Category Archives: Thrillers

THE MOTHER (2023) – Standard Actioner Saved by Strong Mother/Daughter Dynamic

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Just in time for Mother’s Day, it’s THE MOTHER (2023), a new action thriller which just premiered on Netflix that stars Jennifer Lopez as an assassin who also happens to be a mother and who will do anything to protect her 12-year-old daughter from the deadly thugs who are trying to kill her.

Sound familiar?

It should. Because recently there has been a slew of action movies featuring super deadly female assassins, often protecting a child from harm, films like LOU (2022), GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE (2021), and KATE (2021) to name just a few. It’s a formula that’s wearing thin.

THE MOTHER, which is rated R and goes heavy with the violence, gets off to a good start, then sinks into a series of scenes that strain credibility, before eventually getting much better towards the end.

The movie opens with Jennifer Lopez’s character, who remains nameless throughout the movie, being questioned by F.B.I. agents who are trying to get her to give them information about a dangerous criminal, while promising her protection for doing so. She scoffs at this suggestion, saying that no one can protect her, and seconds later she’s proven correct, as snipers and assassins move in to kill her. She fights her way out of it, but the man who wants to kill her, Adrian (Joseph Fiennes) confronts her first, and when he sees that she is pregnant, violently stabs her in the belly. It’s a jarring opening scene.

Of course, she survives, as does the baby; hence, she becomes “the mother.” She agrees to give up her daughter for adoption in order to protect her, since Adrian also survived and is still hell bent on revenge. She disappears into the wilds of Alaska, until twelve years later, she learns that Adrian has discovered the whereabouts of her daughter Zoe (Lucy Paez), who’s now 12. She stakes out Zoe’s new family and watches her daughter, until Adrian makes his move. At that point, she grabs Zoe and takes her to Alaska where she plans to train her to survive, while waiting for Adrian to eventually find her.

THE MOTHER is a standard actioner with not much going for it until assassin mom takes her daughter Zoe to Alaska and trains her, because it’s in these sequences where Jennifer Lopez and young Lucy Paez share some onscreen chemistry, and the film pivots from unbelievable action movie to a somewhat heartfelt drama. Young Paez gives the best performance in the film, hands down. Her expressions, her emotions. She is a twelve-year-old who at first hates this woman who is her real mother and everything she stands for, but her feelings change as they grow close.

It’s also a decent performance by Lopez. Early on, she’s simply the emotionless assassin. Ho hum. But later in the scenes with her daughter Zoe, her character grows, and she becomes more watchable. In terms of believability, while the action scenes themselves strain credibility— every time there’s a fight, all the bad guys fall while Lopez escapes unscathed—, Lopez looks the part, and her performance is believable. She’s lean and mean, and I had no problem she could kick multiple people’s butts at the same time, but the sequences themselves were often over the top.

Joseph Fiennes, a fine actor, doesn’t do a whole lot here as evil bad guy Adrian. He’s not really a memorable villain. And Omari Hardwick has the thankless role of the F.B.I. agent who unlike mommy assassin gets shot, stabbed, and beaten up nearly every action sequence he appears in. It’s almost laughable.

THE MOTHER was directed by Niki Caro. The action sequences are slick and stylish, but the film’s best parts are in its latter half in Alaska, featuring scenes between mother and daughter. This is when the film is at its best. There’s also some neat sequences featuring wolves which factor thematically into the film.

The screenplay by Misha Green, Andrea Berloff, and Peter Craig like the rest of the movie works best when dealing with mother and daughter. The rest is all rather flat and uninspiring, and not very believable. Craig also worked on the screenplays for THE BATMAN (2022), and THE TOWN (2010), one of my favorite movies with Ben Affleck, who directed, who of course is Jennifer Lopez’ husband. Speaking of Affleck, both he and Lopez had movies released on the same weekend, as Affleck’s movie HYPNOTIC (2023) also just came out. I liked THE MOTHER better than HYPNOTIC.

I found the first half of THE MOTHER pretty standard and unimpressive, but it gets better, thanks largely to a neat performance by young Lucy Paez, as she and Jennifer Lopez lift the second half of the film to a much more satisfying final act.

I give it two and a half stars.

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

HYPNOTIC (2023) – Nothing Hypnotic About This Superficial Thriller

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HYPNOTIC (2023) is a new thriller starring Ben Affleck that tries to tell a clever story but instead ends up being superficial and shallow.

It’s also one of those movies where characters speak in terms of exposition. “We had to do this because….” “We had to do that because…” Lots of telling. Not much showing.

HYPNOTIC opens with detective Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) in a therapy session talking about the horrific day his young daughter was abducted from a park playground when he had looked away for only one second. Danny is clearly still a mess, yet at the end of the session, the therapist gives him the green light to return to active duty, which is the first of many instances in this movie where the plot just moves along because it is supposed to, rather than for any believable reasons.

We next find Danny staking out a bank with his fellow detectives because they received a tip the bank would be robbed, and there have been a string of robberies where the only thing stolen has been safe deposit boxes. When Danny observes a strange man (William Fichtner) speaking in code to a woman and then to a couple of guards, Danny wrongly believes they are all working together, and he rushes into the scene. He’s wrong, because the strange man, whose name is Dellrayne, is really hypnotizing these people to do whatever he wants.

When Danny thwarts the person who Dellrayne hypnotized to steal the safe deposit box, he opens it to see a photo of his missing daughter. Perplexed, he confronts Dellrayne, but the mysterious hypnotist escapes. Looking for answers, Danny and his partner Nicks (JD Pardo) track down the person who left the anonymous tip about the bank robbery, a woman named Diana (Alice Braga) who also happens to possess hypnotic abilities.

And it’s here where the dialogue in HYPNOTIC becomes bogged down in exposition. Diana explains who Dellrayne is and what he is up to, and since he wants the safety deposit box which Danny prevented him from stealing, he will be coming for it, which suits Danny just fine, since he wants to find his missing daughter. So many questions, so few answers. Honestly, at this point in the movie, the story is somewhat intriguing, as the mystery of why a picture of Danny’s daughter was inside a safety deposit box, and why Dellrayne wants that picture is a mildly interesting one.

HYPNOTIC then tries to go full blown “out there” and become a sort of poor man’s INCEPTION (2010), with equal parts TOTAL RECALL (1990) but it’s just not ambitious enough to pull this off successfully. There are lots of twists and turns and false memories and the like, but everything that happens in this movie is quick and superficial. It all fits neatly into its brief 90-minute running time, which sadly, might be the best part of this movie, that it doesn’t go on for too long! While I appreciated its briskness, it doesn’t take full advantage of this brevity by providing a lean mean story; instead, its plot is threadbare and summarized.

HYPNOTIC was written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, whose work I usually enjoy. Not so much this time around. My favorite Robert Rodriguez film is one of his earliest, the now classic vampire flick FROM DUSK TO DAWN (1996) which starred George Clooney, and he also helmed both the SIN CITY and MACHETE movies. Most recently he’s been directing episodes of THE MANDALORIAN (2020) and THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT (2021) TV series.

His work is usually slick, polished, and energetic, which is the case here with HYPNOTIC, but the problem is the story doesn’t hold up. Rodriguez’s screenplay rushes through nearly every story element here, and none of the characters are all that interesting. For a movie with a somewhat intriguing premise, I found this one all rather dull.

Likewise, I usually enjoy Ben Affleck. He just turned in a solid performance in a supporting role in the recent movie AIR (2023), which he directed, and which also just premiered for free on Prime Video this weekend. About the only time I haven’t really enjoyed Affleck was when he played Batman, and unfortunately, he kinda seems like Batman here only without the costume. He’s dark and grumpy, as he plays detective Danny Rourke as one dreadfully gloomy character, but without any real angst. He just looks serious and delivers somber lines, acting tough as if he were an indestructible superhero, a la Batman. Which is another knock on the screenplay. The dialogue is awful.

I also usually like William Fichtner, as he has stood out in movies like DRIVE ANGRY (2011) and THE DARK KNIGHT (2008), but he’s dull here as well as hypnotic villain Dellrayne. Like the other characters in the movie, he talks about what he just did, and what he is going to do, rather than actually doing anything. Ditto for Alice Braga as Diana.

Jackie Earle Haley shows up for one brief scene, basically a cameo, and it’s too bad he’s not in this one more, because in his few minutes of screen time, he delivers the best performance in the movie.

HYPNOTIC offers an intriguing mystery but drops the ball when telling a story about it. The characters are flat, the dialogue superficial, and the story, while it tries to go the route of a mind-boggling science fiction thriller, instead plods along a pedestrian path of unremarkable exposition.

I give it one and a half stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

AKA (2023) – New Actioner from France Will No Doubt Satisfy Action Movie Fans

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If you like action movies, chances are you’re going to love AKA (2023), a new action thriller from France which premiered on Netflix this weekend.

I gotta say, one of my favorite parts about Netflix these days is their promotion of international films. There are a lot of movies premiering on the streaming service that aren’t available at theaters, and in recent months they have showcased some outstanding movies from countries like Thailand, South Korea, and Norway, to cite just a few.

Their latest is AKA, an action flick from France about a special ops agent named Adam (Alban Lenoir) who is called in to infiltrate a mobster’s organization in order to learn the whereabouts of a terrorist in hiding who is intent on wreaking havoc in France. The terrorist is friends with the mobster, and the French government knows the mobster is hiding him. Adam’s mission is to find the terrorist and eliminate him.

Adam is reminiscent of Jason Bourne, only without the memory loss. He’s a killing machine, and it doesn’t take him long to win over the mobster, Victor Pastore (Eric Cantona) and be invited to join his security team. Adam also connects with Victor’s young son, who looks up to Adam, and Adam is sympathetic to children because as a youth some horrible things happened to his brother, and Adam murdered the man responsible, an event which led to Adam being recruited by the French government at a very young age.

The story told in AKA is really secondary. Adam’s search for the terrorist is mildly interesting, and towards the end, there is one twist too many, but none of this affects the quality of the movie all that much, because what makes this one so entertaining are its action scenes.

The movie opens in dramatic fashion as we see Adam single-handedly “rescue” a female hostage in the middle east, taking out an army of guards, but rather than free her, he shoots her dead. He’s a cold-blooded killer and pretty much unstoppable. He’s also a good guy, and as the movie goes along his loyalties are aimed more towards good people than his superiors. The action sequences are second to none, and well done by director Morgan S. Dalibert.

Alban Lenoir is quite good in the lead as Adam, the unstoppable assassin. He’s got a quiet Arnold Schwarzenegger vibe going throughout. He’s in most of the movie, and he is able to drive this one along. Lenoir also reminded me a little bit of Alan Ritchson, who plays Jack Reacher on the excellent TV show REACHER (2022). He effortlessly makes Adam a larger-than-life action hero.

The entire cast in this one is commendable, and there are fine performances by everyone involved.

Lenoir also co-wrote the screenplay with director Morgan S. Dalibert. As I said, the story told in this one plays second fiddle to the action sequences, but it’s still a decent story which held my interest throughout. The dialogue is strong, the characters well-defined, and other than a “one-twist-too many” ending which falls into the government is really a bunch of crooked bastards category, it’s a good script. It supports the action well.

As a result, I had fun with AKA, and I give it an enthusiastic three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

HUNGER (2023) – Mouth-Watering Thriller Will Have You Hungry For More

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Are you hungry?’

For success? Food? Power? What is it you hunger for? And how far do you go to get it?

These are the questions that are asked in HUNGER (2023), a new movie from Thailand which is now available on Netflix.

HUNGER is the story of Aoy (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying) who works incredibly hard as a fry chef for her dad’s restaurant, and when she’s not working, she laments with her friends over how difficult it is to get ahead in life. One day, a young man named Tone (Gunn Svasti Na Ayudhya) notices her at work and hands her a business card, telling her she’s too good to be working there. The card is an invitation for her to interview with the famous Chef Paul (Nopachai Chaiyanam), the most famous chef in the land.

Aoy auditions for Chef Paul and makes the cut to join his team as a fry chef. As she finds out, Chef Paul is extremely demanding, and he reduces her to tears with his intense demeanor, but Aoy refuses to give up. Chef Paul cooks for the super wealthy and is a showman as well as a chef, as the meals his team prepares are as much works of art as they are meals.

As Aoy works her way up, she is noticed by an entrepreneur who wants her to become the next Chef Paul and open her own top of the line restaurant. Aoy accepts his offer, and the second half of the movie positions Aoy against both her former mentor, Chef Paul, and her own conscience, as back home her father is ill and in need of her help, yet she has no plans to return home to assist her family, because she hungers for success and will do whatever it takes to get it.

I absolutely loved HUNGER. There is so much going on in this movie. It covers a wide array of themes and does a fantastic job with all of them.

At first, it’s easy to think of HUNGER as a variation of THE MENU (2022), a terrific movie which starred Ralph Fiennes as a master chef who also cooked for the super wealthy and who also was demanding and turned his meals into artistic performances. But other than this obvious comparison, they are completely different movies. THE MENU went down the path of melodrama and horror movie thriller, while HUNGER in spite of becoming quite thrilling remains a genuine drama.

And HUNGER is quite thrilling. Director Sitisiri Mongkolsiri imbues this one with lots of energy. It is intense from beginning to end.

As I said, it covers a wide range of themes. The obvious theme is one’s hunger for success, as Aoy is driven to be the best chef she can be. She tolerates Chef Paul because she knows she has a lot to learn from him. She ignores her family back home because she sees them as a distraction. Yet, the film has a lot to say about the price one pays for success as well. By film’s end, Aoy is doing a lot of soul searching and makes a thoughtful decision about what is most important to her in life. And it’s not blind success.

There’s the theme of the haves and have nots. Chef Paul cooks for the super-rich, and we see these people consuming ridiculous amounts of food, and the scenes where they feast and eat are shot in extreme close-ups that are all rather disgusting. They often resemble wild animals sloppily devouring their prey, even though they are all surrounded by opulence. Both Chef Paul and Aoy grew up poor, and Chef Paul is driven by an almost insane desire to make these people hunger for him. In effect, he’s making them give him all their money by providing them with food that he can create like no other, but he’s not doing it out of a love for food, but out of hate for his clients.

HUNGER is also about power, and the abuse of that power. Chef Paul is quite abusive to his staff, and as Aoy starts her own restaurant, she inherits some of Chef Paul’s dictatorial tendencies, which don’t always sit well with her.

HUNGER also does a terrific job with its food preparation scenes. This is one area where HUNGER is superior to THE MENU, as HUNGER does a much better job with its food scenes. This movie will make you hungry.

Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying is superb as Aoy. It’s a driven, intense performance that makes you want to join her on her journey and see her reach the success that she so desperately wants.

Likewise, Nopachai Chaiyanam is equally as fervid as Chef Paul, and the scenes towards the end of the movie where the two characters square off against each other at a lavish party where they are competing for the top chef honor are as exciting as you will find in any movie.

The screenplay by Kongdej Jaturanrasamee is superb. It tells an exciting story, creates memorable characters, and has so much to say about what drives people to succeed, while making some social commentary about the rich and the poor.

I loved HUNGER. Everything about it works.

It doesn’t just satisfy. It will also have you hungry for more.

I give it four stars.

—END–

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

LEADING LADIES: MIA GOTH

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Welcome back to LEADING LADIES, the column where we look at the careers of actresses in the movies, especially horror movies.

Usually, this column is a retrospective of actresses from the past and serves as a look back at their remarkable careers, but today we’re doing something different, as up today on LEADING LADIES it’s Mia Goth.

Goth is just starting her career, and she is enjoying enormous success, and since she is so young, just 29, I’m surmising that in the future there will be lots of updates to this column as her career continues. My favorite part of Goth’s roles thus far is that while she has appeared in numerous horror movies, she’s no scream queen. She’s usually the person causing the screaming!

So, let’s get started. Here’s a partial look at Mia Goth’s young career so far:

THE SURVIVALIST (2015)- Milja- Mia Goth’s first screen credit is in this thriller about a man who lives off the grid whose farm is discovered by a mother and a daughter, and what happens when he strikes a deal with them to live on his property.

A CURE FOR WELLNESS (2016) – Hannah- this is the first movie in which I saw Mia Goth, a superior horror movie by writer/director Gore Verbinski about a wellness center that isn’t quite what it seems. Jason Isaacs plays the creepy doctor, while Goth plays a mysterious woman who resides there. Goth is terrific in the role and made an immediate impression, as she was one of the best parts of this film, which had the look and feel of a classic Hammer horror movie.

SUSPIRIA (2018) – Sara – supporting role in this remake of the horror classic. Also starring Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, and Chloe Grace Moretz.

EMMA (2020) – Harriet Smith- another supporting role in this version of the Jane Austen novel, starring Anya Taylor-Joy in the title role of Emma, and Bill Nighy. This was the last film I saw at the movie theaters before Covid shut everything down in March 2020. I found this one to be somewhat of a misfire, but Goth is very good in the film.

X (2022) – Maxine/Pearl – horror movie by writer/director Ti West features some of Goth’s best work as she plays dual roles here. The film is about a group of filmmakers in the 1970s who set out to make a porn film on a farm, but once the elderly farmers discover what they are doing, they become unhinged and react very badly as X becomes quite the bloody and violent horror movie. Goth plays two roles, Maxine, the young star who wants to make a porn film as a first step to becoming a famous actress, and Pearl, the elderly woman who owns the farm and who goes full blown Norman Bates in the film’s second half. One of the best horror movies from 2022, and Mia Goth is a major reason why.

PEARL (2022) – Pearl – Mia Goth reprises the role of Pearl in this Ti West prequel to X, in which we learn Pearl’s back story. I enjoyed X more than PEARL, but Mia Goth is once again tremendous and fascinating.

INFINITY POOL (2023) – Gabi – another fabulous performance by Mia Goth in another terrific horror movie, this one by writer/director Brandon Cronenberg, David Cronenberg’s son. Alexander Skarsgard plays a struggling novelist who vacations on a remote island with his wife hoping to beat back his writer’s block. There, he meets a young woman, Gabi, played by Mia Goth, who with her husband invites James the author and his wife out to dinner, claiming to be a fan of his work. As they get to know each other, Gabi leads James on a horrific odyssey that leads to violence, murder, and depravity. And if that’s not enough, she seduces him as well.

Next up for Mia Goth is the final installment of Ti West’s X trilogy, MAXXXINE, in which Goth will once again play Maxine in a story that will take place after the events in X. I can’t wait!

In such a short time, Mia Goth has become one of the most dynamic actresses working in horror movies today.

That’s it for now. Thanks for joining me for this edition of LEADING LADIES. Join me next time when we look at the career of another leading lady in the movies.

As always, thanks for reading!

— Michael

KILL BOKSOON (2023) – Korean Action Thriller Stylish but Stale

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KILL BOKSOON (2023) is a new action thriller from South Korea about a single mom who also happens to be an assassin.

Premiering on Netflix this weekend, KILL BOKSOON tells the story of Gil Bok-soon (Jeon Do-yeon), a single mom who’s finding that raising a teenage daughter on her own is more challenging than killing people. The movie opens with a very stylish sequence on a bridge where Gil engages with a ninja, at first granting the man’s request that they fight to the death, but when she realizes she can’t defeat him, she simply shoots him dead. Gil always gets the job done.

She works for a company with very strict rules regarding assassinations, but she is able to push the boundaries because the man who runs the company has long admired her. When she’s not assassinating people, she’s trying to raise her teen daughter, who is giving her all she can handle and then some. But the main plot of this one is mostly concerned with the assassination firm for which Gil works, and when Gil goes too far and breaks a major rule, she finds herself at odds with her employers and has to fight for her life when the company decides she is no longer an asset.

KILL BOKSOON was written and directed by Sung-hyun Byun. The script maintains a very serious tone throughout and doesn’t go the route of high camp, which I found surprising because the movie opens with a rather campy fight sequence between Gil and the ninja. But KILL BOKSOON is not BULLET TRAIN (2022), the Brad Pitt actioner in which the assassins in that film seemed to be having more fun than kids at Disneyland. I wasn’t the biggest fan of BULLET TRAIN, so at first, I was grateful for the serious demeanor in KILL BOKSOON, but as the movie went on, and at two hours and seventeen minutes, it does go on, the film becomes weighed down by its seriousness.

Honestly, the whole plot about the assassination company I found boring and very superficial. I didn’t care about their rules or how they trained young assassins. A huge chunk of the movie is about these things. Gil Bok-soon is a really interesting character, and while the movie does focus on her, somehow, she still doesn’t have enough to do. The main plot doesn’t really give her an exciting conflict.

Jeon Do-yeon is terrific as Gil Bok-soon, and she’s equally at home playing the exhausted single mom and the bad-ass never-loses hired killer. She’s the best part of KILL BOKSOON, although the rest of the cast is also very good.

Director Sung-hyun Byun handles the many action sequences with precision. The fight choreography is impressive, but on the other hand, there’s nothing in this movie’s action sequences that we haven’t seen before. The opening fight scene may have been my favorite. At one point in this sequence, Byun shoots the action through the windows of a passing train for a neat effect.

But the screenplay was merely meh. While the acting is solid, the characters other than Gil and her daughter, are all rather dull and forgettable. There isn’t much of a plot, and sadly, after creating a cool character like Gil Bok-soon, Byun forgot to include a credible threat for her to face. The main threat, which turns out to be her boss, wasn’t exciting, and events leading up to the film’s conclusion simply weren’t that suspenseful.

I enjoyed the action scenes in KILL BOKSOON, and I really enjoyed Jeon Do-yeon’s performance as Gil, but the movie as a whole with its stale stoic plot about an assassination firm with rules and an honor code did very little for me.

As a result, I give KILL BOKSOON two stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

LUTHER: THE FALLEN SUN (2023) – Intense, Worthy Follow-Up to Superb LUTHER Television Series

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As a fan of both the TV show LUTHER (2010-2019) and of Idris Elba, I was excited to watch LUTHER: THE FALLEN SUN (2023), a new Netflix original movie and follow-up to the TV series.

I was not disappointed.

Sure, the movie isn’t perfect, but there is a lot to like about LUTHER: THE FALLEN SUN, especially for Idris Elba fans.

The plot is pretty straightforward. When a young man disappears under mysterious circumstances, DCI John Luther (Idris Elba) promises the man’s mother that he will bring her son back to him, but serial killer David Robey (Andy Serkis, in a deliciously over-the-top performance) has other ideas. Robey is more than just a serial killer. He’s also a master of technology and uses this mastery to find compromising material on seemingly anyone he wants, as there is so much information available out there in the cloud. He uses this information to blackmail people into doing what he wants, in this case making sure that John Luther is taken off the streets, which isn’t difficult because Luther has always been a problematic detective, often taking the law into his own hands to solve crimes. This time with Robey pulling the strings, the law strikes back, and Luther is arrested and sent to prison.

But Robey being the showman that he is, doesn’t leave Luther alone and sends him a recording of the young man’s death to taunt the detective. Not a bright move, Mr. Serial Killer, because Luther decides that he has to break out of prison and track down this man on his own, which is exactly what he does.

The rest of the movie follows Luther as he not only tries to track down Robey but also has to evade the police who are aggressively hunting him down, led by DCI Odette Raine (Cynthia Erivo). Along the way, Luther turns to his old boss, the retired Martin Schenk (Dermot Crowley) for help. As Luther closes in on Robey, the depths of the serial killer’s plans become known and the stakes rise as Raine’s daughter is also kidnapped.

LUTHER: THE FALLEN SUN gets off to somewhat of a rocky start, as the plot point of Luther going to prison is sloppily and quickly told with very little detail provided. Robey tells his police contact he wants Luther taken care of, and the next thing you know the detective is in prison. I also thought this was largely a wasted plot point. Andy Serkis creates such a despicable character in David Robey, that a straight story pitting Luther against him would have worked for me just fine. I know having Luther break out of prison adds the additional story element of Luther also evading the police, but this didn’t really add all that much to the story. The most interesting part of the plot is having Luther take on Robey.

Plus, Luther’s escape from prison is also quickly handled. And neither of these plot points, Luther going to prison and then easily escaping, are all that believable.

However, once Luther is out of prison, the film takes off and just gets better and better. It’s anchored by two solid performances, by Idris Elba and Andy Serkis, and it has a very exciting story.

What’s fun about Idris Elba’s performance as John Luther, both in the TV series and here in this movie, is that he plays Luther as a guy who has no qualms about breaking the law to get the job done, but he is not a ruffian. He’s a sincere, soft-spoken man who is able to reach people and earn their trust. Of course, his strength, and the center of his brilliance as a detective, is he possesses the ability to see people, to read them, to know their intentions. But when it comes to hunting down criminals, he’s ruthless. It’s an interesting dynamic for a character, and Elba nails it.

Elba is also still very convincing as a tough guy cop who can fight and take down multiple threats at a time.

Andy Serkis has a field day as serial killer David Robey. It’s an over-the-top performance, the type where he makes Robey love what he is doing, and he takes great delight in hurting people. It ends up being an immensely disturbing performance, one where you will be rooting for Luther to hunt down and stop this guy. Serkis, who’s most famous for his motion capture roles, from Gollum in THE LORD OF THE RINGS movies, and Caesar in the PLANET OF THE APES reboots, has also been in a ton of other movies and seems to show up everywhere these days, from the STAR WARS TV show ANDOR (2022) to playing Alfred in THE BATMAN (2022). He’s been in the STAR WARS movies and in the Marvel superhero films, but seldom has he played a character as abhorrent as David Robey. In addition to Idris Elba’s performance, Serkis’ work here is also a major reason to see this movie.

Cynthia Erivo is also very good as DCI Odette Raine, who finds herself tasked with the double whammy of having to track down both Luther and Robey, and in Luther’s case, knowing that by stopping him she may be losing her best chance to catch Robey.

I liked Dermot Crowley when he played Martin Schenk on the show, and he is just as good here in the movie, enjoying a lot of memorable scenes. He makes no secret to either side about what he is doing. Luther knows that Schenk is also helping Raine, and Raine knows that Schenk is also helping Luther. It’s a really interesting dynamic that these three characters share in this movie, and Crowley has fun playing this sly, wise, and ultimately very important character. Crowley is a veteran character actor who has also been notable in such films as THE WONDER (2022) and THE DEATH OF STALIN (2017).

With the exception of the plot point of sending Luther to prison and then having him escape from prison, I really enjoyed the screenplay by Neil Cross, who created the LUTHER TV series. As I said, he makes Robey such a horrifying character that you just can’t wait for Luther to catch him, and he’s so formidable that you’re not even sure that will happen. There are some truly dark and horrifying scenes in LUTHER: THE FALLEN SUN, from the way Robey taunts his victims’ families to a very unsettling sequence in Piccadilly Circus. It definitely earns its R rating. And it doesn’t rely on a lot of CGI blood and guts, which often look fake and detract from the horror. Instead, it relies on emotions and watching people react to the horrors, which is very effective.

There are also a couple of very exciting and intense chase sequences, some notable fight scenes, and lots of tension and drama. Director Jamie Payne handles all of it well.

And Robey’s master plan is quite disturbing and sadly, incredibly realistic. It’s not difficult to believe something like this really happening in this day and age of people’s access to technology and willingness to spend money to watch what Robey was offering. The ending also really works. It’s been a while since I’ve been on the edge of my seat as much as I was during the final reel of this one. Intense stuff!

I really enjoyed LUTHER: THE FALLEN SUN. It’s a worthy follow-up to the successful LUTHER TV show, and yet another showcase of the talents of Idris Elba, with fine supporting work by Andy Serkis as one very despicable villain.

I give it an enthusiastic three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

THE STRAYS (2023) – Underwhelming Thriller’s Unusual Premise Only Takes It So Far

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THE STRAYS (2023), a new thriller now available on Netflix, has as its greatest strength an unusual premise, one that held my interest for two thirds of the way through the movie, but where it ultimately goes with its plot is a major disappointment.

The story told in THE STRAYS can be separated into three parts.

In the first part, we meet Neve (Ashley Madekwe), a Black woman who is so overwhelmed by her family life, two young children and an abusive husband, that she just up and leaves. The story finds her years later with a new family, a white husband Ian (Justin Salinger) and two teenage children, Sebastian (Samuel Paul Small) and Mary (Maria Almeida). They are an affluent family, and so unlike her previous life, Neve is doing quite well, and she has a good job at the private school her children attend. Neve works hard to put her past behind her, including seemingly disowning her blackness, as she tries exceedingly hard to fit into the white culture found in her wealthy British neighborhood.

Life is good for Neve, until she spies two strangers watching her at various times in the day, and these same strangers also take an interest in her children. At this point, the film takes on a creepy vibe and begins to work more as a thriller than a drama. Once these strangers identify themselves, the film reveals their backstories, and it’s here where the vibe of the movie changes yet again, and honestly where it becomes most intriguing. Amid the revelations made about these two characters, the story is set to go to some very dark and sad places, and the potential is ripe for some serious drama.

Which brings us to the third part of the movie, and by far, the weakest part, because it’s here where THE STRAYS goes full blown thriller, which doesn’t really work. The movie offers a thought-provoking premise but then resolves everything in the final reel in the least thought-provoking way. On one level, it makes sense for these two characters to act this way, because they are acting out of raw emotion, but there were so many more impactful ways this story could have gone, so many other conversations and situations. But the film settles for the easiest way out.

And the ending is both predictable and a letdown. Because really, the conflict presented here is not really resolved.

THE STRAYS was written and directed by first-time director Nathaniel Martello-White, and what he is saying in this movie almost works. The undercurrent in this story is the disowning of one’s race and culture, as Neve buries her past and focuses only on fitting into the new white culture she has married into. The story also examines the fallout such a choice has on the people left behind. I liked all of these aspects of the story, but the third act doesn’t handle the material satisfactorily, and settles for a straight-forward violent conclusion.

The acting is all fine. Ashely Madekwe is superb in the lead role as Neve. She captures the duality of the character, and she possesses the ability to turn facets of her personality on and off at will. She also gets one of the best lines in the movie, where she is explaining what she did, leaving her family behind, and she asks why she should be held accountable when it is something that men do all the time and society accepts it. And early on before leaving her first family, she laments that this wasn’t how she expected her life to go, that she worked hard and did all the right things, and she didn’t deserve this. She is told to be patient. Instead, she shakes her head and leaves. Madekwe gets many powerful scenes and handles them all well.

The first two thirds of THE STRAYS are compelling, but the final act is a letdown.

I give this underwhelming thriller two stars.

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

INFINITY POOL (2023) – Mia Goth Best Part of New Horror Movie by Writer/Director Brandon Cronenberg

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INFINITY POOL (2023), the new horror movie from writer/director Brandon Cronenberg, the son of David Cronenberg, is reminiscent of the works of the elder Cronenberg. It feels like a movie written and directed by David Cronenberg.

It’s a disturbing horror movie, the type that will have you feeling uncomfortable and on edge throughout. So, for my horror friends who hold this criterion as the gold standard for horror movies, they will no doubt really enjoy INFINITY POOL. While I’m totally okay with a movie that is disturbing, I am a story guy, and so if a film struggles with its story, usually it’s not going to work for me. The story told in INFINITY POOL is intriguing to be sure, at least at first, but as it goes along, it becomes far less interesting.

The main reason I wanted to see INFINITY POOL wasn’t because of Brandon Cronenberg, but because the film starred Mia Goth, one of my favorite actresses working today, especially actresses in horror movies. Goth has made her mark in such horror films as A CURE FOR WELLNESS (2016), X (2022), and its prequel PEARL (2022). While the story in INFINITY POOL may not have completely worked for me, Mia Goth is once again phenomenal in this movie. The best part about Goth in these horror films is that she’s no scream queen. She’s the one making others scream. Which is really, really cool. And scary!

INFINITY POOL with its ability to disturb and disgust also reminded me a little bit of the movie MIDSOMMAR (2019), in that it tells a story about people dealing with horrors in a foreign land with people they don’t quite understand, and that it’s a slow burn of a descent for the main character. I enjoyed MIDSOMMAR more, as it had a tighter story, but the two films share a similar vibe, even though INFINITY POOL is less of a slow burn and more of a methodical journey into pain and despair.

In INFINITY POOL, struggling author James Foster (Alexander Skarsgard) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are vacationing on a faraway island in the hopes that the time away will help James beat back his writer’s block. While there, James is approached by a young woman, Gabi (Mia Goth) who introduces herself as a fan of his first book. She invites James and Em to join her and her husband, Alban (Jalil Lespert) for dinner that evening. Dinner goes well, and Gabi and Alban next invite James and Em to join them for a ride to a secluded spot on the island. This is problematic because the island is extremely dangerous with a high crime rate against tourists, and so the resort forbids its guests to leave the premises. Em wants no part of this excursion, but James says he trusts the couple and convinces Em to take the trip.

Should have listened to your wife, James.

On the drive back, with James behind the wheel, they inadvertently strike and kill a man crossing the road. Em wants to call the police, but Gabi warns them that the police are corrupt, and if the law is called, the four of them will be arrested, the women raped, and they all will die. Gabi tells them to get back inside the car and that she and Alban will deal with everything in the morning. This plot point reminded me of a similar one in the movie THE FORGIVEN (2021), a much better movie by the way, where the same thing happens to characters played by Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain. The events in THE FORGIVEN took a much more realistic and believable path than the one taken here in INFINITY POOL.

Anyway, the next day James and Em are arrested and separated in a police jail. James is informed that the penalty for what he did is death, but…and here comes the big plot point— the government on the island isn’t interested in executing tourists, but to keep the locals in line, the perception of the execution must be kept. So… on this island they have perfected the ability to create “imposters,” beings who look exactly like the convicted criminal, and then that person is executed. All of this of course comes at a high monetary cost, which is why the government does it. And one more thing. James and Em must watch the execution. Of course, panicked, alone, and afraid, James agrees.

After the execution, Em wants to leave the island as quickly as possible, but James can’t find his passport, and Gabi explains that if James joins her and her friends again, they will help him find his passport, which they believe the police have taken. James agrees.

So far, the plot has been genuinely intriguing, and it’s around this point that James learns from Gabi and her friends that they are free to do whatever they want on the island, commit whatever crime, regardless of how violent, because they know they will not be executed. As long as they have money to pay the government, they are home free. Someone else will be executed instead… hence, the infinity pool. And it’s here where the film sort of becomes a GROUNDHOG DAY for horror movies.

It’s also here where I started to lose interest. When Em learns about this, she is horrified, but strangely, James is not. The point here that the film seems to be making is that James would rather be with Gabi and her friends than his wife, who the film implies is kinda part of the reason he’s experiencing writer’s block. This decision is all well and good for James, but as things continue, I cared less and less about the character. I stopped being interested in going along for the ride with him, mostly because each crime leads to more pain and horror at his expense at the hands of Gabi and her friends. The story just becomes an exercise in how much misery can one man take yet still somehow be open for more of the same.

There’s one point where the question is raised about the possibility that the imposter replaces the original person, and it’s the original person who is executed, because the imposter also receives the original person’s memories. But as one character points out, since you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, why does it even matter? This compelling plot point is touched upon only briefly and then sadly dismissed outright.

The result is that the second half of INFINITY POOL is much less compelling than its first half.

The best part of INFINITY POOL is for me Mia Goth. She’s terrific once again, and she makes Gabi quite the frightening woman. Gabi is the scariest part of this movie, mostly because she is a temptress, possessing the ability to convince James to trust her and pretty much do anything she wants him to do, and all of it is for her own satisfaction, with nothing at all to benefit him.

Alexander Skarsgard is also very good as James, although it ends up being a rather thankless role. The character becomes little more than a punching bag for Gabi and her buddies. He’s beaten to a pulp both literally and figuratively by film’s end. Which is another reason the second half of the film didn’t work as well for me. It was no fun watching a character get beat upon relentlessly and repeatedly. Even the fact that James chooses this fate doesn’t help. He purposely chooses to distance himself from his wife, which I get, but on the flip side, to keep agreeing with what Gabi was offering was frustrating to watch.

I can’t say I was a huge fan of the script by Brandon Cronenberg. It takes a rather clever concept and by film’s end doesn’t do a whole lot with it other than put its main character through hell. Cronenberg scores higher here as a director. The film works visually. Early on, you really get the feeling that these folks are in jeopardy in a foreign land. The sense of isolation, especially during the early scenes in the police jail, is palpable.

Later, when things get trippy, when Gabi introduces James to some island drugs, the film becomes appropriately dreamlike and nightmarish. There’s one sensual sequence in particular that is very effective, where Gabi and James start kissing, and an entire orgy seems to follow although one can’t quite tell what is real and what is imagined. Visually, I really enjoyed INFINITY POOL. The movie also scores highly for its ability to instill a sense of dread, foreboding, and disgust to its viewers. But its story doesn’t hold up all that well, nor does it go in a direction which takes full advantage of the possibilities it offers at the beginning.

INFINITY POOL for me therefore is a mixed bag.

I give it two and a half stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars- Excellent

Three stars- Very Good

Two stars- Fair

One star- Poor

Zero Stars- Awful

KNOCK AT THE CABIN (2023) – M. Night Shyamalan’s Latest Intriguing but Not Intense

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Acclaimed writer/director M. Night Shyamalan burst onto the scene with his super successful debut film THE SIXTH SENSE (1999), and in the years since has enjoyed an up and down career with a variety of hits and misses.

For me, most of Shyamalan’s movies have been misses, but when he’s on his game, and the story is as strong as his direction, and the film isn’t done in by a superficial plot twist, the results are pretty darn good.

KNOCK AT THE CABIN (2023), Shyamalan’s latest, fall into this latter category. It’s pretty darn good! And he’s helped here by superior source material, as the screenplay by Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman is based on the novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay. Those of us from the New England horror community know Paul very well and are overjoyed that his writing is being adapted by Hollywood and turned into movies. Way to go, Paul!

So, KNOCK AT THE CABIN has a strong story, and M. Night Shyamalan does right by it.

KNOCK AT THE CABIN opens with a little girl Wen (Kristen Cui) playing alone in the woods catching grasshoppers, when she is approached by a very large yet softspoken stranger who introduces himself as Leonard (Dave Bautista). Although Wen tells Leonard she doesn’t talk to strangers, he has a gentle way about him, and soon they are talking. The conversation begins innocently enough, but when three other strangers arrive, Leonard tells Wen that they are there to talk to her and her parents and they are going to have to make a difficult choice, words that frighten Wen and cause her to run back to her cabin where she finds her two “dads,” Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Jonathan Groff) and warns them that four strangers are on their way to the cabin.

Andrew and Eric immediately become alarmed when they see these four people at the door holding various sharp tools and weapons. Leonard asks to be let in, but Andrew and Eric refuse. Eventually, the four strangers force their way in, and after a scuffle, Andrew and Eric are tied to chairs and find themselves at the mercy of these four people. The two men immediately believe that they have been targeted because they are gay, but the softspoken Leonard assures them that is not the case, that they didn’t even know they were a same sex couple until they arrived at the cabin.

When Leonard starts speaking of shared visions that the four have had, and of the oncoming apocalypse which will wipe out all humanity, Andrew and Eric then believe that they have been overpowered by a group of religious fanatics. Things get worse when Leonard explains that the only way the apocalypse can be avoided is if there is a sacrifice, and that sacrifice will have to be made by Andrew, Eric, or Wen.

One life to save humanity.

While the story told in KNOCK AT THE CABIN is refreshing, in that it’s not about attacking a same sex couple because of extreme homophobia, and early on the audience is thinking the same thing that both Andrew and Eric are thinking, that they have been targeted because they are gay, it’s not without flaws. For starters, strangely, considering the premise, this movie is nowhere near as intensely disturbing as expected. Part of it is the plot itself. When Leonard goes on and on about the apocalypse, Andrew and Eric both think he and the others are simply crazy, and rightly so! I’m right there with them, as most others would be. Leonard and the three others are trying to convince Andrew and Eric to make an impossible sacrificial choice, but really, it’s not so impossible, because Andrew and Eric don’t believe it.

Unless you do this, the world will end!

Okay, I don’t believe you. So, we’re not doing it! End of story.

Also, the idea that Andrew and Eric have control over the decision is much less intense than if they had zero control, where the four strangers were going to do something horrible to them, but that’s not case. The point, of course, is the question, would you make that sacrifice for your fellow humans? The problem is there is no way that most folks here in 2023 are going to buy this premise. The apocalypse? I’ll wait till God shows up in person, thank you very much!

And neither Andrew or Eric ever ask the question, who is asking them to make this choice? God? Really? It makes no sense religiously. Sure, there are sacrifices throughout the Bible, but for Christians, at least, those sacrificial days are over, because of Jesus.

Also, as the movie goes on, Andrew begins to poke holes in their story and makes a strong and convincing argument that the four themselves are being manipulated by a group delusion and are experiencing a shared psychotic disorder, but the story doesn’t go there, and so at the end of the day, things are a bit murky, because what Andrew said made sense, and he even offers proof, but nothing comes of it.

Still, KNOCK AT THE CABIN is intriguing and enjoyable. It also features some solid acting performances.

Dave Bautista is perfect as Leonard, the gentle giant, who explains that he is an elementary school teacher and that one reason he is doing this is he doesn’t want his young students to die. Bautista has been fun as Drax in both the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and THE AVENGERS movies, and he’s been memorable in a bunch of other movies as well, but his performance here in KNOCK AT THE CABIN is one of his best. The only knock against him… heh, heh!… is his consistent calm demeanor and the fact that he promises not to harm the family removes a heck of a lot of tension in this movie.

Ben Aldridge as Andrew, the more hot-headed of the two parents, and Jonathan Groff as Eric are also superb. They really make you care for these two guys, and that’s one of the more emotional parts of this movie. The audience really feels their love for each other and doesn’t want to see anything happen to either one of them. Groff of course is known for his work in HAMILTON (2020) and FROZEN (2013), but my favorite Jonathan Groff role remains his FBI character Holden Ford on the short-lived yet superior Netflix TV series, MINDHUNTER (2017-2019).

Rupert Grint, known to Harry Potter fans as Ron in the HARRY POTTER movies, is really good here as Redmond, the least balanced of the four strangers, and the one who makes the family the most uncomfortable. Nikki Amuka-Bird as Sabrina and Abby Quinn as Adriane round out the four strangers and do decent jobs in the roles.

The other phenomenal performance in this movie belongs to young Kristen Cui as Wen. Her expressions throughout this movie are perfect. One of the more intense scenes in the film is when the four strangers are intially at the door trying to get in, and the main reason for this intensity is Cui’s panicked cries for her parents to make these people go away.

On the other hand, another reason this film isn’t as disturbing as expected, is little Wen is largely shielded from all the horrors here. The film doesn’t go there, but if it had, it would have been really frightening.

M. Night Shyamalan keeps the camera tight on Dave Bautista, making him seem immense throughout. Bautista is gigantic in real life, so he doesn’t need much help to look bigger, but Shyamalan’s camerawork does just that. The most riveting scene in the movie and the one Shyamalan does his best work on is the sequence where Andrew makes a break for it and desperately tries to get his gun from the back of his car. Other than this sequence, the intensity is all rather low key.

That being said, I really enjoyed KNOCK AT THE CABIN. I wish it had been more frightening, and I wish there was more to its premise other than the derailing of the apocalypse, but the story was refreshing enough to hold my interest throughout.

I give it three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars- Excellent

Three stars- Very Good

Two stars- Fair

One star- Poor

Zero Stars- Awful