By: Addison Wylie A hard day is right. Nothing appears to be going well for Detective Gun-soo (played by Seon-gyun Lee). On the eve of his mother’s burial, he hits a drifter with his car while a corrupt operation to which Gun-soo was deeply involved with crumbles away. The sudden hit-and-run has the unconventional homicide detective thinking on his toes. He stows the body in the trunk of his car and brainstorms a connecting idea…
By: Anthony King GOING IN: There are a lot of films out there that help us escape our lives and live out a fantasy. For men in particular, some want to be an international spy who always gets the lady, an astronaut exploring the galaxy, a mobster in a fancy suit tossing out the kiss of death left and right… or some of us just want to be able to discard our gross bodies and be…
By: Addison Wylie The vaguely titled Assassin has the ability to be cool, but instead settles on being “cool”. There are cool shots of hitman Jamie (played by Danny Dyer) on his motorcycle as he zips to a hired job and zooms off to collect his earnings, and I quite like what filmmaker J.K. Amalou can do with the correct lighting. Then, there are those “cool” moments where popular songs ineffectively crash into a scene while…
By: Addison Wylie Movies like Debug make me wish I had a notebook handy during screenings. I feel overwhelmed trying to remember all of the sci-fi mumbo-jumbo that fills David Hewlett’s futuristic space horror. Let’s just say Hewlett’s self-penned script has expiatory dialoguing of the laziest kind. Science fiction often hosts the worst scenarios since some filmmakers just want to hurl a bunch of technical nonsense towards the audience and expect movie goers will be…
By: Trevor Jeffery Using the words “unabashed” and “propaganda” together seems redundant, but there isn’t a better way to describe James McTeigue’s Survivor. Kate Abbott (Mila Jovovich) is an officer with the US embassy in London. While on duty, Kate asks a few too many questions to a man she suspects to be (and actually is) a bio-terrorist, before letting him through customs. This sets him and his associates into freak-out mode, and they hire an…
By: Addison Wylie 88 is proof a film can go feral. It’s a version of Memento that’s been influenced by exploitation schlock and left out in the sun for too long. It’s fun for a bit, but the film runs out of steam. The rowdy trashy energy sends the film to a place of no return – fandom purgatory. April Mullen has appeared in front of the camera in various supporting roles, and has now…
By: Addison Wylie I truly believe that everyone starring in The Forger knows they’re capable of more. John Travolta, Tye Sheridan, Christopher Plummer, everyone. There are moments in Philip Martin’s crime thriller where you can catch an actor glimpse at a chance to open up their performance, but these fleeting breaths are revoked by Martin’s generic filmmaking and Richard D’Ovidio’s routine screenplay. First of all, Travolta doesn’t fit the build of art theif Ray Cutter….
By: Mark Barber The Dead Lands is a rare pre-colonial narrative. Rarely does a film provide a cinematic lens through which we may see a pre-westernized, pre-colonial native culture. Given such emancipating opportunities, it’s curious that director Toa Fraser would make such a comfortable film for western audiences. Featuring an all-Maori (people indigenous to New Zealand) cast, young Hongi (James Rolleston) seeks revenge on a rival tribe that eradicated his people. To do so, he…
By: Anthony King GOING IN: A small disclaimer here before we get started: I love these types of movies. If your movie has Kings, Knights, sword battles and even wizards, then I’ll probably be into it. I’ve been known to enjoy movies more and even give them a pass on a few of their flaws just because I like being in that world so much. I didn’t even hate Season of the Witch with Nicolas…
By: Mark Barber Tracers is aimlessly plotted, driven only by a cynical, desperate need to financially exploit the parkour craze and Twilight star Taylor Lautner’s now-dwindling popularity. The film’s overall premise and execution recalls Lautner’s previous action outing, 2011’s Abduction. Although Tracers takes itself slightly more seriously, both films have a proclivity for deception. Similar to how Abduction featured no actual kidnappings, Tracers is barely about parkour; it gracelessly vacillates between a modern-day re-visioning of…