Tag: 2025

Stone Cold Fox

  By

★★
“For Fox’s sake…”

I think, if you’re going to try and recreate the eighties, it might help if you were there. I was. Co-writer/director Tabet? Not so much. She seems repeatedly to confuse the look and feel of the decade with the seventies. The repeated needle-drop of Sweet song “Fox on the Run” – actually released in 1974 – is the most blatant example. It explains why the results are a bit of a mess. A well-intentioned mess, to be fair, and you can usually see what they are aiming for. However, throwing a character in solely so they can refer to eighties films like Commando and Cobra, is painfully clunky, and is a more accurate reflection of the approach in which this indulges.

It takes place, as noted, in some vaguely historical period, where troubled teenager Fox (Shipka) runs away from junkie single mother, and younger sister Spooky. She’s taken under the wing and becomes the lover of Goldie (Ritter), a criminal entrepreneur. But after she catches an apparent glimpse of Spooky, Fox feels guilty at abandoning her sibling. She lifts a large duffel-bag of drugs, stolen by Goldie in association with her corrupt cop partner, Billy Breaker (Sutherland) and goes on the lam, looking for Spooky. Naturally, neither Goldie nor Breaker are pleased by this development, and set out to recover their ill-gotten gains. However, Fox has allies on her side too, including ex-combat medic Frankie, who has a Lebanese almost but not quite brother (the film fan mentioned).

While in pre-production on this, Tabet said, “I plan on genre-bending: gut-punching, pulpy, queer stories told with a habibi flare.” Well, apart from having to look up what “habibi” means – and I’m still confused what was intended there, in relation to movies – I guess this kinda works? It’s not very genre-bending, with a random, one-off breaking of the fourth wall at the start the closest we get. And I didn’t feel like it provided any punches to the gut, beyond a gentle tap regarding something regarding Spooky. Pulpy and queer? More so: indeed, it does seem at times like the script is more intent on ticking diversity boxes – not something exactly common in the eighties – than telling a story. This is my unsurprised face, that the film ended up on Netflix. 

It was a little ironic watching Sutherland playing a lawman, the day after his arrest for allegedly assaulting an Uber driver. Such things aside, there are some positives. Ritter makes for a decent villainess, and Mishel Prada is so much fun as Frankie, I’d perhaps have preferred the film to have focused on her story (the synchronised nunchaking was my personal highlight). But for every step forward, there are two back: Chung’s newly-transferred cop character serves no real purpose, and is just a cliché on legs; the same goes for Goldie’s henchwomen. There was more to the eighties (and to eighties action movies as well) than training montages. I should know.

Dir: Sophie Tabet
Star: Kiernan Shipka, Krysten Ritter, Kiefer Sutherland, Jamie Chung

Rogue Angel

  By

★★
“Time is not on its side.”

There is certainly something laudable taking on the challenge of making a feature film in seven days, and on a budget of seven thousand dollars. Doing so, and coming out the far end with anything remotely watchable, requires discipline and commitment. However, it also comes with certain penalties. The end consumer isn’t going to care about any of those constraints. They’re going to look at the screen and see takes which are “good enough,” rather than good, and particularly among the supporting cast, performances by people selected more for availability than talent. I tend to suggest it might be better to put the time and resources into making the best movie you can, rather than the cheapest and/or quickest one. 

Here, we have Angie Baker (Gerhardy), former member of an all-women platoon in the Middle East, who has returned to the town where she was brought up, as her grandmother nears death. There’s a lot of baggage here, including the younger sister she left behind, Lexi (Krause), and the family mine, owned by the grandmother and coveted by certain other relations. Most significantly though, is her fraught to the point of non-existent relationship with her father, Jake (Woodman). There was an incident – we find out the details right at the end – which is why Angie left. And is why Jake ends up buried alive in the woods. Hey, his coffin does have a breathing tube: Angie is not a monster… 

This was Daly’s first feature, according to the IndieGoGo page, and while I have certainly seen a lot worse, you can tell that’s the case, along with the limitations of the schedule and budget. The highly unconvincing attempt to be Afghanistan should have been canned, for instance, and there is an inconsistency of tone in Angie’s character. Particularly at the end, she goes full Rambo, gouging out eyes and slicing off body parts, in a way that seems out of place. Admittedly, at that point we aren’t aware of the full truth – which may or may not justify such nastiness: I’d have preferred to know from the start, bringing us along on her journey of revenge. Trimming 15-20 minutes would have made for a tighter and leaner product too.

It’s interesting to note this was written and directed by a woman: not often the case in the movies we review. Although it’s not often the case in action film-making generally: without being prejudiced, the fact is that women tend to gravitate to other genres. Perhaps as a result, Daly does bring a different perspective to this, though it’s one which paints with a broad brush: about the only man here who isn’t a Neanderthal is the local sheriff (Fowlks). As a starting point, this is okay – it is obviously a start, however, and is likely more successful as a learning experience than as a feature, only occasionally achieving any genuine emotional connection. I would be curious to see what Daly could do, when she takes her time. 

Dir: Brenda Daly
Star: Jackie Gerhardy, Sheila Krause, Dan Fowlks, Allen Woodman

The Cost of Something Priceless

  By

★½
“The Price of Something Worthless”

I think it was the start of the closing credits where I realized why I disliked this so intensely. The film describes itself as, “A Flick by Adam ‘Ace’ Silva.” There’s hardly a part of that which does not make me cringe. Having the nickname “Ace” is one thing: it should only apply if you’re a sixties test-pilot. But putting it in your film is… yeah. Then there’s calling your movie a “flick”. No. Just no. It’s an attitude which, in hindsight, infuses the entire production. But what do you expect, when Silva didn’t just direct it. He also wrote it, edited it, did the cinematography and composed the music. All one hundred and eleven minutes of it. 

The story is about as much of a mess as the movie poster, with a lot of ideas, and woefully little idea of how to put them into a coherent structure. The heroine is Carmen (Maya), whom we first meet ripping off a former boyfriend for some drugs and money, leaving him for dead in the street. Key words, “leaving him for”. He’s not actually dead, and nor is he happy about it. Naturally, retribution is on his mind, and from this spirals off a slew of violent incidents and kooky characters, such as a weird, bald assassin with a foot fetish. Meanwhile, Maya attempts to make her way through the carnage and be re-united with her long-lost daughter, alongside somewhat faithful sidekick Tobias Anderson (Swain).

It’s not so much a question of being unable to figure out what’s going on, and more a case of finding myself unable to give a damn. Carmen isn’t a nice person to begin with. Had we, for example, been given an indication of her maternal leanings early on, that would have been something on which we might have been able to hang our empathy. Instead, we are repeatedly told how she doesn’t care for anyone else, although this is painfully apparent from the get-go. Rather than developing other characters, the film flings them at us, quickly getting bored and moving on the next. Some do have potential, such as the double-act who refer to themselves as Jack and Jill. Don’t expect much more.

I will say, there is plenty of the old ultraviolence. But the execution leaves a lot to be desired, with some of the worst digital muzzle-flashes I’ve ever seen. The last 20 minutes are a parade of completely unconvincing gun battles, with no noticeable damage to property at all. The fisticuffs are better, simply because they don’t need to have digital garbage pasted on top. Carmen does kinda look like the sort of person who would kick your butt: both she and Jill (Krueger) seem to do a fair amount of wandering around in their bras, which is not unpleasant. However, it all becomes a chore, long before an ending which came as more a relief than anything else.

Dir: Adam Silva
Star: Lina Maya, Davone Swain, Steven Staine Fernandez, Jessica Krueger

American Woman

  By

★½
“Doctor in the house.”

I guess some credit is due here for going against type, at least. Molly Reese (Stack) is not your typical vigilante. She’s actually a doctor who works in an emergency room, and suffers a debilitating mental blow when her husband and daughter are both killed in an accident. She subsequently goes to a very dark place psychologically, telling her therapist she has thoughts about killing people. This is particularly unfortunate, after she is unable to save a local mob-boss, and his gang decide she is to blame. For Molly gets to put all those murderous impulses into action, under the guise of self-defense, and then proceeds to take the fight to the gangsters, all the while becoming increasingly unstable. 

It’s an interesting concept, and the potential is there: a doctor using her medical skills in ways of which the Hippocratic Oath would not approve. As noted, she doesn’t initially look like a crazed vigilante, and that might have been leveraged to good effect. However, the execution here is flat-out terrible, in a variety of ways. Stack as the protagonist isn’t particularly one of them, though her descent into insanity is largely depicted by Molly pulling increasingly deranged faces, and steadily worse hair-styles. It’s everything else. For example, the gangsters, who could not be a more shallow cliche of Italians if they tried. We know they are gangsters, because the restaurant where they hang out plays Nessun Dorma on a loop, I kid you not. 

Their competence leaves a huge amount to be desired too, perpetually losing fights – both gun and hand-to-hand – against a middle-aged physician with no previous experience. This makes them largely useless as villains, since they’re no threat. Though Mikey (Rosing), the one mostly in charge of hunting Molly, at least looks the part, ponytail and all. However, the actual battles are terribly staged, such as a lengthy gun-battle in a bowling alley, where none of the bullets seems to hit anything at all. There’s another member of the gang, Vito (Zambrano), who seems to have a thing for Molly. Don’t worry, since this proves to be of no significance. It’s all unfocused and poorly structured, up until an ending so abrupt, it suggests everyone involved suddenly realized they’d made a terrible mistake.

Probably the worst thing in the movie though, is Mollie’s neighbour, David (Tyler). I’m not sure if this depiction of a mentally-challenged individual was intended to provide humourous relief. If there’s blackface and brownface, is there such a thing as “retardface”, where someone pretends to be intellectually disabled for comedic purposes? Even if Tyler is genuinely like that (doubtful), it’s horribly exploitative, and would be among the most cringe-inducing portrayals of the year. It sums up a severely misbegotten adventure, that might have worked better as a short. It certainly has “Not ready for first feature” written all the way through it. Although for writer-director Siegel, the only way from here is up. 

Dir: Artie Siegel
Star: Katelin Stack, Joe Rosing, Frank Zambrano, Vic Tyler

Dead of Winter

  By

★★★½
“Old, bold and cold.”

Thompson seems to be having a second wind, making her first appearance on this site at the age of sixty-six. That’s a decade more than Liam Neeson was when he became an action star with Taken, and probably makes Thompson the oldest debutante here. This comes on the heels of series Down Cemetery Road which, while not quite qualifying here, certainly was more brisk than expected. At this rate, I might even have to forgive her for throwing shade at Audrey Hepburn. No question about the credentials of Winter for this site, since it plays like a cross between Fargo and Taken. There’s not a lot of fat here, certainly. Things kick off just a few minutes in, and barely stop thereafter.

Barb (Thompson) is on the way to a lake in Minnesota – a part played by Finland – for some ice fishing. She gets turned around, and stops at a remote cabin to ask for directions. There she meets an odd man (Menchaca), and notices some blood on the ground. Then, at the lake, she sees the man chasing after and recapturing a young woman (Marsden), so realizes she has stumbled into the middle of a kidnapping plot. After the obligatory “no signal” scene, Barb realizes she is the victim’s only hope. But the man may not be her biggest problem. His wife (Greer) is the real brains behind the operation, very highly motivated, and prepared to go to any lengths to stop Barb from interfering in the grim plan.

I will say, it does take a bit of getting used to, hearing Thompson going full Marge Gunderson, eh? This is no comment on the accuracy of the accent, a topic on which I am not qualified to speak. It’s just odd. However, this is not a particularly dialogue-heavy movie, with Barb spending much of it alone and in the wilderness. We never find out either of the antagonists’ names, incidentally, the end credits just calling them Purple Lady and Camo Jacket. The film focuses increasingly on the two women. Purple has nothing left to lose, generally having the edge in firepower and ruthlessness – as is demonstrated after Barb is able to reach help through a CB radio. But Barb has motivation of her own. 

This comes out in rather clunky flashbacks to the early days of her relationship with her husband. Truth be told, I didn’t feel these added particularly much; the same information could have been provided more efficiently, and in ways which didn’t derail the tension of the current situation. Though I did like how the young Barb is played by Thompson’s real-life daughter, Gaia Wise, I found myself impatient for the film to return to the one-on-one battle, which you know is going to end badly for someone. Or someones. The film doesn’t disappoint there, with a brutal struggle in the middle of a frozen lake, good enough to make me forget the combatants have a combined age of 116. 

Dir: Brian Kirk
Star: Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Laurel Marsden

Baby Assassins 3

  By

★★★
“Sorry for laughing.”

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that the Baby Assassins franchise may be some kind of surrealist joke, being played on me by its makers. I really want to love the series and, as with both Part 1 and Part 2, there are moments where I do. At points, I was genuinely considering this as a Top 10 movie I saw this year – not just among GWG movies either. But then, it’ll grind to a halt, with such dedication to being mind-numbingly tedious, that it feels almost like wilful self-sabotage. In reality, I think it’s more likely to be cultural and societal impenetrability. Some elements here are ones which are relatable to a Western audience. Others? Not so much. 

It takes place in Miyazaki, a seaside city in Japan. Our heroines, Chisato (Takaishi) and Mahiro (Izawa) are on a working holiday there. Or a holiday where work keeps interrupting, it’s hard to say. However, their commission becomes an issue, because another, non-guild assassin, Fuyumura (Ikematsu), is also on the job. The guild are unhappy, and order the pair not just to complete the commission, but also eliminate Fuyumura for cutting in on their turf. This will be easier said than done, even with the largely unwelcome help of guild supervisor, Minami (Maeda). She is less than impressed with the Gen Z approach of Chisato and Mahiro, who would rather be in a restaurant eating the renowned local beef. 

As before, it’s the action which really resonated with me, in particular a stunning series of close-quarters battles. And when I say “close”, I mean fights where the combatants are frequently inches from each other. The early sequence where Chisato goes up against Fuyumura is a good example: while there is a gun involved, there’s not enough space between them, for either to point it effectively at their opponent. [This is when I was thinking, potential top ten movie] It’s also notable that, in this installment, most of the sequences involve professional assassins going up against each other in one-on-one, or two-on-one, action, not the mass brawls of previous films. This exchange of quality for quantity is a better opportunity for the participants to show off actual skills.

But the stuff between the fights? Dear lord, this is mostly terrible. And, in a film which runs an entirely unnecessary one hundred and twelve minutes, it’s terrible at near-excruciating length. There are only so many times you can listen to Mahiro worry about forgetting Chisato’s 20th birthday before it becomes a chore, rather than a pleasure. For me, that limit is “once.” Being charitable, this kind of stuff probably plays better to a local audience, or maybe simply one closer to the protagonists’ ages. My tolerance for Gen Z shit is certainly closer to Minami’s, and may be lower still. I’ve no doubt I’ll be waiting for Baby Assassins 4; I just hope the makers decide that joke isn’t funny any more. 

Dir: Yugo Sakamoto
Star: Akari Takaishi, Saori Izawa, Sôsuke Ikematsu, Atsuko Maeda
a.k.a. Baby Assassins: Nice Days

De La Cruz

  By

★★½
“Proverbs 21:15.”

Which, in case you were wondering, is: “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.” Though based on this, I would suggest adding “…eventually” to the end. Because you are going to need a lot of patience here. While this is a rape-revenge movie, the sexual assault in question takes almost an hour to show up. Until that point, there are two threads, and you’ll also be waiting for them to connect. By far the less interesting is the teenage soap opera of the pure and innocent Yoli De La Cruz (Diaz), and her friends, the somewhat annoying Daniella, and the immensely irritating Adriana. Boys, parties, etc. You know the score.

The other is rather more intriguing, being the struggle of former MMA fighter, now a cartel hitman, Lobo (Patiño), to leave the criminal life. This comes after a near-religious experience involving Santa Muerte, who is basically the personification of death in Mexican folklore. Meanwhile, Yoli ends up being raped by Victor (Issac GH). The moral here is, you’re clearly far better off being a slut like Adriana, and going with it. Victor is the son of the local police chief, so justice will not be done. However, this is where – after an hour and twenty minutes – the stories join up. Because Lobo turns out to be Daniella’s cousin, and agrees to teach Yoli a very particular set of skills, so she can administer her own vengeance. 

Things definitely improve in the latter stages, not least because Adriana is almost entirely absent. You will need to be extremely patient to get to the good stuff. Lobo holds the film together, and there’s a great scene where he’s talking to Yoli’s father (Gaviria), and explaining why he can’t do anything himself. The way Santa Muerte gets mixed in isn’t bad, though when she rises up behind Yoli before her first bout, it does look like someone cosplaying as the Grim Reaper. There is a reasonable amount of effort put into the heroine’s transition from shrinking violent to avenging angel, though it is a little montage heavy, writer/director Baez being unable to get out of his own way. 

It certainly needs a good half-hour edited out in the early stages, when there is simply far too much faffing around, to use a good old British phrase. There’s also a weird lack of location: while presumably set in Mexico, going by references to cockfighting arenas, etc. there’s a significant amount of English being spoken. It ends in “To be continued…” having opened, one hundred and thirty minutes earlier, with a “Part 1” caption. I had spent much of the previous two hours bracing for a cliffhanger, which mercifully never appears, this being relatively tidy. Would I mind a part two? That depends largely on whether Baez avoids the faffage which dragged the first half here down like an anchor. Lobo and Yoli going 100% vigilante might be of interest though. 

Dir: Michael Baez
Star: Sofia Diaz, Raul Patiño, Noe Issac GH, Fernando Gaviria

Wildcat

  By

★★★½
“She’s got claws.”

I was quite startled to read some of the scathing reviews this received. For I genuinely enjoyed it, to the point it likely came one element (which I’ll get to) from a seal of approval. Sure, it’s nothing particularly new overall. However, I found it consistently enjoyable, to the level I felt no desire to look at my phone at any point. These days, that’s high praise indeed. It takes place in a slightly alternate London, where gang bosses Frasier Mahoney (Charles Dance) and Mrs. Christina Vine (Krige) are on the edge of a war for control of the city. There’s also a rogue element, in the Mushka Gang, who have turned an East End estate into a no-go area.

Ada (Beckinsale) doesn’t have much to do with this, until her brother Edward (Hardiker) gets deep in debt to Mahoney. He kidnaps her daughter to ensure the money gets paid back. This forces Ada to carry out a heist on a jewellery store run by Vine, which is only the start in a series of problems. She does have assistance, in the shape of former lover Roman (Tan), who can help fence the product. Meanwhile, Ada is trying to get Mahoney blamed for the robbery, to start an inter-factional war that can cover their escape. Meanwhile meanwhile, we discover Ada and Edward’s past, and encounter a number of colourful characters, such as the foul-mouthed Galloway (Tom Bennett, channeling Budget Nick Frost).

There are a lot of moving parts, but Nunn keeps things clear. He has plenty of action experience, including the wonderful Scott Adkins vehicle One Shot, which was my favourite movie of 2021. This isn’t quite as relentlessly kinetic, yet keeps a good pace throughout. Tan actually gets as many action scenes as Beckinsale, and this brings me to the issue mentioned above. While she still looks the part – and very good for 52 – there’s an awful lot of shots from behind, strongly suggesting heavy stunt doubling. And it’s not subtly done. They might as well just have hired Laura Vörtler, Beckinsale’s stunt double, to play the part and been done with it. Still, despite clearly more limited resources, I preferred this to her last couple of actioners, Canary Black and Jolt.

It helps to have the likes of Krige and Dance in the supporting cast. The latter is barely seen until the end, though makes up for lost time with a blistering anecdote about his late wife. I really enjoyed Krige, whose character can go from comforting a grandchild troubled by bad dreams, to torturing an employee for information, without more than a blink. There are some elements which feel underdeveloped, such as a weird club which seems little more than a flimsy excuse to tie Beckinsale up. But overall, I enjoyed this, and particularly appreciated the bone-dry British humour peppered throughout. Although the lead may not have many more action films in her, Nunn continues to prove his credentials. 

Dir: James Nunn
Star: Kate Beckinsale, Lewis Tan, Rasmus Hardiker, Alice Krige

Compulsion

  By

★★★
“Rated R, for raunchy and rough.”

The “erotic thriller” now seems almost as quaint a part of cinema history as beach party films. It feels partly as if the Harvey Weinstein scandal made nudity and sexuality taboo in Hollywood. The rise of the Internet also provides easy access to all the naked flesh anyone could possibly want. Regardless of the cause, there are no longer big budget films like Basic Instinct or Wild Things being made, let alone being #6 at the North American box-office for the year, as Instinct managed [that said, United Artists paid $2 million for the reboot rights earlier this year. We’ll see; I’m not optimistic]. So in some ways, this feels like a throwback, drawing influence from Brian de Palma and Paul Verhoeven.

It’s the fourth, and supposedly final, collaboration between director Marshall and his wife/star Kirk. Two of the previous ones have been covered here, in The Lair and Duchess; I haven’t yet seen the other, witchcraft film The Reckoning. But there can’t be many directors who have worked so often with their spouses. Maybe Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich? The results for this couple have certainly fallen short of peak Marshall, such as The Descent, or even Doomsday, both commercially and critically. While this likely won’t change the narrative, I’m not averse to a nostalgic combo of gratuitous nudity and graphic violence. I’ll leave Mr. and Mrs. Marshall to figure out what it means for the relationship, in their couples’ therapy sessions. 

It takes place in Malta where a shapely cat-suit clad serial killer is committing some particularly brutal murders. Investigating the case is local detective Claudia Cavara (Gorietti), with the two main suspects Diana (Kirk), a bisexual thief with a hot boyfriend (McGowan), and her lesbian neighbour, Evie (Sieklucka). Will there be steamy trysts, voyeurism, and a Euro-pudding of accents, from Poland to Yorkshire? Yes, of course! Sieklucka was in those 365 Days films on Netflix, after all. You will also experience what may well be the stabbiest scene in film history, making Psycho look like a Sunday School play. While I felt the victim was certainly deserving (I hated his hair), it showed Marshall has clearly taken influence from Italian giallo films, with their masked killers and hyperviolence. 

It is, however, nowhere near as good as Basic Instinct. Kirk isn’t fit to hold Sharon Stone’s ice-pick, and the whole police side of things is embarrassingly half-baked. It also feels as if Marshall was more into the violence than the sex, and there was a point, probably about two-thirds in, where I realized I didn’t particularly care about anyone. The decision to make it a whodunnit backfires too, because there are an extremely limited number of possible suspects. The end result is therefore quite a mess, and I can understand the critical disdain. However, it’s a mess which had its moments, and was definitely among the most R-rated of movies I saw this year. More of those will always be welcome. 

Dir: Neil Marshall
Star: Charlotte Kirk, Anna-Maria Sieklucka, Zach McGowan, Giulia Gorietti

Killing Mary Sue

  By

★½
“Death becomes her.”

Is there anything worse than a comedy which doesn’t land? I get that humour is subjective, but this action-comedy manages to be spectacularly unfunny, to a degree I have to wonder how it got made. There are some well-known people in the cast: actors who I know have talent (to the list below, you can add Martin Kove and Jake Busey), and whose work I have previously enjoyed. What did they see in the script here, which made them think, “Yes, this is something I want to do”? For this is the cinematic equivalent of nails being dragged across a chalkboard for an hour and a half. You don’t watch this, so much as endure it.  

To be fair, I think the characters being so repellent is a conscious, deliberate choice. You have sleazy politician Bradley Weiner (Mulroney), and his problematic step-daughter, Mary Sue (McCormick). She’s an utter brat, with no interest in anything except partying hard. With a key election looming, and Weiner trailing in the polls, he and his campaign adviser (Busey) decide to bump Mary Sue off, both to end her scandals, and for a sympathy bump in the polls. However, she proves remarkably hard to terminate: there is eventually an explanation for this, though it’s more of the “Wait a minute…” variety, than anything convincing. Still, Mary Sue’s survival forces her father to up the ante, and repeatedly send nastier assassins to try and finish the job. 

The first chunk of this is energetically devoted to demonstrating how terrible everyone is. The problem might be, it’s too damn successful. They never recover: for Weiner, it’s fair enough, since he is the nominal “bad guy.” But for Mary Sue, this is a problem, since you want your heroine to have some redeeming qualities. I genuinely couldn’t find any. Indeed, I was beginning to sympathize with her father, since in her position, putting her down like the mad dog she is, feels almost like responsible parenting. [Our teenage daughter wasn’t exactly a saint; yet she’s Mother freakin’ Teresa beside Mary Sue] This is all lazily blamed on daddy issues, her biological father being murdered in front of her, when he was robbing a convenience store. 

The concept of her being a real-life Mary Sue is potentially amusing, except that’s as far as it goes. Simply repeating a cliché of bad writing, doesn’t stop it from being a cliché, and writer-director Sunshine does nothing more. Have her slowly and gracelessly roll away from a hail of bullets, or mentioning video-game auto-aiming capabilities, simply isn’t enough. Especially when Mary Sue shows no sign of a character arc, and remains resolutely unlikable until her sudden, thoroughly unconvincing and revelatory change at the end. Sort of. I’m not even going to get into the lumpen and turgid whacks at unsubtle political satire: guys, the Russian are interfering in ‘Merican politics! If you find that intrinsically amusing, you know where to find this film. 

Dir: James Sunshine
Star: Sierra McCormick, Dermot Mulroney, Sean Patrick Flanery, Jason Mewes