"Hit Man" - Review

Gary Johnson (Glenn Powell) is a philosophy teacher at a university in New Orleans, with a strange side gig: he helps the police with undercover sting operations trapping those who attempt to hire hit men. When the usual impersonator Jasper (Austin Amelio) is suspended for brutalising 2 teenagers, Gary has to take his place at the last minute. Gary finds he's a natural at this, and begins to take to it. He finds himself playing "Ron", a direct and confident hitman, and his life improving as a result, especially when he meets Maddy (Adria Arjona) and finally gets a chance of love, but does she love "Ron" or Gary?

Very much a Richard Linklater film, he manages to get away with the use of street signs to display the character's state of mind, it feels like a wry and twisted take on the rom-com. Powell is an excellent lead, particularly off the back of "Anyone But You", and the scenes of him in disguises are as if "Fletch" were funny. He plays the 2 parts well, particularly when they blend together as one, and has natural comedic timing. Adria Arjona is making up for being in "Morbius" by actually having stuff to do in this, and taking to the dry humour well.
The 2nd act breakup is done with a little twist in the tale and turned on its head, as the whole film feels like they're filtering the classic romcom through an indie movie and an undercover cop thriller. The genre spins work well, and as for tone, when you await the turn and the card they play, it never feels too jarring, the dry and laid back tone work for it all to come together. Plus Retta from "Parks and Recreation" is in this, always welcome, and Amelio is a fun antagonistic cop character.

"Spy X Family Code: White" - Review

In the fictional nation of Westalis, the spy known as "Twilight" (real name Loid Forger) does what he can to maintain peace between it and the neighbouring nation of Ostania by any means necessary. To this end, the super spy is maintaining a cover story as an ordinary citizen. He is in a false marriage to Ostanian super assassin Yor, A.K.A "The Thorn Princess", who has missions of her own. Completing the charade, the pair have adopted a child name Anya, who secretly has the ability to read minds, and an enormous dog named Bond, who can see the future... Needing to get Anya to do well at her school's cookery contest, Loid and Yor embark on a trip with her to the snowy country of Frigis to learn about the local desert of Meremere, favourite of the headmaster, and get caught up not only in their own heads and problems, but a nation spanning plot involving the evil Colonel Snidel...

I have not watched the series, but it sounds like a fun time. If it's anything like this, I feel I'd enjoy it. The film uses its comedy well: highly strung and exceedingly competent professionals with high end action movie jobs; juxtaposed with Yor being neurotic about whether or not she is a good wife, and Loid getting super into the work of finding ingredients at the expense of his mission. The jokes are well constructed, and translate well. Anya is adorable without being annoying, and is rather well written as child characters go. There are a pair of henchmen on their trail, one of whom is obsessed with Tarot and mysticism, which is a neat little character touch, and the "spy Adventure by accident" joke does not outstay its welcome. I liked this, well done movie! It's well animated and cute enough, and had me giggling at the characters rather than broad slapstick. There is a weirdly well-animated, stylistic poo-gag towards the end. Kudos.

"Love Lies Bleeding" - Review

Louise (Kristen Stewart) runs a gym in 1989 and tries to give up smoking. When drifting, bodybuilding stranger Jackie (Katy O'Brien) comes to town, sparks fly and worlds collide.

After the absolute barn burner of a debut (heh) "Saint Maude", I was fascinated to see where Rose Glass (amazing name) would go: her eye for detail, ugliness, hopeful redemption and classy sinful sleaze has taken her to honestly the one place befitting her talents: film noir.
A grimy, but not salacious, look at 2 spiralling strangers finding each other, and the myriad of decisions and outside events complicating things and causing them to spiral. It's gripping stuff, with a believable, swet central pairing, both flawed and damaged individuals trying to open up and help each other without letting those vulnerabilities be used. There are fantastic shots of the starry skies and the gym reading "Crater Gym", like Jackie is sent from the Heavens, but destined to leave wreckage when she does, and the imagery and beauty of the film continues in those shots; but is also counter-acted and frequently contrasted with "Saint Maude"-esque grit and grime: everything is off colour, everything is run down, an accurate look at the time period rather than a simple shallow neon-tined facsimile of it through nostalgia blind lenses. In this murkiness and ugliness, the beauty is allowed to thrive, but they also succumb to the worst instincts too. There's fantastic consumption and devouring imagery throughout, all maws and insects and yawning chasms, and the sound design is top notch: squelching and bone crunching and creaking of bones, topped by an all-too-fitting Clint Mansell score. Ed Harris shows up and is ALWAYS welcome in things. I love Ed Harris.
It's classic film noir, dripping with imagery and closeups and told with a queer eye and a twist. Already I'm seeing takes which see the dream-like and metaphorical elements at face value, come on guys: it's Rose Glass. Have some media literacy.
I like it. I want to continue to see where Rose Glass goes from here.
Side note: there are more scenes of "downtown devouring" than there are murders here.
But I DO NOT want to see anybody get their toes sucked, what the fuck movie?

"Boy Kills World" - Review

In the not-too-distant future, in a candy-coloured "Utopia Yellow" metropolis, a deaf mute (Bill Skarsgard) trains under a Shaman (Yayan Ruhian) in order to get revenge on the Van Der Koy family, who rule the city and killed his own loved ones. With an inner voice gleaned from a video game he played with his sister (H. Jon Benjamin), he embarks on a colourful odyssey of revenge.

Something of a pisstake of the genre, wearing influences on its sleeve ("Streets of Rage", "Streets of Fire", various comic books, even an "Akira" visual in the closing credits I very much appreciated), it's a rapid fire flurry of mayhem and nonsense, never really overstaying its welcome. Bloody, brutal and turned up to eleven by all concerned, it benefits greatly from devoted performances from all concerned: Bill Skarsgard is very game as the deaf-mute; H. Jon Benjamin is droll as ever; a forever welcome and personal favourite Jessica Rothe (absolute icon and Queen) plays crop-top biker jacket sporting, axe wielding assassin "June 27" and threatens to steal the show, I love seeing her in parts like this; Sharlto Copley once again brings down the house; Andrew Koji (still proving himself to be a favourite of mine too) keeps his winning streak going as a Cockney rebel; everybody is playing it as a comedy. Michelle Dockery brings some of the satire as the token Van Der Koy who televises the violence. It's not trying to say much, it's just an homage and piss take of the movies which came before it: there's an excellent high energy joke involving a man with a beard (Isaiah Mustafa) which blocks The Boy from reading his lips, so he only speaks in gibberish. June 27 wears a helmet with light up symbols and words, a fun touch. As a nod to "The Raid", they even have Yayan Ruhian do his little "open clench fists" thing before a fight, which gave me a lot of glee. It's an excellent, violent pisstake and honestly? It's what "Argylle" wanted to be, only with a tenth of the budget and none of the smugness.
Highlights include a mansion battle and a snowman cereal mascot fight/callback.
It's good, unclean fun.

"Abigail" - Review

The mysterious "Lambert" (Giancarlo Esposito), assembles a team: focused medic "Joey" (Melissa Barrera), sarcastic driven bespectacled sociopath "Frank" (Dan Stevens), perky young out-of-her-depth hacker "Sammy" (Kathryn Newton), big lovable muscle lug "Peter" (Kevin Durand), quiet sniper "Rickles" (Will Catlett), and shitbag stoner driver "Dean" (Angus Cloud). They have a simple job: kidnap a young girl named Abigail (Alisha Weir), hold her in this house for 24 hours until the ransom is paid by her wealthy father, and disappear into the night, never to see each other again. But this Rat Pack may find that there is a lot more to this girl than meets the eye, and they are in for a long, long night...

An absolute fucking riot and a hell of a good time.
Razor sharply written, and 100% my jam: blending 2 genres together and having so much fun with it. For about 45 minutes I could just happily watch these 6 assholes bounce off of each other in a kidnapper movie, and they are delightfully written: you want Dean dead SO SO MUCH, Peter and Sammy have an adorable double act going on (I love Kathryn Newton and am ELATED that people remember who Kevin Durand is, here relishing the chance to play a guy who's not simply 100% evil or a generic douchebag), Melissa Barrera remains fantastic and Dan Stevens? I am pretty sure he treats all scenery as a sumptuous, spicy buffet to dine upon and it is delicious. I am delighted that Dan Stevens has simply chosen to embrace his career as "B-Movie Legend" starring in weirder, bloodier fare like this and "The Guest" (watch "The Guest", that's a great movie). He steals the show as the sarcastic, sassy, furious, perpetually irritated Frank, surrounded by idiots.
That is, he steals the show until Alisha Weir does her thing.
It's a star-making, wonderful turn from her.
When the blood starts flowing and the carnage is unleashed, as you know it will be, they don't let up: you still root for these characters, and some of them last a LOT longer than you think they will in these sorts of films.
And everytime you think you know where it is going, or that you understand how these kinds of movies operate, it takes a sharp left turn, and remains on the rails.
A rollercoaster I am DEFINITELY going to watch again. A riot, so, so, so fun.

"Civil War" - Review

In the 3rd Term of an unnamed President's reign, his grip on the country is loosening, as rival Americans draw closer and closer to him. Jaded veteran photojournalist Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and her amiable colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) are determined to get an interview and photograph of The President (Nick Offerman). Accompanying them, to Lee's reluctance, are aspiring rookie photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) who hero-worships Lee, and old-school New York Times reporter Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who mentored Lee in the past. As they embark on a journey across a ruined America, they find and lose their humanity along the way, as they attempt to remain "objective"...

Obvious parts out of the way: the movie is political in the sense of "it's about a Civil War in America" but beyond that? It is focused not on what started the war, who the sides are, or what they believe, but simply on the effects such a war will have on the landscape and the people and the communities its participants claim to be fighting for. We get excellent glimpses of its horrors, all told through the passing views of these journalists: a man nonchalantly claiming to know the looter he is torturing from high school, and how he bets he wishes he'd spoken to him more now (petty grievances and the gleeful thrills of power in a vacuum); a small town seemingly uninterested in the war and trying not to think about it, only for Sammy to tell Lee to look up and (in a fantastic camera shot) see armed snipers on the rooftops; a standout is a sequence involving an utterly surreal showdown between a sniper and 2 of their targets at a Christmas themed golf course, where we have no idea who they are fighting for, which sides they are on and what led up to this, only that they are attempting to kill each other. The central arc is of the loss of humanity and generally HORRIBLE nature of the 2 leading journalists: we get a visceral and brutal shootout covered by the gang, and then Joel chatting amicably and joking around with the winners as they commit war crimes, all done to some "Tribe Called Quest". It's effective, brutal and jarring, especially when early on we have flashbacks of things Lee has covered and they are just as horrible. I rather appreciate the simple shot of Joel relaxing in the back of a car, surrounded by cigarette smoke, and the ruined backgrounds of a Midwestern landscape loom behind him.
The standout moment comes from a cameo by Jesse Plemons in a remarkably tense, knuckle-biting showdown, where the gang realise that their "Press" badges are not bulletproof shields... Genuinely the Plemons scene is a highlight and worth the praise I have seen it getting.
Its use of snippets of worldbuilding and the horrors being glimpsed at allow us to elaborate, and draw our own conclusions, because at the end of the day it doesn't matter who started it: this is what is happening. We follow a visceral, rapid chase to reach the drain before the regime circling around it finally collapses. The ending is bleak in the parallels it draws, and the character arcs of Lee and Joel tight, though Jessie is a tad superfluous to proceedings.
Makes a good double bill with the excellent, criminally underrated "Bushwick".

"Monkey Man" - Review

At night, in the grimy, bloody flea pit fighting arenas of India, a man wears a monkey mask and works as a jobber (Dev Patel), earning money by allowing others to beat him in these games. He waits, he focuses, he dwells on the past, hoping to cross paths and seek vengeance upon the ones who wronged him. But like the hero Haruman himself, he shall have to conquer pride, and become the underdog champion that is needed, his vengeance and wants be damned. Where there is injustice, one must fight it.

Fuck yes.
Fuck, yes.
Taking the standard revenge movie tale, Dev Patel honestly had no choice bu to subvert it, adapt it, change it in some way so as to leave his own mark, and boy did he succeed.
A stunningly edited, visceral, primal, ferocious tale of the underdog, rooted in faith, redemption, rebirth and justice. It feels like a "John Wick" movie but where the guy has no money, and is a claustrophobic, anxiety inducing nightmare to boot. It's grimy, brutal, grim, bloody and feral, a primal angle of film making. The editing is God-tier, and even the shaky-cam (normally I dislike it, fuck Greengrass for popularising that shit) actually serves a purpose here of jamming us in this spinning, out of control world of our protagonist, and the fight scenes are awesome enough on their own that they aren't trying to "Iron Fist" it and hide shit. The movie is honestly a lot slower paced than one would expect: focusing a lot on spiritualism, rebirth, and the myths and power of faith, unashamedly so. And it tackles the root idea of (refreshingly) not that the cycles of violence must be broken, but that one must channel that rage, that fury, that violence into changing things, into a righteous cause and being just: using one's fury and rage and justifiable hatred of the systems and cruelty around us, to destroy that which binds and ruins us. It is unashamedly political (saying, essentially, fuck conservatism and religious extremism, fuck Modhi, fuck the cruelty of the rich, and until all of us are free none of us are free), and uses the grimy, sleazy underbelly refreshingly starkly without being pornographic. There's no sexual assault either, kudos! Patel devotes himself heart, body and soul into making this.
Seeing a hench Dev Patel is fucking weird, not going to lie, but I love it.
There's a stunning final act fight sequence making use of a kitchen and (weirdly) Boney M, and a brutal chase through the slums, and in between we have a journey of rediscovery, and the power of faith.
Also, trans rights motherfuckers.
Trans fucking rights.
Oh, and Sharlto Copely is in this and fucking rules, as he always does.
Dev Patel has offered us not only a delicious main, but a delectable course of hors d'ouevres, some lavish sides, a sumptuous dessert and a palette cleansing cocktail to enhance. There is a righteous, divinge, raw and palpable fury and passion behind and in front of the camera here, but feels not like a screed, but a roar of triumph and just excellent cinema. (I cannot emphasise how good the editing is in this).
I am exceedingly keen to see where he goes next.
Presumably, if this movie is anything to go by, the fucking jugular.