Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

DeJohn Vu

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John Wick

by George Wolf

Who’s ready for an ultra-violent tale of a highly trained killer brought out of hibernation to extract bloody revenge from Russian mobsters?

It’s been a good four or five weeks since The Equalizer, so strap in for John Wick, the story of a highly trained…well, you know.

Mr. Wick (Keanu Reeves) just wants to be left alone, but when a crime lord’s son wrongs him in a big way, Wick returns to the way of the gun, and the knife, and whatever else it takes to even the score.

A film like this relies of two things:  the charisma of the lead actor and the presentation of the action. While The Equalizer scored high in both areas, John Wick only manages modest success with the latter.

Denzel Washington gave The Equalizer effective layers of humanity to offset the mayhem, and while it may not be fair to expect Denzel charm from Reeves, he should bring more to the party than just the ability to navigate the fight choreography. He doesn’t, and any attempt to peek into his anti-hero’s psyche is DOA.

Directors David Leitch and Chad Stahelski are veteran stuntmen behind the camera for the first time, and they do their best to bring new flash to the action genre, with a few visual sequences that are truly hypnotic. More often, though, the fights scenes follow a similar progression, and are backed by a brooding (but good) Marilyn Manson track to create the unmistakable aura of video game inspiration.

Including an actual scene of video game shoot-em-up doesn’t help.

The film isn’t awful, and in fact a spinoff focusing on the hotel that caters to Wick and his assassin compatriots might be a fine idea. But most everything else in John Wick gets tedious pretty quickly, and can never fully recover.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

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Weed Dealers Don’t Count

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Dear White People

by George Wolf

In case you’re not up on current events, we elected a black President (twice!), so that means racism in American is over.

That ridiculous notion lies at the heart of Dear White People, a 20 megaton smartbomb dropped by writer/director/producer Justin Simien. In a supremely confident feature debut, he takes on tough issues with a rapid fire mix of sarcasm, satire, outage, hilarity and disgust.

Taking his cue from the insanely racist parties thrown on several actual campuses the last few years, Simien presents Winchester University, a fictional Ivy League school, during a time of social unrest.

Mixed-race student Sam (a terrific Tessa Thompson) dishes “dear white people” advice on her college radio show (“you now need two black friends to not appear racist, and your weed dealer doesn’t count”) and enters student politics with a pledge to bring more black culture to the school.

Meanwhile, the gay, introverted Lionel (Tyler James Williams from Everybody Hates Chris – also stellar) takes note of the waves Sam is generating, using the situation as his ticket to writing for the school’s major newspaper.

There’s much, much more going on at Winchester, culminating with this year’s theme for the annual Halloween bash:   “liberate your inner Negro!”

At times, the criss-crossing storylines take some overly convenient turns, the directing is light on style, and yes, the students are in class about as often as General Hospital doctors treat patients, but the film is always rescued by Simian’s whip-smart script.

He dissects countless black/white stereotypes, always staying one step ahead of the standard rebuttal. Even better, he sometimes throws purpose pitches, such as intentional contradictions that provoke the inevitably weak counterpoints he’s ready for, or a self-aware mention of being self-congratulatory.

It’s a glorious brand of honest, in-the-moment writing that is so elusive, you’re taken aback at how giddy you are at hearing it.

Dear White People is an entertaining, stimulating film that we need, badly.

Dear everyone:  go see it.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

New In Theaters

Wooden Shoes and Risky Romance

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Copenhagen

by Hope Madden

If the movies have taught me one thing this year, it’s that – regardless of the date on your birth certificate – you can come of age in Europe. That’s right, whether you are crusty oldsters on a trip through Iceland (Land Ho!) or fiftysomethings eating your way through Italy (The Trip to Italy), or an American asshole approaching 30 and seeking family in Copenhagen, no matter. As long as you’re a guy still holding on to an age that doesn’t suit you, you can turn that page with a European vacation. Just ask William (that American asshole).

Left stranded in Copenhagen after a guys’ trip picked up a third wheel (his best friend’s girlfriend), William (Gethin Anthony) tries to track down the Danish grandfather he never met. He somehow lands the assistance of a cute Danish waitress (Frederikke Dahl Hansen).

Her plucky resolve to solve the mystery of William’s grandfather fuels the exotic vacation romance by first time feature filmmaker Mark Raso, who proves as adept behind the camera as he is with a pen.

His setting is unerringly lovely – exactly the romantic backdrop where a lost soul could be redeemed by young love. Unless it’s William, and the love is really, really young.

Raso explores some taboo territory, but exploitation is not his aim (thank God). Though he dances with the tension of temptation throughout the film, Raso never loses sight of his characters’ humanity and it’s the human interaction that gives the film more than the simple allure of forbidden fruit.

It helps that Dahl Hansen turns in such a naturalistic and lovely performance as the youngster who has so smitten the douchey American. As his arrested adolescence crashes headlong into her actual adolescence, Dahl Hansen never loses her own character, never becomes simply the object of male fantasy. It’s a thoughtful, restrained performance that is the reason the film succeeds.

Not that Anthony’s turn is weak. On the contrary, it’s fascinatingly repellant. Kudos to Anthony and Raso alike for ignoring the temptation to make William more likeable. Anthony’s performance is never entirely genuine except in predatory flashes and you are never absolutely certain how things will resolve themselves. It’s an uncommon image for a protagonist, and it keeps the audience uneasy all the way through.

Copenhagen offers a simple story, exquisitely filmed and well performed. Will William grow up while traveling abroad?

He has a better chance there than in Vegas, I guess.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

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Adventures in Babysitting

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My theory is this: first time feature filmmaker Theodore Melfi is a wizard. It seems improbable, sure, but I can think of no other explanation for St. Vincent.

A newly single mom hires her curmudgeonly neighbor to babysit for her precocious son. As obvious as it sounds – and is – somehow Melfi creates surprises in the territory he treads and the performances he draws. Had Charles Bukowski starred in About a Boy, this is the film it would have become.

Melfi’s genius with dialog and his light touch when directing together create an atmosphere that allows actors to breathe. Even the cast members with the least screen time – Terrence Howard and Chris O’Dowd, in particular – have the opportunity to fill out their characters, and they do.

Imagine what Bill Murray can do with this kind of creative atmosphere. Murray reveals layer after believable layer in his performance as Vincent. There’s not a moment of schmaltz in this performance, and there are moments of real genius.

And what about young Jaeden Lieberher as Vincent’s charge Oliver? Melfi obviously created him from some sort of spell. There really is no other explanation. This kid is great – deadpan when he needs to be, and otherwise the natural mixture of wisdom and naiveté that suits Oliver’s peculiar circumstances. The performance is dead on perfect.

Melissa McCarthy gets a couple of good lines in, but her performance is more restrained and internal than what we’re used to from her. It’s a nice change of pace.

Naomi Watts struggles more with the almost cartoonish character she lands, and not all the youngest actors are very strong, but acting is rarely St. Vincent’s weak point. The plotting, on the other hand, needs some work.

Scene after scene is utterly contrived. Many plot points are conveniently forgotten, the climax is obvious and the happy family ending is simplistic given the circumstances of the film on the whole. And yet, somehow the whole is thoroughly enjoyable.

It has to be the fullness of the characters, and the interaction between talented performers. That or the moments of genuine surprise peppered throughout a well worn storyline. Or maybe it’s some kind of sorcery.

What else could explain how well this film works? Because it has no business working at all, yet somehow it’s one of the more memorable and moving dramedies you’ll see this year.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

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Mr. Furyous

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Fury

by George Wolf

“See that? That’s an entire city on fire.”

It is World War II, and grizzled combat vet Sgt. Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt) is teaching scared rookie Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman) about the horrors of battle.

Fury is hardly the first movie to use a naive soldier as an extension of the audience, and that metaphor is just one of the familiar devices the film leans on to craft a competent, if not exactly groundbreaking, drama of war.

Collier leads a 5-man Sherman Tank crew which also includes “Bible” (Shia LeBeouf),  “Gordo” (Michael Pena) and “Coon-Ass” (Jon Bernthal). Deep inside Germany, their combat prowess earns the team a mission with mighty long odds. On their own, they must cut off an entire Nazi regiment before it reaches a defenseless Allied supply station.

Writer/director David Ayer (End of Watch) presents powerful battle scenes, frequently gripping and bursting with ugly brutality. Less successful are Ayers’s attempts at the humanity the story needs to cut deeper.

The confines of the tank are a good start, as we feel a bond with the five men simply from the claustrophobic closeups. But as the combat scenes stack up, the character development is reduced to quick sketches we’ve seen before.

The scripture-quoting marksman (Saving Private Ryan), the greenhorn not meant for the battlefield (Full Metal Jacket) and the facially scarred taskmaster (Platoon) are all here, instantly familiar and throwing roadblocks into Fury‘s attempt to reach higher ground.

Pitt is fantastic in the lead, with solid support from all his co-stars. Lerman’s effective naïveté, when thrown beside four eager members of an actual killing machine, creates a stark moral ambiguity that lingers, even if Norman’s transformation from “boy to man” is a bit lacking in subtlety.

Same goes for turning “Wardaddy” into a mythic G.I. Superjoe. Pitt has the chops that could have delivered on the chance to peek inside his character’s psyche, but it doesn’t come.

Instead, though the film’s final standoff definitely delivers the tension, Fury can’t go out in the blaze of glory it aimed for.

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKu5lGfRBxc

New In Theaters

Suitable for the Faint of Heart

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Asmodexia

 by Christie Robb

My husband is a wimp this time of year.  Horror movie images lodge in his brain and after watching the one he deigns to view per season, lights are left burning around the house at bedtime, sometimes for weeks. But he could totally take watching Asmodexia.

Screening at the Gateway for their Nightmares on High series on October 17th, this Spanish-language, English-subtitled move tells the tale of 15 year-old- Alba (Clàudia Pons) and her pastor grandpa, Eloy (Lluís Marco). They travel the Barcelona environs as partners in exorcism, counting down to Resurrection Day—which happens to coincide with the end of the Mayan calendar (remember that?).

Along the way, they make pit stops to kick a few squatting souls out of little girls, car-crash victims, and rat-eating dead ladies. You know, anything to kill some time.

As the days count down, the duo are tailed by a cop and shadowed by a hooded figure driving a black van. The story is intercut with events at a Barcelona mental asylum where the inmates and staff are catching possession like it’s ebola.

Everyone in the movie seems to be connected with Alba and Eloy and throughout the film the audience is presented with snippets from the past. Kinda Lost meets the Exorcist.

It’s slow burn of a movie, more eerily atmospheric than truly scary with great cinematography, fantastic makeup, and a creepy score.

Like Lost, the ending will probably be a bit meh for some. But you can safely view it with the squeamish. There are only a few scenes where they will have to avert their eyes.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve8SYgQsy8Y

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Hopeless Romantic

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The Best of Me

by George Wolf

 

And lo, the decree came down from the mountain of recycled melodrama:  more Sparks at the multiplex!

There will be an idyllic Southern setting surrounded by water and plenty of pretty white faces. There will be a love story, a couple brought together by destiny but pulled apart by a cruel world. Tragedy. Flashback. Kissing in the rain. Reunion. Then, a final plot twist so over the top and ridiculous it would get laughed out of most creative writing classes.

It’s the Nicholas Sparks formula, and he’s doing all the laughing, every time a truckload of cash backs up to his front door.

His latest novel to hit the big screen is The Best of Me, and it keeps the formula intact with nauseating precision.

Teenagers Amanda (Liana Liberato, spunky) and Dawson (Luke Bracey, bland) promised forever back in the 90s, but couldn’t make it past high school. Twenty years later, they’re brought back to their Louisiana hometown by the death of an old friend.

As the older Amanda and Dawson (Michelle Monaghan and James Marsden) struggle to put the past behind them, frequent flashbacks clue us in to the tragic circumstances that forced them apart.

It’s so much soap opera fodder, with cheap manipulation standing in for actual storytelling.

A look at the writing team responsible for the script reveals Will Fetters, who has not only penned one other awful Sparks adaptation (The Lucky One), but another film that’s even more shamelessly heavy-handed (Remember Me). Hey, they needed a writer who could provide that Nicholas Sparks feeling and apparently, this guy has it in spades.

Director Michael Hoffman (The Last Station/Soapdish) makes sure everything looks dreamily perfect and really, that’s all he was hired to do. There’s a good reason this isn’t a Coen brothers project, after all.  The goal is style over substance, and to make a Sparks movie, not a good movie.

Well done, then.

 

Verdict-1-5-Stars

 

 

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Paper Chase

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Kill the Messenger

by George Wolf

 

Every time I catch a bit of All the President’s Men on cable, I end up thinking how that bit of history could never repeat itself today. Two reporters bringing down a President? No way. They’d be targeted by cable news blowhards and whatever party was in power would defend their man to the end, or until the public’s attention returned to the Kardashians and dancing celebrities.

Kill the Messenger makes that case better than I can.

It’s based on the true story of investigative reporter (and former Columbus resident) Gary Webb, who was working for the San Jose Mercury News in 1996 when he uncovered a stunner of a scandal.

In a three-part series entitled “Dark Alliance,” Webb connected the CIA, Contra rebels in Nicaragua, and the USA’s crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. Webb alleged that the Reagan administration sidestepped Congress’s ban on direct Contra funding by using the CIA to funnel profits from drugs smuggled into the U.S. directly from Nicaragua.

It was a bombshell exclusive, especially for an outlet the size of the Mercury News, and both the paper and its new star reporter quickly found themselves under heavy scrutiny.

Starring as Webb, Jeremy Renner gives a complete, riveting performance. Taking his character from the gritty details of connecting the dots, to the satisfaction of a job well done, to anger and paranoia when his support system falters, Renner never permits a sliver of doubt to cloud his authenticity.

Director Michael Cuestra crafts the film with both skill and care. He has a thoroughbred in Renner and a strong supporting cast, and Cuestra has no problem finding both humanity and resonance in Webb’s story.

The drawback is that too often, his heart is in too many right places. Exonerating Webb, revealing the depths of a government scandal, and eulogizing hard-nosed journalism are worthy goals, but Cuestra casts such a wide net that the focus becomes unsteady and the end result feels a bit unfinished.

It will still get to you. Renner’s performance, and the harsh light that’s shed on a scandal that deserves it, let Kill the Messenger push through some weak spots and remain vital.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 

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Judge Dread

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The Judge

by George Wolf

 

Yes, the timing is perfect for a film that salutes the blind equality shown to all citizens tried in every American courtroom. By all means, serve up an unflinchingly sympathetic portrait of an officer of that court who may have killed someone.

And sure, let’s just go ahead and include some convenience store security footage as part of that officer’s defense!

Good Lord, The Judge, please pick up the white courtesy phone.

The film does one sensible thing, though, in pairing up two great actors. Robert Downey, Jr. is Hank, a big time lawyer in Chicago who returns to his small Indiana hometown to attend his mother’s funeral. Robert Duvall plays Hank’s father Joe, the longtime Judge in town who’s held in high esteem by everyone..except Hank.

Father and son have a serious beef, but when Joe is accused of vehicular manslaughter, Hank stays in town to try and make sure Dad doesn’t spend his last years in the state pen.

What are the odds that the hot shot son learns some important lessons about family, while reconnectIng with the gal he left behind (Vera Farmiga) and finally appreciating the small town ways he once ran from? Pretty high. The script is full of grand speeches that amount to telling the “me” generation how their parents still know better, with two Ronald Reagan shout outs in case you miss one.

Sure, Downey and Duvall have some moments, because they could have moments just reading the menu at Chipotle. But even they had to know this entire project reeks of shameless Oscar bait, as director David Dobkin keeps the manipulated sentiment cranking and frames the two leads with plenty of low-angle shots and angelic backlighting.

Depending on which trailer you see, The Judge may seem like a comedy, a thriller, or a heartwarming drama. It’s a film that really, really wants you to like it.

Guilty of pandering! Adjourned!

 

Verdict-2-0-Stars

 

New In Theaters

Happy to be Stuck with You

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#Stuck

by Hope Madden

Don’t be off put by the hashtag in #Stuck. Writer/director Stuart Acher’s film is less a glib comment on social media alienation and more a savvy reimagining of the romantic comedy.

Holly (Madeline Zima) and Guy (Joel David Moore) are stuck in an epic traffic jam. To make matters worse, this is simply the “morning after” ride back to Holly’s car, which is still at the bar where the two hooked up the night before.

“It’s easier to have sex with a stranger than make conversation with one,” notes Holly early in their uncomfortable alone time.

On its surface, the script feels almost like a writing workshop challenge, but Archer’s assured direction and game performances from the two leads make it work. Acher’s story weaves from the shame and claustrophobia of the morning after to the drunken debauchery of the night before.

The flashback is told in reverse order, allowing us to learn more about the two based on what they’ve forgotten, just as they learn about each other based on the time each must now spend in the other’s company.

It’s hard to sustain interest with little more than in-car acting – unless you have Tom Hardy behind the wheel – and there are certainly times when #Stuck strains to keep your attention. But on the whole, the slow revelation of character feels natural and the performances are sympathetic enough to keep you invested.

Zima has a real Meg Ryan quality about her, which may make the film feel more like an outright romantic comedy than it would otherwise. She and Moore have an uneasy chemistry that suits the begrudgingly burgeoning relationship, and while their banter is never a laugh riot, more often than not it’s bright and enjoyable.

To alleviate the tension for the audience, anyway, Acher’s camera periodically swings out of Guy’s car and takes a peek at the goings on in the other cars sitting motionless on the LA freeway. It’s a fun distraction and a light handed way of underscoring the overall theme of the film: that often, time wasted is more valuable than time spent on task.

Verdict-3-0-Stars