Movie Review: Hypnotic (2023)

Genre: Fantasy Mystery Thriller  

Director: Robert Rodriguez  

Starring: Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, William Fichtner  

Running Time: 94 minutes  

Synopsis: Austin Police Detective Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) is still traumatized by the unsolved kidnapping of his young daughter. Danny and his partner Nicks (J.D. Pardo) respond to a tip about an impending bank robbery and experience the immense mind control powers of the evil Dellrayne (William Fichtner). Danny seeks the help of fortune teller Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), and starts to believe Dellrayne's crime spree is related to his daughter's disappearance.  

What Works Well: Director and co-writer Robert Rodriguez creates a mélange of ideas borrowed from movies like The Matrix, Paycheck, Inception, and Firestarter. The outlandish episodes are initially layered with the emotions of a distraught father and quizzical enough to maintain some interest. The start of the third act briefly threatens a step-up in storytelling quality.

What Does Not Work As Well: The rules of engagement in a world of hypnotists capable of instant mental domination are too fragmented and inconsistent to ever make sense, exposing the first hour to an embarrassing volume of incredulousness. The flicker of hope that emerges with a premise reset is quickly extinguished with an avalanche of over-the-top antics, late character non-introductions, and the convenient piling-on of additional on-the-fly parameters. 

Conclusion: Beware the foundation-free constructs.



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Movie Review: Marlowe (2022)

Genre: Crime Drama Neo-Noir  

Director: Neil Jordan  

Starring: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Alan Cumming, Danny Huston  

Running Time: 109 minutes  

Synopsis: In Los Angeles of 1939, private detective Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson) is hired by the married and wealthy Clare Cavendish (Diana Kruger) to find her missing lover Nico Petersen. Marlowe's investigation leads him to Floyd Hanson (Danny Huston), manager of the exclusive Corbata Club; Clare's retired movie star mother Dorothy Quincannon (Jessica Lange); studio boss O'Reilly; mobster Lou Hendricks (Alan Cumming); and Nico's sister Lynn (Daniela Melchior). As the dead bodies start to accumulate, Marlowe is drawn into a conspiracy involving the cross-border drug trade.

What Works Well: Although the shine is artificial, the pre-war Los Angeles era is recreated with affection. The plot is suitably complicated and features the required mix of crime, cover-up, jealousy, lust, triple-crosses, and quests for elusive objects and power, all swirling around elites and wannabes who should know better.

What Does Not Work As Well: Despite borrowing Raymond Chandler's legendary creation, the milieu and people never progress beyond a sense of dress-up: neither the locations nor outfits look lived-in. The dialogue is contrived, over-extending the writing talent and leaving the characters devoid of genuineness and struggling against an empathy void. Plot twists and coincidences are more bizarre than impressive, with an apparently key influencer largely invisible and plenty of loose ends abandoned in a blizzard of unconvincing explanations.

Conclusion: The stuff that disappointments are made of.



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Movie Review: The Champ (1979)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Franco Zeffirelli  

Starring: Jon Voight, Faye Dunaway, Ricky Schroeder, Jack Warden, Arthur Hill, Elisha Cook Jr., Strother Martin, Joan Blondell  

Running Time: 122 minutes  

Synopsis: In Florida, Billy Flynn (Jon Voight) is a retired former boxing champion, now frequently drunk, addicted to gambling, and reduced to working as a racetrack horse walker. Billy is nevertheless idolized by his eight year-old son TJ (Ricky Schroeder), who calls his Dad "the Champ". Billy's ex-wife Annie (Faye Dunaway) had abandoned the family when TJ was an infant but now re-emerges to reclaim her role as a mother. When Billy's gambling causes more heartache for TJ, he embarks on a boxing comeback.

What Works Well: The performances all lean towards theatrically sombre, but young Ricky Schroeder delivers remarkable dramatics and a memorable display of hero-worship and change-induced trauma. The production enjoys slick high-quality values, with Dunaway stepping out of a fashion catalogue for every scene, and the leads are aided by a cast deep in veteran talent. The one and only boxing bout is suitably brutal in typical all-out-offence Hollywood style, but the focus is more on eliciting tears than cheers. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Director Franco Zeffirelli's pacing is operatically languid, and TJ's dominating perspective suggests Son Of The Champ as a more suitable title. All the emotions are dialed to eleven and attached to some ridiculous details (let's allow a kid to hang out in a boxer's corner during a competitive bout!) aided by a music score eager to triple-underline tragic tones. Boxing fans will need to wade through more than 90 minutes of family melodrama within a horse racing milieu before a serious punch is thrown.

Conclusion: Slow, mawkish, and impactful.



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Movie Review: The Zone Of Interest (2023)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Jonathan Glazer  

Starring: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller  

Running Time: 105 minutes  

Synopsis: The setting is Poland during World War Two. Auschwitz concentration camp commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), and their children live right outside the camp's perimeter fence. They go about their daily lives, the camp atrocities barely registering on their routines. Höss's efficiency is noticed by his superiors and he receives orders to relocate to a higher command, causing tension with Hedwig, who wants to stay at the house she has lovingly organized for her family. 

What Works Well: Writer and director Jonathan Glazer stands back and observes with mostly static cameras the cold contrast between bland domesticity and next-door industrial scale slaughter (only hinted at through visual and audio clues). The juxtaposition is chilling commentary on the horrific capacity to dehumanize, blank out monstrosities, loot the dead, and focus on gardening. Catastrophic suffering is reduced to peripheral annoyance and discussions about oven temperatures and train logistics. 

What Does Not Work As Well: This is an intentionally detached and plotless experience, where the characters are undefined and starved of evolutionary arcs. The performances are robotic in underlining a staid home environment operating in the shadow of death. Normalized soul destruction on both sides of the wall is the point, but the resultant cinematic experience is frigid.

Conclusion: Quietly unsettling disengagement.



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Movie Review: Road House (2024)

Genre: Action  

Director: Doug Liman  

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Conor McGregor  

Running Time: 121 minutes  

Synopsis: Former mixed martial arts competitor Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) accepts a job as a bouncer at a Road House eatery in the Florida Keys. He soon tangles with local goon Dell (JD Pardo), who is causing nightly chaos so that owner Frankie (Jessica Williams) sells out to corrupt land developer Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen). Dalton starts a romance with emergency room doctor Ellie (Daniela Melchior), but once he subdues Dell bigger challenges await in the intimidating form of Knox (Conor McGregor), who is brought in by the Brandt family to settle scores.

What Works Well: The production values are high, Jake Gyllenhaal adopts a less-is-more attitude in mimicking Western heroes-with-a-past, and professional MMA champion Conor McGregor unleashes bare-assed cartoon levels of villainy with a perpetual sneer.

What Does Not Work As Well: This unnecessary and charisma-free remake of the 1989 Patrick Swayze original replaces low-budget cheese with distracted bloat. The nefarious plot recycles tired evil land developer clichés and loses sense-of-place intimacy by expanding too far beyond the Road House. The music is uninspired, the romance inconclusive, and the climactic scenes over-cooked with Bond-level stunts and explosions. A subplot featuring another local business owner and his daughter drifts sideways and is then abandoned. 

Conclusion: Gracelessly rowdy.



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Movie Review: American Fiction (2023)

Genre: Drama Comedy  

Director: Cord Jefferson  

Starring: Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Erika Alexander, John Ortiz, Adam Brody, Issa Rae, Stirling L. Brown  

Running Time: 117 minutes  

Synopsis: Dr. Thelonious "Monk" Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is a black professor and author, labouring in obscurity because he does not care to write about black issues. Close to burn out, he spends time with his family in Massachusetts, where successive health crises strike his sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross) and mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams). Monk starts a romance with Coraline (Erika Alexander) and witnesses the success of new author Sintara (Issa Rae), whose debut novel about the "raw" black experience is celebrated in literary circles. As a joke Monk cranks out his own "raw" novel under a pseudonym, and it is immediately acclaimed a classic.

What Works Well: Wrapping biting satire around caustic social commentary, writer and director Cord Jefferson uses dry humour to expose hypocrisy in culture and the fleeting superficiality of topics-du-jour. Neither the weight of family tragedies descending on Monk nor his academic pursuits are of any interest to anyone else. But his throwaway crass novel about black thugs is suddenly all the rage amongst elites pretending to care. And when he tests insincerity limits by insisting on a vulgar title, the frenzy only intensifies. Jeffrey Wright rides Monk's downs-and-ups with an appropriate sense of bemused detachment. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The secondary characters surrounding Monk succumb to quantity over quality, adding some value but mostly accumulating into a pile of clutter and padding.

Conclusion: Perceptively on-trend.



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Movie Review: Hardcore (1979)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Paul Schrader  

Starring: George C. Scott, Peter Boyle, Season Hubley  

Running Time: 108 minutes  

Synopsis: In Grand Rapids, Michigan, Jake Van Dorn (George C. Scott) is a successful business owner and a conservative Calvinist. His daughter Kristen departs to a church-organized summer camp in the Los Angeles area, but then disappears. With the police disinterested, Jake hires private detective Mast (Peter Boyle), who uncovers evidence Kristen has entered the pornography trade. Jake travels to Los Angeles to pursue leads, and after many dead-ends teams up with prostitute and porn actress Niki (Season Hubley) to infiltrate the industry and search for his daughter. 

What Works Well: In this eyes-wide-open journey into the sordid world of sex-for-sale, writer and director Paul Schrader navigates an underbelly milieu populated by an assortment of seedy product creators. From film producers raking in millions to lowly performers eking out a peep show living, a heavy-hearted George C. Scott as Jake Van Dorn bumbles his way into a neon-drenched environment far removed from his tidy suburban God-worshipping existence. Although Kristen is a minor presence, Schrader avoids obvious exploitation narratives, and through the character of Niki successfully finds heart, soul, and pathos in the gutter. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Jake's transformation from anguished father to man-with-a-plan is quite sudden; and the final resolution is emotionally rushed.

Conclusion: A post-viewing cleansing shower is recommended.



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Movie Review: The Big Combo (1955)

Genre: Police Procedural Noir  

Director: Joseph H. Lewis  

Starring: Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Jean Wallace, Brian Donlevy, Lee Van Cleef, Earl Holliman 

Running Time: 88 minutes  

Synopsis: Police Lieutenant Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde) is determined to arrest arrogant criminal Mr. Brown (Richard Conte), a key financier in the Combination syndicate. Brown's crew consists of aging second-in-command Joe (Brian Donlevy) and henchmen Fante and Mingo (Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman). Diamond enjoys the company of showgirl Rita (Helene Stanton), but secretly has a crush on Brown's girlfriend Susan (Jean Wallace). She reveals Brown may have something to hide about a woman called Alicia, accelerating Diamond's investigation and resulting in a mounting body count.

What Works Well: This is a gritty and uncompromising noir, featuring clashing personalities, ambition, jealousy, multiple doomed romances, and complex relationships. Once he senses his opponent's weakness, Diamond is a dog with a bone, pursuing the details of a long-ago incident to unearth crucial evidence. Brown is equally tenacious in protecting his power and methodically attempts to rub-out inconvenient witnesses. The shifty dynamics swirling between his underlings Joe, Fante, and Mingo add enjoyable texture, including a couple of innovative - and quite mean - misuses of Joe's hearing aid device.

What Does Not Work As Well: When he is not eloquently philosophizing about his intelligence, Brown is quite careless in his words and actions.  

Conclusion: A hard-hitting duel between dogged detective and debonair desperado.



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Movie Review: The Main Event (1979)

Genre: Romantic Comedy  

Director: Howard Zieff  

Starring: Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Patti D'Arbanville  

Running Time: 112 minutes  

Synopsis: Perfume executive Hillary Kramer (Barbra Streisand) is embezzled out of all her wealth, except her tax write-off ownership contract for boxer Eddie "Kid Natural" Scanlon (Ryan O'Neal). They immediately clash when Hillary finds Eddie cashing her cheques but retired from boxing and operating a dingy driving school. To make some money she has to convince him to get back in the ring, but Eddie is in no hurry to risk his health.

What Works Well: The production values are decent, and the few boxing scenes are glitzy.

What Does Not Work As Well: Streisand's character Hillary Kramer is a toxic combination of obtuse and insufferable, torpedoing any pretense of ability to succeed in business or love. She drowns in an ocean of attempted humour best resembling fingernails on a chalkboard, and sucks the movie into a charmless abyss. Her romance with O'Neal's boxer consists of falling into each other's arms after close to two hours of poorly-written bickering. Howard Zieff's artless directing prolongs every bad scene into an excruciating demonstration of incompetence, including sketching-in all the male characters at the Neanderthal level.

Conclusion: This bout is brain dead.



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Movie Review: Wicker Park (2004)

Genre: Romantic Drama Mystery  

Director: Paul McGuigan  

Starring: Josh Hartnett, Diane Kruger, Rose Byrne  

Running Time: 114 minutes  

Synopsis: In Chicago, advertising executive Matt Simon (John Hartnett) is engaged to his boss' sister Rebecca (Jessica Paré) and about to head to China on a business trip. But at a restaurant he overhears the voice of his ex-girlfriend Lisa (Diane Kruger). They had initially met two years prior when he worked at a video equipment store, and were deeply in love when she inexplicably dropped out of his life. Now Matt postpones his trip and sets out to find Lisa, a search that will involve his best friend and shoe salesperson Luke (Matthew Lillard) and Luke's girlfriend Alex (Rose Byrne), a theatre actress.

What Works Well: This remake of the French movie L'Appartement successfully emphasizes style in a story of elusive romance, second chances, deception, and desperate longing. Director Paul McGuigan uses split screens, dreamy filtering, plenty of snowy urban landscapes, and frequent time jumps to convey interactions between fate, loss, love, and infatuation. The hypnotic aesthetics and complex narrative structure deepen the eternal soulmate search, and allow layers of revelations, secrets, and hidden agendas to unpeel with careful timing. Matt Simon's singular determination is a suitable role for Josh Hartnett, while Diane Kruger and Rose Byrne convey the challenge of contrasting perspectives.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot is built on a tower of just-in-time coincidences, and demands questionable character decisions and actions (or non-decisions and non-actions) at almost every turn. The multiple flashbacks and variable points-of-view occasionally threaten coherence.

Conclusion: A pleasingly perplexing pursuit of passion.



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