Category: Film Review

“Broken City” starts off with tremendous confidence, establishing a
story that pits corrupt politicians against corrupt cops during an
election season, with the future of New York City at stake. It’s Mark
Wahlberg vs. Russell Crowe in a big screen battle of brawn, with
director Allen Hughes creating an enticing web of lies to examine as the
film unfolds. There’s promise here, and a satisfying opening act. And
then the production begins to break down under the weight of its own
ambition, laboring to make plot points stick and characters significant,
eventually stumbling to a most unsatisfying close. In trying to
super-size its suspenseful interests, “Broken City” becomes a broken
record, hitting formulaic notes of fraud when the script is more
convincing as a visceral study of men behaving badly. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Charlie Sheen hasn’t starred in a motion picture since the 2003 release of “Scary Movie 3,” with years of television and, ahem, other
pursuits taking up his time in the interim. One would think that Sheen
would crave an opportunity to play a character unlike himself, venturing
out in the great creative unknown to embody heroism or villainy, or
perhaps a little bit of both in a wildly taxing film that stretches the
actor to his breaking point. Instead, Sheen drops into “A Glimpse Inside
the Mind of Charles Swan III,” a mildly surreal feature that finds the
chemically obsessed one playing a chemically obsessed one, with a
ferocious womanizing appetite and impish inclinations to spare. It’s not
exactly a bold leap forward for Sheen, but, to his credit, he manages
to survive a highly disorganized effort from fascinating helmer Roman
Coppola. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Michael Haneke has built a career out of punishing cinema,
slyly merging doomsday dramatics with a bleak sense of pace and an
occasional burst of dark humor. Think of “The Piano Teacher,” “Cache,”
and “Funny Games,” all powerful, sinister snippets of human behavior,
but not films that demand a revisit outside of cinema education
purposes. “Amour” is perhaps the least outwardly appealing effort from
Haneke to date, asking viewers to watch a woman slowly succumb to the
horrible effects of a stroke, while her husband carries on almost
helplessly, confronted with the reality of death and separation for the
first time in his life. It’s upsetting material lined with lead by
Haneke, who searches for the meaning of love but can’t help but dwell on
the details of decay. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Factory” finally finds release after an extended period gathering
dust on a shelf. Filmed in 2008, the production emerges from the wilted
imagination of Dark Castle Productions, home base to such features as
the ridiculous “Orphan” and “The Apparition,” one of 2012’s biggest box
office bombs. “The Factory” is their worst effort to date, which I know
isn’t much of a statement, but rarely has an exploitation thriller
repulsed in a manner that seems entirely avoidable. Grotesquely
misguided and conceived, “The Factory” asks viewers to sit patiently
while all manner of ugliness is trotted out for the screen, chasing
horror and procedural trends that are wildly out of date in 2013.
However, its considerable age doesn’t excuse its carelessness and
ugliness, which would’ve registered just as numbingly five years ago. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Sapphires” is such an earnest film with a distinct soulful beat,
it’s easy to forgive its occasional heavy-handed screenwriting and
abysmal third act. For the most part a cheery, pleasingly feisty musical
comedy set during an era of powerhouse pop songs, the feature is almost
too good to be true during the opening hour, delivering broad
audience-pleasing moments while shaping amusing personalities, getting
the movie up to speed with laughs and heavenly tunes. The party doesn’t
carry to the end, but there’s enough gaiety and whirlwind plotting to
sustain an upbeat attitude about the whole endeavor, even when director
Wayne Blair seems utterly determined to exit the effort on a sour note. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m not sure what type of film “Officer Down” wants to be, but it
doesn’t appear particularly successful on any front. Part cop drama,
part whodunit, with a dusting of action dynamics, the picture marches
forward without a game plan, creating a confusing, overly fussed-with
effort that depends on twists to keep the audience invested, only it’s a
stretch to believe that anyone will be at the edge of their seat by the
time the resolution arrives. However, “Officer Down” is surprisingly
settled, eschewing hacky low-budget chaos to attempt a more sensitive
understanding of a troubled mind. It doesn’t quite achieve its plan for a
psychological breakdown, but the effort is appreciated, even in a
feature as messy as this one. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The Wayans Family already had their way with horror film parodies,
having masterminded (or slapped together) 2000’s “Scary Movie” and
2001’s “Scary Movie 2.” Apparently, the lure of slapstick was too great
for star Marlon Wayans, who returns to duty with “A Haunted House,”
which pilfers most of its material from the “Paranormal Activity” series
and last year’s unexpected exorcism smash, “The Devil Inside.” As to be
expected with a Wayans endeavor, the picture is crude, desperate, and
permissive with its actors. What’s surprising here is how lazy “A
Haunted House” is, doing away with the relative polish of “Scary Movie”
to merely stitch together fart jokes and abysmal improvisations,
gradually doing away with any type of connective tissue or, in the final
act, elementary moviemaking coherence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Gangster Squad” shoots itself in the foot right out of the gate by
suggesting the movie is somehow rooted in fact. Sure, there was a mafia
figure known as Mickey Cohen, and yes, he certainly had an interest in
dominating Los Angeles, but the rest of this picture is more cartoon
than history. While adapting a true crime book by author Paul Lieberman,
the production doesn’t know when to stick with the facts or create its
own narrative, fumbling an engaging take on mob warfare and police
desperation by trying to turn it all into a stylized, overly emphatic
actioner, complete with blazing Tommy guns, professional wrestling-style
performances, and a simplified conflict to extract the most machismo.
“Gangster Squad” disappoints in a big bad way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Struck by Lightning” is Chris Colfer’s attempt to wake up his
generation while they passively walk into limited futures. Known for his
work on the television series “Glee,” Colfer is attempting to expand
his interests and employability as the show declines in popularity,
scripting himself a chewy leading role in a story that’s built around a
Big Idea, yet doesn’t have the finesse to leave the crater-sized impact
it’s seeking to create. Instead, the actor/writer/producer cooks up a
host of half-realized ideas, flaccid comedy, and strident melodrama,
looking to serve the goulash as adolescent illumination. It’s not
exactly ambitious, but “Struck by Lightning” is a noble failure, with
individual elements more interesting than the strangled, distracted
whole. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Superheroes have enjoyed a great deal of cinematic success in recent
years, packaged in films blessed with enormous budgets capable of
bringing intricate comic book worlds and high-flying superpowers to
life. “All Superheroes Must Die” elects the opposite route for its
fantasy feel, barely spending any money to detail trouble brewing
between a team of troubled, costumed champions and their nefarious
enemy. Painfully amateurish and poorly scripted, “All Superheroes Must
Die” is a chore to sit through, even at only 75 minutes in length.
Writer/director/producer/star/editor Jason Trost has a germ of an idea
here that’s intriguing, but no coin to bring it to life, keeping his
movie flat, generic looking, and tedious. Who knew masked avengers on a
perilous mission could be so dull? Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Storage 24” is aching to be a gripping monster movie, but it’ll have to
settle with being a merely serviceable one. The picture benefits from
invested filmmaking, with the production working diligently to pull off a
haunted house atmosphere populated with rounded characters, while
unleashing a creature with a horrifying interest in the innards of its
human prey. Certainly enjoyable with a few interesting stalking
sequences, “Storage 24” isn’t remarkable, falling into a few low-budget
traps along the way. It burns through a somewhat predictable routine of
survival instincts, nutty outsiders, and betrayals, while the central
alien antagonist could use 15 more minutes in the CGI oven to firm up
some lackluster details. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Numerous questions are raised after viewing “Texas Chainsaw 3D,” more
than any cash-grab sequel/remake should rightfully leave behind. A
brazenly idiotic production that doesn’t bother make any sense or deal
directly with the screwball timeline it arranges for itself, the picture
is basically a glorified DTV effort that lucked into a January release,
displaying minimal interest in storytelling cohesion, passable
performances, and grim occurrences. The “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”
franchise has seen its fair share of brainless follow-ups and offshoots,
yet this new production takes the cake in terms of absurdity, eagerly
dispatching with coherence to rewire the tale back to its original
elements, once again pitting a maniac with a chainsaw against his
dim-witted, costume-challenged victims. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2009, director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal hit a
career peak with “The Hurt Locker,” a searing exploration of wartime
strain and its addictive residue. The effort collected awards and Oscar
gold, while bringing Bigelow into the big time after years helming cult
hits and ambitious misfires. The pair return to the stress factory of
the Middle East with “Zero Dark Thirty,” this time playing footsie with
authenticity as they focus on the manhunt for Osama bin Laden in the
wake of the 9/11 attacks on American soil. A direct and riveting
procedural picture with a foray into military action, “Zero Dark Thirty”
isolates a fascinating inner drive of revenge to fuel interactions with
international terrorism, maintaining a hauntingly personal perspective
that burns bright while the screenplay spins a sophisticated web of last
names and motivations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Crawlspace” is a good example of a no-budget picture accomplishing
quite a lot with very little. A blend of “Aliens” and “Scanners,” the
feature has confidence and a definite vision for its claustrophobic
scares. Perhaps originality isn’t a top priority for the screenplay, but
director Justin Dix manages to fuse his inspirations and his
aspirations into a tight 80 minute ride of hallucinations and chilling
medical discoveries, feeding genre fans a moderate but effective level
of gore to snack on while the dialogue explores devious manipulations.
At the very least, it provides hope that Dix, making his directorial
debut here, will go on to a career of satisfying shockers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The Tarantino Generation is briefly revived with the release of “Sushi
Girl,” a toe-curlingly violent journey into the black hearts of petty
criminals and their loquacious impulses. Loaded with barbed interplay
and fueled by a mystery of true intention, the movie sustains a certain
anxious rhythm that’s superbly entertaining, eased along by exaggerated
but excited performances from a group of actors who normally get the
shaft when it comes to extended screentime. While it’s nothing
inventive, perhaps a tad too derivative at times, “Sushi Girl” manages
to overcome its limitations with a polished, low-budget style and a
fiery attitude, keeping attention on the argument at hand, while
increasing brutality and a satisfactory ending ease the awareness that
the screenplay, credited to Destin Pfaff and Kern Saxton (who also
directs), is simply walking in the considerable footsteps of other
filmmakers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For the first hour, “The Baytown Outlaws” keeps to a persuasive display
of violence and colorful characters, with co-writer/director Barry
Battles manufacturing a tasty slice of southern-fried grindhouse,
populated with seedy characters and outrageous confrontations. The pace
isn’t kept as the material eventually begs to be taken seriously, which
comes to cripple the entire viewing experience. However, those with a
taste for unsavory events guided by loudmouth participants should be
able to extract some enjoyment out of the determined feature. It’s a
shame Battles loses his nerve in the final act, weirdly assuming viewers
have developed an emotional attachment to material that works best as a
cartoon. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Released during the same period as Gus Van Sant’s “Promised Land” and
its focus on the possible environmental disaster known as fracking, “A
Dark Truth” also explores a little-known area of natural resource woe,
covering the rise of corporations collecting control of water and land
rights in struggling countries. However, instead of a respectful drama
that preaches and teaches, “A Dark Truth” emerges as a political
actioner, with star Andy Garcia spending his screentime wielding a
handgun as his character sets out to expose evil. It’s a smart play to
secure audience attention, but the effort is wasted on a dreary,
formulaic picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I could see “Now is Good” appealing to a certain younger audience. Not
teenagers, but pre-teen girls dreaming of adolescent experiences that
could help to define them, while happily observing a traditional
rebellious attitude. Schmaltz of the highest order, “Now is Good” is
particularly punishing melodrama without a clear understanding of its
message, rewarding awful behavior in an effort to appeal to the only
demographic that will be able to endure it to the end. Surprisingly
harsh when it comes to the dented appeal of its lead character, the
movie is a predictable drag, attempting to cozy up to its young adult
literary origins (adapted from the novel by Jenny Downham) in a
decidedly tuneless fashion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com