Tag: 2024

Don’t Move

  By

★★★
“Suicide hotline stalking”

A somewhat gimmicky but adequately competent Netflix Original, I guess the moral here is that being abducted and stalked by a serial killer is the best kind of therapy. We meet Iris (Asbille) in the remote woods where her young son previously died. She never recovered, and is now standing on edge of a cliff, contemplating suicide. She’s interrupted by the arrival of a stranger, Richard (Wittrock), who talks her down. However, it turns out he has an ulterior motive: he wants to be the one to kill Iris. He tazes her, and while subsequently managing to escape, she has also been injected with a muscle relaxant that in twenty minutes will render her unable to move. 

Obviously, this makes for a perilous situation, as the drug slowly works its way through her system, eventually shutting down almost all conscious muscle movements. As such, it is going to be an “action” heroine film more in spirit than literally. For the vast majority of the film, Iris is unable to do very much more except blink enthusiastically. Naturally, both coming and going, the chemicals operate in exactly the way necessary to facilitate the script, and ratchet up the tension. Need to alert a suspicious police officer (Francis) to her presence? She will be able to move her hand just enough for that purpose, albeit very slowly. However, the script is assembled well enough, these moments feel organic enough to pass muster.

I think the best sequence has her washing up on the land of the reclusive Bill (Treadwell), an old geezer who is initially able to help. However, he is interrupted by the arrival of Richard, supposedly looking for his mentally disturbed wife. Bill can sense this isn’t exactly the truth, but Richard spins a plausible web of lies, all while Iris is inches away, unable to do anything. This generates quite the nervous energy, before it’s suddenly released. Indeed, Bill is an interesting person, albeit by the low standards of “minor characters in serial killer films”. Richard, too, has some surprises in his back-story. An unexpected phone call upends his carefully prepared plans, requiring a quick disposal of Iris, which leads to the movie’s climax. 

This is where it does topple over in terms of credibility, with more than one, “Wait, what?” moment. Apparently, a dunk in cold water is all it takes to reverse any pharmaceutical effects. Didn’t do much earlier, but I’ll say no more. While it’s always an issue if a film can’t stick the landing, Asbille delivers a good enough portrayal to keep me interested. That’s especially so, given the physical limitations imposed on her by the script; there are points where her eyes are the entire performance. Like most Netflix Originals, this isn’t likely to leave a lasting impression. However, unlike some, it did not leave me feeling my time had been wasted. Producer Sam Raimi, his name larger on the poster than the stars or directors, shouldn’t be embarrassed by this.

Dir: Brian Netto, Adam Schindler
Star: Kelsey Asbille, Finn Wittrock, Moray Treadwell, Daniel Francis

Canary Black

  By

★★★
“Gone, and soon forgotten.”

Both director Morel and star Beckinsale should be familiar names around here. The former directed Peppermint, the latter for the Underworld franchise. Indeed, I was a little surprised this wasn’t directed by Mr. Kate Beckinsale, Len Wiseman. But I guess he was too busy getting booted off Ballerina. Morel, who also directed Taken, is a perfectly adequate stand-in. This is more or less what I expected. A forgettable yet adequately amusing spy caper, with Beckinsale kicking moderate ass in pursuit of… [/checks notes] a computer virus which could potentially wipe out the whole Internet in selected countries. As I write this, two weeks before the US presidential election, nuking the Internet seems like a pretty good idea to me.

She plays Canary Black no, actually, Avery Graves, a globetrotting spy whose husband David (Friend) has no idea of her day job. If that sounds a tad familiar, I refer you to Role Play, which had a similar concept. Then, David gets kidnapped and used as leverage against Avery. She is ordered to liberate the “Canary Black” file of blackmail data, and hand it to David’s abductors, or he will pay the price. Needless to say, her boss Jarvis Hedlund (Stevenson, in one of his last roles) isn’t happy about his best agent going rogue. However, in one of a series of twists – some expected, some not – the file ends up containing the virus discussed above, and Avery must stop it from being released by the bad guys.

This all just about skates by, mostly on the strength of Beckinsale’s charisma. She keeps things watchable, and helps paper over a number of elements that would otherwise have you going, “Hang on a minute…” For instance, when Avery is breaking into a server farm, she flies in on a drone, which for some reason, is lit up like Times Square. The facility also lets you slap in a USB drive without authorization. My entry-level work PC won’t let me do that, and I don’t believe I have access to world-shattering computer viruses, the last time I checked. Naturally, it all ends with Avery rushing towards a computer as the upload progress bar crawls… ever… so… slowly towards a hundred percent. 

Morel handles the action with a professional eye, and considering she’s now in her fifties, Beckinsale isn’t bad. Though watching this the night after The Shadow Strays, the fights here seem like the participants are playing patty-cake in comparison. There’s a nice car chase through the streets of [/checks notes] Zagreb, but most of this is simply reasonably-made and thoroughly generic, and the lack of a memorable villain poses a problem. I couldn’t even tell you the main villain’s name, and his motivation appears to be purely mercenary, which is bad form for a bad guy. While I wasn’t bored, this is destined to be forgotten within a few weeks, and vanish into the black hole which is beyond the front page of Amazon Prime.

Dir: Pierre Morel
Star: Kate Beckinsale, Ray Stevenson, Rupert Friend, Jaz Hutchins

The Shadow Strays

  By

★★★★½
“Dog eat dog”

Director Tjahjanto gave us one of the best action films of the last decade in The Night Comes For Us, a gory and relentless assault of jaw-dropping hand-to-hand mayhem. Follow-up, The Big 4, was a little underwhelming, but I was still stoked to hear about this, in which he puts a heroine front and centre. This is perhaps a step or two short of Night – it’s clear the lead here is not a lifelong practitioner of martial arts like Joe Taslim and Iko Uwais. However, it’s the best film I’ve reviewed on this site in 2024, likely edging out Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, through a combination of sheer force of will and arterial spray.

The Shadows are a sect of assassins, who are basically unstoppable. 13 (Ribero) is a teenage trainee, who screws up a mission in Japan alongside her instructor, Umbra (Malasan), and barely survives. 13 gets put on administrative leave, and her enforced idleness is where the problems start. In a thread strongly reminiscent of Leon, she watches a neighbour get killed by a gang, and takes care of the son, Monji. However, he vanishes, apparently abducted by the gang, and 13 isn’t standing for that. Beginning by turning low-level enforcer, Jeki (Emmanuel), she works her way up the power structure, which goes right to the top of Indonesian political society. The resulting chaos threatens to expose the Shadows, so Umbra is then dispatched to terminate their rogue agent.

This runs a chunky 144 minutes – just a handful shorter than Furiosa – which seems a fair while for a martial-arts film. The Raid 2 and John Wick 4 are the only ones which come to mind as longer. But I can’t say this particularly felt like it; there’s not much slack. We open with the absolutely blood-drenched Japanese operation, which sets the tone early. To be honest, it does such a good job, most of what follows falls slightly short. Ribero is a model and singer, and it feels like Tjahjanto underlights a lot of scenes to help paper over this. But then there’s the final battle, between 13 and Umbra. It’s likely behind only Crouching Tiger as my favorite female vs. female fight ever: utterly relentless, and brutal as hell.

It is a little less impressive in between the fights: originality is, as noted previously, not necessarily the film’s strongest suit. Other threads are set up and them ignored, such as the Shadows’ miraculous serum, which is used by Umbra to resuscitate 13 in Japan, and never mentioned again. Maybe it’ll play more of a part in the sequel, to which the ending strongly hints, bringing in a face familiar to fans of Indonesian action. I’d love to see it, since this is definitely pushing the boundaries of action heroine cinema, in all the right ways. While imperfect, at its best this is enough to make me consider introducing a six-star rating, because it goes places I’ve never seen. When it does, the results are glorious.

Dir: Timo Tjahjanto
Star: Aurora Ribero, Kristo Immanuel, Hana Malasan, Taskya Namya

Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft

  By

★★★
“Croft Original?”

I’m rarely going to find animated action as impressive as “live action”. Something done by an actual human will always seem more real than anything CGI or traditional hand-drawn animation can achieve. That’s true even if the former is arguably as fake, between stunt doubles, green screen and no small amount of CGI itself. Maybe it’s just me. While I have given multiple animated films our Seal of Approval previously, including Mulan, Aeon Flux and Battle Angel, these have been won on the basis of other elements beyond action. A live-action film can get there purely on those merits, despite clear deficiencies elsewhere e.g. In the Line of Duty IV. I don’t think animation can do that.

Hence, I suspect that I would look more kindly on this were it another live adaptation. It wouldn’t have to do much to be an improvement over the Alicia Vikander version, though to be honest, the Angelina Jolie versions were only adequate and borderline bad respectively. Maybe the makers would be better taking a Resident Evil approach, and not worrying about being faithful to the video-games. I did play the original – it remains one of only a few I ever completed – but care not about accuracy. Films and games are different, and need to be. Plot and character matter more on screen, not playability. Here, those elements are alright: they feel functional rather than organically inspired. For instance, it feels less a story than a series of levels.

We begin with a prologue which sees Lara (Atwell) in Chile retrieving a box, alongside her mentor, Conrad Roth. Three years later, Roth is dead and Lara blames herself for that. She’s about to sell off all the family’s treasures, when the Chilean box is stolen by Charles Devereaux (Armitage). Turns out the stone it contains is the first in a series of four, which when combined will destroy the precarious balance under which the world operates. Along with sidekicks Jonah (Baylon) and Zip (Maldonado), Lara criss-crosses the globe, from China to Turkey to France, and back to China, trying to stop Devereaux from completing the set and unleashing the power they contain.

From subsequent reading, I suspect you probably need to have played the specific games on which this is based (I believe it’s the “Survivor timeline”), to understand the significant of the apparent trauma through which the character has gone. None of this is depicted in the film, so I had no clue why I should be bothered by the off-screen death of Conrad, someone I’d only known for about five minutes. Also, Lara seems a bit gay here. Quite why a video-game character should be given specific sexuality escapes me. Shame they didn’t have the courage of their apparent convictions, to do more than hint heavily. To quote Yoda, “Do. Or do not.” Give us hot cartoon babes making out, or don’t bother bringing it up.

Of course, an old white guy is the villain, in comparison to the young, ethnically diverse group in Lara’s camp, and there are a couple of other jabs along those lines. But in general, it’s light enough with the messaging. The eight episodes probably total just under three hours, by the time you trim off the credits, so not all that much more than The Cradle of Life‘s 117-minute running time. You could probably get through it in a single sitting: it’s not difficult viewing. The animation is mid-tier, but does the job, and I liked the performance of Atwell (well-known here for her depiction of Agent Carter), who comes over as a serious, almost solemn, heroine – yet one with whom it’s still easy to empathize. Her supporting cast though, feel superfluous and don’t make much impression.

Within the limitation of animated action discussed above, what you get here isn’t bad. There are some good set pieces, and a couple of occasions where I almost forgot I wasn’t watching actual people, and held my breath. Key word there though, is “almost”. There’s an overall air of competence surrounding the production, and no obvious elements at which I can point a critical finger. Yet there is also not much to cause me to recommend this actively to anyone, who isn’t already a fan of the games. A second series hasn’t been confirmed: there are reports it received a two-season order out of the box, although it doesn’t appear to have received the critical acclaim given to Arcane. But if Lara does return, she probably falls into the “If I’ve nothing else to do” category.

[Jim]

Looking at some of the harsh reviews for the show, I get the impression a lot of it comes from, “I wanted the show to be this but it was that.” It’s a bit unfair because as a show, the series is good, standard adventure animation. Those who expected the show to be somewhat like Arcane: League of Legends, for example, were setting expectations very high. It’s true, that there are “two Laras”. The original by Eidos was invented in 1996, and the “modernized version” came out with the new games of Crystal Dynamics in 2013, and influenced the 2018 reboot movie, with Alicia Vikander. The original Lara could be described as a rich but goodhearted sociopath: watch the Angelina Jolie version, she really got it. Lara was a female Indiana Jones, living in a Bruce Wayne-like mansion, while the modern version seemed inspired by the Lisbeth Salander character from the Millennium Trilogy.

She instead became a guilt-stricken trauma survivor: I remember a trailer for one of the modern games, where she was talking with a psychiatrist and her whole body shook while remembering her previous experiences. The relentless adventurer who just enjoyed the journey seems to be out; the pain-stricken and emotive heroine is in. Still, she does all the action you would expect from her. This Lara just comes with emotional baggage; she has to learn to value her friends and understand that people are more important than the things she hunts. In a way it’s like modern and old James Bond. Once upon a time, he was a superhero we all loved and adored. Today, he has been cut down in size to make the character “more human”. For Lara, it makes her more relatable, for sure – but arguably less interesting. I’m not sure it’s the best way to present the character.

Filmed versions of Lara always seem to have her suffering from the loss of her father. This is the third such, after the Jolie and Vikander live-action versions. It should be noted this was not originally part of her imagined biography, which has changed several times over the years. Originally, she fell out with her family, when she decided to make adventure her lifestyle, earning her living as a travel writer, instead of marrying the Earl her parents had chosen for her. Her big defining moment was surviving alone for two weeks in the Himalayas after a plane accident. It was only after the Jolie films and the reboot games, it became that she had lost both parents.

Here, Hayley Atwell gives our favourite tomb raider a very good voice, and you wonder why film makers seem so resistant to casting a British actress as real-life Lara, with the previous actresses being American and Swedish. After all, Lady Lara Croft is as quintessential British as Sherlock Holmes, James Bond or Emma Peel. [Jim: be careful what you wish for, Dieter. You now have to deal with Sophie Turner as Lara in Amazon Prime’s adaptation!] In Charles Devereaux, this show offers Lara a villain who gives her the old, “You and me are actually very much alike” speech, as heard from Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, to emphasize the darker side of a hero. Nothing new here on this front.

A lot of effort goes into giving Lara a circle of friends, something less a factor in the games. But as every Bond has his Felix Leiter, every Indiana his Sallah, it’s only fair Lara also get her sidekicks! Interestingly, Lara’s arc is as an emotional vulnerable character, who finds her way back to humanity, in contrast to the villain who seems to lose his more and more. But the “coolness” of the original character, as seen in the early games and movies, has perhaps been lost in favour of her becoming a team player. It’s indicated that what prevents Lara from falling to her more negative instincts, is that she has friends who care for her, and help cope with her pain and grief. Devereaux is essentially alone, with no reason for him to overcome his anger, pain and wish for revenge. Richard Armitage gives a believable performance there. Yet she is still constantly trying to save her enemy. I suspect that “old Lara” would just have killed him when he attacked her, of that I’m quite sure.

There are a lot of small nods to previous games and films if you pay attention, beyond Lara doing parkour, reflecting her running and jumping around in the games. Things like a mention of the Trinity group, which appears in the Alicia Vikander movie, or her hallucinations of demons with a striking resemblance to the stone gargoyles that came alive in the first Jolie adventure. However, the show delivers only standard adventure, neither great nor bad; like so many things, it’s in the middle, just average. If you can cope with that, the show should entertain – no less, no more, with animation which similarly is fairly standard but satisfying enough. It provides the action and adventure I would expect from this genre. The one real flaw I see, is that it lacks the kind of humour, fun and levity I’d also deem essential elements of the Tomb Raider franchise. Lighten up a bit next time, Lara.

[Dieter]

Showrunner: Tasha Huo
Star (voice): Hayley Atwell, Earl Baylon, Richard Armitage, Allen Maldonado

Birth of a Savage

  By

★★
“Not really very savage at all”

This is one of those films where the same person wrote, directed and starred in it, and once again, the results illustrate the problems with such an endeavour. Almost any project will benefit from an external perspective which can offer constructive criticism, but when this is removed, the flaws typically end up multiplied. That said, this isn’t terrible. I think Riches the screenwriter comes out best, with a story which bypasses the usual cliches of urban storylines e.g. gangster rising out of the gutter, and does offer some genuine surprises. Director Riches also gets some points for restraint on the soundtrack front; it’s not comprised entirely of her mates rapping badly. 

It’s as an actress that Riches is weakest. The story has her playing Tiana, a woman whose entirely life has been dogged by poor relationships with men, from a distant father through bad boyfriends, to a controlling and eventually abusive husband, who kicks her and young daughter Erica (Session) out on the street. The only thing keeping Tiana sane is the classes she gives at the local martial arts school, owned by Mr. Lewis (Hoo), and she decided to use these skills to make bad men pay for their behaviour. This comes close to home, because she suspects that her sister, Rochelle (Amor), is also in an abusive relationship. These suspicions prove well-founded, though in one of those genuine surprises, not quite as Tiana believes.

The problem is that Tiana is never even slightly convincing as a bad-ass. Her idea of martial-arts training is, I kid you not, jumping jacks, and most of the fights we see are poorly-staged and/or brief, I suspect out of necessity. It’s the kind of film which needs to go a lot harder than the lead actress is capable of. “Concerned mother” is within her acting range; “angel of vengeance” is not. I did appreciate how the script does not attempt to go #AllMen on us, with a couple of sympathetic male characters. Mr. Lewis is probably the most well-developed, though he does fall right into the wheel-house of the “wise Oriental spouting philosophical insights” trope instead. But he does deliver some unexpected truths.

The structure is either clunky or interesting, and I’m not sure which. It begins with her abducting one of her targets, then leaps back decades to tell Tiana’s story from the very beginning. I’m not certain anything useful is gained by this, and by the time it circles back, we’ve largely forgotten why we are supposed to care. The final act is the best in most departments, including Riches apparently doing one actual stunt which genuinely surprised me, and proceedings that capture a down-to-earth tone, missing in dumb plot threads like Mr. Lewis giving the dojo to Tiana. To be brutally honest, I’d not blame the viewer if they’d bailed by that point, having decided Riches needs to focus her talents on one area.

Dir: Jezar Riches
Star: Jezar Riches, Howard Hoo, Cheri Amor, Dalaini Session

 

Duchess

  By

★★
“Largely ignoble.”

Marshall has been involved in our genre back to 1998, when he wrote Killing Time. Since then, there have been some classics (The Descent), but the trend has been gently downhill. Of late, he seems to be doing a lot of work with wife Charlotte Kirk (a mere 22 years his younger). The last here was The Lair, which Kirk co-wrote with her husband and starred in. The same is true for this, just to slightly lesser effect, and with even more derivative results. This feels in particular like an early Guy Ritchie film, with larger than life underworld figures, hyper violence and snappy dialogue. Well, those are the goals, anyway. Execution is a different thing, to varying degrees.

The heroine is Scarlett Monaghan (Kirk), rescued from her low-rent pickpocket career by international man of mystery, Robert McNaughton (Winchester), and whisked off to a life of luxury in the Canary Islands. Turns out her new boyfriend is a diamond trafficker, and that’s a very risky business to be in, given the huge profits to be made. While he has a loyal cadre of associates, such as Danny Oswald (Pertwee), not everyone in his circle is trustworthy. After an associate tries to rape Scarlett, and is killed by her, the violence and treachery escalate to the point where she and Robert are left for dead. She isn’t prepared to let it lie, and comes back from the grave to take revenge on those responsible.

Bits of this work reasonably well, with Kirk making a good impression. [Also: you’ll understand why the director married her… I now move rapidly on!] Monaghan is a character with a rough-hewn charm, and a fierce loyalty to those for whom she cares, be that friends, family (with the exception of her father, played by Colm Meaney) or Robert. The big problem here is pacing. The movie is almost two hours long, and barely the last twenty minutes are involved in the interesting stuff: Scarlett’s vengeance. Even when this shows up, it’s hardly The Bride taking on the Crazy 88’s. Indeed, you could argue the most fun action is the opening scene of the movie, which then rolls into a flashback of how we got to that point.

Some of the violence is striking. Scarlett goes to extremes to extract information, and veteran actress Stephanie Beacham, playing Robert’s business partner, goes full Colombian necktie on a minion who tries to steal from her. This does feel at odds with the overall tone. It’s quite light in its atmosphere, populated by larger than life characters – Beacham’s sweary boss is the most obvious example – rather than aiming for gritty realism. This did a barely passable job of holding my attention. It probably should have joined proceedings considerably later, with all Scarlett’s London life largely irrelevant. Did appreciate the Peckham mentions though, having caught the train to work daily from there, back in the nineties. That I was more excited by this than 95% of the film, is likely a warning. 

Dir: Neil Marshall
Star: Charlotte Kirk, Philip Winchester, Sean Pertwee, Colin Egglesfield

Echo 8

  By

★★½
“Easier to forget.”

This bills itself as “Australia’s first female-led independent action movie”. Seems a bit of a stretch, considering how many films we’ve reviewed from Down Under previously, such as Avarice. Heck, Agent Provocateur had a similar plot in 2012. However, this has had a lengthy trip to the screen, shooting having started prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. Four years later, it’s finally available, and is clearly a labour of love for those involved, not least Tran who wore multiple heads on the production. Between that and the limited resources, I’m reluctant to pan it savagely, but the truth is, even with a rating which is cutting it slack for these reasons, the end product is still not very good. It’s more “shows some potential” than “would recommend.”

The main problem is a script, which is basically a mix of movie cliches #27, the assassin who defies orders, and #32, cinematic amnesia, which naturally releases information at the exact pace needed by the plot. Echo 8 (Tran) has been brought up since she was a young child to be a trained killer, and now works alongside her partner, Delta 1 (Vuong), under the oversight of boss Agent 5 (Hara). But she’s also experiencing flashbacks of her early life, which are causing her to question what she’s doing. When Echo 8 is ordered to kill local activist Hanh (Chan), who is digging into areas potentially troublesome for the organization, the assassin decides not to carry out her task.

Needless to say, Agent 5 is less than happy at the situation, and Echo 8 finds herself going from the hunter to the hunted. If this sounds familiar, it’s all very much what we’ve seen before: Naked Weapon uses basically the same story, or more recently, so does Thailand’s The Kill List. A well-worn plot isn’t necessarily a problem, if you do well in other areas, be it performances or action. Its something the films mentioned manage, to considerably greater success than Echo 8, which succeeds only intermittently. You have also to get past the idea of killers who walk around dressed like ninjas on Halloween night – hardly inconspicuous – and get into random fights in night-clubs, because that won’t draw attention to themselves either.

The viewer must then deal with a slew of supporting actors who don’t need to give up their day jobs. Tran is okay, and Vuong actually good, with a dry sense of humour that’s welcome. Some others, though, may be delivering their lines phonetically, and the action is similarly mixed. The small scale of the production sometimes comes through, and even within the same fight, you’ll get one punch that seems to have impact, followed by two that clearly miss the mark. There are odd distractions, like the fight where someone is wielding a child’s plastic chair: what is that doing in an underground car-park? The ending is left open and a trilogy is planned. While I’m not averse to giving it a look, I hope those involved learn from this experience and do better next time.

Dir: Maria Tran, Takashi Hara
Star: Maria Tran, David Vuong, Takeshi Hara, Gabrielle Chan

Martingale

  By

★★½
“Double or – more likely – nothing.”

It’s probably symptomatic of… something, that the film’s title is never explained. With the main character working in a casino, I presume it’s a reference to the Martingale betting system, where you basically double your bet after every loss. It guarantees a profit – unless you hit such a long losing streak you run out of money entirely. Its relevance here is uncertain, and I doubt most viewers would know what a martingale is either. But then, the film is very good at not explaining stuff. Another example would be, what the scam is supposed to be with Andi (Sullivan) collecting left-behind cash-out casino slips and handing them to a collaborator, Whit (Melikhov). These are for trivial amounts, so why bother?

When not bilking her employer out of pocket change, Andi’s main obsession is investigating the death of her daughter, a year previously. She had overdosed in a drug house, but the police were unable to press charges on anyone. Andi is not put off, and is intent on finding the boy whom she blames for her child’s death, and making him suffer in a similar way. Her investigation proceeds with the increasingly reluctant help of local private eye Levi (Adkins), and brings her up against the powerful and evil Harland (Shockley). Turns out, it was his son Robby who was with Andi’s daughter. Neither parent is prepared to back down and give up on their offspring, so eventually, something will have to give.

The tagline on the release poster was changed to “Revenge is a deadly gamble,” which does at least tie in with the title. But the original one of “Revenge is a real mess,” might be more accurate, with Andi stumbling into increasing trouble, and refusing to accept the very sensible advice, just to let it go. While her persistence is the heroine’s most admirable quality, the film itself is also a real mess in some aspects, with plotting which is often as obtuse as its title. While Harland does project a certain menace as the villain, I found it hard to take anyone seriously as a bad guy, when he looks like James May out of Top Gear. 

Nowhere is the vagueness more apparent than at the end. There’s a knock at the door and… That’s it. We never learn who it is. The makers were clearly going for ambiguity, but if you hated how The Sopranos ended, this might well have you lobbing pets, living-room furniture or small children through your television set. If the script leaves plenty to be desired, at least the performances are decent, and a bit like in Adrenaline, you do get a sense of turning over a societal rock, and seeing the less than pleasant results beneath. As a heroine’s journey, it’s a trip into the underworld, though I would be hard pushed to tell you how Andi was changed by her experience. I certainly know I was not.

Dir: Jeremy Berg
Star: Kelly Sullivan, William Shockley, Jason Adkins, Konstantin Melikhov

Role Play

  By

★★★
“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

  By

★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