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A happily married couple (Regina Hall and Morris Chestnut) are looking for a surrogate to carry their child. The young woman they choose (Jaz Sinclair) is sweet, kind-eyed, and 100% on-board. However, she is looking for more than a simple payment.
As simple as the tactics used are, the film takes its time to establish sympathy for the relationship of our protagonists, and it does this well. You’d be surprised how Continue reading When the Bough Breaks (2016) Movie Review
John Link (Mel Gibson) is a sober ex-con who scrawls tattoos on upper thighs out of his trailer in the California desert. When his long-disappeared daughter suddenly re-enters his life with a criminal past trailing her, he must take drastic actions to protect her.
Blood Father does not have a stellar narrative. It has a crass script with little nuance. But it is Continue reading Blood Father (2016) Movie Review
Nate Foster (Daniel Radcliffe) is an FBI new recruit working in counter-terrorism in Washington D.C. He is unassuming and isolated in his eccentric brand of intelligence. When a possible White Supremacist terrorist plot surfaces, Foster is called upon to go undercover within the group to stifle any attack plan.
There is a fury to Imperium, first evidenced in an expository montage containing still images of real-life neo-Nazism. This fury becomes more Continue reading Imperium (2016) Movie Review
What is the defining characteristic of humanity? What separates us from the rest? Is it compassion? Love? Pain? Fury? These are the questions many science fiction films have grappled with, from 2001 to last year’s Ex Machina. Morgan is the next in line.
Much of the tension in Morgan stems from Continue reading Morgan (2016) Movie Review
Game of Aces is a period piece that doesn’t suffer from that inescapable stench of the period piece. It isn’t stuffy with the air of a different time and place. Many times, a period piece drama, especially those centered around wartime, will have the distinct feel of a re-enactment: heavy-handed, taking itself too seriously, and yet still somehow superficial. Game of Aces, in spite of its clearly tight budget, gets by on its lighter tone.
The film begins anachronistic to this idea. “There is no pain,” a downed fighter pilot (Werner Daehn) whispers to himself as he Continue reading Game of Aces (2016) Movie Review
David Packouz (Miles Teller) is in his 20s and tired of getting pushed around: by retirement home owners who reject his fine linen get rich quick scheme and by naked massage clients that give him money in the meantime. Enter his junior high best friend Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), a budding international arms dealer. Efraim plucks David from his mundane existence, and, as they work dirty arms dealing with governments, they quickly find themselves over their heads. And…movie.
War Dogs is a dark comedy from the director of The Hangover trilogy. It is, perhaps, a tale too dark for Continue reading War Dogs (2016) Movie Review
Don’t Breathe opens on an extreme long shot pushing in on a woman being dragged down the street by her hair in broad daylight. The woman is Rocky (Jane Levy), one third of a lowly thieving group. Some time before this inaugural shot, the trio decide to pull a seemingly simple heist on the house of a blind man (Stephen Lang) whose daughter was killed in a hit and run. Of course, nothing is ever as simple as it appears.
The camera work in the film is appealing, almost surprisingly so. Long shots and agile movement contradict genre norms, at least through Continue reading Don’t Breathe (2016) Movie Review
Suicide Squad begins with a montage of exposition. More specifically, it begins with multiple montages of exposition. Deadshot (Will Smith) is exactly what he sounds like: a hitman who never misses. But he also has a chip on his shoulder because he was taken away from his daughter. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) is an ex-doctor turned Joker (Jared Leto) sidekick. And then there are a couple other baddies thrown in for good measure.
The United States government’s goal is to use these villains to provide some checks and balances against superheroes who could turn against mankind. For whatever reason, they feel Continue reading Suicide Squad (2016) Movie Review
“Nerve” is a game of extreme sports and social media. The “players” film themselves doing a series of dares for money, and the more people watching them, the closer they are to being number one, a position that ironically guarantees nothing other than the empty stardom of fleeting viral attention.
Venus (Emma Roberts), a born watcher, throws caution to the wind for once in her life by becoming a player in the game. Nerve ropes her into Continue reading Nerve (2016) Movie Review
Batman: The Killing Joke begins with Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl (Tara Strong), stating in voiceover that she understands this isn’t the beginning you were expecting. This is because it’s not. The first frame of the iconic Alan Moore comic is of water thumping onto the pavement in the night, not a shot of the night’s sky. With this opening line, the film is keying the viewer into its extended opening, one that does not appear in the comic.
This opening has been cause for much controversy; why add to the tight story that is found in Moore’s version? The simple answer is that
Continue reading Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) Movie Review
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