An offbeat espionage thriller franchise gets a full buddy comedy treatment in the tax season extension surprise sure to please action fans. Gavin O’Connor ups the ante from its predecessor for an epic sequel, The Accountant 2 (A-), by maximizing the intrigue and world building of his protagonist Christian Wolff’s (Ben Affleck, never better) savant status as an advantage in all aspects of his life and pairing this idiosyncratic character primarily with his lethal bad boy brother Brax (the absolutely fantastic John Bernthal). This time the stakes are higher and involve timely topics such as human trafficking. The film starts with some extremely larger than life environments showcasing cunning and comedy – namely a bingo parlor turned bloodbath and a romance convention augmented by algorithms. Treasury Agent Marybeth Medina, played again with aplomb by Cynthia Addai-Robinson, is a convener of the odd couple siblings to get to the heart of a murder mystery, and Daniella Pineda is dynamite as a ruthless assassin. O’Connor wields both humor and high-stakes action with tremendous dexterity in this installment; and although the film loses a little momentum in the final act, it’s so successful in luring audiences to care deeply about the characters amidst the stunts and grandstanding. Giddy moments include manipulation of traffic lights and home computers and even honkeytonk dance floors in this raucous romp with unexpected heart and verve. It’s much more gripping and fun than anyone could have anticipated.
Fair warning to moviegoers with short attention spans, audiences expecting a thriller with rollicking action or viewers opting to experience this film streaming rather than in theatres: this isn’t for you. Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag (A-) is a brisk and efficient espionage caper that demands, nay, requires your attention to appreciate the art and slow-burn of its double crosses and droll wit. An impeccable British sextet of spies engage in enjoyable mind games resembling a whodunit in one of David Koepp’s most nuanced scripts. Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett give restrained but memorable performances as the central married couple who are also British intelligence operatives. This duo’s marital bond is eclipsed only by devotion to their fidelity to their nation. Marisa Abela and Tom Burke bring humor and Naomie Harris and Rege-Jean Page bring solemnity to the table as the London-based characters engage in a metaphorical chess match. Pierce Brosnan also has a small but pivotal part in the ensemble and gets some nice grace notes. Soderbergh clearly relishes his role as a veteran cinematic showman and purveyor of a terrific twisty story. The plot is contained to just a handful of days and a few nifty locations, but it contains multitudes in a streamlined package. The polygraph sequence alone overshadows the creativity of most movies’ gadget lairs. This is the kind of well-crafted drama for adults Hollywood rarely doles out these days. Soderbergh has made dozens of movies, but it plays like a brand new discovery. See it; it’s clutch.
Just two years after the disturbing Danish horror film of the same name, a twisty and much more broadly comic 2024 American remake of Speak No Evil (B-) provides a highly watchable cautionary tale about two families who become friends on vacation and discover an altogether different relationship when they reunite on one couple’s home turf. James Watkins adapts the story from the austere foreign language template and directs this new version with gusto, offering a witty waltz through modern mores in which tensions rise on the grounds of a remote farmhouse. James McAvoy is the larger than life standout of the story as a burly alpha male who looks like he wandered off the set of a Brawny commercial. The actor relishes the wily role and brings a smoldering menace to the tale, dialing up the gamesmanship until the film’s flimsy final act. Scoot McNairy is effective in a thankless part as the wimpy, reticent foil, and Mackenzie Davis is far more interesting and nuanced as his sometimes steely spouse. The film is less an exercise in terror than a mash-up of comedy of manners conventions and home invasion conceits. The child actors land some intriguing moments in their own right as the fractured families realize their escalating riffs until all are rendered mute. The plot gets far-fetched and careens deeply into high camp, devolving from competent paranoid thriller into a “throw everything including the kitchen sink” showdown. All the while, McAvoy makes his mark, including some witty role play in a restaurant and crooning ballads of ’80s pop songstresses. If you like watching awkwardness get amplified, see this flick in a packed theatre and expect a surround sound of bewildered reactions at many characters’ bad decisions. It’ll have you at “oh, hell no.”
Want to know the identity of serial killer The Butcher, who smothers and scatters frightful fragments of his helpless victims for the world to witness? His name is M. Night Shyamalan, and two and a half decades since his brilliant trick ending Best Picture nominee, he’s been consistently guilty of serving up large helpings of uneven cold product. The promising premise of his paranoid thriller Trap (C-) is that Philly police know a multiple murderer is at large and planning to attend a major concert, and the squad endeavors to contain and apprehend him in the arena before the show is over. Josh Hartnett and Ariel Donoghue play the zany zaddy of a father and the eye-rolling daughter at the center of the action in the general admission pit of the music event, with Hayley Mills as a mysterious sniffer of sociopaths leveraging her nose for this nuisance (please tell me she wasn’t cast in the film because she starred in the original Parent Trap, and it just seemed like too good a play on words!). Shyamalan stages a mild fantasia of a show-within-the-story on the stage with R&B singer Saleka (she’s perhaps the sassiest discovery) parallel to the pressure cooker of the coliseum as its own experiment for an escape artist. What starts out not feeling particularly well acted or authentic simply gets more preposterous by the final act. It’s poorly written and paced and rarely ratchets up the action or trademark turns to much significant effect. Parts of the movie are suspenseful and others boring, and the far-fetched elements fail to work as a cohesive whole. Nobody wins in this slow-burn setlist, especially the audience. This moviemaker needs someone who can control his inner demons which keep getting manifested as feature films.
The third installment in a film series about a world invasion by aliens with acute hearing, Michael Sarnoski’s prequel A Quiet Place: Day One (A-) is part apocalyptic horror tale, part romantic drama and part sci-fi spinoff. Because the characters have to remain largely silent to avoid the invaders’ detection, it is a showcase of the exquisite and expressive acting talents of Lupita Nyong’o as a terminally ill poet and Joseph Quinn as a British law student, plus one of the best feline performances committed to film (actually played by two talented cats!). This movie highlights the initial terrifying takeover by the earful extraterrestrials as they descend on New York City and lends an array of labyrinthine set pieces to the dystopian dread. It’s very exciting as the creatures chase the protagonists through alleyways, subway tunnels, turnstiles, cathedrals, harbors and beyond, with only water as a safe space for humans. The film is elegiac as a dying woman simply wants to consume a slice of her favorite pizza from Harlem, intruders be damned, and very charming as she and the legal lad showcase some serious chemistry and connection. Nyong’o in particular shines in this layered role. Within all the mayhem in Manhattan, the film is also an artful love letter to NYC. The opening titles share that the collective noise at any given point in the bustling metropolis is akin to a scream, and it’s moving to watch some of the charms of city living when divorced from the decibels. Sarnoski’s film stands alone as a suspenseful story but transcends the formula by digging deep into its central characters. It is trippy and taut and masterfully transposes the series’ rural family milieu into an urban adventure. Day One delivers.
Our reviews of A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II:
Esteban Arango’s rollicking rollercoaster of a Sundance Film Festival entry Ponyboi (B+) features an unconventional intersex protagonist who shows there’s no clear pathway to forge between point X and point Y when it comes to the thrill of a crime caper. This neon-illuminated film glides successfully on the resplendent and deeply touching performance of River Gallo who is a force to be reckoned with and also the writer and producer behind the work. Gallo plays a resilient Jersey Shore sex worker caught up in a series of misadventures on a berserk Valentine’s Day; soon life on the streets of the turnpike becomes an all-out getaway and a big choose-your-own-adventure between a full escape and an unexpected invitation home by a formerly unsupportive parent. Other familiar cast members are Dylan O’Brien as a vile pimp and drug dealer (he’s magnificent), Victoria Pedretti as a wannabe ally and Murray Bartlett as a mysterious cowboy who may or may not be the titular character’s saving grace. Arango consistently raises the stakes through locales ranging from laundromats to diners and nightclubs; there’s an absorbing sequence in a pharmacy where favors are traded for hormones mid-way through a gangster chase, and viewers simply haven’t seen this exact series of predicaments before. This film is poised to be a gritty hit indie and will hopefully break through for those up for something radically different in a familiar genre.
It’s Trader vs. Trader in the consistently watchable but ultimately off-the-rails dramatic thriller Fair Play (C+), a Sundance sensation written and directed by first-time filmmaker Chloe Domont and debuting on Netflix. Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich portray the compelling central couple secretly dating while working together at a ruthless NYC hedge fund firm managed by a terrifying character played by Eddie Marsan. An unexpected work promotion pushes the lovers’ workplace relationship to the brink while simultaneously shifting the balance of their romantic domestic life. This brisk and buzzy film is gorgeously shot in the contemporary hues and tones of modern Manhattan and spends its running time blurring gender and power lines in an intriguing game of brinksmanship up until the machinations of the plot become fully preposterous. There’s a more subtle story here about gender dynamics in the workplace and a more entertaining erotic thriller afoot begging to break free from the confines of the film structure that’s actually presented. Dynevor is especially effective in her characterization until it seems she is trying to deliver some ludicrous lines and making strange character decisions. Ehrenreich too gives his all but is defeated at times by the words and actions of the script. Side characters have scant development, and it becomes unclear who’s actually the protagonist at times. The film ultimately has less on the mind than it seems at first. Ultimately nobody gets off scot free including the audience.
Premiered at Sundance Film Festival from Neon Films. Released via video on demand 2/14/23.
Tropical resorts seem to be the modern milieu for disassociating with one’s central humanity, and auteur Brandon Cronenberg’s horror thriller Infinity Pool (B-) is the latest instance of a not so innocent abroad discovering he’s not feeling completely himself. Without spoiling the labyrinthine plot, expect curious customs in a foreign land, relentless violence, the appearance of doppelgängers and an array of hedonistic detours. Unfortunately Alexander Skarsgård doesn’t command the screen with enough gravitas to justify his journey, but his co-star Mia Goth is an unhinged sensation as the seductress who brings out his primal instincts. She’s proving to be the follow-her-anywhere marquee star of horror shows. There’s a point in this film where a very original premise gets lost in a fog of Altered States meets A Clockwork Orange tropes, but Cronenberg ultimately reins it in and lands his thesis. Beyond the bizarre brushes with ultra violence, there’s a compelling message about wealth and power and creating one’s own moral universe. The tale could be tidier but is fairly engrossing.
There ought to be awards for best supporting apps as Siri, Taskrabbit, Google, Instagram, YouTube and many of their cyber companions become utility players in Nick Johnson and Will Merrick’s computer screen mystery thriller Missing (B). This standalone sequel to Searching follows a teenager (Storm Reid) who wields various technologies to find her missing mother (Nia Long) after she disappears on vacation in Colombia with her new boyfriend (Ken Leung). Reid is effective in the central role and lots of fun opposite Joaquim de Almeida as a deputized detective of the gig economy. The format popularized during the pandemic shows some signs of strain at first, but the co-directors weave an impressive and nail-biting narrative as the intrepid teen endeavors further down the linked looking glass. Film flourishes including webcams and cracking codes keep the action less desk-bound. Ultimately the successful story transcends the form and trumps initial trepidation about the story-told-on-a-synced-desktop trope.
A bad pulled-quote for a modern erotic thriller is “impenetrable,” but it’s an apt description of the film and the marriage at the center of Adrian Lyne’s Deep Water (C-). This tepid slow-burn examines the loveless union of a hangdog husband Ben Affleck seemingly nonplussed by the multiple affairs being enjoyed by his sexy but mostly sloshed wife played by Ana de Armas. The oddly non-specific Louisiana atmosphere, an adrift supporting cast including a perplexed looking Tracy Letts and a few hook-ups depicted mostly off-screen do very little to amp up the sultriness or suspense. Close-ups of snails don’t help either. The mystery is sometimes alluring except it doesn’t go anywhere. The two leads have very little to do except stare at each other in disbelief. A series of crimes don’t make sense. The closing credits don’t make sense. Ultimately it’s a tease but not the guilty pleasure it could have been.
Director Steven Soderbergh puts the WTF in WFH in his minor key paranoid thriller Kimi (C). Stepping into the Rear Window/Blow Out role as the protagonist who unwittingly uncovers a crime, a winning Zoë Kravitz is a homebound but electric-blue hair sporting computer analyst who works in an overly appointed Seattle apartment correcting voice assistant command results for a pre-IPO tech startup and discovers a snippet with a twist. The film takes place in a somewhat modern day metropolis with pandemic and political undertones, but Kravitz’s character is also agoraphobic, so there are double the reasons for her character to not want to leave home despite an ultimate wild goose chase of requirements to solve the central conundrum. The plot gets increasingly lively but can’t mask its status as a running retread. Soderbergh appears to be saying something about the human disconnects of a technically tethered world, but mainly his creation here is an under-baked trifle with an appealing central performance and a few cool suspense sequences. Even lesser Soderbergh contains some winning shots and ideas, but this one simply sneaks into the slipstream of mediocrity.
This summer writer/director M. Night Shyamalan invites you to his private coastal paradise for a reverse-Cocoon Geriatric Park with the potential to push every Benjamin Button of your patience. The film Old (D) is a disorienting suspense thriller with about one and a half intriguing ideas very poorly executed including the notion of accelerated aging as a plot device and its effect on a bevy of unsuspecting vacationers. The ensemble including the talented Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps and Rufus Sewell seems as adrift as the viewers in this filmmaker’s typical parade of nonsense followed by final act reveals. Without a clear protagonist and in some cases with the same characters played by multiple actors, this seaside spectacle is a cacophonous cavalcade for most of its duration. Shyamalan can occasionally stage an interesting action sequence or a supernatural Twilight Zone-esque twist, and it’s a game attempt at terror in the daylight, but he neither nails the play nor the payoff this time around. After a few films of creative redemption since his lowest point with the waterlogged Lady in the Water, the director’s latest aquatic fare is to be avoided like a Baby Ruth in the country club swimming pool.
