When last we saw ex-Triple A rated bodyguard Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds), he had succeeded in getting notorious hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) to the Hague to testify against a genocidal dictator (Gary Oldman). He had also taken a bullet for Darius, which is part of a bodyguard’s job. It would have been better… Read More »
ANGEL HAS FALLEN
The word is carnage. ANGEL HAS FALLEN never goes more than a few minutes without someone or something being taken out. Sometimes in multiples. Often with a fiery conflagration. Very often. This third in the series featuring dogged Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) finds our hero happily settled into blissful domesticity with wife… Read More »
BRIAN BANKS
BRIAN BANKS is an earnest film that hits all the necessary and expected plot points as it makes its cogent indictment of the criminal justice system. It never becomes a screed, though the based-on-a-true story of 16-year-old who ended up serving time for a rape he didn’t commit certainly has all the elements to support… Read More »
BEN-HUR
Any version of BEN-HUR has a great deal to live up to with the chariot race that is the climax of the story’s action. Well, until now, but more about that later. Timur Bekmambetov’s retelling does, indeed, get the chariot race right. It’s one of the few things that are right with this curiously inert… Read More »
NOW YOU SEE ME 2
The best caper films keep us guessing even while we’re watching the caper in progress. In that way, NOW YOU SEE ME 2 succeeds admirably. The return of the The Horsemen, a band of underground magicians dedicated to truth, justice, and outsmarting everyone around them, including each other, provides several set pieces that are fine… Read More »
LONDON HAS FALLEN
Full disclosure, I was not a fan of OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, the previous film exploring the victim/savior relationship between President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) and crack Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler). Thus, I was not hoping for much when I approached LONDON HAS FALLEN. The trick to staying sane in this business is… Read More »
OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN
Antoine Fuqua has delivered many fine films that deal with the harsh, gritty, and dangerous aspects of the human condition. OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN is not one of them. This story is one of a terrorist attack on the seat of government, but the only real danger presented is killing the audiences will to live by… Read More »
DREAMCATCHER
The good news for all of us who have been seeing the trailer for DREAMCATCHER since the early Pleistocene Era is that it >doesnt< give everything away. There are plenty of twists, turns and surprises in this elegant and sometimes witty horror flick that is full of invention and characters that rise nicely above the… Read More »
LEVITY
Ed Solomon wrote the scripts for MEN IN BLACK and BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE. He’s not the guy from whom you’d expect a serious, thoughtful, even intriguing script that wrestles with the theological and philosophical questions of redemption. And yet, with LEVITY, his directorial debut, that’s just what he’s done. The protagonist is Manual, with… Read More »
THE BIG BOUNCE
Like a cut-rate package tour that promises much but delivers little, THE BIG BOUNCE, sucks the joy right out of you while offering little glimpses of the paradise that is forever beyond your reach. Based on the Elmore Leonard novel of the same name, its filled with the robustly eccentric characters that he dreams up… Read More »