, centering on a former boxer with that nickname and his former model wife, both injured in a car accident that put her in a wheelchair and cost him his arm. The couple get an offer from an American, played by Jason Isaacs, that could help them or further ruin their lives. In another segment “Pas de Deux,” a pair of ballet dancers and lovers, argue about their future as they dance.

RIO, I LOVE YOU is the weakest of the series, but it is unlikely to be the last.

RIO, I LOVE YOU opens on April 15th, 2016

OVERALL RATING: 2 OUT OF 5 STARS

THE JUNGLE BOOK – Review

Disney has released two talking animal films this year and both have a lot to say. While ZOOTOPIA wowed many with its strong female lead that’s not afraid to take on a stubborn and judgmental world, I found it a bit preachy and heavy-handed – not balancing the fun factor with the weight of the social commentary. Prior to the expedition into THE JUNGLE BOOK, I didn’t know what to expect. It has been decades since I’ve seen the animated film or the live action film. And while I know the story, I’m not sure I was necessarily aware of the degree of subtext inherent in the story. Either that, or Jon Favreau isn’t afraid to let his call of the wild echo through the jungle.

One of the running themes in the film is that because Mowgli is human, he has the gift of intellect and problem-solving. He uses “tricks” to get out of a bind, or in most cases, to help others succeed or survive (as is the case when he helps the bear Baloo get his honey). The classic story of a boy who embraces his animal instincts and his humanity is punctuated with just enough heart and the right amount of social awareness this time around by Disney.

The man-cub Mowgli (Neel Sethi) lives his life wild and free with a pack of wolves in the jungle. But when his life and the lives of the pack are threatened by the tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba), Mowgli runs away from home in search of the human village where he “belongs.” Guided by Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) the panther and the bear Baloo (Bill Murray), Mowgli embarks on a journey of self-discovery, where he encounters the seductive snake Kaa (Scarlett Johannson) and the giant ape King Louie (Christopher Walken).

Jon Favreau hits the ground running both literally and figuratively. The film opens with Mowgli running with the wolves through the jungle, and the viewer immediately is thrown into a visually lush treat for the eyes. Your eyes are forced to adjust to the visual effects – that look extraordinarily real, and yet you know they aren’t. But wait, there’s another catch. You are then asked to perform another task. The visual adjustment is followed immediately by having to accept that the animals talk to our young jungle boy. Yes, of course, this is the point of the film, but could it have been not as jarring? I can’t help but think about the stunning opening of Matt Reeves’ DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. That film doesn’t immediately throw the audience into accepting talking animals. It’s a slower process that takes into consideration what audiences are used to viewing from photo-realistic animals. To ease into both the hyper-realistic visuals and the fact that the majority of the main characters are CGI creations that are going to be talking to us, it might have been better to ease into the anthropomorphic jungle.

The voice talents on display are almost all superb, the highlights being the incomparable Bill Murray and Idris Elba, in a terrifying turn. The idea of having Murray play an iconic animated character seems like a hard challenge to overcome, but you can practically see Murray smiling through the lovable character’s muzzle. His old-world voice doesn’t come across as curmudgeonly as it sometimes does. Murray’s heart of gold still shines through the fur and the claws, making this another memorable moment in his iconic career.

The chemistry between Murray and young newcomer Neel Sethi is infectious. Their charming banter builds and builds to the rousing moment when they finally start to sing “Bare Necessities” while floating down the river. Watching Sethi splash water on Baloo and play the bear’s belly like a drum is a crowd-pleasing moment for fans of the 1967 animated feature.

The same can’t be said about the other main musical number. “I Wanna Be Like You” seems out of place after King Louie is presented as this hulking mafioso in the shadows. It’s played like a sly, jazz-infused spoken-word poem, but that doesn’t fix the fact that it comes across as shoe-horned and just as a way for this version of the film to feel more like the old version.

Seeing THE JUNGLE BOOK in IMAX 3D truly is an immersive experience. Every buzz and hum from an insect and every blade of grass comes to life. The artistry on-display is worth the price of admission alone. However, leaving the young ones at home might be something to consider. Regardless of the fact that the film has a PG rating – which more or less is an invitation to bring all children – THE JUNGLE BOOK is surprisingly intense as times. Shockingly intense, in fact. Sure, Rudyard Kipling’s original novel wasn’t intended as a children’s book, but that’s not exactly what Disney is adapting this time around. They are adapting their own 1967 animated film, which is a children’s film. Mistaking the innocence found in that film with the harsh reality of life-like tigers swiping out from the screen and viciously attacking other animals could prove detrimental if you’re a parent to a sensitive child.

Jon Favreau did not make a children’s movie. However, he made a great and thrilling film that most of the family can enjoy. These gorgeously rendered talking animals not only come to life on-screen, but they speak about life as well. Reminding us that despite our differences, we can still coexist and work together as a family. And that my friends, is “the bare necessities of life.”

Overall rating: 4 out of 5

THE JUNGLE BOOK is now playing in theaters everywhere

BARBERSHOP: THE NEXT CUT – Review

This film franchise zeros in on something that many small towns and big cities (really the neighborhoods in said cities) share: mainly a place where everyone seems to gather. Some place aside from the obvious schools, city halls, and churches (or synagogues). It’s actually a business. There’s a popular corner diner, maybe a bar or pub, perhaps a locally owned clothing store. Well, for this neighborhood in the south side of Chicago it’s the hair salon known to moviegoers thanks to 2002’s BARBERSHOP. That modest little “slice of life” flick was popular that it inspired a sequel two years later (BARBERSHOP 2: BACK IN BUSINESS). The following year saw a spin-off (BEAUTY SHOP) and a TV series on premium cable channel Showtime. The scissors and shavers have been silenced for almost a dozen years, but now movie goers have another appointment with Calvin and his crew for BARBERSHOP: THE NEXT CUT.

There have been lots of changes at Calvin’s (Ice Cube) Barbershop over the last twelve years. Sure, many of the hair stylists are still there. Jerrod (Lamorne Morris) and Raja (Utkarsh Ambudkar) are snipping at each other while old-timer Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer) offers unsolicited advice to all. One new addition is Rashad (Common) the eloquent hubby of the enterprising Terri (Eve), a much in demand hair artiste’. She’s part of the other big change at Calvin’s. The shop is now co-ed with a beauty parlor run by Angie (Regina Hall) splitting the floor right in half. One of their most popular beauticians is the bombshell Draya (Nicki Minaj) whose provocative wardrobe attracts the attention of all the fellows and rises the ire of her lady co-workers, particularly Terri who believes that she has set her sights on Rashad. The biggest change has occurred outside the shop, as brutal gang violence has turned the streets of the South Chicago neighborhood into a war zone. Calvin fears that he and his wife Jennifer (Jazsmin Lewis) will lose their teenage son, hoops prodigy Jalen (Michael Rainey, Jr.) to those very mean streets. His concerns are so great, that Calvin secretly makes plans to move his business to a new location on the north side. But before this happens, the employees attempt to stop the bloodshed over the weekend by establishing the shop as a safe zone, a peaceful haven, by offering free cuts over 48 hours.

Just how many film franchises can Ice Cube keep juggling? He’s returned to this one after the action comedy tent poles RIDE ALONG and 21 JUMP STREET, along with the family friendly ARE WE THERE YET?. Here he’s a great anchor/straight man, setting up punch lines and diffusing altercations, along with being a strong, strict but fair father figure. In the workplace, Common makes for an equally impressive, co-anchor especially in the more serious debates over social injustice. It’s a shame that he’s saddled with the silly, sitcom-style infidelity subplot. We never believe that Minaj’s Draya is a serious threat to the fierce Eve as Terri. All her form-fitting outfits don’t distract as from Minaj’s tepid line readings. She’s a talented singer, but she’s not a polished actress quite yet. Cedric is still an entertaining blustery old buffoon although I had some trouble understanding his low guttural growls. TV stars Anthony Anderson (“ABC’s “Black-ish”) scores laughs as food hustler J.D., while new addition J.B. Smoove (HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”) is funny as all-around hustler (real estate, pharmaceuticals, you name it) and barber “One-Stop”.

Full disclosure: I have not seen the previous entries in the film series, so I can only consider this current effort (with franchises most film goers will debate the merits ala’ “Two is better than the first.”). Director Malcolm D. Lee tries to keep “all the plates spinning”, but eventually the disparate themes of the screenplay by Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver crash and crumble on the multiplex floor. Every twenty minutes or so a character must deliver a proclamation or observation which halts any momentum of the story (“speech-i-fyin” is the slang phrase that comes to mind). The goofy caricatures and comedy stereotypes never gel with the very somber real-life tragedy that the script attempts to address. One minute Rashad is going down the list of those killed in the headlines and in the next he’s hiding out with Draja, and avoiding his wife Terri. It really trivializes the true situations, especially with the simple-minded ploy to stop the shootings. Free haircuts? Getting celebs to go viral? Shooting endless cell phone video of Draya furiously “twerking” (ugly exploitation)? The well-intentioned hi-jinks comes off as a slap in the face to those truly working at lasting solutions. The hilarious and heavy-handed never mesh, particularly when a regular perishes (he may as well have had a target on his back) and becomes a martyr. Though the film has a very talented cast, BARBERSHOP: THE NEXT CUT just doesn’t really cut it as comedy or “message’ flick.

2 Out of 5

FRANCOFONIA – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

As an emotional experience Alexandr Sokurov’s FRANCOFONIA holds up better than most films manage. As a narrative enterprise, not so much.

The problem lies in the proposition of a narrative that never really comes to a fruition. The last time that Sokurov made a film about how important the depths of emotion that can be captured in the midst of great art, and history was Russian Ark. The greatness of that movie came from the whimsical disregard for all sense of structure, and narrative becoming just a representation of the history and emotion that the Russian Hermitage represents.

FRANCOFONIA does much the same thing, but goes about it in a different way. It splits its historical, and surreal interpretation of the Louvre museum into two sections of movie playing against each other.

The first is a documentary styled section about the origins of the Louvre, and the effects of the German occupation of France on the Louvre. This section of the film is actually very dynamic and interesting. The cinematography on this section isn’t only tied down to your normal pictured documentary. Sokurov’s camera swings through the halls of the Louvre to show the audience the beauty that he is describing so enthusiastically. Sokurov has always shot art very respectfully, and the result almost gives the feeling of being in the museum itself.

The dramatic section of the film has two men trying to save the art of the Louvre during the German invasion. Sokurov directs the men’s conversation scenes by way of Spielberg (BRIDGE OF SPIES being the most noticeable comparison), and while most of the scenes don’t amount to much they are always enlivening.

The main problem with FRANCOFONIA is that these two sections, though structurally combined, never seem to tonally come together. The story seems like it’s too straightforward for such a complex way of telling it, and the film seems to grind to a halt when it stops to consider the meaning of the museum or explain the two men. Not that any of these “halts” are bad, just that they are quite noticeable as exposition dumps in a film that might have worked better as a flowing tone poem similar to the work of Terrence Malick.

All that said again none of it looks bad. Sokurov’s direction has always been top notch and the aspect ratios and aging of the film that he employs create a wonderfully old fashioned aesthetic for the film. Much of the film looks like slightly colored old photographs, and it’s a beautiful look.

Overall, narratively the two pieces of FRANCOFONIA fight each other over space, and seem to complicate a film that could have been slightly more effective telling one of them. However, Sokurov has crafted a film that is a joy to look at, and speaks emotionally.

3 1/2 of 5 Stars

FRANCOFONIA opens in St. Louis April 15th exclusively at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Theater

CRIMINAL – Review

The incoherent mess known as CRIMINAL is rescued from disaster by a game cast. Seasoned pros join hot younger stars to elevate a ridiculous script, keeping what could have (and should have) been a train wreck mostly on track and lending CRIMINAL far more credibility than it deserves.

CRIMINAL opens with a gritty chase through the streets of London that ends with CIA agent Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds) murdered by having a cattle prod shoved down his throat by the sinister “Spanish Anarchist” Heimdahl (Jordi Molla) and his vicious moll Elsa (Antje Traue). But Pope’s now-dead mind is full of critical, earth-saving info involving his interactions with “The Dutchman” (Michael Pitt), a nut who has hacked his way into the controls of U.S. nuclear missile silos and will start WWIII unless his demands, mostly involving a passport and a big bag of cash, are met. Pope’s CIA superior Quaker Wells (Gary Oldman) hires Dr. Franks (Tommy Lee Jones), the brains behind a secret mind transference project, to plug Pope’s memories into the brain of someone else. When Wells asks Dr. Franks (as in Frankenstein) if he has a subject in mind, the answer is “Yes, but you’re not going to like him”. That’s because, according this movie’s dopey logic, the only candidate in the world to be on the receiving end of Pope’s thoughts is death-row inmate Jericho Stewart (Kevin Costner), a lunatic sociopath so dangerous he lives shackled, Hannibal Lecter-like, in double-secret solitary confinement (we’re never told why a more stable subject isn’t chosen, or one already in London, since they have to fly Jericho there from the U.S. even though time is running out). The operation is a success but Jericho tricks Wells and Dr. Franks into thinking it’s a failure and on his way back to prison, escapes and goes hunting for that satchel of cash that Pope’s memories tell him is stashed somewhere near a row of vintage George Orwell novels. He visits Pope’s widow Jill (Gal Gadot) who immediately buys his farfetched tale (Him: “Tonight is chicken and waffles night” – Her: “Wow! My husband’s mind really has been injected into that scar on the back of your neck!”) She and her young daughter Emma (Lara Decarro) join Jericho for a series of progressively incomprehensible plot developments.

CRIMINAL is initially audacious and intriguing – but ultimately bogged down by its preposterousness as the overstuffed narrative become more and more ludicrous and confusing. It’s never clear how exactly Heimdahl and his goons fit into the Dutchman’s plans. Neither Kevin Costner nor the script ever seem to have a real grasp on how much of Pope’s mind Jericho is sharing his noggin with at any given time. Jericho is a step ahead of the CIA and Heimdahl’s army of well-organized villains on his tail one minute, and mumbling dumb like Billy Bob Thornton in SLING BLADE the next. There may be philosophical questions lurking beneath the surface of CRIMINAL, but they’re mostly avoided in favor of bloody action sequences with blazing guns, car chases, explosions, action and plot directions that make the head spin. The only fantastical aspect of the film is its brain-transference concept, and everything beyond that is taken from a conventional action film template (spoiler alert: Jill and Emma are kidnapped by Heimdahl !).

It’s the cast however, that makes CRIMINAL watchable, though perhaps in a sort of ‘guilty pleasure’ way. Costner is never convincing as a man in another man’s body, but he doesn’t have to be. Scowling and growling like a grumpy Clint Eastwood, Costner has a lot of fun with the role and the audience has fun along with him, watching Jericho bashing in teeth and even murdering innocents just to steal their food or their cars. Gary Oldman, a long-term devotee of the art of ham, screams and spits and rolls his eyes like a champ. Challenging him in the overacting department is Michael Pitt who delivers his character’s manic dialogue with nutty aplomb but he spends almost the entire movie alone in a hotel room which just makes his approach that much odder. Tommy Lee Jones is the laid back one, but he disappears for much of the film while Jordi Molla makes for a hissable villain and gets to deliver some of the film’s best howlers like “If you’d kept better track of the Dutchman, we’d have the wormhole by now!” Gal Gadot looks good in a standard part but isn’t given much to do. Alice Eve is wasted as a doomed CIA agent, while Antje Traue makes the best impression of the three women as a sadistic henchwoman. After THE CHANGE-UP and SELF/LESS, this is the third Ryan Reynolds body swap film. You’d think he’d know better but this one won’t hurt his career. Keep expectations low. CRIMINAL isn’t good…..but it’s a good time.

(a generous) 3 of 5 Stars

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

The entire world of MIDNIGHT SPECIAL seems to be built on an allegory for the fears of writer/director Jeff Nichols. The entire world, and film, seems to be built on the fear of raising a child in the modern world. In a world of that’s more technologically advanced than you could ever dream. A world where the government is prevalent but not dangerous, but a world where religion ultimately can be.

The opening of MIDNIGHT SPECIAL has little concern with these things, but that’s only because of its set up. Two men on the run with a boy. Roy, Lucas, and Alton. The introduction of these characters is brief, but extremely memorable. Nichols has always been an excellent writer when it comes to characters coming fully formed into films, and his regular Michael Shannon is a spectacular enough character actor to sell Nichols’s fully realized characters. Shannon plays Roy, a father protecting his son. The car’s engine bellows as the music does the same.

Nichols has always known how to create memorable scenes like that. The increasing noise of the car ramping up tension as the speed only prompts an accident. An explosion of violence. MIDNIGHT SPECIAL starts poetic, and beautiful. It’s a film that doesn’t bother with exposition and lets memorable and emotional moments show us the world that has shaped around the characters. Shannon and Joel Edgerton both shine through this part of the film. The intensity that can be seen on their faces as the audiences is brought through the twists and turns is palpable. The sheer ferocity of the performances here is astounding.

But the movie changes, and becomes ever the more interesting. The world mechanics start to kick in, and the allegory reveals itself.

Those two halves of MIDNIGHT SPECIAL are differentiated very much from each other, but that’s not a bad thing. The intensity of the first act could not have gone on forever without everything eventually tiring (though with the direction that Nichols employed it might have). The story needs to go somewhere. To some,where it goes may seem disappointing and shallow, but that mistake can be made for much of the movie. Some could in fact say that the characters of MIDNIGHT SPECIAL are shallow when in fact they’re complete characters from moment one. They’re just not exposition dumps. Reading into the performances is required to understand them, and the rich complexities that they represent.

There are so many complexities that MIDNIGHT SPECIAL has to offer if looked at in the right way. It’s a film that transcends the normal standards of filmmaking, and becomes, in a sense, real art to be delved into and interpreted. Sure, it’s art with guys shooting off shotguns, and that’s just awesome, but through sheer force of will Nichols has created a wondrous, hard-bitten, whimsical blast of a film. Go see MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, and interpret for yourself.

5 of 5 Stars

HARDCORE HENRY Review

In the action thriller HARDCORE HENRY, a man wakes up in a high-tech lab and is told by a woman in a lab coat he has been brought back to life as a human-robot hybrid. He can’t remember anything but she tells him his name is Henry and she is his wife, slipping a wedding ring on his finger. But as she is preparing to restore his ability to speak, the lab is attacked. Shortly, Henry is running for his life in Moscow and hoping to rescue his wife from the attackers who have taken her.

The twist with this high-octane thriller is that it is shot in first-person point-of-view, where the audience sees through Henry’s eyes as he battles to stay alive using his considerable skills. Since he cannot speak, the viewer is completely immersed in his role, which is shot like a GoPro video where we sometimes see his legs or arms but not his face. HARDCORE HENRY is a wild-ride, high body-count, science fiction action thriller, so it also resembles a first-person shooter video game. The result is immersive and intense – at times, too much so for some viewers and making one glad the film is not in 3D.

HARDCORE HENRY claims to be the first film shot entirely in first-person view. That claim may or may not be true but, of course, it is not the first film to use the technique. We have seen similar effects in several “found-footage” films and the technique was used to great effect in the beach landing sequence of “Saving Private Ryan” and in several film noir classics including the Bogart and Bacall mystery “Dark Passage,” which uses the technique in the first half.

HARDCORE HENRY’s use of GoPro cameras gives it a wild and exhilarating feel. The non-stop pace is almost as breathtaking as the dizzying P.O.V. camera-work. The film has plenty of shooting and violent action, especially in the early scenes, and it is relentlessly fast but it also has a mystery plot and actually includes a fair amount of dark humor. The film’s producers include Timur Bekmambetov, director of the vampire-themed “Night Watch,”who knows a thing or two about action films, and it is directed by Ilya Naishuller. The action takes place in Moscow and surroundings, but characters speak English, as they do in the lab where Henry awakens, or subtitled Russian, as do the army of thugs who pursue Henry.

Since the viewer is essentially Henry, much of the storytelling is carried by another character, Jimmy, played with great flare by Sharlto Copley. The versatile South African actor is perhaps best known for his role in “District 9,” where he transformed from a man into a shrimp-like alien. Here Copley plays an eccentric Brit who shows up on a Moscow street, saying he is there to help Henry. Haley Bennett plays Estelle, the woman who awakens Henry. Henry’s attackers are under the control of Akan (Danila Kozlovsky), a mysterious wealthy madman with his own special powers.

Bennett and Kozlovsky are fine in their roles but the real acting fun and showcase goes to Copley, who appears in a number of disguises, and supplies plenty of humor along with the backstory. Basically, it is really his film and Copley is great fun in the role.

HARDCORE HENRY has an innovative approach but it is hardly a perfect or profound film – it is just entertainment. The film is heavy on action, having a blast with its unusual visual technique, but a bit light on story. However, it is a lot of fun for fans of science fiction action thrillers, with a nice performance by Copley – assuming the viewer has the iron stomach for the roller coaster visuals.

HARDCORE HENRY opens in St. Louis on April 8th, 2016

Category: Review

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MIDNIGHT SPECIAL – Review

HARDCORE HENRY Review

OVERALL RATING: 3 1/2 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 2 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 2 OUT OF 5 STARS

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OVERALL RATING: 3 1/2 OUT OF 5 STARS

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