Tag: USA

Black Bags

  By

★★½
“Lost luggage.”

The first half of this is better than average, setting up an intriguing scenario that feels as if it might be going somewhere. Unfortunately, the second half manages to go almost nowhere, the hard edge honed to that point being severely blunted. We end in something which feels more appropriate for an “Aren’t All Men Bastards?” marathon on the Lifetime channel. It centres on Tess (Rulin), a pregnant woman returning to her new home in the countryside on the bus – her husband having forbidden her to drive. However, she ends up collecting the wrong suitcase, picking up an identical one belonging to another passenger. When she gets home and opens it, she finds a severed head. Worse, the case’s owner is now at her door.

This is Sara (Vandervoort), a black-gloved killer, who now wants – no, make that requires – Tess’s help to dispose of the evidence. Sara does have the courtesy to explain why she is carrying about a head. Eleven years ago, she’d had an affair with a married man, resulting in a daughter. The child now has leukemia, and she went to ask the father for help. It did not go well. But what’s also clear is that there is a good deal going on, to which we, the audience, are not privy. Tess’s husband seems sketchy from the little we have seen of him, and it gradually also becomes apparent that the switching of bags was no random accident, Tess being very specifically the target. 

It’s during the disposal things start going wrong for the movie. An abandoned factory, I can accept. One with an open vat of bubbling green stuff, perfect for dissolving heads? A little too convenient.  Then, let’s go get pie together! And tell the waitress we literally just got away with murder! It feels quite at odds with the smart person Sara had been – those gloves are there for a reason. The more we find out, the more it feels like the script is shooting itself in the foot, while simultaneously tying itself in knots. Which is quite an achievement, if you think about it. It also drops the twist we’ve been anticipating since the beginning, though your reaction may be more “Huh” then “Wow”.

In the end, the biggest problem may be trying to make Sara sympathetic. Once it’s been established that she flat-out decapitated someone, it’s always going to be a difficult road back, regardless of her motivation (and by throwing not just a child, but a sick one at us there, the script is guilty of trying too hard). It is both more plausible and entertaining when she’s behaving like Villanelle, than when Sara is trying to be the concerned parent. Unfortunately, it’s the latter which becomes heavily weighted as we reach the end, she and Tess eventually seeming to bond over motherhood. A particularly superfluous coda whacks another half-star off the rating, and solidifies the final score as below average. Bit of a shame.

Dir: Josh Brandon
Star: Laura Vandervoort, Olesya Rulin, Ryan Francis, Drew Pollock

Unit 234

  By

★★
“Lock out while you rock out.”

File this synopsis under technically true: “After the shocking discovery of an unconscious man in a locked unit, the lone employee of a remote storage facility must fight to survive the night against a ruthless gang, dead set on retrieving their precious cargo – at any cost.” I guess the word with which I have the most reason to quibble is probably “fight”. For heroine Laurie Saltair (Fugrman) is more from the Brave Sir Robin school of fighting, if you’ve ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail. She’s much more inclined to avoid confrontation than seek it out. Which perhaps making sense when facing a larger, better armed and more experienced enemy. But where’s the fun in that?

The man in question is Clayton (Huston), who is on a gurney having been kidnapped from hospital by Jules (Johnson), who is keen to finish the job. What job is that? Well, you find this out towards the end, when Laurie does, and it certainly upends much of what has gone before, to the point you’d be forgiven for annoyance at the film having perhaps wasted your time. What unfolds is, Laurie rescuing Clayton, and they then have to try and escape the storage facility and/or call for help, while Jules and his men hunt them both. Naturally, neither prove exactly successful, and that’s hos the plot unfolds. Mostly through the maze of passages in the facility, with a brief excursion outside for fresh air. 

There’s potential here: imagine a film where the heroine can crack open storage units and use the contents against the villains. This kinda happens here – only in about the dumbest and most implausible way you could imagine. Seriously: of all the things potentially to utilize, this was the way Laurie went? I think it was probably the moment at which the film jumped the shark for me, and it was never able to… I guess, un-jump itself thereafter. I feel a vague sense of loss at this, since the central performance are fine. Fuhrman is an engaging heroine, and Johnson is effective in his role. Weirdly, after non-GWG film Day of Reckoning, it’s the second this week where an ambivalent character coughs up blood. Go figure. 

It also felt like Laurie only became pro-active at the end of the movie, when it was necessary for the plot. When it happened, part of me was relieved it had finally happened – it probably just pushed the film over the line for inclusion on this site. However, there was another part of me that wondered where the hell this had come from, because it simply didn’t fit in with Laurie’s passive approach to that point. I may have been somewhat prejudiced by Fuhrman’s track record in Orphan: First Kill, where she’s more aggressive. This definitely needed a heroine along similar lines, although it’s the script, and its inability to unlock the potential, which feels the biggest weakness. 

Dir: Andy Tennant
Star: Isabelle Fuhrman, Don Johnson, Jack Huston, James DuMont

The Beta Project

  By

★
“Beta, in the other sense of the word.”

I usually strive to find something nice to say about most low-budget action heroine films. Maybe the soundtrack is cool. Or there’s one performance which stands out. But for this one, I’m really struggling. The good here more or less begins and ends with the synopsis, which is also why it’s here: “Four women are recruited into an organization that hunts the supernatural.” Mauser does appear to be on board with our field, and we’ve covered a couple of his films before, most recently the fairly decent Lady Lawman. While flawed, you could overlook the shortcomings if you squinted somewhat. This, however, is a clear step back, and was a real struggle to get through. 

In the scenario that unfolds here, there is indeed an unnamed organization, run by Rose (Nash). The supernatural in question is… Well, it’s basically vampires, and in particular the legendary Lilith (co-director Berkshire). She is supposed to have died centuries ago, but the group discover this is not the case. The decision is made to recruit four women to take on Lilith (who is not the hairy dude shown on the poster). Why does it have to be women, you may be asking. Good question. Pity it’s one the film is completely uninterested in answering. Not that it matters, because the group never really ends up getting recruited either. Instead, there’s just smuggler AJ (Rodriguez), who gets paired with the organization’s accountant (!) and… Well, not very much, either. They go rescue one of AJ’s pals. That’s just about it.

What we have here feels like it could, and should, have been taken care of inside the first ten minutes, instead of playing out at feature length, like a pilot movie for a TV series that nobody wants to watch. It’s full of interminable scenes which deserve to have died a death on the cutting-room floor, like the introduction of AJ and pals, sitting around a restaurant. Or the training scene where AJ and accountant get whacked with sticks a couple of times. The latter is actually pointed out by the characters as useless, in a way that I can only presume was intended to be funny. Guess what? It isn’t, in the slightest. 

This is in part because there’s no real difference between the stick-whacking and the “genuine” action scenes, which are utterly limp and unconvincing. When killed, the vampires “explode” in a shower of sparks, in a way done considerably better by the Buffy TV show, approaching thirty years ago. The performances are generally unconvincing too: Berkshire comes out okay, which may explain why she ends up also playing another recruit, Joy, in addition to the villainess. I kept expecting them to be sisters or something, but… Nope. Like so much else here, it was thoroughly pointless. All the goodwill Mauser picked up for the “can do” attitude of his previous films has been wasted; he’s now on my “approach with caution” list. 

Dir: Brett William Mauser and Dane Berkshire
Star: Cristina Cruz Rodríguez, Dane Berkshire, Katrina Nash, Brett Mauser

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

Paradise

  By

★★★
“Death in Paradise”

Despite coming in as a “Tubi Original” – a badge which has previously been as much a warning as an incentive – this isn’t bad at all. It doesn’t especially push any envelopes, yet what it does, it does well enough, and with sufficient variations on the theme to keep me interested. Ella Patchet (Allison) is the daughter of Dan, the local police chief on the island of Paradise (it was shot in Hawaii). She’s rather hot-headed and a big fan of guns, to the concern of her father, who prefers to do his job without being armed. He gets tipped off about the return to Paradise of the gang led by Lee Paige, whom he ran off the island years previously. Shortly after, Dan turns up dead.

Needless to say, Ella is not happy, and vows to bring Paige to justice, despite the warnings of local mayor Calvin Whitney (Donovan), who does not want her going all vigilante. His concerns are not Ella’s concerns, to put it mildly, and she begins working her way up the chain of crime to the reclusive and mysterious Paige. However, you likely won’t be surprised to learn there are surprises for her on the way, and things aren’t exactly as they initially appear. From the opening credits, it’s clear that Isaacson is going for an “ocean Western”, for want of a better word. He largely succeeds: you could relocate this to 1860’s Texas without too much effort, though it’s beach-centric.

Patchet makes for an interesting heroine, whom we first meet getting thrown out of a bar. In some ways, she acts like she is about fifteen, but in others comes across as very mature. Certainly, she’s an unstoppable force, who’s both intelligent and driven. It’s definitely a case where firearms act as a great equalizer. You don’t have to suspend your disbelief about a smaller woman taking down larger men, because she simply shoots them in the head. This is undeniably violent, Ella racking up a fair body-count, and it works both ways, with a couple of unexpected, almost shocking deaths. There’s a scene-stealing turn from Tia Carrere, while I  enjoyed the villain’s lead henchmen basically saying “Screw this” and walking away.

In general though, the plotting is nothing special: the twists come as far more of a shock to the characters than the viewers. It’s also a little implausible how Ella can leave a trail of corpses, including state police, without becoming the subject of a massive manhunt. [Also, in reality, Hawaii has some of the strictest gun laws in the whole country] It feels as if the script would have benefited from a further revision or two, and if you are paying attention, you’ll work out where the final confrontation is going, a long way before it happens. But between Ella’s charisma and the style with which Isaacson delivers things, it held my attention without these issues becoming problematic. 

Dir: Max Isaacson
Star: Patricia Allison, Tate Donovan, Myles Evans, Adam Lustick

1 More Round

  By

★★★
“I am Jim’s Complete Lack of Surprise.”

Reading the comments on YouTube, there’s an awful lot of “inspirational” and “motivational” to be found there, and these are not wrong. This is as template-based a sports movie as you can imagine, to the point that it feels almost more like a Victorian melodrama, in terms of its saintly heroine, fighting (literally) for what she believes in. This sort of thing would normally be completely ludicrous, and isn’t helped by James Schafer’s soundtrack, which leaves no orchestral cliché uncued. However… I found a genuine sincerity on display here, helped by a very good performance from Stone, and this really sells the sub-Hallmark conceit at its core. Her character believes, so you do. 

She plays up-and-coming amateur MMA fighter Jackie DeSpain, whose life has issues. She lives with her junkie sister Marie, whose little daughter Grace (Darling), is simply as adorable as a boxful of kittens. This situation preys on Jackie’s mind, causing her to lose a fight against Kate ‘The Killer’ Kinsella, much to the concern of her trainer, Hank (Wade). For when I say “lose”, we’re deep in “beaten to a pulp” territory. Though a positive is, this brings her into contact with hunky doctor Oliver (Akers). After Marie overdoses, Grace is taken away by the authorities, but if Jackie can just win enough fights to turn pro, then maybe she can convince a judge that she should have custody of her niece, while Marie rehabs. 

You should easily be able to figure out from the above, where everything is going to go the rest of the way, and the film does not deviate from that template an iota. Will there be training montages? Could there be an injury threatening to derail Jackie’s plans? Might there be – oh, I’m just speculating here – blossoming romance between Jackie and Oliver? I’ll never tell. But despite the resolute predictability of proceedings, I remained engaged to a greater degree than you would imagine. Lyde has directed a number of films we’ve reviewed here, most recently Scarlett, also starring Stone, and the action here is good. If the MMA fights are somewhat stylized, they’re still credible, and have more impact than I was expecting.

There is, however, a curious lack of any antagonist here: just about everybody is nice: even the social worker who whisks Grace away into the care of the state is quite apologetic about it. Kinsella is likely the closest, yet she is more of an obstacle than an enemy, vanishing completely from the film between her fights against Despain. Despite the lack of dramatic conflict, and a large dose of the review tagline (top) as things wound there way forward, I bought into Jackie’s situation, and unquestionably found myself cheering her on. While this may be the simplest of stories, I found it executed well enough to overcome the limitations of its plot.

Dir: John Lyde
Star: Melanie Stone, Jasen Wade, Isaac Akers, Rosie Darling
[The film is available now on YouTube and is embedded below]

The Stolen Valley

  By

★★½
“Topples over into earnestness”

This feels like a modern Western. I think it was shot up on the borders of Utah and Arizona, since I recognized scenes shot at the Buckskin Tavern, in that area. While contemporary, with relatively minor tweaks, it could easily take place a century or more ago, back when robber land barons were a thing in the Old West. Lupe (Covarrubias) is in desperate straits, with her mother Adamina (Miranda) in need of money to pay for medical treatment she can’t afford. There’s another shock: the father, Carl (Fitzgerald), who Lupe long believed dead, is actually alive, and might be the last chance of getting the necessary funds. So she decides to make the journey to see him.

Barely is she under way – she’s seeking to pawn jewellery to raise a little cash – when she encounters Maddie (Hethcoat). And when I say “encounters”, she comes out of the back of the pawn-shop, guns blazing. For Maddie has a sizable debt too, to some unpleasant people, and now they perceive Lupe as her accomplice. The two young women decide Carl could solve both of their problems, only to find him engaged in a dubious scheme to sell off land, which actually belongs to Adamina, to an oil company, having convinced them Adamina is dead. It’s a move which will result in the indigenous people being thrown off the property, and Lupe’s unexpected presence clearly represents a threat to  the deal. 

This does a lot of things right. Most obviously, it takes place in some gorgeous locations, and the photography does them justice. The performances are generally effective as well, with Hethcoat in particular a lot of fun to watch. She cuts a striking figure with her blonde hair, cowboy hat, and a take no prisoners attitude. Maddie is in sharp contrast to Lupe, who has been brought up “the right way”, and they make for an amusing pairing as they play off each other. Although scenes like the gratuitous flamenco dancing may not move the plot forward, they are still amusing to watch, and they build the character. Indeed, they might be fun precisely because they are separate from the plot. 

Because that’s the film’s problem. It’s a script where far too much happens because the story needs it. Why did Adamina leave without taking the property deed, clearly her most precious asset? Why did Carl hang on, not just to the deed, but also the letter Adamina wrote to her own mother, for over twenty years? And don’t even start me on the remarkable coincidence of Maddie’s background. Add in a not-so subtle subtext of “Men are bad, and white men – they’re the worst“, and it all begins to topple over under the weight of its own moral superiority. I’ve no doubt Edwards’ heart is in the right place. However, the message here too often gets in the way of the movie. 

Dir: Jesse Edwards
Star: Briza Covarrubias, Allee Sutton Hethcoat, Micah Fitzgerald, Paula Miranda

Redhead

  By

★★
“Better dead than redhead.”

Written, directed by, and starring husband and wife team Sam and Johnna Hodge, this is the kind of film it would be easy to deride as poverty-row garbage from the bottom drawer. There’s precious little plot, some of the performances are painfully amateur, and it seems to exist mostly as a show-reel for spraying around corn syrup with red food colouring in it. And yet… If Chris and I made a movie – something we have discussed – it might well end up being not too dissimilar to this. On the other hand, if we had a spare $55,000 lying around – the budget here, according to the IMDb – we’d probably go on a nice holiday instead. 

Autumn Blacksmith (Hodge) survived being abducted and tortured by infamous psychopath Oscar Sawyer (Stinnett), finally escaping after killing him. However, the experience left her severely traumatized, and the slightest unfortunate interaction with any man is sufficient to push her over the edge into a murderous rage. Cue the corn syrup. Rinse, repeat for 90-odd minutes, until the end credits roll. Occasional hallucinations of Sawyer returning from the grave to haunt her, and a brief attempt by her therapist (Holland) to check in, offer a small touch of variety. The West Virginia cops, led by Detective Rogers (Robinson), are not exactly Sherlock Holmes. Then again, locals are remarkably chill about Autumn’s spree. The bartender where she kills her first victim says of him, “He was always an asshole.”

I was reminded of Michael and Anne Paul, another husband and wife film-making duo. They made Roman’s Bride, where the red-headed wife also goes on a killing spree. I think that worked a bit better, because its lead actress had an innocence about her, that provided an interesting contrast to her savagery. Here, Autumn is more blatantly mad, to the point you wonder why any man would try to chat her up. As a viewer, you’re never brought along on the journey into insanity. The way some of the local community end up assisting with, or even active participants in, her murders could have been used to provide another twist to the narrative. Nah. Open another bottle of Karo instead. 

Technically, it’s okay: the camera gets pointed in the right direction, it doesn’t succumb to underlit scenes, and the audio is fine. The soundtrack, also by Sam Hodge (not a surprise), has a nice throwback vibe, sounding like it was ripped off an eighties video nasty. But there is no real sense of progression or development, and the ending feels particularly sudden, going to the end credits immediately after she has disembowelled her final victim, a peeping Tom. We’re very little forward from where we were after her first murder. A sequel is in production though, so it appears there was enough of a market for this kind of thing. Will I watch it? [Sighs heavily] Yeah. I suspect I probably will.

Dir:Johnna Hodge, Sam Hodge
Star: Johnna Hodge, Ashley Stinnett, Will A. Holland, Travis Robinson