Hotel Mumbai

The majestic façade hides terror and carnage.

(2021) True Life Drama (Bleecker Street) Armie Hammer, Dev Patel, Nazanin Boniadi, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Anupam Kher, Jason Isaacs, Alex Pinder, Amadeep Singh, Suhail Nayyar, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Yash Trivedi, Aditi Kalkunte, Vipin Sharma, Gaurav Paswala, Angus McLaren, Naina Sareen, Sachin Joab, Chantal Contouri, Vitthal Kale, Nagesh Bhonsie, Carmen Duncan. Directed by Anthony Maras

 

On November 26, 2008 ten members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist organization based in Pakistan carried out a variety of attacks over four days at several locations in the city of Mumbai, one of the largest cities and de facto financial capital of India. Among the locations that were under siege was the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, a high-end hotel in the city.

First-time feature filmmaker Anthony Maras adopted a you-are-there approach in depicting the events, emphasizing the multi-cultural aspect of the attackers and victims (ten different languages are spoken during the course of the film). Maras manages to capture the terror, panic and chaos of the attacks, which took place over four days before the attackers were finally stopped (nine of the ten attackers were killed; the tenth, Ajmal Kasab, was captured alive and provided testimony which explained how the attacks were planned and executed. He himself would be executed by hanging in 2016).

The stories here were mainly heroic as the hotel staff tried to protect the guests at the hotel, often at great personal risk. There are far too many characters to go into individually but the performances are generally quite solid with those of Patel, as a kind-hearted Sikh waiter, Hammer and Boniadi as a wealthy newlywed couple terrified for the safety of their newborn baby, and veteran Indian actor Kher as a celebrity chef whose quick-thinking and calm leadership saved dozens of lives.

The pacing is generally pretty fast, although it does drag a little bit in the middle of the movie. Still, this is a very good movie that has been overlooked in many ways. It is available to stream on a variety of services and is one you would do well to check out.

REASONS TO SEE: Strong performances from Patel and Kher. Taut and suspenseful.
REASONS TO AVOID: A little slow in the middle.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of violence (some of it gruesome) and profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUITS: Maras and co-writer John Collee based their film on hundreds of hours of interviews with survivors and witnesses. Some of the dialogue is taken verbatim from them.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Google Play, Hulu, Microsoft, Redbox, Spectrum, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/13/22: Rotten Tomatoes: 76% positive reviews; Metacritic: 62/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Marathon: The Patriot’s Day Bombing
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Who is Amos Otis?

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New Releases for the Week of November 5, 2021

ETERNALS

(Disney/Marvel) Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kit Harrington, Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry. Directed by Chloë Zhao

A group of near-immortal aliens living on Earth have taken no hand in human events, until an unexpected tragedy paves the way for their implacable enemies – the Deviants – to come to Earth, forcing them to reveal themselves and their dazzling powers. This new superhero team falls on the heels of the success of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Superhero
Now Playing: Wide
Rating: PG-13 (for fantasy violence and action, some language and brief sexuality)

Annaatthe

(Sun) Rajinkanth, Meena, Kushboo, Nayanthara. A young man’s sister marries and moves to another city. Soon, he begins to hear disturbing news about her and realizes that she’s in some kind of trouble. He refuses to sit back and do nothing, so he heads to a strange city to rescue his sister, even though he doesn’t know what from.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Action
Now Playing: AMC Avenue Melbourne, Cinemark Orlando, Cinemark Universal, CMX Plaza Café, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: NR

Christmas vs. the Walters

(Safier) Shawnee Smith, Dean Winters, Chris Elliott, Bruce Dern. If you think the stores are already gearing up for Christmas, you should see the Hallmark Channel. Here’s a movie that would fit right in over there: an overworked and over-stressed mom tries to create the perfect Christmas while her loving but dysfunctional family begins to fall apart.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Holiday Comedy
Now Playing: Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pointe Orlando
Rating: PG-13 (for some suggestive material)

Ida Red

(Saban) Josh Hartnett, Melissa Leo, Frank Grillo, William Forsythe. The son of a notorious crime boss is convinced by his mother to pull off one last heist to get out of jail. However, the FBI is closing in and he will find himself faced with a choice between freedom and family.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Studio Movie Grille Sunset Walk
Rating: R (for language throughout, strong violence and some sexual content)

Mass

(Bleecker Street) Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney, Ann Dowd. Two sets of parents are torn apart yet forever linked by an unspeakable tragedy. They agree to meet privately some years later in order to try and move on with their lives, but it won’t be so easy.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic content and brief strong language)

Red Notice

(Netflix) Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya. An Interpol agent goes after the world’s most wanted art thief. This may be the biggest movie Netflix has produced to date.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Action Comedy
Now Playing: Cinemark Lakeland Square, Cinemark Orlando, Cinemark Universal, CMX Daytona, Premiere Fashion Square Mall, Studio Movie Grille Sunset Walk
Rating: PG-13 (for violence and action, some sexual references, and strong language)

Sooyavanshi

(Reliance) Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Ranveer Singh, Katrina Kaif. A police anti-terror squad in India gets a lot more than it bargained for.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Crime
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Universal, Regal Pavilion Port Orange
Rating: NR

Spencer

(Neon) Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins. A take on what might have happened during the holiday weekend when Diana, Princess of Wales, made the decision to divorce her husband Prince Charles. Early reviews have praised Stewart as a possible Oscar Best Actress contender.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Avenue Melbourne, AMC Disney Springs, AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Universal, CMX Daytona, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for some language)

Wife of a Spy

(Kino Lorber) Yû Aoi, Issei Takahashi, Masahiro Higashide, Ryôta Bandô. As Imperial Japan descends inexorably into a war footing, the wife of a progressive silk exporter begins to suspect he’s having an affair. But her boyhood friend, now the head of the military police, is sure he’s up to something far worse.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Cinematique Daytona
Rating: PG-13 (for violent material, bloody images and some language)

COMING TO VIRTUAL CINEMA/VOD:

A Cop Movie
A Man Called Scott
Beta Test
Clifford the Big Red Dog (Wednesday)
Dead and Beautiful (Thursday)
The Deep House
The Drummer (Tuesday)
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
Ending Disease
Finch
Her Fatal Family Secret
Highway to Heaven (Saturday)
Ida Red
Love Hard
Mark, Mary and Some Other People
Passing (Wednesday)
Sunken Roads: Three Generations After D-Day
Violet (Tuesday)

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
Eternals
Finch
Spencer
Wife of a Spy

Skyfire

Jason Isaacs is getting warmer.

(2019) Action (Screen Media) Jason Isaacs, Liang Shi, Hannah Quinlivan, Ryan Wu, Leslie Ma, Shaun Dou, Lingchen Ji, Xuegi Wang, Bee Rogers, Alice Rietveld, An Bai, Tongjiang Hou, Yiqing Li, Lawrence de Stefano, Yugi Chen, Jianmin Cui, Gigi Velicitat, Makena Taylor. Directed by Simon West

 

It must suck to be a volcanologist in the movies. Nobody ever believes you that the volcano is about to erupt, it’s all just “ooh” and “aah” at the beautiful smoking cone, but then comes the blast, the screaming, and the dying.

The daughter of two volcanologist’s, Meng Li as a child (Rogers) was on Tianhuo island when the volcano erupted. When her father (Shi) was unable to save her mother (Rietveld) from the pyroclastic cloud that broiled her alive, the two became estranged. Now an adult, Meng (Quinlivan) works on the same island as a scientific advisor to Jack Harris (Isaacs), who has built a theme park resort around the volcano. With a high-tech monorail and a luxurious elevator that descends into the caldera, it’s certain to be the in spot for wealthy type A sorts the world over. To keep the guests safe, Meng has installed a fancy new high tech imaging system to monitor the volcano. She’s concerned over some of the initial readings Even more concerned is her dad, who takes one look at the data and hightails it out to the island to get his stubborn, angry daughter to flee the island before (heavy pause here) it’s too late!!!

Does anyone reading this not believe it’s already too late? If so, you need to watch more movies, my friend. The mountain blows it’s top in a spectacular shower of CGI lava and CGI pumice raining down from the crater. Because the director is long-time action veteran Simon West, we get some well-staged set pieces, like a daring transfer of passengers from one speeding monorail car to another.Because the film is Chinese, we also get some incomprehensible holes in logic and lapses in science. For example, a pair of young lovers (Dou and An) go for a swim in a beautiful tropical grotto as the mountain erupts. Suddenly, their idyllic swim – during which he proposes to her – is interrupted by lava flowing into the pool. They frantically swim for their lives, foregoing the need to breathe. Of course, they shouldn’t have needed to swim at all – the lava flowing into the pool should have parbroiled them. Don’t believe me? Drop a handful of red-hot coals into a small saucepan of room temperature water and see what happens. And that’s not even molten rock.

The movie suffers from severely underwritten characters, so it is hard to end up caring about which ones survive and which ones meet a horrific end. Still, most disaster movies aren’t exactly character studies, to be fair. However, one would like the special effects to be spectacular, and at times, they are. But they are dreadfully uneven; some of the green screen stuff looks like it was rushed and not given a whole lot of effort. The underwater sequence is cheesy enough to make Esther Williams blush.

Basically, what we have here is Jurassic World meets Dante’s Peak – which oddly enough, is a pretty accurate description of the first half of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – and if you ask me, that’s not necessarily a bad combination to have. The movie has enough entertainment value that most audiences are likely to forgive the bad science, bland characters and disaster film cliché-loaded plot. Some will look at this and snicker at the Chinese attempts to make a comparable big-budget disaster film. They certainly aren’t producing elite-level films in that regard, but if you look at their dramas and some of their genre films, they aren’t that far off. Give the Chinese film industry another decade or two and they are going to make movies that will put Hollywood to shame. And that’s not a bad thing either.

REASONS TO SEE: Reasonably entertaining.
REASONS TO AVOID: The special effects are uneven.
FAMILY VALUES: There are perilous situations, some involving children.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The filmmakers used more than 20 tons of artificial volcanic ash for the picture.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, DirecTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/13/2021: Rotten Tomatoes: 53% positive reviews; Metacritic: 47/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Volcano
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Grizzly II: Revenge

London Fields

There is nothing like a dame – take it from me!

(2018) Mystery (Paladin/Atlas) Billy Bob Thornton, Amber Heard, Theo James, Jim Sturgess, Cara Delevingne, Gemma Chan, Jamie Alexander, Jason Isaacs, Lily Cole, Henry Garrett, Jennifer Missoni, Alexandra Evans, Michael Shaeffer, Belle Williams, Emily Kincaid, Triana Terry, Hon Ping Tang, Chris Wilson, Chris Ryman, Rita McDonald Damper. Directed by Matthew Cullen

 

For my money, Martin Amis is one of the most gifted and interesting novelists in the world today. He has a way with words and imagery that few authors can match. He has a very cinematic style but oddly, the movies made based on his works have not exactly lit the world on fire.

This one won’t either. Nicola Six (Heard) is a woman with the kind of gift that you just wish you could take back; she knows when she’s going to die. She knows how she’s going to die (she’ll be murdered). She even knows where she’s going to die (in a London alleyway inside a car). She just doesn’t know who. Terminally ill writer Samson Young (Thornton) has done a home exchange with bestselling author Mark Asprey (Isaacs) who wants to get the flavor of Hell’s Kitchen from Samson’s grungy apartment. In the meantime Samson is hoping that his years-long writer’s block can be broken by a change of scenery and when he hears Nicola’s story, he knows he’s the man to write it.

Nicola has narrowed the “who” part of the equation to two men who both have romantic inclinations towards her; the coarse and amoral South End darts champion Keith Talent (Sturgess) who sees Nicola as a trollop and a sex toy that is his rightful due, and Guy Clinch (James), a posh and married industrialist who has money and the world’s most nightmarish kid. One of them is going to kill Nicola. Who will it be? And will they do it in time for Samson to get the whole thing down on paper before he cashes in himself?

The movie has all the elements of a great Amis novel – the whiz-bang satire, the noir overtones, the almost cartoonish characters with outlandish names – but it doesn’t have the energy nor does it have the inspiration. First-time feature director Cullen (known for having done Katy Perry videos, among others) inserts bizarre juxtaposing images throughout the movie which rather than enhance the flow of the story or set the viewer to thinking simply just takes them out of the movie and irritates them. I can’t tell you how many times I started reaching for the “off” switch before deciding to give the movie a second chance. To be fair to Cullen however it is likely that most of those images were inserted by the producers after the fact and against his wishes. Either way, they are deal killers.

That’s a shame because I was excited that this kind of cast (which includes Johnny Depp in an uncredited role as a gangster and rival darts champion for Gary) would be working on an adaptation of an Amis novel. While Thornton is always an interesting performer, the others either feel zombie-like (Heard) or over-the-top to the point where it approaches self-parody (Sturgess). The narration, which is meant to give the film a noir-like tone clashes with the British gangster movie that Cullen appears to be attempting to make. I think that the director had an idea in mind but I’m just not sure he executed it very well.

This was filmed more than three years ago and has been beset by legal issues and an ability to secure distribution until recently. There are some things worth checking out but really the only thing one could hope for from this disappointment of a movie is that it might motivate those inclined to be readers to maybe pick up the source material by Amis and give it a read. That would be a far more fulfilling use of their time.

REASONS TO GO: Billy Bob Thornton is a national treasure.
REASONS TO STAY: There is a whole lot of unnecessary surrealism.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some nudity, a little violence and drug use, and a whole lot of profanity and smoking.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The director sued the producers and the production company after alterations were made to the film that he hadn’t authorized.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/22/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 0% positive reviews. Metacritic: 26/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Trouble is My Business
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Don’t Go

The Death of Stalin

Stalin has the literal last laugh.

(2017) Comedy/Satire (IFC) Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Michael Palin, Jeffrey Tambor, Olga Kurylenko, Jason Isaacs, Paddy Considine, Paul Chahidi, Adrian McLoughlin, Andrea Riseborough, Rupert Friend, Richard Brake, Dermot Crowley, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Paul Whitehouse, Cara Horgan, Karl Johnson, Diana Quick, Jonathan Aris, Dave Wong, Eva Sayer. Directed by Armando Iannucci

 

While history is often written by the victorious and comes from that point of view, there are some things that transcend opinion. For one, tyrants like Hitler and in this particular case, Josef Stalin of the Soviet Union, were homicidal monsters who are to be reviled rather than revered. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good for a laugh or two

Stalin (McLoughlin) barely makes an appearance in the film; he has his life-ending cerebral hemorrhage about 20 minutes into the film, but his presence hangs over the entire proceeding as a power struggle develops between secret police chief Lavrenti Beria (Beale) and the politically canny Nikita Khrushchev (Buscemi). The rest of the central committee, including the spine-challenged Georgy Malenkov (Tambor) and the flip-flopping Vyacheslav Molotov (Palin) are busy scrambling to make sure they don’t get caught in the fallout that is sure to come once one of their number assumes control of the Soviet Union.

While the movie compresses a period of about three years into a few days (the final denouement which is shown here to take place shortly after the funeral actually occurred three years after Stalin was laid to rest), the historical facts as we can come by them seem to be pretty accurate. That the movie is based on a French graphic novel makes that a bit astounding but in this era of fake news and bald-faced lies that come from our own politicians, not surprising.

Buscemi has always been something of an underrated comic performer but this might be his best role yet. He plays Khrushchev as paranoid and somewhat high-strung, relating funny stories from the siege of Stalingrad including one of sticking a private’s finger in warm water in order to cause him to wet himself which turns out to be somewhat ironic since Stalin himself would shortly do exactly that (which is historically accurate; the hemorrhage caused him to lose control of his bladder).

Iannucci has created such spot-on satires as the HBO series Veep and the seminal British show The Thick of It but while those tend to be somewhat harder edged than Stalin he manages to concoct a story that is both timely and of a specific time simultaneously. We here in the West understand that being near the top of the political heap in the old Soviet Union was inherently dangerous to life and limb and we pat ourselves on the back to say “it was never like that here” but then we look at the current White House and its revolving door and wonder if it wasn’t a lot more similar than we think.

There are some moments of wonderful nonsense, such as when Beria and Khrushchev (neither one of whom are particularly athletic) racing through the woods of Stalin’ s dacha in order to be the first to greet his daughter Svetlana (Riseborough), or when war hero Grand Marshall Zhukov (Isaacs), then in charge of the Red Army, arrives at the Kremlin dripping with medals and roaring “What does it take for a soldier to get lubricated around here?”

Not everyone will find this funny. The Russians have banned this movie, claiming that it was insulting to Russian history which I suppose it is – if the Russians did a satire on the death of President Kennedy I suppose we wouldn’t be laughing much either. But then again, Putin has a lot more in common with Stalin than Trump has with JFK and I don’t doubt that those who are Trump supporters may find this to be a thinly veiled dig at their hero. I don’t think it is in particular, but parallels can certainly be glimpsed.

Da Queen found the film to be a bit long-winded and she has a point. I also have to point out that I was laughing out loud hysterically the first time I saw it but the second time I saw it with Da Queen it wasn’t quite as funny. That may mean that it won’t lend itself to repeated viewings although comedies rarely do. However, the first viewing really got me into the somewhat anarchic and zany world that Iannucci created and while it may not have been too laugh-inspiring at the time, at least today we can look back on it and see the humor – not so much in the situation but in how we react to it.

REASONS TO GO: Much of it is hysterically funny. Buscemi is at the top of his game. The dialogue is wickedly funny. Those who love Monty Python are going to enjoy this.
REASONS TO STAY: The subject matter may make laughter a somewhat uncomfortable reaction. It’s a little bit on the long side.
FAMILY VALUES: There is consistent profanity, adult themes, violence (some of it graphic), sexual references and intimations of rape.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film was banned in Russia, two days before it was due to be released.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/24/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 96% positive reviews. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Monty Python’s Life of Brian
FINAL RATING: 8.5/10
NEXT: La Familia

New Releases for the Week of February 17, 2017

THE GREAT WALL

(Universal/Legendary) Matt Damon, Tian Jing, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, Pedro Pascal, Hamyu Zhang, Lu Han, Kenny Lin, Eddie Peng. Directed by Zhang Yimou

A European mercenary travels to China as an emissary. There, he discovers an incredible battle taking place on the Great Wall of China with an elite fighting force defending all of humanity against an implacable, impossible foe. Realizing that here at last was a war he could believe in, the European warrior is eager to take part in this last stand but must overcome the suspicion of the Chinese as well as the creatures they fight. The English language debut of one of China’s most honored directors is bound to be a visual feast as most of his films are.

See the trailer, interviews, clips, a featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D
Genre: Fantasy/Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for scenes of fantasy action violence)

A Cure for Wellness

(20^th Century Fox) Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth, Celia Imrie. From visionary director Gore Verbinski comes this chilling tale of a multinational corporation’s CEO who goes to a mysterious clinic in the Swiss Alps for treatment of a strange disease. As his communications become more erratic and puzzling, an ambitious young executive is sent to the clinic to fetch the CEO and bring him home. Instead, the young man discovers a chilling secret that all may not be as it seems at the clinic and that in some cases, the cure is very much worse than the disease.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and promos here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for disturbing violent content and images, sexual content including an assault, graphic nudity and language)

Everybody Loves Somebody

(Pantelion) Karla Souza, Ben O’Toole, Stefanie Estes, José Maria Yazpik. Clara is a successful OB-GYN in Los Angeles who seems to have everything going for her but her love life has been a mess for years. Getting ready to attend a family wedding in Mexico, her family puts a ton of pressure on her to bring a boyfriend. A little desperate, she pleads with a colleague to pose as her boyfriend – only to find herself developing feelings for him as the festivities begin. Complicating matters is that her ex-boyfriend – the one who left her suddenly and made her gunshy about love to begin with – returns just as suddenly, igniting old buried feelings.

See the trailer and interviews here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Regal The Loop
Rating: PG-13 (for some sexual content and language)

Fist Fight

(New Line) Charlie Day, Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan, Jillian Bell. A mild-mannered teacher, beset by senior pranks, an administration that can best be described as dysfunctional and terrified by impending job losses due to budget cuts is having a really bad day. It’s about to get worse when he accidentally crosses the only teacher in school feared by the students who challenges the milquetoast to a fist fight after school. Word travels like a computer virus and soon the event is taking a life of it’s own – which might be just what everybody concerned needs.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language throughout, sexual content/nudity and drug material)

The Red Turtle

(Sony Classics) Michael Dudok de Wit. The survivor of a shipwreck washes ashore on an island populated only by crabs, birds and turtles. Surviving by himself, he is befriended by an enormous red turtle who may or may not be real – and begins to see his family (who may or may not be real) on the island, driving him further into madness. This acclaimed animated film is the first non-Japanese film to be made by Studio Ghibli ever

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG (for some thematic elements and peril)

Fury

Brat Pitt sets Logan Lerman straight about Benjamin Button.

(2014) War (Columbia) Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal, Jason Isaacs, Jim Parrack, Brad William Henke, Kevin Vance, Xavier Samuel, Anamaria Minca, Alicia von Rittberg, Scott Eastwood, Laurence Spellman, Daniel Betts, Adam Ganne, Eric Kofi-Abreva, John Macmillan, Saul Barrett, Marek Oravec, Orion Lee, Stella Stocker. Directed by David Ayer

If war is hell, the hell of war are metal tubes and tanks. During the Second World War, America lost tanks and their crew at a terrifying rate. It took (and continues to take) a special kind of warrior to lock themselves in those iron coffins and duel other warriors in an effort to pan-fry or blow off the face of your enemies before they do the same to you.

In the waning days of that war, the tank crew for the tank nicknamed “Fury” is led by Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Pitt), a hard, rough fellow who has only one goal – to get his men back home alive. He’d started killing Nazis in North Africa; now he’s killing them in Germany. However, there isn’t much left of the once-mighty German army. They’re mostly children and old men drafted from villages to protect the Fatherland. Those that refused were hung in the name of the defense of the Wehrmacht.

Inside his tank is his lead driver Trini “Gordo” Garcia (Pena), an even-tempered man with a quirky sense of humor; gunner Boyd “Bible” Swan (LaBeouf), a devout Christian who believes that killing the evil Germans is God’s work (and he’s not far wrong). The mechanic is Grady “Coon-Ass” Travis (Bernthal), a wizard with mechanical things but an absolute horror with people. Surly and prejudiced against…well, EVERYONE, he’s meaner than a hound dog with a butt itch.

There’s also a second driver whose face and eyeball and a good deal of his skull as well as assorted bits of brain and blood have painted the inside of the tank.

They receive a new second gunner, young Norman Ellison (Lerman) who has not fired a shot in anger at anyone and was originally conscripted to be a clerk-typist for the army who has been forced to start replacing the staggering losses from wherever they can. He has a hard time with this change in duties and when the time comes to fire his weapon at a living human being, he can’t bring himself to do it. His inaction costs another tank crew their lives.

However, even as the Allies are pushing through to Berlin, word comes that a column of battle-hardened SS soldiers are coming down the road to pierce into the heart of the forward command. If they’re successful, they may set the Allies back a bit and add more time and casualties to a war that already has plenty of both. It will be up to the valiant crew of the Fury to stand fast. Will they be up for the challenge?

This was originally thought to be a major Oscar contender but the studio ended up pushing it back from a Holiday release to an October one. I can’t say as I blame them. This doesn’t quite have the feel of a movie that’s going to have a great deal of attention from Academy voters, although there’s a good chance Pitt might get at least some nominating votes.

Ayer was a stickler for authenticity throughout from the uniforms that the soldiers wear, the fashions of the French women that Wardaddy and Norman take a brief break with, and the machines themselves, American Shermans and a fearsome German Tiger. The actors learned to drive the antique vehicle as well as fire the guns it carried. Oddly, they don’t spend a lot of time displaying the claustrophobia of fighting in those tanks, although we get a sense of the limited visibility of the vehicles.

There is a good deal of gore as bodies are burned, blown to pieces and riddled with bullets. While it doesn’t have the visceral you are there feel of Saving Private Ryan, it’s still from my admittedly inexpert viewpoint a pretty accurate representation of tank warfare as it existed in the last days of the war.

The plot is not unlike other movies you’ve seen before, given the characters are pretty cliche including the wise but gruff commanding officer, the nervous rookie having to suddenly re-evaluate his moral code in the heat of battle, the ignorant drunk from the deep South and so on. Pena and Bernthal make the most of their roles and at least offer some personality. Unfortunately LaBeouf doesn’t seem to embrace the role in the same way and quoting the Biblical passages sounds as foreign coming out of his mouth as they would were he saying them in Mandarin Chinese. His Really Awful Mustache doesn’t help matters.

While the authenticity is there, the creativity kind of isn’t. This doesn’t really add anything to the short list of films about tank warfare. Yeah, there’s plenty of camaraderie and some battle thrills. That’s been done. The more interesting elements of the story – how the war affected the men who served in the tank, desensitizing them to what we would consider their humanity, falls by the wayside during the last third of the movie when it becomes a standard “last stand” story. It’s a shame because the movie has a ton of promising elements; it just doesn’t become greater than the sum of its parts but rather, equal to them. Good enough may well be good enough but I was hoping for more.

REASONS TO GO: Drips authenticity. Fine performances by Pena, Bernthal and Pitt. Some intense battle sequences.
REASONS TO STAY: Really doesn’t add much to the tank warfare movies. A little bit too long. LaBeouf is a distraction.
FAMILY VALUES: War violence, some fairly grisly images, plenty of foul language and some sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: All the uniforms, weapons and tanks used in the movie were authentic and loaned from various museums around the world including the only currently functioning Tiger tank on loan from the Bovington Tank Museum in the United Kingdom.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 11/3/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 79% positive reviews. Metacritic: 64/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Lebanon
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: The Judge

New Releases for the Week of October 17, 2014

FURY

(Columbia) Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal, Jason Isaacs, Brad William Henke, Scott Eastwood, Anamarie Marinca. Directed by David Ayer

In the waning days of World War II an American tank brigade rolls through Germany making the final push for Berlin. As the crusty sergeant who commands one Sherman tank knows, it’s one thing to fight Germans in Africa and another thing entirely to fight them in Germany. It will be a long hard slog to make it to the end of the war, and it will be longer and harder once his tank is assigned to a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. He promised his crew he’d get them home alive but some promises are just beyond keeping.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: War

Rating: R (for strong sequences of war violence, some grisly images, and language throughout)

The Best of Me

(Relativity) Michelle Monaghan, James Marsden, Luke Bracey, Liana Liberato. The newest Nicholas Sparks adaptation (does the man ever stop writing?) finds a pair of high school sweethearts who have been separated by a series of tragic events reunited after 20 years. Despite all the water under that particular Carolina bridge, the sparks remain there even though they are played by completely different actors.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Romance

Rating: PG-13 (for sexuality, violence, some drug content and brief strong language)

The Book of Life

(20th Century Fox) Starring the voices of Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube. A young man vies for the heart of a fiery jalapeno of a woman but he has a rival in a famous matador. Unbeknownst to evil, supernatural entities have placed bets on who wins the competition but one of the entities cheats on behalf of the matador. Exiled to the Land of the Dead, the young man must traverse three wildly different worlds, face his greatest fear, return to the Land of the Living and win the heart of his love. With a unique style based on Mexican folk art, this might be the most original animated feature of the year.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Animated Feature

Rating: PG (for mild action, rude humor, some thematic elements and brief scary images)

Men, Women and Children

(Paramount) Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Rosemarie DeWitt, Judy Greer. A group of high school seniors and their parents find the waters of dating in the age of social networking to be increasingly infested by sharks and other dangers. As the Internet changes the way we interact and the way we develop relationships, the older generation struggles to catch up while the younger generation merely struggles to survive.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: R (for strong sexual content including graphic dialogue throughout – some involving teens, and for language)

New Releases for the Week of September 26, 2014

THE EQUALIZER

(Columbia) Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloe Grace Moretz, David Harbour, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Haley Bennett. Directed by Antoine Fuqua

McCall is a man with a mysterious and violent past that he would much rather put behind him. He lives a quiet life doing a non-descript job. When he meets a beautiful and sweet young girl who is under the control of vicious, violent and sadistic Russian gangsters, he is bothered. When they beat her up and put her in the hospital, he knows this will only end in her demise. He sets out therefore to use his skills to get her out of their control, even if it means taking on overwhelming odds but that’s nothing new for McCall. If you have a problem, he’s the man who can fix anything. Based on the 80s TV hit that starred Edward Woodward in the same role.

See the trailer, clips, a featurette and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, IMAX (opens Thursday)

Genre: Action Thriller

Rating: R (for strong bloody violence and language throughout, including some sexual references)

Believe Me

(Gravitas) Alex Russell, Nick Offerman, Johanna Braddy, Miles Fisher. Everyone knows that the cost for higher education is terrifying. When four seniors discover that their money has run out and in order to graduate they’ll have to come up with a semester’s worth of tuition, they are concerned. When they find out how much that is, they are in full-on panic mode. With no jobs, no money and no ideas, they hit upon the idea of establishing a fake charity. They become so successful at raising money that real charities begin to take notice – and want them on board. Except those real charities might not be quite so charitable as they might seem.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: PG-13 (for some language)

The Boxtrolls

(Focus) Starring the voices of Elle Fanning, Ben Kingsley, Toni Collette, Simon Pegg. A community of mischievous but good-hearted creatures that live below the town discover an orphaned boy who has nobody to take care of him. Naming him Egg, they agree to raise him as best they can. Years later when the Boxtrolls are threatened by the townspeople, it will be Egg who must come to their rescue and get both sides to learn to live together.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Animated Feature

Rating: PG (for action, some peril and mild rude humor)

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby

(Weinstein) James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, William Hurt. A couple whose relationship is falling apart make a last ditch effort to rescue it. Originally made as two separate films – one from the viewpoint of each person in the relationship – Weinstein in their infinite wisdom or lack thereof has decided to combine both films into a single movie. I suppose we’ll never know if the two film thing was gimmicky or innovative.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: R (for language)

Field of Lost Shoes

(Bosch) Lauren Holly, Jason Isaacs, David Arquette, Keith David. As the Civil War progressed, it chewed up soldiers at a terrifying rate. Particularly in the South where they didn’t have the manpower reserves that the North had, young and elderly men alike were called upon in the latter stages of the war to defend their native soil. At the Virginia Military Institute, raw cadets were tasked with defending the monstrously important Shenandoah Valley. This is their story.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: War

Rating: PG-13 (for war violence and some thematic elements)

The Notebook

(Sony Classics) Ulrich Thomsen, Ulrich Matthes, Laszlo Gyemant, Andres Gyemant. On the border of Hungary and Germany during the Second World War, a pair of 13-year-old twin boys are given a notebook by their father to chronicle their lives. Living with a terrifying grandmother, they train themselves to desensitize their bodies to the value of human life. Few films have ever captured the effects of war on the innocent as this one has.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: War

Rating: R  (for disturbing violent and sexual content, nudity and language)

The Skeleton Twins

(Roadside Attractions) Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson, Ty Burrell. A pair of twins, estranged for a number of years, are forced back together by economic circumstances. As they reacquaint themselves, they discover that the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R (for language, some sexuality and drug use)

The Song

(Goldwyn) Alan Powell, Ali Faulkner, Caitlin Nicol-Thomas, Danny Vinson. An aspiring musician meets and marries the devout daughter of a vineyard owner. As musicians sometimes do, he writes a song for his new bride. However, he is unprepared for what happens when the song becomes a huge hit. Beset by pressures and temptations he’s ill-equipped to handle, his life and marriage slowly begin to crack at the seams.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Faith Musical

Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements including some substance abuse, smoking and rude references)

Event Horizon

You know only bad things can happen in a place like this.

(1997) Sci-Fi Horror (Paramount) Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Richard T. Jones, Jack Noseworthy, Jason Isaacs, Sean Pertwee, Peter Marinker, Holley Chant, Barclay Wright, Noah Huntley, Robert Jezek, Emily Booth, Teresa May. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson

The trouble with exploration is the unknown. We don’t always know what’s out there. We may have a good idea, sure but when you go out into the real unknown, it’s just that. Anything could be lurking out there. And it might just hitch a ride back.

In 2040, mankind makes the first great push beyond our solar system. The great ship Event Horizon, powered by the gravity drive, makes its way out to Neptune to truly begin its journey. The gravity drive manufactures a black hole and slips the ship through, allowing it to travel great distances – to any star in any galaxy. The Event Horizon powers up the gravity drive, hits the go switch – and disappears. Nobody hears a peep and the ship is presumed lost.

Seven years later it reappears as suddenly as it disappeared. Attempts to hail her yield nothing. A rescue ship, the Lewis and Clark is sent, commanded by the redoubtable Captain Miller (Fishburne). Along for the ride is Dr. Weir (Neill), the man who invented the gravity drive and has the best shot at figuring out what went wrong.

Once they arrive in the outer atmosphere of Neptune the mile-long vessel is as silent as the grave and unutterably cold inside. There is still power – it’s just not turned on. When Miller and his crew come aboard to see what’s happened, they find the video log mostly intact although it cuts off an instant after the drive engages. There are also disquieting signs of a violent end for the crew – bloodstains indicating that crew members sustained fatal and horrifying wounds – but no bodies.

As the rescue ship crew attempts to restore power so that the ship may be towed home for further examination, the crew begins to see strange things – hallucinations of people and places they know. It becomes clear to Captain Miller that wherever the Event Horizon went to, it has brought something back with it. And that something may be more deadly than outer space itself.

This is one of those movies that didn’t do well during its theatrical run and then acquired its audience through cable and home video. Savaged by critics when it was released, who compared it unfavorably with the classic Solaris – as unfair as it is inaccurate – the movie has become something of a cult favorite. One of the big issues that fans have with it is that it isn’t the movie that Anderson wanted to make. Rushed during the post-production process, the studio put immense pressure on Anderson –  who was making just his third feature film – to make its August 15, 1997 release date. Anderson did get the film ready for its release date but had to make a lot of studio-insisted cuts and felt that had he been given enough time to finish the movie properly would have come up with something superior. Fans have been clamoring for some time for a director’s cut version which Anderson doesn’t seem disposed to doing.

The truth is, this is actually a superior sci-fi horror flick that may be the best thing Anderson has directed to date (he’s also done four movies in the Resident Evil series as well as Death Race). Moody, atmospheric and grim, he has created a movie every bit as scary as the original Alien and even surpasses that film in some ways. Initially the audience is led towards thinking that the carnage aboard the Event Horizon is the work of some interstellar beastie but as the film wears on we discover that the destination can be a killer.

Fishburne, a couple of years before his signature role as Morpheus in The Matrix, is magnificent here as the taciturn and square-jawed Miller. As no-nonsense a commander as you’re likely to find on any space opera, he inspires confidence and despite some inner demons of his own is the kind of guy you’d follow to hell and back.

Neill recalls his villainy as Damien in The Omen: The Final Chapter which established the Australian actor in the United States to a great extent. Weir is tightly wound and maybe a few bricks shy of a load in the sanity department. The minute he gets aboard his baby, things begin to spiral out of control. Neill takes the character from cool, calm scientist to baleful madman in a believable way.

The ship is a character all its own with its silent corridors and empty rooms to the engine room with the gravity drive itself which looks a little bit of a cross between the Contact craft and a mechanical nightmare dreamed up by H.P. Lovecraft – that’s it in the photo accompanying this review. It looks suitably futuristic and scary as hell at the same time.

While the dialogue is somewhat stilted and there is a derivative quality to the film that is what set critics and some fans off during its initial run (Alien anybody?) the movie is nonetheless one of the finest sci-fi horror films ever made and a truly underrated classic. If you saw it and didn’t like it, it is worth coming back to and if you haven’t seen it, it is worth a look. As we enter the Halloween season, this is one of those movies that can get you right in the mood to have the heebie jeebies scared out of you – or into you. Like the great ship itself, the scares you get out of this movie are very well the same ones that are already in you – just waiting for the right vessel to release them.

WHY RENT THIS: Great atmosphere! Fishburne at his best, Neill at his creepiest.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Dialogue is a bit weak and some of the movie feels like we’ve seen it before.
FAMILY MATTERS:  Lots of gore and violence, a fair amount of cursing and some nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The script went through 65 drafts, which is a highly unusual number. Most feature films go from anywhere from two or three drafts to a dozen.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: The Collector’s Edition DVD has some amazing storyboards for scenes not shot, as well as plenty of making-of footage. The Blu-Ray edition has all this but adds a section on the post-production difficulties that resulted in the filmmakers having to release a movie that wasn’t quite up to their expectations.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $47.1M on a $60M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD/Stream), Amazon (rent/buy – free to stream for Prime members), Vudu (rent/buy),  iTunes (rent/buy), Flixster (rent/buy)
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Pandorum
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Sci-Fi Spectacle concludes!