Category: Review

Borderlands

  By

★★★
“Guardians of the Wasteland”

Reading all the vitriol that has been poured over this movie feels a bit like history repeating for me. I recently saw the same reaction to Madame Web and it was just as unjustified as here. What never ceases to astonish me, is how extreme critical assessments are nowadays: reviews seem to be without any kind of balancing the good and the bad. Every movie has its qualities and its weaknesses. I recently saw Alien: Romulus which I found to be pretty good but not without flaws, and many critics were able to see both aspects. Not so with Borderlands. While I wouldn’t call the film really good entertainment, the universal mauling it is receiving is undeserved. I’ve seen so much worse in my life – movies that hardly had any real plot or entertainment value – that in a way I feel I’ve got in a way to protect Borderlands from the unfair, over-the-top criticism. More about that later.

In a not deeply explained Science Fiction scenario. bounty hunter Lilith (Blanchett) is convinced to rescue the daughter of uber-nasty Atlas (Ramirez), Tiny Tina (Ariana Goldblatt), who had been abducted from a prison by soldier turned mercenary Roland (Hart). Atlas doesn’t care for his scientifically-created daughter at all, but Tiny Tina is believed to be the key to a secret cave containing some kind of “treasure” he may use for evil. The rescue party is joined by muscle-bound guardian Krieg (Florian Monteanu), the robot Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black) and weird scientist Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), who go on the search pursued by Atlas’ henchwoman Commander Knoxx (Janina Gavankar).

Let’s be clear about one thing: “Borderlands” is not really a good movie, and I will go into more detail on its many flaws shortly. But it also never pretends to be a serious SciFi epic: maybe this was exactly what “broke” it? I was oddly reminded of Tank Girl (1995), a movie that also toned down its spicier template and came along with some failed attempts of humor. On its original release, Tank Girl was also critically reviled, but has since managed to garner a small cult following. I wouldn’t be astonished if that could end up as the future fate of Borderlands, too, despite its many problems. Where to begin? Probably with the main lead. When the news came out that Cate Blanchett was cast as Lilith, fans of the video game on which Borderlands is based were in uproar. She was seen as too old to play the role, and the same went for Curtis, who is now in her sixties.

While that may have bothered the gamers, I had no problem with it at all. Admittedly, I have never played the games, so what do I know? But Cate Blanchett, who is in her mid-fifties, still looks fit and beautiful enough to play an action role – which is, at least for me, something I always wanted to see. I was quite disappointed when her villainous Hela in Thor: Ragnarok (2017) was side-lined in favor of Thor and Hulk battling it out on another planet. Her red hair here, incidentally reminded me of old dystopian SF movie Cherry 2000. Fans will always complain about how their heroes are portrayed. It’s an old story: Hugh Jackman was too large for Wolverine, Tom Cruise too small for Jack Reacher, I tend to file these under “Bond is not blond”: I don’t think these complaints should matter much, if the respective actor can fill out the role in question believably.

That said, maybe this kind of role isn’t really made for Blanchett, who comes across awkwardly as a female trigger-happy bounty hunter – it isn’t her age. It feels as if director Eli Roth may have told her to get into character as a strong, independent, tomboy, action heroine and walk around like John Wayne, always with one hip hanging below the other. It becomes quite distracting after a while, and you feel it is indeed just an outward pose, not stemming from inside.  In other words, you feel Blanchett is pretending to be a tough woman, not really “being” her. It’s odd, given she is such an accomplished actress. Considering she received an Oscar nomination for her next movie Tár,  (Borderlands was produced during the COVID era and held back a couple of years, which didn’t help opinion), I blame it on Roth’s failure to guide his actors.

Complaints were also directed at how the movie toned down the level of graphic gore and violence the games depicted, becoming a very “tame” affair. Indeed, one of the reasons the movie was delayed was the studio executives deciding, upon seeing Roth’s cut of the movie, that they had to re-work the movie. While this seems to have become almost standard in modern Hollywood (Marvel movies, anyone?), it is never a good sign in my opinion. If a movie script and style was agreed on before production – which you would expect to be the logical order- there should be no need to re-film scenes or film new ones. Yet this is exactly what happened with here, with the director for these new scenes being Tim Miller of Terminator: Dark Fate. So, essentially, it’s difficult to say to what degree the movie in cinemas is the movie Roth originally directed.

No one wants to be connected with an expensive flop. Original writer Craig Mazin (The Last of Us) had his name removed from the film’s credits, claiming he didn’t write the movie. Under Miller, a new screenwriter was brought in, and again, it’s difficult to say who is responsible for what. There’s an old proverb: “Too many cooks spoil the broth”. It seems to be exactly what happened here. You can’t really blame the studio for wanting to get the teenage audience. When I watched it on the day of release in my local cinema, six of the eight people in the audience were teens, plus me and a father accompanying his two sons. This seems to be aimed at the Guardians of the Galaxy audience, movies which have made a lot of money over the years.

But when you do a movie based on something, you could hardly make a bigger mistake than ignoring the wishes of the fan-base. Look where the Star Wars franchise stands now. You need to respect the template, otherwise the fans who made it successful in the first place, will be against you. It’s a lesson to be learned here. That said… the movie has other problems. It feels very fragmented, the characters going from one place to the next like… well… in a video game, daah! It never creates a feeling of any real palpable threat or danger, and if the heroes don’t feel concerned about their own fate, why should the audience? But for that, the characters have to be developed in the first place, since we are expected to invest time into them, right?

Instead, most of the time, these characters feel like cardboard cut-outs. Apart from Lilith no one gets any kind of backstory. There are one or two nuggets about Tiny Tina, Claptrap or Tannis and that’s it. It’s even worse with the male characters, I know literally nothing about Krieg or Roland. Who are they supposed to be? Where do they come from? Don’t get me wrong, I hardly need an extensive biography: a bit more than nothing would have been nice. Also, who are these different groups? What do they stand for? Why are they fighting? Against whom? It feels as if the filmmakers expect me to know all this before I go into the movie.

Well, does at least the humour work? I mean, it’s supposed to be some kind of SF slash Action slash Comedy, right?

Oh, boy. Another German figure of speech is, “Humour is when you laugh anyway”. That’s true: but this movie showers you in bad jokes and stupid “Look how hip my lingo is” phrases, and I laughed exactly twice in the entire movie. Most of these “wanna-be-hip-and-cool” lines fall absolutely flat. They are also fired at you so fast, as if someone was afraid the audience would get bored if a second was left before the answers, that you can hardly digest them. It’s like a stand-up comedian delivering punchlines without giving the audience time to “get it”, instead immediately rushing on to the next joke. As a result, even something that could be funny falls flat. That’s how the humor here is handled most of the time.

Unfortunately, the same is true for important story details. Essential facts and plot-points are thrown away in casual info dumps, so most of the time you hardly understand what is happening and why. Take, for example, Cate Blanchett arriving at her starting point. She gives you a summary in voice-over about what just happened in thirty seconds, and obviously one or more scenes were cut out, including an action scene. I can’t blame an audience for being bewildered and switching off here. Other strange script decisions pop up in the film on multiple occasions. For instance, when the adventurers escape in a quickly moving elevator, they are tossed out high in the air. They all land intact and unhurt, because Tiny Tina used teleportation skills she just discovered that very moment, and were never mentioned previously. Then she doesn’t use them in the finale, when they would have helped.

Or there’s the finale when it is revealed the key to the chamber isn’t who we expected. It seems that everyone, including the movie, wasted our time with that little brat! But that aside, the revelation, which should have been a big surprise, has no impact because we were never told what to expect when our gang reach their destination. No momentum was built towards the twist, and as a result, there is also no feeling of an earned pay-off. Things like poorly thought-out  writing and direction that doesn’t give the characters… well, character, as well as the haphazard line delivery grind the movie down continuously. I can actually empathize with people rejecting this in its entirety. At the same time, to employ one last German figure of speech for today: “Leave the church in the village!”, meaning don’t exaggerate.

For, yes: Borderlands disappoints, whether or not you know the games. A simple comparison with James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies or his second Suicide Squad shows you that so much more and better could have been possible. Instead of a good movie you get, as with Madame Web recently, a fairly mediocre one.  But again: “fairly mediocre” is not the same as “utterly terrible”. That popular interest in action heroines seems to have largely evaporated, for a range of reasons, may be an additional factor in the clear financial failure of the movie. But I guess those in charge expected it would happen, going by the lack of marketing worth mentioning. Just compare the few interviews available online for this movie, with the huge marketing campaign that was launched for Deadpool & Wolverine.

So, what is good in this movie? Well, I like the production design, which is very nicely done. The colourful, outlandish costumes made me smile. The special effects are of a decent standard – no less, no more. I enjoyed the over-the-top action scenes. It was nice to see Gina Gershon again: long time, no see. The choice of songs seemed adequate, though they mostly pop up suddenly without reason. Most of the actors do good work, it’s not their fault the writing and directing failed them. I still like Hart, and think Goldblatt gives a very good performance, although I couldn’t stand her annoying “little brat” character. Curtis, while not having much to do, is still a pro. Only the strange stance and walk of Blanchett constantly derails what she is supposed to portray here. Both she and the hardly threatening Ramirez feel miscast.

Overall, you can enjoy the movie if you keep your expectations low. Very low. Still, this doesn’t make it the worst movie ever, maybe not even the worst of 2024. There are so many smaller, terrible movies no-one ever talks about. Everyone is always focused on the wannabe blockbuster releases, and so, here we are. I would still like to see Blanchett as a convincing action heroine in a better movie. Maybe she will be more successful in the upcoming Alpha Gang where she plays the leader of a gang of aliens who disguise themselves as 1950s bikers to invade the earth. All we can do is hope for the best.

Dir: Eli Roth
Star: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez

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

Love Lies Bleeding

  By

★★★
“‘Roids and rage.”

In a trans-continental coincidence, both Dieter and I ended up watching and writing our own, independent reviews of this. At least we agreed on the three-star rating!

Well, you might or might not like the way this ends… However, you certainly will remember it. Credit director/co-writer Glass for apparently deciding to live (or die) by the mantra, “Go big or go home.” Literally. It’s in line with a general feeling she doesn’t want to take the easy options at any point here. It doesn’t always work. Boy, does it not. However, I respect the approach. It takes place in a small New Mexico town towards the end of the eighties, where Lou (Stewart) is a gym manager, a lesbian and the estranged daughter of Lou Sr. (Harris). He is a gun-range owner with a very shady sideline in arms dealing, and a desert ravine into which his enemies vanish.

Things are upset by the arrival in town of Jackie Cleaver (O’Brien), a bodybuilder on her way to Vegas for a contest. The two begin a passionate affair, in which Lou also introduces Jackie to the dubious joys of steroid use (though I’m fairly certain these do not work in quite the way depicted here). Lou has another situation, in that her sister Beth is trapped in an abusive relationship with her husband. Jackie decides to take care of this problem for Lou. However, doing so causes more issues than it resolves, not least in that it brings down law enforcement heat on Lou Sr. as the most obvious suspect. Dad demands his daughter fix things, causing Lou to threaten to expose her father to authorities.

It’s all a very grubby take on the lesbian-noir genre, whose best-known example is probably Bound. Stewart seems consciously to be trying to break out of her Twilight reputation, though results so far have been mixed. At least this isn’t the Charlie’s Angels reboot, so for that, we thank her. It is not exactly subtle in its gender depictions: every single male depicted here is violent, though it’s interesting how Glass embraces the view that violence is the only solution, too. Though it’s complex: Jackie declines a gun, saying “Anyone can feel strong hiding behind a piece of metal. I prefer to know my own strength.” Let’s say, that’s not a position she maintains throughout.

O’Brian, who was a bodybuilder before turning to acting, and has a black belt in hapkido, certainly has the physical presence needed for the role. I was less convinced by Stewart, feeling as if her character was stuck in a permanent sulk. The failure to establish her as likeable leaves the relationship with Jackie feeling implausible: if Lou has hidden depths of appeal, they’re apparently buried at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. The decision to wander off, on a number of occasions, into territory closer to David Lynch than the Coen Brothers is one I would not have made, personally, and is likely to alienate a significant number of viewers. A straight (pun not intended) telling of the story would have been preferred. But you do you, Rose. You do you.

[Jim McLennan]

Today on the menu: Lesbian thrillers! Somehow this seems to become the new “trend-du-jour” as a new sub-genre. This year already saw the Ethan Coen-directed lesbian crime comedy Drive Away Dolls and the novel adaptation Eileen with Anne Hathaway. Lesbian-themed movies seem to have come a long way since movies such as Desert Hearts (1985), Thelma & Louise (1991; hey, stop, were these two actually lesbians?) or Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). The difference today is that films can be more direct in their depiction of whatever they want to show. Whether this is really an advantage, is up to the individual viewer. Rose Glass (Saint Maud) shows in her second theatrical movie that she can keep up with male directors of bloody thrillers. The film was a co-operation of British TV Channel 4 and American studio A24, which seems to be building a reputation for slow-burn horror movies.

Principally, the movie is a modern film noir (think Coen brother movies minus the humor). But it also could be called a film soleil, like the French 1980s subgenre of film noir, with most of the story playing in broad daylight. O’Brian and Stewart give good performances, which is satisfying because my usual problem with Stewart is that in most of her films, she almost seems like she is sleepwalking. But not here. I don’t have much to say about Ed Harris who is great and convincing in anything he plays. For me the secret star of the movie is Anna Baryshnikov (yes, the daughter of ballet dancer Mikhail) as the ill-fated ex lover of Stewart’s character.

The film has a strong sense of style, though for me it felt more like the mid-80s than the end-80s. A feeling of unhealthiness permeates the whole film, be it Stewart’s constant smoking (while listening to tapes telling her how unhealthy cigarettes are), the use of drugs to build up muscle tissue, or Ed Harris growing caterpillars and beetles. The relationships of the characters here, be they familiar or otherwise, also feel rotten. It’s definitely not the ideal family promoted by the Reagan administration in the 1980s (But then, in 1989 Bush Sr. was president).

It seeks to comment on the abnormal body cult of the eighties, the decade where hypertrophic heroes like Arnie, Sly and Dolph became big stars – though female bodybuilding is still a thing today (Julian Sands’ last movie before his untimely death dealt with the subject). Also, the characters here seem weird and far from sympathetic: everyone is sweating all the time, Harris with his long hair, Stewart looking as if she is permanently on drugs. They all look like people one wouldn’t necessarily want to meet. Then there is Jackie: while never directly said, it’s implied her erratic behavior is the result of the drugs that Lou gave her.

Glass doesn’t shy away from the ugly or disgusting. One of the first scenes show us Stewart cleaning a clogged toilet (remember the scandal when Hitchcock showed us a clean toilet in Psycho!). Later, we see a body whose jaw is broken into pieces, O’Brian vomiting up Stewart in a hallucination scene and Harris eating a horned beetle. If you are a fan of beautiful pictures this movie might not be for you! Some scenes reference typical Hitchcock or classical thriller suspense scenes, like Harris looking for his son-in-law in his flat while Stewart hides in the closet, or FBI agents interrogating Stewart, when there’s a corpse behind her couch

But not everything works: for example, Lou and Jackie hooking up so quickly was not very believable. But what do I know? I’m neither American nor was I out of puberty in 1989. At the same time I never thought that Jackie might be using Lou for her own advantage, as the movie wants me to believe. So, yes: the characters in the script needed more effort to work. Glass uses some interesting techniques to enhance the creepy atmosphere. Some scenes have a distortion effect with slow motion, very bright lights, coloring e.g. Harris filmed with a red light, and disturbing sound effects. Unfortunately, she spoils otherwise competent work with a final scene which feels as if it would fit better in a fifties sci-fi film than a thriller? Whose perspective is it supposed to be? It might have been meant as a feminist or lesbian empowerment message, but logically makes zero sense.

For me the big deal breaker is the end scene: After telling her father she is nothing like him, Lou completes a murder Jackie didn’t finish. In a way, she is indeed like her father: The same way he tried to protect her out of love, she protects her new found love. Not long ago The Marsh King’s Daughter showed a similar “like father like daughter” scenario. Not that I liked Lou much before: she appeared constantly angry, snappy, possessive, vindictive and irrational. But when she kills a virtually innocent person to secure her relationship, she becomes totally unsympathetic. Probably a great role for an actress but you cannot expect an audience to sympathize or even identify with such a character.

In classic Hollywood noirs, dark-hearted anti-heroes would pay for their crimes. Among many examples, Fred MacMurray getting shot for his sins by femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck in Billy Wilder’s classic Double Indemnity (1944). Heck, even Thelma and Louise paid with their lives for a more or less accidental killing. In modern films it seems if evil is done by women, film makers are reluctant to give them the punishment they deserve, and let them off the hook. I find such story-telling hypocritical and highly questionable: what message is being sent to an audience?

It is okay to commit crimes if you don’t get caught? Killing an innocent is justified in the name of love? Female characters should get off for crimes every man in every movie would be killed for? It seems to be a double standard – I just call it inequality. If you want equal treatment, take it all, including the negatives. No, cherry-picking allowed. Please don’t call me morally sour: I had for example no problem with that famed lesbian noir, Bound (1996), a film where “Love Lies Bleeding” stole some of its ideas from, directed by the Wachowskis. There, the two heroines got away with a murder and theft but they had to defend themselves from a mad angry mafioso. This is different and feels different.

Ah, you want to know about the sex scene? Unfortunately, there is hardly anything mentionable to see here. The short scene is quickly cut and over before you can blink. Audiences are better served erotically either with the aforementioned and superior, though less stylized Bound, or Italian giallo films of the 1970s which seemed more open to  showing sexuality or nudity than modern American movies. But what can you expect, with the new guidelines in movies which require “intimacy coordinators”, primarily so the production won’t be sued. I now feel a great need to watch Basic Instinct again!

So, what’s my conclusion? Well, the film is definitely watchable, a very stylish modern bloody film noir. And if you want to see a movie with lesbians or involving bodybuilding, you might not want to skip it. But its unsympathetic characters prohibit a second viewing or a whole-hearted recommendation from me.

[Dieter]

Dir: Rose Glass
Star: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Ed Harris, Anna Baryshnikov

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.

Mehndi

  By

★★½
“This path she has chosen will burn her to ash.”

When judging film for inclusion here, I always want to take into account location and era. The bar is generally lower for older films, those from a time when action was largely male territory. And other cultures also have different opinions on gender norms, so what can seem very mild sauce here, can be pushing the envelope for women’s roles somewhere else. This would be a good example of the latter. In 1998, the year this came out, Hollywood was releasing the likes of Mulan, The X-Files and Wild Things. Bollywood… was not, and it’s important to remember this as we look at a heroine Lifetime might decline as too much of a doormat.

She is Pooja (Mukerji), who has just been married off into the Chaudhary family, and specifically to Niranjan (Khan). The problem is, they are much more interested in her dowry, and when this isn’t as big as they want, the abuse from her in-laws starts. It doesn’t help that her husband is no good, but Pooja remains loyal, even when after he is accused of murder. A mysterious man shows up, promising evidence to free Niranjan… if Pooja will spend one night with him. She does, though nothing sexual happens, and her husband is indeed acquitted. However, the Chaudharys now consider her “soiled”, toss her out and seek a divorce. 

Worse is to follow as, in court, her father pulls a gun and is shot down by another member of the Chaudhary clan [courtroom security in nineties India must have been really slack – later, an attorney stabs a defendant dead!] Finally, even Pooja has had enough, and vows to destroy every one of her in-laws. Though this being Bollywood, that includes a musical number, apparently titled The Evil In-Laws, where she turns the whole village against them with lyrics like, “The evil in-laws! They’ll make your life a living hell. The evil in-laws! They commit great sins.” It’s partly why the whole thing runs 160 minutes, and would be palpably improved at half the length. Bollywood is much better now at integrating the songs, and the occasional attempts at comedy are both utterly misplaced and thoroughly unfunny.

Why Pooja puts up with so much is explained by a line during the marriage ceremony: “My husband is my god.” But it’s a concept which seems utterly alien to a contemporary Western audience – and even to some in India now. The line is revisited later, Pooja now refuting it by saying, “No. My husband is a sinner and a demon.” Pity it took so long for her to realize what’s apparent to the audience almost from the start. There is some power in these later scenes, with Mukerni able to put over the character’s rage, and I liked the way the mysterious man returns to help her. It remains a shame that she appears to be considerably more interested in taking revenge for her father, than on her own account.

Dir: Hamid Ali Khan
Star: Rani Mukerji, Faraaz Khan, Pramod Moutho, Himani Shivpuri

Kiss of Death

  By

★★½
“Issues of trust”

The relationship between Mykah (Leason) and Jameson (Chandler) is quickly heading for the rocks, as the honesty between them has evaporated. He suspects her of lying to him and having an affair: and he’s half-right. For Mykah is misleading him about the reason for her odd hours, though it is work-related as she claims. It’s just that her job is as an assassin, who kills the husbands of battered women, assisted by family friend Lady (Frazier). After successfully offing a prospective politician, Mykah’s next job is Dyson (Jackson), after his wife Chantelle tearfully tells her story of abuse, and offers to pay half a million dollars for a job well done. 

Mykah is initially not keen on accepting the offer, partly because she’s trying to fix her marriage, partly because Dyson is a notorious crime boss. But it turns out Chantelle has incriminating footage of Mykah’s last hit, giving the assassin no option. As she gets closer to her target, things begin to get murkier. Dyson reveals he knows about Mykah’s early family life, which ended when her parents died in a murder-suicide. Or was that actually what happened? In addition, are Chantelle’s motives justice and escape, or are they considerably more mercenary? And will Mykah be able to get to the bottom of all this before Jameson stumbles to the entirely wrong conclusion and crashes the situation? It’s a lot of questions, and I did like the script here, which manages to keep a complex story clear.

However, it is fair to say that it does take way too long to get to the interesting stuff, with the first half being populated largely be banal chit-chat between Mykah and either Jameson or Dyson. Throw in a teenage daughter, and the soap-opera elements are in danger of toppling this over before it can get going. There’s definitely a shortage of action, between the opening murder and the final confronatation when the truth gets revealed. Virtually all we get is a brief fight between Mykah and a pair of Dyson’s minions, after he begins to suspects she is not what she seems to be. It’s okay: I liked Mykah pausing to remove her heels before going into battle. It just needs more.

Director Sesma has a fairly long track record of low-budget action, and technically it’s competent enough. That’s particularly true, when compared so some of the other urban genre entries we’ve seen here, and at least he avoids the obvious cliches of drugs and gangs. But if you compare this to, say, the Thai TV movies we’re previously reviewed, such as The Secret Weapon, also about an assassin, the gap in energy and action becomes inescapable. Perhaps it’s a budgetary thing. If this had not apparently been so reliant on the mantra that “talk is cheap,” then it could have been more than just an acceptable time-passer overall, with only the last third measuring up to scratch.

Dir: Christian Sesma
Star: Sheila Leason, Kevin Blake Chandler, Dontelle Jackson, Cheryl Frazier

The Squad

  By

★★½
“#SquadGoals: Try not to suck.”

I was braced for this to be terrible, based on IMDb user comments which were either scathing, or came from accounts with one review – a sure sign they were astroturfed. On that basis, I guess I was pleasantly surprised. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not great, and only occasionally brushes against good. But it’s semi-competent, at least once the director calms the hell down, and stops giving us musical montages in lieu of content. The titular trio are Gina (Carrasquillo), Bella (Hansinger), and Dani (Evans), orphans who grew up together and have now turned to a life of crime. In particular, this spring break is spent by a lake in Oklahoma, seeking to muscle in on the local drug trade.

If you have ever seen Ozark, you will know that such activities are never received kindly, and it’s not long before the expected trouble shows up. This is most notably in the shape of rival drug dealar J.C. (UFC fighter Avila), but she is only the tip of the problem-shaped iceberg. People want The Squad out of the way, and/or to provide the source of their supplies. Double-crosses, backstabbings, police activity, abductions, rescue and a fairly significant body count follow as a result, though largely in a by the numbers approach, all the way to an ending that is clearly hoping for this to become a franchise. I would not be holding my breath for this to come to fruition, shall we say.

The three leads are both the best thing this has to offer, and its biggest problem. They’re photogenic, and spent much of the time wearing bikinis, which is not a chore for this viewer. However, when it comes to being convincing drug dealers, the results are much less consistent. It’s only now and again that they succeed in projecting the necessary sense of threat when facing off against their rivals: Gina probably does best in this department. The rest of the time they feel more like coeds cosplaying as drug lords, and seem about as dangerous pushers as Ed from Shaun of the Dead. The whole orphan thing feels like padding, despite the short running time of seventy-eight minutes.

To a certain degree, it feels like it wants to be Charlie’s Angels for bad girls, though regrettably, seems more inspired by the “gritty” reboot version, than the fluffy concoction of the original movie. It’s also hampered by the lack of personality to be found here: there is only one character, sliced up thinly and divided across the three protagonists, where again, Gina seems to have co-opted the lioness’s share of proceedings. Despite a plot that does keep moving forward – occasionally, a little too forward – the action is nothing special, with the trio ending up having to be rescued by a man on more than one occasion. Not exactly empowering. Looks better than it sounds, and I think that applies to almost every aspect of this.

Dir: Rick Walker
Star: Meghan Carrasquillo, Alea Hansinger, Grace Evans, Julia Avila

Escape

  By

★★★
“Now, I always fight back…”

This feels almost like a throwback to the silent era, and ‘white slave’ films with titles like Traffic in Souls, combined with a significant fear of ‘the other’. As such, it’s both painfully simplistic, and endlessly fascinating in the layers of interpretation which can be read into it, should you be so inclined. On the most basic level, it’s your everyday tale of “good” girls, kidnapped for sale to the highest bidder, who need to fight to retain their modesty and virtue. [Though let the record show, at no point is there any bikini-wearing wielding of automatic weapons, despite what the poster clearly wants you to think. The heroines here prefer weapons of the blunt and/or pointy variety]

Director Ford is no stranger to this site, having previously given us Never Let Go and The Ledge. This is similarly workmanlike, benefiting from a straightforward approach and uncomplicated plot. Young, attractive women on holiday (this was filmed in the Canary Islands) are being abducted and sold off as sex slaves. The tactics used by Andras (Cronin) and his gang vary from luring their targets to a remote cabin, to barging into their vacation apartment and chloroforming them. The net result is the same: they end up in a cell, deep in the bowels of a remote building, awaiting shipment to a buyer, located somewhere even more foreign. The latest victims are Tamsin and nurse Karla (Marks), who join seven other girls in peril, including Lucy (Rankin).

As well as the clearly xenophobic approach – foreign places are bad, and foreigners worse – there’s also a notable class element here. All the girls appear “nice”, from middle- to upper-class families, while their captors are rough-hewn working-class thugs. The exception is Jude (James): also the only one with a conscience, he provides Karla and friends with the opportunity to free themselves. This mass escape definitely feels like it’s taken from women-in-prison films, the women turning the tables on their captors. Karla, in particular, initially intends to leave, but for reasons connected to her past (everyone here has issues – see the quote, top), decides to go back and make Andras pay, using the pointy weapons mentioned above.

This is the gnarliest, though not the only bit of violence here, and the film doesn’t hold back. Despite some digital blood, other effects are clearly practical and the audio work enhances the effect nicely. There’s an subplot about the search for the girls back in Britain, which is almost entirely superfluous, and could surely have been replaced with some gratuitous nudity. The film is so chastely moral in that department, it could almost pass the Hays Code. It feels like there are too many interchangeable victims as well, who sometimes blur together, especially when they are running in different directions. Is that Tamsin? Or Karla? But it’s rarely boring, and as a melodramatic throwback, pushes enough of the right buttons.

Dir: Howard J. Ford
Star: Sarah Alexandra Marks, Sophie Rankin, Sean Cronin, Louis James

Knuckle Girl

  By

★★★
“Punches below its weight.”

This film is based on a Korean webcomic, but has been relocated to Japan. I can’t help wondering if something was lost in the process, because it feels like I should have liked this more than I did. Ran Tachibana (Miyoshi) is a promising amateur boxer, who gets devastating news when the body of her sister Yuzuki is found inside a burned-out vehicle. The cops call it suicide and quickly close the case. Except Ran doesn’t believe the corpse is Yuzuki, and begins to investigate what might have happened. The search leads her to an underground fight club run by the brutal Nikaido (Ito), who is holding Yuzuki hostage. He makes Ran an offer: beat his undefeated champion, and he’ll let Yuzuki go.

Naturally, it’s not as simple as that, with Nikaido reneging on his word. Fortunately, Ran has help in the shape of bike mechanic Kamiya (Maeda) and hacker Naruse (Hosoda), who help her go after Nikaido and take down his operation. There’s also concerns on the criminal side, with Nikaido’s bosses feeling he’s a loose cannon. It all feels too much to cram into a single movie, and I suspect it might have been better served in the form of a TV series. As is, elements like Yuzuki’s “magic blood” don’t appear to have much purpose. They seem there purely so fans of the comic will go “Oh, yeah!” and make little or no sense to casual viewers like me.

I think it’s probably a case whee less would have been more in terms of plotting. Keep it simple, perhaps removing side characters like Kamiya or Naurse, and focus just on Ran infiltrating the fight club and working her way up through it. Sure, it wouldn’t score points for originality, but it might have sustained my attention better. As is, in between the action, I must confess this sometimes struggled to retain focus. Considering the obviously non-trivial amount of resources that went into the production, it’s a shame they didn’t put as much effort into the story. For this undeniably looks spiffy, with the underground arena, in the shape of an eye, well-designed, and I liked the over-perky pair of MCs as well.

But I’m here for the fights, and these were… decent enough. I appreciated that the film acknowledged the heroine’s lack of size, and explicitly discussed how she would need to use her speed and agility to beat larger opponents. That’s true, even with the equalizer of knuckle-dusters, given to her by Nikaido to even up the betting odds a little. Miyoshi only had a few months training, but it’s likely easier to train an actress to fake fight, than a fighter to fake act, and it’s adequately convincing. But there are really only three or four sequences in the whole thing, with the story having to rush past most of them, because it has to deal with all the other elements. It’s all okay, I suppose, yet definitely feels like a wasted opportunity.

Dir: Hong-Seung Yoon
Star: Ayaka Miyoshi, Gôki Maeda, Hideaki Ito, Kanata Hosoda