Tag Archives: movie reviews

Do the Hustle

White Men Can’t Jump

by George Wolf

A few months ago I noticed the TV ads pitching the “Jack Harlow meal” at KFC and remembered I had no idea who Jack Harlow was.

That was on me. Since then, I’ve learned he’s a popular rapper, guested on SNL and is making his acting debut in Hulu’s new remake of White Men Can’t Jump.

The good news: he’s a bit stiff but decent, and like Woody Harrelson in 1992, knows his way around a basketball court. But while the chemistry between Harlow and co-star Sinqua Walls (Shark Night) is more than adequate, it can’t touch the fun and edgy dynamic of Woody and Wesley that drove the original.

Director Calmatic (House Party) teams with Black-ish writers Kenya Barris and Doug Hall for a largely familiar premise. White Jeremy (Harlow) and Black Kamal (Walls) team up to hustle some unsuspecting marks and eventually compete in a big street ball tournament.

Give Barris and Hall credit for updating the race-related humor with some smart and savvy barbs (many delivered through the winning support of Myles Bullock and Vince Staples), but that’s about the only aspect of the new narrative that doesn’t seem neutered.

Both Jeremy and Kamal still have issues at home (with Laura Harrier and Teyana Taylor, respectively), but the stakes don’t feel as authentic. And with the removal of the early double-cross that occurs in the first film, an important emotional layer is removed from the bond between the ballers, leaving only fast money as motivation.

The gap is filled with dueling backstories about knee injuries and brushes with the law, but ultimately, they both land as fairly generic diversions. As does the film.

There’s nothing really bad about the updated White Men Can’t Jump. There are timely laughs, a solid ensemble, and some perfectly acceptable hooping. But the lack of investment in character makes it hard to really care about who wins the tourney. Neither grit or desperate suspicion made this lineup, and if you’re still a fan of the old starters, they’ll be missed.

The Guns of Navagroan

Come Out Fighting

by Daniel Baldwin

War movies have been an action cinema staple since the dawn of filmmaking and men-on-a-mission movies are perhaps the most popular form of war film. Writer/director Steven Luke has carved out a niche for himself on the DTV action circuit making bargain budgeted World War II tales. Come Out Fighting is the latest of these.

As he did in his previous outings, Luke has assembled a nice, recognizable cast of genre actors. You’ve got indie martial arts superstar Michael Jai White (Blood & BoneBlack Dynamite), Kellan Lutz (The Twilight Saga), Tyrese Gibson (The Fast & Furious Saga), and an ever-grizzled Dolph Lundgren (no introduction required). All in all, not a bad assortment of fisticuff-throwing fellas to send into battle against a Nazi horde!

On paper, Come Out Fighting sounds like a fun little flick. In execution, however, it is anything but. The good news is that all of the men above have roles that are larger than cameos. The bad news is that they’re all too good for this film. Try as they might to hold it all together, their collective efforts cannot turn the tide on a bad script and even worse direction.

Anyone who watches the occasional direct-to-video actioner of this type knows to expect things like production design, costuming, and special effects work to not be on par with similar studio-produced fare. The best directors in this field still manage to overcome such limitations with sharper scripts, small but still thrilling setpieces, and low budget movie-making ingenuity. Jesse V. Johnson’s Hell Hath No Fury is an excellent example of this, managing to check off that entire list in spite of its miniscule budget. Come Out Fighting, however, manages none of these things, instead serving up heaping helpings of bad blocking, poor scene geography, and some pretty glaring historical inaccuracies.

It does at least have something on its mind, as it digs into the prejudices that African American soldiers faced from their own white compatriots during the war. As commendable as that is, that simply isn’t enough to salvage an otherwise inept picture. If you’re in the mood for an engaging new slice o’ action-filled WWII entertainment this weekend, you’re better off seeking out the aforementioned Hell Hath No Fury or Jalmari Helander’s now-on-VOD revenger Sisu.

The Devil You Know

The Thief Collector

by Rachel Willis

There’s an old adage that you can never really know someone. In director Allison Otto’s documentary, The Thief Collector, she puts this at the forefront with a modest couple, Jerry and Rita Alter, from middle-of-nowhere New Mexico, who happened to be art thieves.

Or at least, that’s how it seems.

After an estate sale, three men, Rick, Dave, and Buck discover an unattractive painting placed behind a bedroom door. It isn’t until a local artist recognizes the painting that they look into it further. One Google search later, the men discover the painting in their possession is Willem de Kooning’s Woman-Ochre, stolen from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1985.

So, how did Jerry and Rita, two teachers, come to have this painting in their possession?

The Thief Collector wants to answer this question.

There is a lot of reliance on Jerry’s short stories to paint a picture of two people who were “thrill seekers” (also conveniently one of Jerry’s story titles). There is documented evidence that the couple lived a fascinating and exhilarating life – one full of travel and adventure in parts of the world many will never see.

However, any writer of fiction would be appalled to think after their death, their stories would be taken as fact – and as evidence of crimes. While this could be the case for Jerry, it’s all speculation.

There is more compelling evidence to implicate the Alters in the crime, but there is a lot of filler in the documentary. Readings from Jerry’s short stories serve as narration for scripted scenes – with Glenn Howerton as “Jerry” and Sarah Minnich as “Rita”. While these scenes are an over-the-top kind of enjoyable, they’re not evidence of wrongdoing, no matter how much the filmmakers might wish them to be.

By focusing on Jerry’s stories, there is a lot of reaching rather than revelation.

Where the documentary succeeds is in its blend of interviews, in footage of the Alters’ many trips, and the vast collection of art in their home. The reenactments don’t quite fit, but they’re amusing.

Of course, the film would have been better served if it tightened its focus to what is known about the theft and the Alters. The interviews with friends and family give a good back and forth on the film’s theme – that the people you’ve known many years, maybe even your whole life, may have a dark side. It’s definitely something to ponder.

In Bloom

Master Gardener

by Hope Madden

A damaged man imposes order on his life, eventually growing confident enough in this structure to try to save someone else because he cannot save himself.

That’s right. This is a Paul Schrader movie. Like most of Schrader’s best features (First Reformed, The Card Counter, all the way back to his script for Taxi Driver) Master Gardener delivers a variation on that same riff. Lucky his characters are so compelling they keep us watching.

In this case, that character – the titular gardener – is Narvel (Joel Edgerton). Narvel tells us, via his journal: Gardening is a belief in the future, that change will come in its due time.

Is Schrader growing more optimistic? Or will we grow to hope for Narvel only to witness the worst possible outcome (a la Card Counter)? Longtime fans may get a little nervous before the general moviegoer, but either way, Schrader sets a hook early.

The other element that jumps out early is the look of this film. Schrader’s gift for visual composition has never seen so exceptional a vehicle. Fitting, given the beauty of a garden. The lovely orderliness of Narvel’s garden is set against the riotous disarray that arrives in the shape of Mya (Quintessa Swindell): sloppy clothes, hair everywhere, no plans, no future. Maya doesn’t crave orderliness. Mya just is.

What Mya is not is like her Great Aunt Norma (Sigourney Weaver, letter perfect as the wealthy matriarch of the estate). Norma has arranged for Mya to apprentice on the property. She’d like Narvel, or “Sweet Pea” as she calls him, to look after the girl.

The arrival of this outsider sets wheels in motion. Narvel’s once orderly world now falls victim to his own past, drug dealers, the Feds. Edgerton’s a solid choice for the role, stoic but roiling with regret and quietly desperate for redemption. Swindell’s free spirit, tempered with the justifiable righteousness of youth, offers an excellent counterweight and Weaver outshines them all, stealing every inch of scene she’s in.

But they don’t have enough to do. Redemption feels unearned. Drug addiction is treated as too easily overcome. Most troubling is the way racism is skirted throughout the film.

“Gardening is the manipulation of the natural world, the creation of order out of disorder,” Narvel tells us. Filmmaking can provide much the same exercise. But forgiveness comes too easy for this damaged antihero, and Master Gardener feels too much like Schrader light.

Classic Case

Carmen

by George Wolf

For this latest reimagining of the classic story, director Benjamin Millepied credits inspiration from Prosper Mérimée’s original novella from 1845, and Alexander Pushkin’s poem “The Gypsies” from 1824.

Flashing more modern vibrancy through culturally rich music and dance, this new Carmen arrives as a wonder of visionary composition that struggles to find an equally compelling connection to its characters.

The writing team of Loic Barrere, Alexander Dinelaris and Lisa Loomer crafts a surface-level tale of lovers on the run. Aidan (Paul Mescal) is a troubled Marine veteran volunteering on a night patrol along the Mexican border, while Carmen (Melissa Barrera) is trying to cross after the death of her mother. A violent altercation leads to casualties, and the two are soon trying to stay one step ahead of authorities.

Millepied (choreographer and co-star of Black Swan) knows his way around a dance number, getting an assist from flamenco specialist Marina Tamayo for sequences that sport some thrilling fluidity. The acclaimed talents of cinematographer Jörg Widmer (The Tree of Life, V for Vendetta) and composer Nicholas Britell (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk) are also on full display, rounding out a veteran stable of technical skill that consistently lifts the film’s imagery and scope.

Mescal (Aftersun) continues to show a gift for quiet nuance, Barrera (In the Heights, Scream, Scream VI) finally breaks out of her reliance on posing, and the veteran Rossy de Palma (various Almodóvar projects) steals scenes as a savvy nightclub owner, but the script seems content to keep depth at a distance.

Pushkin’s centuries-old themes of noble savages and the tragedy of life are too often given a heavy hand, needing a rescue by the visual poetry on display.

This Carmen tells us “dancing will you heal you.” Indeed, it’s one of the cures for what ails a less than passionate romance.

Moonchild

Crater

by Hope Madden

Following three increasingly competent features (Easier with Practice, C.O.G., The Stanford Prison Experiment), filmmaker Kyle Patrick Alvarez moved into episodic television. His return to feature length feels a bit more like TV than film, but Crater marks new territory for Alvarez in family entertainment.

The Disney+ feature, written by John Griffin (also mainly TV), follows a quintet of adolescents on a joyride across the moon.

The effortlessly charming Mckenna Grace (Ghostbusters: Afterlife) is the new kid on the helium mining colony. Caleb (Isaiah Russell-Bailey) and his buddies need her to help them break into the basement garage so they can hotwire a rover and take it to the “crater” Isaiah’s dad was always talking about. They never expected her to want to go with them.

The film’s anticapitalism message (ironic coming from Disney) is welcome, as we commiserate with the five children of miners – each with no future outside of mining, except for Isaiah. When Isaiah’s father died in the mine, the insurance money bought his now-orphaned son a ticket off this rock.

But first, the kids go on an epic adventure that will change their lives.

It feels about as pre-packaged as it sounds, very Goonies or Stand By Me, but slicker, tidier and without the soul. Grace has proven to be nothing but an authentic talent since toddlerhood, really announcing her skill in 2017’s Gifted. But she’s given no real opportunity to create a character here.

Her co-stars struggle even more. Russell-Bailey can’t dig deep enough to manage the life-altering grief or rage a kid in his position would face, but at least his backstory is unveiled slowly. Isaiah’s best friend (Billy Barratt) just announces his trauma, then stares doe-eyed at both Grace and Russell-Bailey for the balance of the film. This isn’t a knock on the performance as much as it is the script and direction.

Crater cobbles together a lot of cliched ideas but can’t find any depth to explore. Instead Alvarez delivers a superficial and forgettable road trip movie in space.

Like It’s 1995

Party Girl

by Hope Madden

It was 1995. We’d already had a sense of the unique talent that is Parker Posey because of her drill sergeant character in Dazed and Confused, but we were not yet in love with her. Writer/director Daisy von Scherler Mayer’s Party Girl would change that.

Von Schlerler Mayer’s slight story trails a twentysomething in NYC whose only real skill is partying and looking fantastic. Mary (Posey) is busted throwing a rent party (the purpose of the party is to make enough money to pay rent) and has to turn to her only family – librarian godmother Judy (Sasha von Scherler, the director’s mother) – to bail her out. The condition: Mary has to get a real job. Preferably clerking in the library.

It’s a fairly straightforward “fish out of water” story, the type where the fish realizes dry land (that is, becoming a librarian) is really the way to go. Kind of a cross between Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Desperately Seeking Susan with essentially none of the plot of either, Party Girl skims the surface of extended adolescence.

There are romantic entanglements and an assortment of hip friends on the fringe. And, of course, the clash between downtown style and library shushing. Von Schlerler Mayer’s ensemble delivers charmingly superficial and oblivious characters, and the climax is never really in doubt. So why has this film stood up for almost thirty years?

Parker Posey, duh.

There was no turning back after this film. Posey owns this character, her insecurity and confidence, vulnerability and insensitivity. She carves out a personality that can carry the whole film, even though the film itself offers little in return. Posey radiates goofy charm that’s infectious enough to keep you drawn to Mary’s dilemma, however vapid it is.

Party Girl is a frothy, forgettable good time, but Posey turned out to be a keeper.

Work Is Murder

Employee of the Month

by Daniel Baldwin

Ines is a 45-year-old paralegal doing the work of five people and getting the salary of less than one. She’s worked for the same cleaning products company for almost two decades and has yet to receive a raise. Paired with her is Melody, a college student intent on finishing out her accounting degree by completing an internship at said company – EcoCleanPro – which has recently laid off her own mother to save a few bucks. EcoCleanPro is run by a bunch of lazy, greedy, chauvinistic men who see little value in the women who work beneath them, save for whenever they want coffee or for the toilet paper to be refilled.

Ines is, understandably, fed up. She hasn’t had a raise in over a decade and a half and no one at the office takes her seriously. Melody views her internship as a means to an end; a hardship that must be endured so that she can complete her degree and bounce as soon as possible. To say these women are not enjoying their time working at EcoCleanPro would be putting it very, very mildly.

When Ines finally confronts the office manager about all of this, a (perhaps not so) tragic accident occurs that results in death. From there, the situation only continues to snowball for Ines and Melody. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing, however, for as the body count rises, so too do their spirits and camaraderie.

Writer/director Veronique Jadin has crafted a biting black comedy that takes female workplace anxieties and unleashes them like a bullet from the barrel of a gun. There’s a delightful throwback nature to the film that calls to mind the similar darkly comedic thrillers of the ‘90s. Enough so that Employee of the Month would not feel out of place in a movie marathon that also contained the likes of Office KillerVery Bad ThingsCurdled, and (of course) Office Space.

The stars of the show here are Jasmina Douieb and Laetitia Mampaka as Ines and Melody, respectively. Both are equally compelling in their separate performances, but their chemistry together really makes Jadin’s and co-screenwriter Nina Vanspranghe’s script sing. Single location films of any genre are not an easy feat to pull off and to do so with a comedy is exceptionally hard. Douieb and Mampaka carry this one across the finish line hand-in-hand.

Fairy Tale Ending

Book Club: The Next Chapter

by Hope Madden

I understand and respect that there is an audience for Book Club: The Next Chapter. I see the draw in watching characters in their Seventies – vital, beautiful, rich women, who have men that adore them exactly as they are, and healthy, supportive friends who are always ready for an adventure. May we all have such a third act.

It’s a lovely fantasy. But it’s a bad movie.

Back in 2018, director Bill Holderman introduced us to a quartet of lifelong friends whose monthly book club turned a little ribald when Viv (Jane Fonda) recommended 50 Shades of Grey. Everybody got horny, one marriage was saved, and four remarkable talents got to spend 90 harmless if uninspired minutes onscreen together.

Fast forward five years and one Covid lockdown and the besties are finally able to host their monthly meetup in person again. Just in time, too, because Viv is engaged! So Carol (Mary Steenburgen), Diane (Diane Keaton) and Sharon (Candice Bergen) decide a bachelorette trip to Italy is in order. Madcap!

The stakes are low and the wine is flowing, the police stations and jail cells are remarkably clean and free from riffraff, the comedy is broad and the life lessons are frequent but not too painful. Consequences are entirely nonexistent, but that’s because this is a fantasy. It’s a geriatric Sex and the City episode.

Holderman, writing again with Erin Simms, mercifully avoids jokes made at the expense of the characters. We laugh with them more often than we laugh at them. Holderman and his film respect these mature characters, which is a nice change of pace.

And, of course, Keaton, Bergen, Steenburgen and Fonda can act. They’re not asked to for this particular film, but we’re aware that they have the capacity. Fonda has two Oscars, Steenburgen and Keaton have one apiece, and bringing up the rear, Bergen has a nomination. And the best Book Club: The Next Chapter can think to do with them is have them model wedding dresses.

At least they’re not in a wing eating competition, I guess. And that’s actually where Holderman deserves praise, because he’s not making a great movie. He’s not even making a very good movie. But he’s making a movie for a target audience, and it’s a group of people who’ve lived through enough drama and trauma, cynicism and tragedy. That’s not what they want. They want a fantasy where there are no money issues, no health issues, all their friends are alive and well and still with them, and romance abounds.

Holderman has a club for that.