Author: Jim McLennan

The File, by Gary Born

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

Not many novels come with a ringing endorsement from a former director of the CIA, but Gina Haspel calls this “A thoroughly enjoyable, engrossing thriller.” Argue with her, and she’ll send you an exploding cigar, or something. While it certainly isn’t bad, the rating above reflects its likely moderate appeal for readers here. A general audience might be more impressed, especially with regard to the second half, where the heroine becomes more of a passenger. Things begin at the very end of World War II with a flight out of Berlin carrying documents intended to secure the future of the Reich. It doesn’t reach its destination, crashing in the depths of the African jungle.

Almost eighty years later, a botanical expedition stumbles across the downed plane and its cargo. When word seeps out, various very interested parties converge on the Congo, intent on securing the contents by any means necessary. Surviving the initial onslaught is Sara West, daughter of the expedition’s head, who bails with the documents, and the parties in hot pursuit. In the jungle at least, Sara has more experience and proves eminently capable of turning the tables on her pursuers. After escaping the wilderness, she convinces one of the hunters, CIA agent Jeb Fisher, to change sides, and his assistance becomes increasingly valuable as they head through Africa, into Italy, and eventually to Zurich. There, they make a final stand, in the unlikely location of a venerable Swiss bank.

The above should hopefully explain why this feels like a book of two halves. I really enjoyed the first half, with Sara using all her knowledge, built on years of living in the jungle, to stay one step ahead of the opposition – or sneak up from behind on them. She rarely over-powers her enemies, relying more on stealth, wits and turning their own resources against them. It is still a bit of a stretch to imagine a young woman, untrained in combat, taking out a whole slew of Russian special forces. However, Born certainly sells the illusion well enough to work. The problems arise with the arrival of Jeb, not least the ease with which he disobeys orders to take Sara’s side.

Thereafter, he also becomes the main protagonist. While it makes sense that his skills would become more important outside of the jungle, it results in Sara being somewhat (though not entirely) sidelined. There’s also the almost inevitable romantic dalliance, and I feel that having a Jebina instead of Jeb, might have addressed that, and a lot of the problems I felt hampered the second half. It’s still a decent enough read on its own terms, building nicely towards the grandstand finale – although I can’t imagine even Swiss authorities taking so long to get to a hellacious firefight in downtown Zurich! But I feel it does not do Sara the justice she deserves, especially after the impressive heights reached earlier on.

Author: Gary Born
Publisher: Addison & Highsmith Publishers, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Standalone novel

Role Play

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★★★
“Until death do us part.”

If a little light on the action front, this probably makes up for it in heart. On surface, the Brackett family are largely like any other. Sure, mom Emma (Cuoco) spends a lot of time out of town on business. But she loves husband Dave (Oyelowo)  and her two kids, even if she’s a little unfocused, forgetting their anniversary. The problem is, as we know from the start, that Emma is a hitwoman, who used to work for an organization called Sovereign, before turning freelance. They’re still after her. And that’s where the problems start, as on a make-up anniversary date at a hotel, she’s spotted by Bob Kellerman (Nighy), another freelancer, interested in collecting the reward on Emma’s head.

While she is able to fend him off, the fracas blows her cover and she has to hightail it to Berlin. Given she told her husband she was going to Idaho, this understandably leaves a very confused Dave in her wake, trying to come to terms with the woman he loved, not being the woman he loved. The cops believe he was involved in the hotel incident, with special agent Gwen Carver (Nielsen) intent on using him to get to Emma. He heads off to Berlin in his spouse’s wake, only for them both to get captured by Sovereign, who make Emma an offer she can’t refuse. To save her kids, and come back into the company fold, she has to kill Dave herself. 

In general, this appears to be more interested in the dramatic than the explosive. I’m fine with that though, since the performances are all up to the mark. We knew Oyelowo mostly from his time playing a spy on MI:5 (a.k.a. Spooks), so it was somewhat ironic to see him as a naive but doting husband, unwittingly married to an assassin. Cuoco is best known for her time on sit-com The Big Bang Theory, and I was a little concerned about her ability to play a professional killer. However, she’s fine, and Nielsen makes a good antagonist for her. But it’s probably Nighy who delivers the best performance, in a small role that’s just off-kilter enough to be memorable, while always seeming one step ahead.

The fight scenes here are typically brief: do not expect any Atomic Blonde style brawls. It feels they’re trying to depict Emma as a tersely efficient executioner, and given the actress’s lack of combat experience, this approach is probably for the best. This seems slightly like a low-key version of The Long Kiss Goodnight, though the family life here is deliberate, rather than the product of amnesia. It relies a lot on the relationship between Dave and Emma, and that’s good enough to counter the limited quantity of action. This was especially true at the end, where I expected a better battle between Emma and Gwen. Truth be told though, I didn’t mind too much, even if this is perhaps mostly role-playing as an action film.

Dir: Thomas Vincent
Star: Kaley Cuoco, David Oyelowo, Connie Nielsen, Bill Nighy

Roadkill

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★½
“As appetizing as its title.”

To be one hundred percent clear, the best thing about this is the rather arresting poster. A far better film than what we have here, would struggle to live up to it. Instead, we have a classic example of vanity cinema, where one man decides to write, direct and play a major part in his own movie. The over-ambition here is palpable, to an often accidentally amusing degree. Perhaps most obviously, a pair of “car chases” – and I use the quotes deliberately – which unfold at a stately 15-20 mph, involving a muscle car on which the production clearly could not afford a single scratch on the paint. They’d have been better off not bothering. 

The story concerns an unnamed young woman, referred to in the credits only as The Driver (Carmichael). She picks up a vagabond, similarly called just The Hitchhiker (Knudson), as she is on her way to… Well, that’s left largely vague until late, though not as much as why she picks him up in the first place. The reason provided at the time, doesn’t make much sense in the light of subsequent events. Also operating in the area is a serial killer called the Highway Hunter, who is being sought by all the resources law enforcement can bring to bear. Which in this film would be a grand total of two (2) officers: Sheriff John Teagan (Fast, the director deciding to give the character he plays an actual name) and his deputy Corey Vernon (Hudson).

It isn’t particularly a whodunit, in the sense that the identity of the Highway Hunter is no great secret. It feels a little like Fast is trying to capture the spirit of The Hitcher. There’s an innocent, who is trapped by association on the road with a complete psycho, the police blaming them for a string of brutal murders. However, not a single element is anywhere in the same league, most obviously the gulf separating this from Rutger Hauer. Carmichael is rarely close to convincing, while Knudson looks like the makers ordered Keanu Reeves on Temu. Not helping matters: the faux film effects like scratches applied to the print. Fortunately, Fast seems to forget about this pointless affectation after the first few minutes of prologue.

There are times when it feels this might be intended as a bone-dry spoof, rolling out idiocy with a deadpan face. Witness the way The Driver manages to strangle someone when a) they are lying on top of her back, and b) her hands are handcuffed behind her. I suggest you get a partner and role-play that out, if you need convincing of its implausibility. Things escalate from there, by which I mean they become both dumber and less interesting. I was genuinely surprised to learn Fast has a previous feature, because almost every aspect of this screams “No experience”. Let’s hope he learns from this. Ideally, learns not to bother making any further films.

Dir: Warren Fast
Star: Caitlin Carmichael, Ryan Knudson, Warren Fast, Trenton Hudson

 

They Turned Us Into Killers

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★½
“They turned us onto another channel…”

Well, this is a spectacular mess. Except, the word “spectacular” implies something of interest, and that’s far from anything this delivers in its boring trudge towards a predictable ending. It demonstrates the perils when you, as a film-maker, decide to take your story and fragment the timeline. This only works if the script is able to maintain coherence around the jumps back and forth. This painfully fails on that count, beginning in the middle, but then bouncing back and forth to the point you know little and care less about any of the participants, or what happens to them. How bad is it? It gets the rare honour of me starting on the review, when there’s still half an hour to go.

Loosely, it’s the story of Star (Scout-Compton), who decides to go full vigilante after her best friend, an addict called Karma (Francesca), had enough of life and killed herself. Fortunately for the plot, Karma left a letter behind which explained, in tedious detail, the reasons why she committed suicide. This would largely be the result of abuse at the hands of her boyfriend, BJ (Miller) and various members of his scummy family. Meanwhile, there’s also a connection to a vicious murder that took place forty years ago, and a police investigation, including a homicide detective sporting the most implausible Swedish accent this side of The Muppet Show. What there is not, however, is any reason to give a damn about any of it.

The makers even manage to waste the talents of a triple-bill of horror icons, in Michael Berryman, Kane Hodder and Bill Moseley, all of whom are capable of carrying films on their own. Here, they just kinda… exist, wheeled on screen and then shuffled off again without making any significant impact. Instead, it’s mostly Star yelling at BJ and their relatives, as they are abducted with remarkable ease, and tied up in a shed somewhere. This proves sufficient to reduce them to snivelling wrecks, apologizing for whatever they did. The notion that Karma might – as her name ironically suggests – be in any way responsible for the unpleasant consequences of her own actions, is never breached to significant degree.

I was certainly left asking myself questions. Unfortunately, the questions were along the lines of, “What happened to Taylor Scout-Compton’s once promising career?” or “How many incriminating photos does the writer/director have, in order to get this financed?” Because what you have here is an ugly, uninteresting mess, which fails on the level of basic coherence, and has almost nothing to offer the viewer. It’s startling to see an 86% audience score for this on Rotten Tomatoes; looking at the far more credibly harsh reviews on Letterboxd, I’m certainly leaning shill. Not even going to bother reaching my usual 500 words here. This simply doesn’t deserve it.

Dir: Thomas Walton
Star: Scout Taylor-Compton, Lauren Francesca, Bryce Draper, Taryn Manning

The Bag Girls 2

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★★½
“Not so bag.”

Back when I reviewed The Bag Girls, I was not particularly impressed and spent a fair bit of time riffing off the lead actresses’s names, which says a lot about how forgettable the film was. I expected more of the same here, but especially toward the end, there was some indication of genuine progress. While we’re still not talking great, there were positives, which deserve to be acknowledged. You likely do need to have seen the original, as this assumes you know who the characters are: Dee (The Doll) , Nola (The Boss) and the rest of the quartet are still robbing for a living, sporting bejewelled masks, and referring to each other by high-end handbag names. However, trouble hits when a strong-box they loot turns out to belong to Colombian cartel queen, Solera Castillo (Garcia), who is not happy with this apparent disrespect. Meanwhile, the authorities, particularly in the form of Detective Lewis (Wilson), are also on the trail of the Bag Girls.

It’s a reasonable enough plot, and when the film sticks to this, it’s quite watchable. Women take the lead on the three corners of the story-line’s triangle, anchored by decent performances from those involved. It all ends up in the Bag Girls taking the fight to Castillo’s mansion, after she has begun extracting her own vengeance, while Lewis awaits the arrival of backup. I can’t complain about the imagery of Solera, rising out of her hot-tub to spray automatic gunfire at her attackers, wearing an expression Harley Quinn would likely deem excessively enthusiastic. Though she and the Bag Girls really need to focus on their accuracy, possessing skills that would get them kicked out of Imperial Stormtrooper school. However, the film’s reliance on digital muzzle flashes and CGI blood (if at all), resulting in no property damage is disappointing, though likely inevitable given the budget here still is on the low end.

The problem is the film takes way too long to get to the good stuff, diverting en route to far less interesting subplots and side-stories. There’s an entire separate robbery of some rapper’s party, that is neither necessary to the plot, nor staged in ways that are even slightly interesting. I must also say, the music in large part feels remarkably bland; while I’ve criticized this kind of film before for an excessive reliance on obvious music, this does need something with a harder edge to fit the tone. I do also suspect that, if the events at the end unfolded in real life, a Latin drug cartel would be unlikely to allow the perpetrators to skip away to enjoy drinks on a Mexican beach. Maybe I’ve just seen too many episodes of Ozark. Though this is not about “real life” in the slightest, more a glammed-up version of the gangster lifestyle. If still lacking the resources to sell that dream, everyone involved seems to have made progress from last time, and if not eagerly anticipating Bag Girls 3, I’m not dreading it.

Dir: Wil Lewis
Star: Crystal The Doll, LA Love The Boss, Jenicia Garcia, Chevonne Wilson

Place of Bones

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★★★½
“Grave encounters.”

I’ve followed director Cummings since we screened her debut feature Berkshire County, at our film festival. Here, we reviewed the impressive She Never Died in 2019. Both films were distinctly horror-tinged, so it was a bit of a surprise to see her attached to what seemed a Western period piece. Having watched it… let’s just say, things make more sense now. For right at the very end, the film takes an abrupt turn into darkness, that may remind the viewer of Bone Tomahawk – albeit nowhere near as graphic. I’ll say no more than that, except: well played. Things unfold in a remote part of the West, where Pandora (Graham) is bringing up her daughter Hester (Robillard) after the death of her husband. 

Their isolated life is disrupted when Hester finds a badly injured man near the cabin. This is Calhoun (Nemec), who also has two saddle-bags of money, the proceeds of a bank robbery. Calhoun subsequently had a violent falling-out with his accomplices. However, Bear John (Hopper), the brother of one of the deceased criminals, is growing concerned about his sibling’s disappearance, and is closing in on Pandora’s cabin. It’s going to be up to her, a crippled robber and a teenage girl to withstand an inevitable assault from career criminals, with limited resources in the way of arms and ammunition. On the positive side, it’s clear from the way Pandora deals with Calhoun, that she is not somebody who should be taken lightly or underestimated. 

This is definitely a slow burn. The first hour is more concerned with depicting the life of Pandora and Hester, along with how Calhoun’s arrival changes things. Though I have to say, after how the film shifts at the end, you’ll find yourself viewing these early interactions in a very different light. Bear John doesn’t even arrive on screen until well into the movie, in a well-handled scene which does a good job of depicting his gang and their relationships. Thereafter, there’s a looming sense of threat, with a ticking clock of escalating tension as the cabin’s inhabitants try to get ready for the violence to come. Again, without revealing too much, mother and daughter may be more ready for this than they seem.

I do admire movies where you reach the end and are forced to reassess everything that has gone before. Even the title takes on a different meaning by the time the end credits roll. This certainly helps a film which, otherwise, would be a fairly generic Western siege pic. Graham has always tended to be under-rated, and it’s nice to see her get a chance to exercise her acting talent. Nemec is a good foil, and their interplay helped guide my interest through a fairly languid first two-thirds. Once things kick off, the pace ups considerably and by the end there’s little doubt it deserves inclusion here. It may still be a little too horrific for Western fans, and too Western for horror fans. Yet if you like both, this is an interesting combination. 

Dir: Audrey Cummings
Star: Heather Graham, Corin Nemec, Brielle Robillard, Tom Hopper

The Dive

  By

★★
“Breaking bad.”

This is an English language remake of Breaking Surface, a 2020 film from Sweden. It is also a sterling demonstration of what happens when you do not follow the Golden Rule of Remakes. “Only remake a film if you can improve on the original.” The first red flag here is the quick turnaround, just three years after the original. It’s clear that the idea here is simply to copy the film, for an English language audience who don’t want to read subtitles. We’ve seen this kind of thing before, when Nikita was turned into Point of No Return, also three years later. There, as here, the remake is entirely superfluous if you’re familiar with the original, and does not fare well in any comparison. 

As you’d expect, the basic story is the same. Sisters Drew (Lowe) and May (Krause) have drifted apart over the years. But a shared passion for diving brings them back together for a trip on a remote stretch of coastline, to explore an underwater cave system. Initially, it goes well, until a rock slide leaves May with her leg pinned at the bottom of the sea. Her oxygen running out, it’s up to Drew to return to the surface, call for help, and bring down fresh tanks to keep her sister breathing. Naturally, it’s not as simple as that, with Drew having to overcome a slew of obstacles, from a car boot that won’t open, to equipment that malfunctions.

I’m quite hard-pushed to work out specifically why this had more or less the same ingredients as Breaking Surface, yet is so much less effective. It just feels like each element is a third- or fourth-generation photocopy of the original. The sisters, for example, are less appealing. There’s the same dynamic, in that May is the calm and collected one, while Drew is not suited to handling a crisis. But May comes off almost as robotic, while Drew is shrill and aggravating. There’s also a similar back story, involving a childhood incident. Here though, it seems to get in the way of the main plot, rather than enhancing it, with useful or interesting background. It sometimes feels like you need to know diving stuff too, and I don’t. 

To be fair, if I hadn’t seen the original, this would certainly score higher, perhaps around three stars. It’s still a good scenario, and I did like some elements, like the pointed note the sisters’ car is a rental. I just hope they got the damage waiver. But most of the changes, such as swapping out the chilliness of a Scandinavian fjord for the warmth of the Mediterranean (Malta, to be precise), seem pointless at best, and a detriment more often than not. By the end, which seems significantly more contrived in the original, I had an overwhelming urge to run off and watch Breaking Surface again. Though it did reaffirm my beliefs that caving = nope, diving = nope, and cave-diving = nope squared.

Dir: Maximilian Erlenwein
Star: Louisa Krause, Sophie Lowe

Av: The Hunt

  By

★½
“Puts the turkey in Turkish cinema”

The palpable sense of disappointment I felt when the end credits rolled, was all the more striking, given the decent way this opened. Ayse (Koç) is enjoying a shower after some afternoon delight with her lover, when there’s a thunderous knocking on the door. It’s her thoroughly disgruntled ex-husband. In the resulting fracas, the boyfriend is shot dead, and Ayse has to leap out of a window, and go on the run. Friends and family disown her, as the ancient concept of the honour killing still holds sway in contemporary Turkey. She can’t even go to the authorities, since the ex-husband is a policeman. 

Ayse attempts to head to the big city of Istanbul, more secular and offering a chance to hide out. This plan is derailed when a routine traffic stop leads to her capture. She manages to steal a police car, thanks to the cops underestimating her – you’ll find that is a bit of a theme. However, it crashes in fog and she’s forced on the run again, this time into the wilderness of the forest. She is pursued there by her former husband and various relatives, including a teenage cousin. They feel, to varying degrees that her actions have brought shame upon their family, and that she must pay for that, with her blood. Ayse, has other plans, especially after she wrests a weapon from one of the hunters. 

It’s the kind of thing we’ve seen quite often before: a woman being chased through the wilderness, before turning the tables on them. When done properly, it can be highly effective. Examples of the proper execution – pun intended – would include Revenge or Arisaka. This, on the other hand, manages to get just about everything wrong. Part of it may be down to an overseas audience not being aware of the honour concepts, something the makers here don’t bother to explain. That’s forgivable. After all, it wasn’t made for us. But there are any number of other flaws, such as the ease with which she can best everyone in hand-to-hand combat. Or the lengthy, almost entirely pointless scene where Ayse tries to bribe a bus-driver to take her to Istanbul. 

These pale entirely beside the ending, which is solely responsible for losing the film an entire star. For, in general, it looks decent, with some impressive cinematography, such as the drone shot that follows Ayse as she’s fleeing the apartment, and pans up to reveal the city. Despite its flaws, we were probably looking at ★★½. And then, we weren’t. I do not know what the director was trying to say with the ending. If I had to guess, something like “I have no idea how to wrap things up, and frankly, am getting bored with the entire endeavour, so I’m just going to roll the credits.” Almost makes me want to recommend watching this, purely for how bad the finish is. There’s certainly not much else to justify the experience. 

Dir: Emre Akay
Star: Billur Melis Koç, Ahmet Rifat Sungar, Yagiz Can Konyali, Adam Bay

The Killer

  By

★★★
“All killer, some filler.”

Back in 1990, I saw the original version of The Killer at the ICA in London. I’d never seen anything like it, and didn’t quite know what to think. But it kindled a deep fondness for Hong Kong cinema, and it’s also likely one of the most influential action films of the decade, whose impact is still being felt today. I wasn’t sure what to think about a remake, especially a gender-swapped one. These rarely work – hello, Ghostbusters. But at least this one was going to be done by the original director. Especially after having enjoyed his Violent Night, if there was anyone whom I’d trust not to screw up a John Woo film, it’s probably going to be John Woo.

He doesn’t. Oh, it’s not as good as the original, or even Violent Night. However, it’s perfectly serviceable, especially if you haven’t seen the original. Woo treats his own material with respect. While there are differences, none feel forced for the sake of it. I was quite surprised to see Woo go with a female lead, because his films tend to be pure, undiluted masculinity. I’m hard-pushed to think of a decent, well-written female character in any of them. To be honest, I still am. For Zee (Emmanuel) is just your typical assassin with a conscience, who refuses to kill innocent civilian Jenn (Silvers), after accidentally blinding her during a mission. This brings her the enmity of her handler, Finn (Worthington), but eventually, the support of dogged cop Sey (Sy).

The biggest issue here is simple: Emmanuel isn’t Chow Yun-Fat. Not even close, in terms of charisma, and that renders this a disposable trifle. The rest of the cast fares better, including former football player Eric Cantona as an irascible gangster (he was irascible on the football field too). Quite why Worthington sports an Oirish accent and spouts Oirish phrases escapes me. But I’ll forgive it, given his two-pack of sidekicks. The pick of whom is played by Aurélia Agel, who was Karen Gillan’s stunt double in Gunpowder Milkshake. She gets an impressive fight against the heroine at the end. In a church, naturally. A good drinking game there: take a swig for each Woo cliché: birds, slow-mo diving, guns in each hand, etc.

It runs a good twenty minutes longer than the original and, while it doesn’t often drag, I’d be hard-pushed to say this extra length adds much extra value. Probably best not to think about any of this too much, such as how Zee’s decision to protect Jenn, without knowing the facts, actually leads to far more deaths, of far more innocent victims. Or the dubious, Looney Tunes-like medicine, where a whack on the head can only be remedied by another whack on the head. Mind you, it’s not as if the original stands up to close scrutiny either. Where Woo led thirty-five years ago, many have since followed – and some, gone further. Yet I’d still rather see him at play, than a lot of his successors.

Dir: John Woo
Star: Nathalie Emmanuel, Omar Sy, Sam Worthington, Diana Silvers

The Killing Complex, by K.G. Leslie

  By

Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆½

There’s something to be said for sparse simplicity, and this delivers on that concept in spades. Except for occasional flashbacks, the entire things takes place in one location: a facility somewhere in Europe. It’s where Cassie ends up, locked in a cage, after being abducted while on a trip from Britain, intending to find herself. She’s then deposited in a hall and made to fight for the amusement, gambling or whatever of online spectators. She starts off facing animals, but through pharmaceutical treatment, her strength, speed and savagery are enhanced, and the opponents – both fauna and, eventually, her own species too – become more vicious. The shock collar around her neck ensures her compliance.

In the early going, much of this unfolds inside Cassie’s head, as she goes through what perhaps seems inspired by the five stages of grief, from rejecting the reality of her predicament, through anger, and ending up in a personal commitment to do whatever is necessary in order to survive – even if this comes at the cost of her own humanity. But just when she’s on the edge of becoming a soulless killing machine, she’s relocated, and placed next to another prisoner, Thomas. He was also abducted, but more recently, so hasn’t been ground down by his situation yet, and his optimism reignites Cassie’s own interest in life. But is everything quite what it seems, or are there other agendas at work?

Without giving them away, there are a couple of very effective twists here, which I did not see coming – and, indeed, I defy anyone to say they did. The first is something of a cheat, considering how much of the time to that point has been Cassie’s internal monologue, and this has carefully hid a key piece of information. But the second works particularly well, because it demonstrates that the bad guys here aren’t stupid: Carrie is going to need to do more than bludgeon her way out. Good though she certainly is at that, as is proven repeatedly. This isn’t a book for animal rights activists though, with Cassie working her way up from herbivores to the top of the food chain, in addition to her human opponents.

I do wonder quite why the people are wasting the remarkable drugs, which help Cassie survive massive damage as well as enhance her fighting abilities, on an inter-species fight club. I’d have said the military-industrial complex would pay better than Fanduel for that stuff. But sadistic perverts gonna pervert, I guess, and so here we are. By the end, I was galloping through the pages, staying up well past my usual bedtime to do the dreaded “one more chapter.” It does end on something of a cliffhanger: usually that’s something I don’t like, but I didn’t feel like I’d been sold half a story here, and can definitely see further entries appearing here down the road.

Author: K.G. Leslie
Publisher: Self published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 3 in the Killing saga.