★½
“Copy of a copy of a copy.”
While this is not an “official” remake of Gloria, it’s so damn close that I have no problem considering it as one. Writer/director Gaston seems to have… um, a bit of a track record in this area, shall we say. She previously appeared here by directing Beyond the City Limits, a film with such a strong resemblance to Set It Off, that it was released on DVD as Rip It Off. Some might call that a particularly appropriate title, and here, she once again seems to be sailing quite close to a lawsuit. It was purely by coincidence we watched this, the weekend after seeing the two versions of Gloria, and Chris took only a few minutes to call it out.
It’s definitely the worst of the three, and I write that as a fan of Lena Headey. She has done sterling work in things such as Game of Thrones and Gunpowder Milkshake, among others, so to see her in this mess is almost tragic. I almost can’t be bothered to provide a recap – a link to my Gloria review would suffice – yet here we go. A man is caught stealing money from organized crime, so he and his whole family are liquidated, except for young son, Sam (Vazquez). He escapes with an iPad that’s crucial to the mob’s operation, and is rescued by neighbour Gypsy (Headey). They go on the run from the henchmen seeking to recover the iPad, and Sam gradually breaks down Gypsy’s chilly facade, despite her ties to the criminals, being an old flame of its boss, Jack (Worthington).
Ouch. But… but… Sam has a dog! And Gypsy is a retiring burlesque dancer, now writing an autobiography! It’s totes different! No. No, it isn’t. Especially since neither of these are significant. The only relevance of the latter seems to be to allow Headey to show that she still looks pretty good in her late forties (pasties, please: this isn’t some cheap exploitation vehicle). Meanwhile, Sam manages the genuinely impressive feat of managing, somehow, to be more annoying than the kid in the original, burbling on in a child genius way about his booming cryptocurrency portfolio. Yeah, that aged like milk.
Despite Headey’s best efforts, there’s no aspect here which wasn’t done better in both the original, and the remake starring Sharon Stone. Even the new stuff falls flat, such as a weird and almost irrelevant subplot where they steal an already stolen car with a hooker (Anthony) in the back seat. None of the relationships are convincing, and the only moment that has any intensity does not involve any of the main characters. It occurs after Gypsy drops off the dog at the cabin belong to friend Lacy, played by veteran actress Barbara Hershey, who demonstrates an admirably no-nonsense approach to their pursuers. Please, do not even get me started on the finale, where Gypsy literally turns out to be bulletproof. When a film leaves you thinking, “Who came up with this shit?”, it’s never a good sign.
Dir: Gigi Gaston
Star: Lena Headey, Dean Scott Vazquez, Sam Worthington, La La Anthony


Yeah, I’ll confess to having Laura Branigan’s eighties hit running through my head on repeat almost the entire movie, even if its lyrics can only be tangentially tied to it. What also struck me is how strong of an influence this was on Luc Besson’s Leon, especially at the beginning. I mean: a criminal gang takes out an entire family in a New York tenement, except for one child, as punishment for the father having tried to steal from them. That survivor takes refuge with a very reluctant neighbour with mob ties, who then has to protect the child as they move about the city. There’s even a scene where one of the gang fires his gun at a nosy resident.
Nineteen years after the original, four-time Oscar nominated director Lumet opted to remake Cassavetes’s movie. Though by some accounts, it was more a case of him wanting to work, rather than being particularly attracted to the project. If the results are anything to go by, he should have stayed at home. For the film was a bomb, and leading lady Stone received a Razzie nomination for her efforts. I wouldn’t have said she was that bad, though she’s clearly not at the same level as Gina Rowlands in the original. It does also address some of what I felt were its’ predecessor’s weaknesses. However, it tones down the central character, and this helps lead to what you’d be hard-pressed to argue is other than an inferior product overall.
Sorry, couldn’t resist it. For the recent string of suboptimal Netflix movies continues with this tedious bit of work, which feels like the first journey across the South Californian desert filmed in real time. It begins with Ellie (Hale), a botanist carrying out a survey near the Mexican border. She meets a teenage girl, Alex (Trujillo), who is skipping school and the two have an awkward conversation. I initially thought its stilted nature was intended to tell us something about the two characters, but nope. All the conversations here are awkward. Writer-director Harris just has no ear for dialogue, which may explain why so much of this is people wandering about instead.
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