Category: Film Review

Director George Gallo has been busy, recently seen on screen in last spring’s “Vanquish,” which also happens to be one of the worst films of the year. Gallo fares a little better with a remake of 1982’s little-seen “The Comeback Trail,” co-scripting (with Josh Posner) a farce about the Hollywood B-movie industry, which is something the helmer knows plenty about. Armed with over 50 producers(!) and a cast of iconic dramatic actors hungry for a paycheck, and Gallo submits his most tolerable endeavor in years. That’s not to suggest “The Comeback Trail” is a good movie, as it repeatedly falls short in the comedy department despite its farcical intent. It’s just not a painful sit, with Gallo generating enough manic energy to keep the feature moving forward with plenty of silly business. It’s not another “Vanquish,” which is as close to praise one can muster for a Gallo endeavor these days. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The musical “Dear Evan Hansen” made its debut in 2015, earning a sizable fanbase and eventual Broadway domination with big-hearted songs from Benji Pasek and Justin Paul (who also achieved success with tunes for “The Greatest Showman”) and a story that took audiences on a ride of emotions, tracking one teen’s mistake as it blossoms into a movement. It was earnest work about a dark subject, but the production managed to become a major event. And with all major events, a film adaptation is inevitable. “Dear Evan Hansen” didn’t wait long for a cinematic adaptation, but time was ticking for star Ben Platt, who won a Tony Award for his performance as a confused teenager in 2017, and returns to the role for director Stephen Chbosky, working hard to recapture the innocence and anxiety that made such a positive impression on theater audiences. He succeeds, giving his all to a picture that doesn’t have answers for most of the questions it poses, but it’s appealingly sincere when it comes to depicting the needs of the adolescent heart. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If you must see one movie this year with a dramatic arc and character redemptions tied completely to the 1982 release of “Rocky III,” well…this is probably your only option. “This Is the Night” is the latest offering from writer/director James DeMonaco, who’s been quite busy in recent years, creating and guiding “The Purge” and its four sequels, highlighting his interest in the crumbling of American society and the financial rewards a big screen franchise delivers. DeMonaco had a career before “The Purge,” but nobody pays much attention to that, and he wants one after the brand name is retired, with “This Is the Night” his attempt to branch out again and tell different stories about human beings, not just masked ghouls. Sticking with the low-budget route to creative control, DeMonaco offers a coming-of-age tale with semi-autobiographical touches, using the fever for all things Rocky Balboa to inspire a period dramedy about conquering fears in the middle of New York hostility. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Ben Whishaw has always been a talented actor in search of interesting roles to play, but in recent years, he’s been enjoying a higher profile due to his lovely voice work as the eponymous bear in the impossibly good “Paddington” series, and he’s brought something unusual to the iconic role of Q in the last two James Bond adventures. He’s a bigger name these days, but Whishaw is still taking risks, and it’s hard to imagine a more polarizing film for 2021 than “Surge.” Screenwriters Rupert Jones, Rita Kalnejais, and Aneil Karia (who also directs) present a grim look at the outbreak of mental illness, tracking one man’s burst of manic behavior as he confronts the dead-end nature of his life. The production isn’t content to stand back and study the sudden decline, electing to get as close as possible to Whishaw without obstructing his mesmerizing performance, creating a suffocating, head-spinning viewing experience that’s kept alive by his commitment to the jagged edges of physical expression. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Two years ago, the French production, “My Son,” finally found its way to a North American release, offering audiences a taut overview of a father slowly driven to extremes when dealing with his child’s disappearance. It was a spare offering of suspense, but highly effective, with director Christian Carion keeping trouble coming for the lead character. A remake arrives with “My Son,” and Carion returns to duty, reworking the original script (co-written with Laure Irrmann) to enhance the thriller aspects of the story, without losing its gut-punch approach. The tale is moved from France to Scotland, and James McAvoy stars as the desperate parent, providing a gripping performance for the helmer, who doesn’t change much when resurrecting “My Son” for an English-language redo, preserving the material’s areas of agony and suspicion with a slightly bigger budget and more concentration on nail-biting elements of discovery. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Starling” is a strange film, and that doesn’t appear to be screenwriter Matt Harris’s intent with the material. He’s out to capture hearts with the project, which investigates emotional wounds caused by tremendous personal loss, examining the power of therapy and self-help during the journey. And yes, it’s also about a territorial bird that drives a woman crazy, threatening her with attacks. Director Theodore Melfi has a distinct tonal challenge with “The Starling,” which explores some of the worst experiences a human being can endure, and it’s also something of a fall-down-go-boom Melissa McCarthy picture. These are polar opposite moods that Melfi fails to blend with care, aiming for a schmaltzy endeavor instead, which weakens the power of profound feelings Harris is trying to identify between comedic detours. Again, it’s all so odd, and it doesn’t come together, but Melfi has a cast willing to work hard to make their moments count, which almost keeps the effort upright. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Screenwriter Chris Sparling has built his career with low-wattage thrillers, making a name for himself with 2010’s “Buried,” which provided a claustrophobic ride with its buried alive concept. He’s also responsible for B-movies such as “ATM” and “Down a Dark Hall,” recently scoring some mainstream success with “Greenland,” finding ways to do a few things differently with the predictability of a disaster film. “Intrusion” finds Sparling back to his low-budget ways, constructing a thriller about a husband and wife and all the problems that arrive after they move into a mansion located in the middle of nowhere. “Intrusion” is basic, pursuing simple thrills and chills while a mild mystery develops, but Sparling tries to give the endeavor some dramatic textures along the way, and director Adam Salky does what he can with style and pace, keeping things passably engaging in this serviceable effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2000, directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato created “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” It was a documentary about the crazy life of Tammy Faye Bakker who, as a child, caught the spirit of Jesus and never looked back, building an empire with her husband, televangelist Jim Bakker. The picture was intended to humanize Tammy Faye, highlighting her determination to do something with her media power while the pair experienced the highs of fame and fortune, and the lows of betrayal and fraud. It was a compelling overview of Tammy Faye without fully identifying her headspace during years of unrepentant greed. The same outcome is found with “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” a dramatic adaption of the documentary written by Abe Sylvia, which also struggles to capture the subject’s core reality. However, while the endeavor is missing necessary sharpness, it does have mighty performances from Andrew Garfield and especially Jessica Chastain, who offers captivating commitment to Tammy Faye’s strange ways, elevating the effort with her sheer enthusiasm for the acting challenge. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

At the age of 91, Clint Eastwood is still trying to do something with his big screen career. He’s always working, last seen helming “Richard Jewell” in 2019, and his 2018, his starring turn in “The Mule” was largely interpreted to be his final role as an actor, making one last appearance in a part that celebrated his tough guy history, conservative politics, and sexual appeal. The movie was a success, but Eastwood apparently wasn’t ready to give up on his thespian dreams, returning with “Cry Macho,” which offers the star a chance to suit up again as an aging cowboy. However, instead of returning to the drug running, posing, and menage a trois of “The Mule,” Eastwood the actor plays a broken man trying to complete a simple mission, while Eastwood the director maintains as low a profile as possible with this vanilla endeavor, which is about a weightless as film as the helmer has ever made. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Sion Sono has generated plenty of conversation and controversy over the course of his career, making features such as “Antiporno,” “The Forest of Love,” and “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?” He’s a filmmaker who loves extremity and idiosyncrasy, building a fanbase that expects the helmer to deliver something wild with his offerings. For his English-language debut, Sono doesn’t throttle his instincts with “Prisoners of the Ghostland,” which strives to be an extended tour of strangeness and ugliness, with the production finding an appropriate leading man in Nicolas Cage. The actor has his moments of delirium, but he makes for a fantastic focal point in a movie that’s not especially invested in structure. Sono makes a beautiful picture with “Prisoners of the Ghostland,” but he keeps the endeavor enigmatic to the end, which doesn’t always balance with the exploitation appearance of the effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After years playing sidekicks, weirdos, and unthreatening “good guy” boyfriends, actor Justin Long decides to make his move behind the camera, offering “Lady of the Manor,” his co-directorial debut, sharing work with his sibling, Christian Long. Using his career experiences, Long (who also co-scripts with his brother) keeps things very vanilla for the picture, which puts in a basic effort to be something of a stoner comedy, but with mystery elements thrown in to form the faint outline of a plot. The Longs are here to screw around, presenting a playful ride of improvisational comedy and vulgarity, and while they don’t deliver much originality, they do have Melanie Lynskey in the leading role, and she treats the acting opportunity with care, supplying a wonderfully daffy turn in a feature that simply doesn’t work without her. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Marianna Palka has made some interesting movies lately, catching attention with efforts such as “Bitch” and “Egg.” They were character-driven tales of troubling behavior and mental strain, executed with sharp writing and performances, while Palka committed in full to a few wilder ideas, making memorable features during her career ascent. The helmer attempts to mount a larger picture with “Collection,” moving from indie film idiosyncrasy to a formulaic drama about financial woes handed to predatory debt collection figures, resulting in all kinds of relationship troubles. While watching “Collection,” one slowly gets the feeling the material (from screenwriter Todd M. Friedman) was meant to be something more expansive and meaningful, making sense of characters and their unexpected connections. Palka gets the endeavor going with engrossing displays of mental illness, but crude editing eventually kills whatever vision she originally had for the material. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Annie Clark is St. Vincent. Or perhaps St. Vincent is Annie Clark. Either way, one woman is a Texan who’s worked for nearly two decades to become a successful musician, while the other is a successful musician who’s worked for two decades to stymie access to her real life, preferring to present herself as an art-rock alien. “The Nowhere Inn” is a fitting tribute to the world of St. Vincent, with the faux documentary never far from strangeness or a bit of inscrutable business, while director Bill Benz attempts to create something of a comedy out of everything. For those unfamiliar with St. Vincent and her wily ways, or for those who wish to learn more about her as a performer and everyday human, “The Nowhere Inn” is going to be a mighty frustrating sit. It’s an elusive endeavor, and not always in the best of ways, but Benz certainly makes a visually compelling feature, and Clark (or is it St. Vincent?) tries to bring her multiple personalities to the big screen, at times making quite an impression with her enigmatic ways. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Emotional wounds from the past are reopened in “Last Night in Rozzie,” which brings viewers to a Boston neighborhood to witness one man’s effort to navigate a tricky situation of trust, managing a friendship that’s been dormant for decades. Screenwriter Ryan McDonough looks to create a character study with the endeavor, which examines dual experiences for most of the players, analyzing lies told to comfort and deceive, and there’s a homecoming aspect to the story to strengthen its unease. “Last Night in Rozzie” is a modest drama, directed by Sean Gannet with care for performances and Bostonian flavors, and it generally connects as something similar to a detective story, portioning out pieces of personal history to give the tale a decent level of dramatic escalation without the satisfaction of a great ending. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

This is why Michael Caine is Michael Caine. The iconic actor remains attentive to the challenges of his vocation, and he works to offer something compelling for “Best Sellers,” which needs all the personality it can get. Caine portrays an aging, reclusive author returning to the grind of book promotion with his much younger publisher, and the role welcomes a basic sense of crusty bitterness to help launch a mild comedy. Caine delivers all this and more in the part, giving director Lina Roessler something to use as she attempts to master the material’s bend from jokiness to sincerity. The journey isn’t quite as compelling as initially hoped for, but there’s Caine, who becomes the highlight of “Best Sellers” due to his excellent casting, providing something emotional to a production that isn’t always sure where it wants to be in terms of tonality. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director James Wan began his career in horror, and while he’s gone on to become an in-demand helmer of blockbuster action films (“Furious 7,” “Aquaman”), he’s never been far from the spooky stuff. “Malignant” is a return to his roots in a way, presenting a wild tale of murder and possible possession with extreme reveals awaiting those with the patience to make it through the endeavor. Its most similar to 2007’s “Dead Silence,” which attempted to be atmospheric, violent, and shocking, coming up short in all three departments. “Malignant” isn’t quite the misfire as the earlier feature, but it shares the same sense of misbegotten lunacy, with Wan aiming for big shocks and prolonged weirdness with the tale, exploring madness in his own special way, which resembles most of his genre output. The effort certainly focuses on craziness, but Wan doesn’t deal with pace and performance with the same concentration. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s been a big summer for assassin movies, with “Gunpowder Milkshake” offered to most audiences and “The Protégé” trying its luck at the box office. “Kate” joins the violent fun with its own take on a troubled character experiencing a complete breakdown of order, forced to fight their way out of various challenges from villainous types using her particular set of skills to cause tremendous bodily harm. Screenwriter Umair Aleem (“Extraction”) aims to lift a few moves from a popular film noir, adding some elements of 1950’s “D.O.A.” into the DNA of the feature, giving the material a ticking clock in a death sentence to help inspire some elevated suspense. For at least two acts, Aleem keeps things relatively simple and brutal, offering star Mary Elizabeth Winstead a chance to showcase her action hero moves, which she does with authority, helping the endeavor reach its potential in the choreography department as the storytelling slowly starts going the wrong way during the climax. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2019, STX Films released “Hustlers,” which was a female-centric tale of criminal acts that was sold to the public as empowerment, offering a gangster feature for a modern audience. It was a huge hit. In 2021, STX Films returns with “Queenpins,” which also explores a criminal enterprise from a female point of view, this time swapping out the world of strippers for couponing fever, with the production also taking it easy on unlawful situations, reimagining them as acts of bravery. Writer/directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly (“Beneath the Harvest Sky”) almost find their way through this maze of hazy morals and personal responsibility, but they’re stuck making a comedy about a situation that’s inherently dramatic. “Queenpins” is also an endeavor of extremes, with the first half of the picture a lively examination of a questionable idea for a financial adventure, while the rest of the effort could qualify as one of the worst movies of the year. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Copshop” is the second directorial outing this year for Joe Carnahan, who provided solid, violent entertainment with “Boss Level,” his homage to video game mayhem and time loop frustration. It was glossy work from the helmer, who’s known for gritter endeavors, but “Boss Level” remained within Carnahan’s control, delivering huge action and snarling masculinity, which is prized most highly by the filmmaker. “Copshop” returns Carnahan to his early creative efforts, presenting a tribute to crime pictures from the 1970s, only it’s sold with more of an interest in extreme violence and chatty participants, while the action rarely steps outside of a single location, keeping things intimate as matters get ugly. The screenplay (credited to Carnahan and Kurt McLeod) is big on character interplay with periodic explosions of savagery, offering a theatrical-style presentation of threats and backstory, creating an absorbing examination of hidden motives in a feature that could use a tighter edit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Small Engine Repair” was originally created for the stage, with playwright Jon Pollono trying to do something with his acting career, creating a meaty role for himself in a story about friendship, masculinity, and guardianship. The production earned awards and accolades, and now Pollono has turned his small play into a film, making his directorial debut with the endeavor. “Small Engine Repair” remains an intimate tale about characters who love to tell stories and interact with a mixture of mischief and malice, and Pollono does a solid job giving it cinematic life, finding a way to make mounting tensions come alive on-screen while still respecting the actor’s showcase atmosphere of the material, where the three leading men are basically handed the picture for 100 minutes, generating tremendous chemistry as the helmer oversees a tale that gradually reaches some dark places. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com