Unhinged Review

Russell Crowe is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day in "Unhinged," the first new movie to be released only in theaters here in the states since the pandemic shut the world down. He stalks a divorced mother Rachel, played by Caren Pistorius, who is also having a not so pleasant day, after a bit of road rage during rush hour.

There's a level of subliminal irony at play here, as the only way to see a road rage movie is to go on the road! Whether its to a traditional sit-down theater, if you're brave, or to a drive-in like me, viewers must potentially put themselves into a situation where they can encounter a man like Crowe's character. It's a relatable premise, far more believable than ghosts or possessed dolls, and it's appeal boils down to whether or not you, yourself, have ever contemplated laying on your car's horn at another driver.

I know I have. On my way back from the outdoor cinema, I drove behind an eighteen wheeler who slowed to about 35mph on a 65mph highway. I thought to myself, what's going on here? Should I pass him? Should I honk? The driver eventually sped back up, and I just kindly kept behind the trailer, with the memory of "Unhinged" so fresh in my head. We all encounter times like this on the interstate, but for a film this neanderthal to stick with me after the credits rolled speaks to its inherit terror we all always have behind the wheel, and the unconscious potency of the filmmaking on display.

Crowe plays Tom Cooper, a divorcee himself who hacks his ex-wife and her new lover with an ax, before burning their house down, in the movie's opening moments. He is already unstable, and by the time he encounters Rachel, he is a full-blown slasher villain. The camera lusts over his face, crawling from his twitching eyes to his curled lips as he contemplates each kill, during each kill, and after each kill, and Crowe relishes in the chance to play such a psychotic person. The Oscar-winning actor is too good for material like this, but that's kinda the point- he hams it up with an almost sensual pleasure, chewing not only the scenery but the entire production, right up to the film reel.

He crashes into dozens of cars in pursuit of his victim, runs over people, stabs some and burns others, all in broad daylight- this guy is a maniac! He always knows where Rachel is (thanks to phone tracking), but even once she realizes this and smashes the cell, he's always just behind her. The police of course only show up when its a convenience to the plot, and just about every cliche imaginable is written into the script as if by the law of screenwriting. But none of that has ever mattered in a slasher film, which this very much is, and director Derrick Borte works beyond the limitations set by writer Carl Ellsworth by staging the carnage with professionalism and style. The car chases are clearly shot, and there is genuine suspense we anticipate Cooper's next move and inherit slaughter.

At just over ninety minutes, "Unhinged" is a terse, brutal, stupid, and, for all measures, bad film, but it works. It is your quintessential B picture: telling a familiar story in the rare "road rage" genre, a pulpy production that milks the audience for every emotion you expect to be milked. You yell at the screen every time someone does something dumb, you wince when Rachel's son Kyle (Gabriel Bateman) is in danger by the hands of Crowe (along with some electrical wire to boot), and you just don't feel like driving once it is all over, and there is something to admire about that. Do I recommend "Unhinged?" Did I like it? Is it good? Is it bad? It doesn't matter; it sets its goal low then leaps high over it with finesse. Anyone who's looking for an exploitative tale of violence is in for a satisfyingly deranged time, wait for it, at the movies. When was the last time we could say that?

Project Power Review

Person A: "I saw the new superhero movie on Netflix"
Person B: "The one with Charlize Theron?"
A: "No, the one with Jamie Foxx"
B: "There's one with Jamie Foxx?"
A: "There's one with Charlize Theron?"

End hypothetical conversation.


That is how I imagine most exchanges about Netflix's new superhero movie "Project Power" will play out, coming out only about a mere month after their previous superhero flick "The Old Guard." Without question they are dominating the genre in 2020, as the pandemic continues to shut down theatres across many of the big markets, and you have to wonder how this will change the landscape once the Batmobile can come back out, safely.

Is "Project Power" better than "Wonder Woman" or "Thor: Ragnarok," two movies I disagreed with... everyone about? How many stars should it get? 2 stars? 3? Does it even matter? There is nothing else for people to do with their time, and therefore we view the limited excuses of entertainment from a wildly different angle. If the world wasn't closed down and this was released in the normally crowded theaters, "Project Power" would be just another minor bleep on the moviegoers radar. But it's not, and in a world where the most fun we can get finding a face mask with a cool pattern, it is the closest thing we can get to experiencing a slice of "normal" mass-marketed filmmaking.

It starts with a brilliant premise, pills that give anyone five minutes of superpowers. What are the abilities? Everyone has one, but you don't know until you try it. You could become invisible, become bullet proof, or even explode into a bloody pulp (I imagine that last one won't be made into a kid's Halloween costume). Then it throws millions of dollars in special-effects at the screen and finally, it benefits from the natural charisma of casting Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the leads. Audiences are treated to plenty of scenes of gunplay and fisticuffs, as the plot swerves from drug dealing, corrupt cops, noir, politics, redemption, family, and a whole lot more.

This is where I'd normally criticize the picture, as it never really follows through with any of the numerous ideas it tries, but hey, at least it's trying. It's all too common for movies, particularity in this genre, to hardly try, and here, we have one that goes for everything in the "how to write a screenplay" guidebook. It's messy, unorganized, and uneven, but it is never boring, and sometimes, even surprising.

Take, for example, how it treats all superpowers as evil, since you need to swallow a pill to get them, equating it to taking any illegal substance. There are no "good superheros;" no "Superman" saying that he uses his powers for good and that you should trust him. Again, this isn't something explored fully, but as one of the probably dozens of concepts here, it leaves you thinking about it once the credits roll. For how long after you ask? That depends on how much you want a sequel, for which there will surely be one. And if they can't afford to recruit Foxx or Gordon-Levitt back, no problem, just write new characters that have the same powers.

Sputnik Review

Most movies try too hard, feeling the need to over-complicate even the slightest detail in a well-worn idea. I've watched a lot of dreck (and reviewed some of it), but why is that? Maybe there are no more new ideas in Hollywood, or at least, no new "bankable" ideas. Perhaps that's why we turn to Russia for an eagerly competent science-fiction horror film "Sputnik," which comes to US audiences only through subtitles. This is a no-frills treat packed with government conspiracy, bloodshed, science, fiction, and yes, a nasty little creature that comes from space.

In 1983, after a day without contact, a Russian spacecraft lands back to Earth, with one passenger dead, one alive, and one new, sleeping inside the living. What is it? What does it want? How did it get inside him? Can we remove it? The answers to those questions, the last one in particular, are tasked to Tatyana (Oksana Akinshina), a disgraced doctor who's career is saved by Colonel Semiradov (Fyodor Bondarchuk), after her risky practices threatened a patient's life in an offscreen event. If you're going to ask what the Military wants with an alien, then you have not seen a lot of movies.

This creatures lives inside and outside its host, though only for about an hour a night, and the cosmonaut remains under heavy guard as scientists work to study the parasite. (Or is it symbiote?) Expect the obligatory scenes where someone "wants to take a closer look" and the even more obligatory consequences.

I wish I could say the narrative is something best kept a secret, so that you, the viewer, could be surprised, but the only way to be shocked would be to have never watched 1979's "Alien," any of its sequels, or any film it inspired (or inspired it). But part of the fun of these pictures is seeing all the neat new twists play out; everyone knows, or at least thinks they know, what's going to happen, who's gonna die, and how it all ends. You sit in suspense, waiting for that part you just know is coming, all the while sorta hoping to be wrong. "Sputnik" offers everything you want in an creature feature, all thrills and trimmed of most unnecessary fat.

Most unique here isn't its characters, plot or even monster- it's its setting. The industrial Russian facilities casts a damp coldness to every shot, one that to American's feels almost as alien as the alien itself; everything looks like Earth, but something's not quite right. A detached emptiness fills you with dread- this is a place where you know bad stuff has happened and is going to happen. And bad stuff does happen, and then happens again, and again.

The lack of an English dub ends up being an unintended brilliant move, a cost-saving measure that gives the production a sort of pseudo-documentary feel; your eyes dart quickly over the subtitles and then scramble back onto the screen, wishing not to miss chance to get lost in the bleak craftsmanship. For all its gloominess, there is somewhat of a happy ending, but with the world in its current state, I'm not sure we need something this gloomy to begin with.

Black Water: Abyss Review

"Black Water: Abyss" is a peculiar name for this movie, which is ultimately just another man-eating crocodile flick. There are plenty of shots of the water, but it's never black- brown would be more accurate, murky would be even better (it even turns red in a few moments, but I digress). What does this have to do with the movie? Nothing, but I couldn't get over it. Why, I'm not sure. Perhaps I felt mislead, but then again, maybe questions like this shouldn't be asked when the narrative follows the exploits of a very hungry crocodile.

The "crocodile movie" subgenre is a finicky one, packed with entries but none with the impact "Jaws" had for shark movies. But "Black Water: Abyss" is no masterpiece like "Jaws." It's not the surprisingly decent "Jaws 2." It's not the "so-bad-it's-good" Jaws 3-D and it certainly is not the "so-bad-it's-great" "Jaws: The Revenge." It occupies somewhere aside that franchise, repackaging its ideas and slapping them onto concepts from other places, namely "The Descent," which itself was a repurposing of themes from other films.

This results in something that isn't very bad but isn't very good either. Then again, there is no standard for crocodile movies, unless you count "Lake Placid," but that's remembered only for its idiosyncratic humor and Betty White. I found myself wishing for humor here, any kind of humor. The dialogue here consists of emotional baggage and the obligatory "get out of the water" kind of screams.

The cast is kept small fortunately, as two couples and a makeshift guide go spelunking in an unknown cave. The closest thing we get to a main character is Jen, played by Jessica McNamee, who in her first scene is snooping on her boyfriend Eric's phone (played by Luke Mitchell). This sets her up to be either jealous or instinctive, which plays into the drama once everyone lands in the cave; an undercurrent of suspect and deception with everyone involved. Problem is, we've seen this all done before, and done with more wit and carnage in Neil Marshall's aforementioned cult hit.

The human turmoil, as familiar as it is, comes close to the cusp of working, but it shortchanges you without any commitment. There is no resolution to the late revelation, people die and other don't. Even the false-ending doesn't offer any satisfying conclusion. But, who are we kidding? No one rents a movie (or goes to the theater, if your country is so lucky) like this and expects to be invested in anyone who's not a semiaquatic monster.

Much of the film is spent in a large cavern, which suddenly floods and caves in (like all movie caves do) and introduces the main star, Mr. Crocodile. We don't get very many clear shots, only brief flashes of his teeth and head poking up from the water. I'm guessing its low budget keeps the special-effect shots down to a minimum, so we're left with the suggestion of the crocodile beneath the still water. This is more of a detriment than a benefit, as the small amount of suspense developed from what you don't see is ruined by the cartoony CGI shots that you do see. What a waste of the computers who generated this imagery. We came here for cheap thrills and bloody kills, but "Black Water: Abyss" is just cheap, without many thrills, blood, or kills.

Fatal Affair Review

There is nothing wrong with genre movies; low on budget but high on tropes. The kind where much of the budget went towards renting the clothes actors wear or the rental cars they drive, sometimes that's all you want in an afternoon on your couch. Netflix's "Fatal Affair" simultaneously fails and succeeds as one, an effective eighty nine minute trip down the familiar lanes of love, sex, and violence that plays out so quickly you're left either laughing at the gaps in logic or believing them.

Nia Long plays Ellie who's, you guessed it, living the perfect life. Attentive husband, beautiful daughter, and of course, a successful career as a lawyer. Yet she's unhappy, for reasons unexplained outside of generic babble like "... the person sleeping next to you feels like a complete stranger."

Soon we find her on her last assignment at her current firm, before leaving to start her own, and she runs across David, played by Omar Epps, a newly hired new cyber security(?) expert. They (of course!) have a past, having gone to college together, and after a girls night gone wrong, they end up almost having intercourse in a nightclub bathroom (how romantic). This is where the movie falls apart, as it never establishes Ellie's motivation to consider the affair. Up until now (and throughout the film), her husband Marcus (Stephen Bishop) has been nothing but affectionate and understanding.

Is she bored in bed? Is he having an affair also? Where exactly is the trouble in paradise?! The filmmakers where either too lazy to consider such basic backstories, or too innocent to consider such scandalous inclinations; it's trash without being trashy, which is often the only reason to watch garbage.

It's neither smart nor exploitative, in fact, it's so devoid of vice that you find yourself wondering why this didn't debut on some basic-cable channel instead of the streaming giant, complete with a "some material may be inappropriate for children" disclaimer. Aside from some very brief shots of clothed sex, all your perverted appetite has to munch on is the suggestion that sex did happen.

There is mild salvation for Ellie once she leaves David premature, shirt untucked and all, and for the remainder of the runtime she's shown broken as she hides the liaison from her family and friends. David, on the other hand, goes from being mildly frisky to complete stalker, escalating from simply spying to dating her best friend so he can get in her house, within a matter of scenes. Omar is pretty decent here, able to show pounds of rage just beneath his calm demeanor, and he plays what little development is provided for his creeping with an understated intensity. Nia is also acceptable, keeping some level of authority in her character despite the material giving her nothing to work with except to look worried and talk on her phone.

How do you rate this film then, how many stars is fair? That's impossible since it doesn't play fair- this was obviously a "paycheck" movie for everyone, going through the motions so they can pay next month's rent in Hollywood as they wait for a better script to come. It's bad and doesn't deliver the goods, but it never insults you into hating it.

For all its wrongs, "Fatal Affair" does remain watchable. The plot, as derivative as it is, does feature several twists just to make sure you're still paying attention, and the production is relatively slick. It has the look of a more expensive film, one where more interesting things happening to better actors. But I was duped into its silliness, an hour and a half of my life gone that I'll never get back, and I slumped off of my couch not terribly upset with that.

The Old Guard Review

If "The Old Guard" has one thing going in its favor, it's that it's a superhero film without any baggage. There is no "cinematic universe" tomfoolery to hold it back, and by debuting on Netflix, there is no worry about its R-rating impacting its box office potential. It comes to our living rooms on a clean slate, the only expectations are formed by us after decades from the Marvel and DC juggernauts. No, the heroes here don't wear capes or spandex, and they can swear like sailors, but their superpowers get the job done.

This alone is a major breath of air in the crowded superhero genre, but it ends up as nothing but a fresh coat of paint on the creaky old concept. There is nothing new to watch here, because there is nothing new attempted here; it's the same old story with blood squirts and modern clothing.

You've heard this before: a small group of people, led by Andy (Charlize Theron) with unexplained powers are hunted for their unexplained powers. The powers this time is regeneration, which is shown early and often; this motley crew can't die! Get shot? The wound heals itself, shown in full with nice touches like the bullets getting forced out from the flesh. They also never get old, locked forever at the age when these vague abilities are gained. This instantly flatlines the stakes, since they're pretty much immortal, but the film attempts to fill this gap in logic by adding that they can die, but only when it's their time (i.e. whenever their injuries stop healing). When this time comes is unknown, but this doesn't cure this central problem with the action scenes.

The bad guys here are lead by Steven Merrick (Harry Melling), owner of super-generic pharmaceutical company incorporated. His goal is to cure all human disease (maybe he isn't such a bad guy), and sees the humanitarian and financial potential of these super humans and sends dozens of generic soldiers to be sliced, diced, and shot as they try to apprehend them. This leads back to the primary issue with the shootouts and fisticuffs; why should I be thrilled when I know the good guys won't lose? Who cares when they get hurt? All because the possibility that it could be their time?! Without a tangible weakness to be used to stop them, the picture fails. An action picture isn't worth its weight in bullets if the action is robbed of any and all suspense.

There are some interesting ideas buried beneath the flimsy material on the surface, but they sink like stones in a sea of familiarity. We are shown brief scenes of the heroes heroic acts in other eras, which allows for some lovely set pieces like the Salem Witch trials. I wish there were more moments like these, but we're only offered a few breaks from otherwise sterile shots of military outposts and office buildings. It's also touched upon the difficulty of "hiding" in a digital world- in one scene, Andy deletes a photo she's accidentally in by asking the group if they'd like a "picture together." Yet later in the film, she has no problem strolling down the aisle of a drug store. Yeah, I'm sure their security cameras aren't working.

Other ideas are not so welcome: there is, spoiler-alert, a double-cross in the narrative, but the "why" and "how" are never explored. Why didn't it happen sooner? (Gotta fill that runtime somehow.)

Netflix has so many subscribers, and so many folks are superhero movie fans, so they no doubt have a massive success on their hands- particularly as we live in a world where fans are starved of new Marvel and DC content. Whether or not the success is well-deserved is irrelevant when so many people are gonna watch it, talk about it online, and then wait for the next pandemic for the sequel to drop.

Force of Nature Review

"Force of Nature," featuring but hardly starring Mel Gibson, is far from a victim of the pandemic forcing movies out of the theaters. In fact, this high-concept thriller sounds, looks, and plays out like a movie destined by nature to be direct-to-streaming. That's not a bad thing necessarily, as a grimy little genre picture like this is best enjoyed in the privacy of your own home so you don't feel ashamed for having a good time.

Or at least a decent time. Look, "Force of Nature" is far from the best thing you could watch on lockdown, nor will it look particularly good on Gibson's resume, but it sets the bar low and then just barely lumbers over it.

"Die Hard in a hurricane" would be the best way to describe the concept here, with Emile Hirsch as Cardillo, filling the shoes of the obligatory sarcastic officer who doesn't want to be in the situation. Only Cardillo is no John McClane. He and his partner end up at an apartment complex as a hurricane roars behind them, trying to get any civilians to evacuate. But wait, there's more! One of the tenants is Ray (Gibson), is a grizzled ex-cop with a bad mouth and temper (hard to tell how much is acting and how much is him just being himself). But wait! There's more!

There is at least one other resident in need of rescuing, Bergkamp (Jorge Luis Ramos), but he isn't just some old guy. He possesses a few priceless pieces of art, which attracts badguy John the Baptist (David Zayas) and friends. All of this exposition happens relatively quickly, a brief appetizer to the meat-and-potatoes main-course; director Michael Polish knows he's just barely captured the interest of his audience and dives directly into the good stuff as soon as he can.

What's the good stuff? The usual shootouts, fisticuffs, and a few moments of cat-and-mouse games just to break the monotony. We watch familiar scene after familiar scene, but the real attraction is the hurricane setting and the building. The constant bang of the wind and the forever rainfall is an unbroken threat, never sure when it could interrupt the plans of the cops and robbers. The structure, on the other hand, offers unique rooms filled with possibilities; will this residence have an escape path? A weapon? Medicine?

But it is the silliness of it all that sells the material. The film touches on some unplanned timely issues but it glazes over every subject it approaches with a big grin and an equally big fist. Only I wish it was sillier. I wish it went "all in" on just how preposterous everything really is; there is a good idea for an action/disaster satire somewhere here, but "Force of Nature" hasn't found the magic combination. Or it did, but went with the more commercial route.

This is a dopey piece of genre escapism, a low-rent relic of a time where cops, natural disasters, and Mel Gibson could simply headline entertainment, not controversies. These topics don't make for a fun time at the movies anymore. (Should they ever have?) But is it fair to criticize for a product made with the innocent intentions of cheap distraction? I don't know, and my attempt at an answer is unimportant. This film is unimportant. But it is a passable way to spend an unimportant afternoon.