Tag Archives: thrillers

New In Theaters

She Seems Nice

1 Comment

Eileen

by George Wolf

You need an “easy on the eyes” vamp for your nourish thriller? Anne Hathaway’s on your short list, for sure.

Soft-spoken, sheltered waif with eyes that long for a new life? Get me Thomasin McKenzie!

The casting in Eileen may be no surprise, but there are big surprises in store. And the way the two leads slowly draw their characters toward a deadly intersection keeps William Oldroyd’s second feature engaging throughout.

McKenzie is the put-upon Eileen, who quietly spends her days fantasizing about sex and violence and stashing away all the money she makes doing secretarial work at a boys correction facility in early 1960s Massachusetts. Eileen is also the daughter of the town’s former police chief (Shea Whigham), currently a paranoid, drunk widower with a penchant for verbal abuse and gun waving.

Eileen’s world is rocked when the facility’s staff psychologist retires, and Rebecca (Anne Hathaway) shows up to replace her. Tall, Ivy League-schooled with a sarcastic wit and a smoldering sensuality, Rebecca stands out plenty in the little New England ‘burg.

They meet for a couple drinks at the local bar and hit the dance floor while Rebecca belittles the leering regulars. Eileen is transfixed.

So she jumps at the invitation to visit over the holiday break, where Rebecca (and screenwriter Luke Goebel, Causeway) have a big bomb to drop.

Adapted from Ottessa Mosfegh’s award-winning 2015 novel, the film is a slow boil that leans on mood and atmospherics to lull you, even as you feel the creep of dread.

Both Hathaway and McKenzie are perfection, consistently smoothing the bumps when Oldroyd (Lady Macbeth) seems a bit hesitant to fully embrace the story’s pulpy underbelly. He and Goebel also tweak the novel’s ending, leaving the resolution more open-ended and abstract.

Fans of the book may feel slighted, but Eileen lands on the big screen as its own slippery shape shifter, a simmering throwback with just enough thrills to satisfy.

New In Theaters

Family Matters

Leave a comment

The Good Mother

by George Wolf

As a thriller, The Good Mother is an odd bird. But then, I can’t really say for sure it wants to be a thriller. Maybe it’s a character study, or a cautionary tale. There’s nothing here to seal any of those deals, which means the possibilities for engagement are always just out of reach.

The cast is solid, led by two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank as Marissa, a top reporter for a newspaper in Albany, NY circa 2016. Her paper is struggling with the digital revolution and could use her writing skills, but Marissa can’t be bothered. She’s been in a spiral since her husband Frank’s death and her son Michael became a junkie, and now Marissa only wants to drink, smoke, and mindlessly edit other people’s work.

Things only get worse when her older son Toby (Jack Reynor), an Albany cop, gives her the news that Michael has been shot and killed. And though Marissa blames Michael’s pregnant wife Paige (Olivia Cooke) for introducing him to drugs, the two join forces in hopes of tracking down Michael’s killer.

Swank (also an executive producer) is on cruise control with a righteous determination arc, but director/co-writer Miles Joris-Peyrafitte never lets her truly dig in to Marissa’s edges. Instead, she moves through a succession of steely eyes and furrowed brows as an unlikely duo has even more unlikely success uncovering secrets of the drug trade.

There are good intentions here, mainly aimed at how the opioid epidemic can devastate lives. But the story beats are often overwrought amid an aesthetic of heavy-handed grit, while Joris-Peyrafitte mutes any dramatic tension with flashbacks and quick cutaways. And when he does introduce a promising new direction (like a scene-stealing Karin Aldridge as another grief-stricken mother), it is too soon abandoned for the comfort of well-traveled paths.

Take away this cast, and there’s just enough here for a made-for-cable time waster. But some big league talent got The Good Mother bumped up to the big screen, and earning its place there is a mystery the film just can’t figure out.

New In Theaters

Can We Talk About Your Car’s Extended Warranty?

Leave a comment

Retribution

by George Wolf

Retribution marks the third remake of the Spanish thriller El desconocido, just in the 8 years since the original’s release.

What is it about this bandwagon that has made it so tempting to jump aboard?

If the latest version is any indication, it’s most likely the easily digestible stakes amid a standard thriller framework that offers plenty of room for tweaks without altering the chances for purely surface-level satisfaction.

So when you’ve got such a ready-made template for an English language thrill ride, the Neeson hotline is sure to be lighting up.

But this time, Liam plays Matt Turner, a banking executive living in Germany whose particular skills mainly involve ignoring his wife Heather (Embeth Davidtz), son Zach (The Way of Water‘s Jack Champion) and daughter Emily (Lilly Aspell, young Diana from the Wonder Woman films).

Matt picks a bad day to begrudgingly take the kids to school, because a disguised voice calls to tell Matt his car has been rigged with bombs. And the bombs have been rigged with pressure plates under the seats that will trigger those bombs if anyone gets out of the car.

So, what does the caller want? Is it just a ransom demand, or maybe revenge for some bad investment advice that wiped out a client’s life savings?

Shut up and drive!

Director Nimród Antal (Machete, Predators) tries his best to bring some style to the automobile setting, grabbing any opportunity he can for a new POV angle or mirror reflection. His instincts are understandable, but the approach often lands as just showy desperation.

Neeson’s on phone-yelling/time racing cruise control. But, the kids are good and both Matthew Modine and Noma Dumezweni (The Little Mermaid) provide strong support with limited screen time.

No one in the cast is given much chance of character development from Christopher Salmanpour’s script, but you can expect a surprise or two while he makes some promising edits to the original mystery. And though the final showdown does shake off a very Scooby-level unmasking to eventually better El desconocido, any hopes for mining something meaty from this derivative premise are erased when the film all too eagerly reverts to “Liam defends his daughter” factory settings.

Time to put this one in “park,” it’s on E.

Shudder Premiere

Follow You, Follow Me

Leave a comment

Influencer

by George Wolf

It’s taken awhile, but it seems more filmmakers have gotten a grip on how to handle this social media thing. Just last year, B.J. Novak’s Vengeance and Quinn Shephard’s Not Okay found smart and savvy new angles to explore, and now director/co-writer Kurtis David Harder does the same with Influencer.

Harder’s approach leans more Neo-noir thriller, as the cold and calculating CW (Cassandra Naud – outstanding) spins a dangerous web for an unsuspecting social butterfly.

Madison (Emily Tennant) is a media maven who is making sure her followers see nothing but an amazing trip to Thailand. But the real real is lonely and boring, thanks to a boyfriend who bailed on her and no friends in sight. So, Madison is only too happy to chat up fellow traveler CW, and to accept her offer for a tour of the most IG-ready spots around.

But there will be no friend requests, and Madison will be the only one posing. CW has no online presence at all, and in fact seems very insistent on avoiding photographs. Weird, right?

Maybe. Or maybe creepy. Suspicious, even.

Harder and cinematographer David Schuurman create an absolutely gorgeous pot for boiling this mystery. From atop deserted island beaches to below crystal clear waters and inside lavish vacation homes, Harder’s nimble camera and visual aesthetics reinforce the notion that pretty pictures don’t always tell the whole story.

And once Madison’s friend Jessica (Sara Canning) slides into these DMs, events take even more deliciously twisty turns, with CW scrambling to juggle her many different versions of just what Madison is doing and just why she is suddenly such a big part of it.

Naud sells it completely, evolving CW into a compelling combination of chameleon and parasite. She’s an absolutely in-the-moment creature, and Naud crafts the perfect vessel for Harder and co-writer Tesh Guttikonda to upend conventions while they pull at our cultural strands of misinformation, envy and objectification.

You won’t find the satirical humor that both Novak and Shephard wielded so effectively, but Harder’s approach is no less effective. With sharp dialogue, skillful plotting and simmering dread, Influencer is plenty worthy of that “Like” button.

New In Theaters, Slider

The Hills Are Alive

3 Comments

The Devil to Pay

by Hope Madden

I’ve long felt that pre-film text-on-screen quotes are a cinematic crutch, often pretentious musings that rarely capture the essence of the film about to unspool.

Then, over a colorful vista of misty Appalachian mountaintops and plaintive banjo strings I read about the hardy folk populating those peaks, the descendants of criminals and oppressed alike who sought refuge in this inhospitable place.

As shadow creeps across the landscape, the quote:

“They want nothing from you and God help you if you try to interfere.” – 2010 census worker

Welcome to The Devil to Pay, Lane and Ruckus Skye’s lyrical backwoods epic, grounded in a lived-in world most of us never knew existed.

The tale is anchored with a quietly ferocious turn by Danielle Deadwyler (who also produces) as Lemon, a hardscrabble farmer trying to keep things up and wondering where her husband has been these past days.

Deadwyler’s clear-eyed efficiency is matched with the hillbilly condescension of one Tommy Runion (Catherine Dyer, flawless), whose homespun advice and cheer mask a dead-eyed, sadistic sense of right, wrong and entitlement.

One of the most tightly written thrillers in recent memory, The Devil to Pay peoples those hills with true characters, not a forgettable villain or cliched rube among them. The sense of danger is palpable and Deadwyler’s commitment to communicating Lemon’s low-key tenacity is a thing of beauty.

Hell, the whole film is beautiful, Sherman Johnson’s camera catching not just the forbidding nature of Appalachia, but also its lush glory.

Yes, the cult that lives just outside the county line does feel a tad convenient, but again, the Skyes and their outstanding cast carve out memorable, realistic and terrifying characters.

The Devil to Pay remains true to these fascinating souls, reveling in the well-worn but idiosyncratic nature of their individual relationships—a tone matched by sly performances across the board. And just when you think you’ve settled into a scene or a relationship, The Devil to Pay shocks you with a turn of events that is equal parts surprising and inevitable.

It’s a stunning film and a rare gem that treats Appalachians, not as clichés, but certainly not as people to be messed with.

New In Theaters

Dead Air

Leave a comment

On the Line

by George Wolf

About halfway through On the Line, Mel Gibson stops the film’s traffic with a gem of self-awareness.

“What kind of B grade movie bullshit is this?”

Well, “B” grade might be generous, but more of that wink-wink vibe would have been helpful.

Mel is Elvis Cooney, host of an overnight radio talk show in L.A. On one fateful night, a caller reveals that he has broken into Elvis’s home and taken his wife and child hostage. To save their lives, Elvis will have to own up to a few past misdeeds, then play some survival games while trying to piece together clues to the caller’s identity.

Writer/director Romuald Boulanger has a surprise or two in mind, but everything from the film’s forced dialog to the telegraphed shot selection and generic staging screams unsurprising TV drama. Mel and co-star Kevin Dillon ham it up good, while the rest of the ensemble mostly seems self-conscious.

I’ve been lucky enough to work in radio for over thirty years, but there’s no point in nitpicking over the biz details. The bigger problem is that On the Line is a half-hearted mashup of 2 or 3 better films that I won’t mention for fear of spoilers.

But when Elvis’s call screener (Alia Seror-O’Neill) makes a crack about sex with a man his age, you remember the B-movie line and realize this might have been idiotic fun if it just didn’t take itself so seriously.

Now here’s some Supertramp.

New In Theaters

Whack a Mole

Leave a comment

All the Old Knives

by George Wolf

Blending a modern worldview with a slow-burn vibe, All the Old Knives reveals itself as a well-constructed thriller that often recalls those classic espionage yarns from the 70s.

The underrated Chris Pine gives another standout performance as Henry Pelham, a CIA vet who’s directed by his boss (Laurence Fishburne) to reopen a painful case from the past.

Back in 2012, they both were stationed in Vienna when counter-terrorism efforts to thwart a hijacking went tragically wrong. But new information has emerged that suggests the terrorists had help from a fellow agent, so Henry must revisit members of the team – including his old flame Celia (Thandiwe Newton) – to root out the mole.

Based on the best seller by Olen Steinhauer (who also pens the script), the film is admittedly heavy on dialog, but director Janus Metz (Borg vs. McEnroe, True Directive, Armadillo) proves masterfully adept at fleshing out important contrasts in past and present.

His camera remains purposefully static for the modern settings, while a more free-flowing approach to the flashbacks helps to offset all the descriptive recollections by pulling us into crisply detailed reenactments.

The ensemble (which also includes the great Jonathan Pryce) is top notch. Each actor digs in to the intelligent wordplay, picturesque locales and shadows of doubt on the way to crafting complex humans with something to lose.

The third act may bog down just a touch, with a hand that’s tipped perhaps a beat or two early, but none of that keeps the film from sticking its landing. There’s plenty of blame to go around in the often nasty business of global politics, and All the Old Knives makes that history lesson personal.

New In Theaters

Love Is a Battlefield

Leave a comment

Deep Water

by George Wolf

Adrian Lyne hasn’t directed a movie in twenty years. It’s been twice that long since the 1957 source novel by Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley) has been adapted for the big screen.

They’re both back with a new vision for Deep Water, a sometimes frustrating erotic thriller that can never fully capitalize on all of its possibilities to be either erotic or thrilling.

Vic and Melinda Van Allen (Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas) are living a life of luxury in New Orleans with their young daughter Trixie (the incredibly cute Grace Jenkins). Vic developed a computer chip used for drone warfare, so his days of early retirement are mainly filled with watching Melinda openly flaunt her affairs at parties.

When one of Melinda’s past lovers turns up dead, Vic lets her latest boy toy (Brendan Miller) know that he’s the murderer. But Vic is only trying to scare the kid away, right? Neighbor Don (Tracy Letts with another standout supporting turn) is suspicious early on, and when another of Melinda’s lovers (Euphoria‘s Jacob Elordi) drowns at a pool party, plenty of others are looking at Vic as the prime suspect.

Screenwriters Zach Helm and Sam Levinson provide Lyne with undercurrents of subtext that are never fully explored. We assume Vic doesn’t want to subject Trixie or his finances to a messy divorce, but the deeper we dig, it’s clear this marital arrangement is feeding some need for both parties and fostering a concerning worldview for their child. Lyne showcases the aimless privilege of their daily lives to hint at a lesson on the rot of wealth, then pivots, often to Vic’s creepy but uneventful hobby of raising snails.

And though Lyne has made his name on the steamy sexual politics of 9 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction and Unfaithful, there’s more smoke here than fire. And water, water everywhere.

You won’t notice grand chemistry between Affleck and de Armas, which is a credit to both. This is a marriage of psychological warfare, and it is Vic and Melinda’s contrasting plans of attack that keep us invested, especially in the early going. De Armas embodies the cruelly uninhibited as well as Affleck brings the condescending and calculated, which is a major reason the major twist to Highsmith’s original ending works as well as it does.

For these two, it feels right.

But only for a moment, because strangely, Lyne doesn’t let it linger. Instead, he quickly cuts from the credits to a performance from the adorable Jenkins singing along to a cheery pop ditty from the 1970s.

If it’s an attempt at chilling humor, it falls hard, becoming another anchor weighing down Deep Water just when it starts cruising.

New In Theaters

More Geezer, Less Teaser

Leave a comment

Gasoline Alley

by George Wolf

“Hey, Bruce Willis, how many movies do you have coming this year?”

“Yes.”

In the month or so since the last Willis project with writer/director Edward John Drake – American Siege– was released, I’ve learned of the term “Geezer Teaser,” which is a perfect summation of how this genre usually operates. An aging star is featured heavily in the marketing, while their tangential character often just disappears midway through the film due to the star’s 1-day shooting schedule.

The good news for Gasoline Alley is that Willis hangs in ’til the end, and it’s clearly the best of the Willis/Drake collabs.

Luke Wilson joins in this time as well, playing Detective Vargas to Bruno’s Detective Freeman, and these two guys have four big problems. The bodies of four dead hookers have turned up, and a lighter found at the scene leads the two cops to Gasoline Alley, the L.A. tattoo parlor of ex-con Jimmy Jayne (Devon Sawa). Jimmy was also the last person seen with the dead hooker named Star (“If you forget it, just look up”), but do you think Jimmy’s going to sit back and just accept being framed?

Damn right he’s not. He’s going to let Willis and Wilson (Willison!) take some scenes off while he conducts his own investigation, sleuthin’ and shootin’ with an ever-present cigarette dangling perfectly from his steely pout.

Most everything about Drake’s films is varying degrees short of authentic. And though Gasoline Alley shows progress, details such as the set design, score and faux news reports still seem carelessly thrown together, which don’t give the forced noir dramatics much of a chance to cast a spell.

But if you’ve seen all of the Drake/Willis (Drillis!) catalog (and this is number five, with another currently in post-production), Gasoline Alley is a pleasant surprise.

Drake’s script (co-written with Tom Sierchio) has moments of self-aware humor – even poking fun at one of his previous films. And while Willis is again on autopilot, Wilson seems to be enjoying the “no F’s to give” attitude of his character, Sawa is commendably committed and Veep‘s Sufe Bradshaw turns in some fine support.

Is it ridiculous, overwrought and amateurish in spots? Sure, but this one is actually watchable.

Bravo, fellas, keep it up.

New In Theaters, Slider

Downtown, Waiting For You Tonight

Leave a comment

Last Night in Soho

by George Wolf and Hope Madden

A pair of Beats headphones is Last Night in Soho‘s first clue that you’re not where you think you are.

The sights and sounds of young Ellie’s (Thomasin McKenzie) bedroom scream 1960s London. And though that’s where and when she’d really like to be living, Ellie is a modern-day British country girl, brought up by her Grandparents after her mother’s suicide years earlier.

Ellie dreams of a career as a designer, so she’s thrilled by an acceptance letter from the London College of Fashion. But once in the big city, the shy “country mouse” has trouble adjusting to the pace and the pressures of city life.

Her refuge becomes vivid dreams from the swinging 60s era she celebrates, detailed visions that put Ellie alongside Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a young singer looking for fame and fortune among a sea of predatory men.

As Sandie’s trust in nightclub manager Jack (Doctor Who‘s Matt Smith) leads her down a dark and dangerous path, Ellie’s dreams turn truly terrifying. And the deeper Ellie is drawn into Sandie’s world, the more she believes a creepy old dude from her local pub (Terence Stamp) is really present-day Jack, who needs to pay for his past misdeeds with a succession of starstruck London girls.

Director and co-writer Edgar Wright slows his often frantic pace this time, trading those trademark edits for a more languid, appropriately dreamy vibe. His love of color is still front and center, and a giallo pastiche is just one in his Soho arsenal. There’s a time-hopping mystery here, sitting at the center of bloody thrills and a Black Swan-esque exploration of female trauma.

Wright hooks you early with delightful period details and – of course – some effortlessly hip throwback tunes for the soundtrack. His camera is nimble and his faming is precise, often using mirrors to exquisitely blend Ellie’s dreams with Sandie’s past.

McKenzie is doe-eyed perfection as the naive Ellie, an innocent somehow working out her own issues through the tragic past of a kindred spirit. Taylor-Joy is equally wonderful, bringing sad authenticity to Sandie’s quick descent from confident talent to broken soul. Stamp and Smith provide terrific support, eclipsed only by the bullseye casting of Diana Rigg (in her final role) as Ellie’s landlady.

Last Night in Soho is an often glorious mashup of settings and genres, and though you’ll recognize all of them, the package still carries a postmark that’s uniquely Wright’s. Maybe that’s why the resolution lands as curiously rote.

As was the case with the darling zom-rom-com Shaun of the Dead, it seems as if Wright doesn’t have the meanness to make a scary movie. He understands them, clearly, and bends their tropes to his will. Here he pulls apart Hitchcock and Argento to invert the genre’s fetishistic relationship with violence against women. Wright does this with such panache for 2/3 of the film that the final act feels abruptly tidy, too clear a reversal.

Does it spoil the Soho experience? Don’t be silly, baby! This film is a gas, but one that leaves you with with a little reminder that Wright’s most perfectly groovy film is still to come.