New Releases for the Week of August 29, 2014

AS ABOVE SO BELOW

(Universal/Legendary) Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge, Francois Civil, Marion Lambert, Ali Marhyar, Cosme Castro, Hamid Djavadan. Directed by John Erick Dowdle

A group of student explorers in the catacombs of Paris are trapped by a rock fall. With no choice but to go further into the labyrinth, they find themselves lost. Soon, inexplicable things begin to happen to them and the group realizes that they have stumbled onto an ancient secret, one which may cost them their lives.

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

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Horror

Rating: R (for bloody violence/terror, and language throughout)

50 to 1

(Ten Furlongs) Christian Kane, Skeet Ulrich, William Devane, Madelyn Deutch. A group of New Mexico cowboys who have more heart than brains are stunned when their crooked-footed horse qualifies for the Kentucky Derby. Getting the horse there though is half the battle and once they get there, they’ll only have to face the elite of horse racing in the glare of the biggest spotlight in the sport. If ever there was an impossible dream, this must be it.

See the trailer and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Sports Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for some suggestive material and a bar brawl)

The Calling

(Vertical) Susan Sarandon, Topher Grace, Gil Bellows, Donald Sutherland. A small town police detective has never had a whole lot of work thrown her way but a series of murders in the surrounding area puts her face to face with a serial killer who is answering to a higher calling.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Thriller

Rating: R (for violent content, disturbing images and some language)

Cantinflas

(Pantelion) Oscar Jaenada, Michael Imperioli, Ilse Salas, Barbara Mori. Mexico’s most beloved comedian has a story that is largely unknown outside his native land. From humble beginnings he rose to the bright lights and fame of Hollywood, co-starring in the Michael Todd Oscar-winning epic Around the World in 80 Days. This is his story.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Biography

Rating: PG (for thematic elements, language, smoking and some suggestive material)

Land Ho!

(Sony Classics) Paul Eenhoorn, Earl Lynn Nelson, Karrie Crouse, Elizabeth McKee. Two dear old friends, once married to two sisters, have drifted apart over the years. Now that one is divorced and the other is a widower, they decide (albeit one of them reluctantly) to take a vacation to Iceland where the two may find the adventure still in their hearts even if the bodies aren’t quite what they used to be.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

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

November Man

(Relativity) Pierce Brosnan, Luke Bracey, Olga Kurylenko, Eliza Taylor. One of the CIA’s most lethal operatives has been living in relative peace and quiet in Switzerland after retiring. However, he is lured out of the pasture for one final mission, but soon discovers that it is not what it seems to be and that he will be forced to take on his most brilliant protégé in a game that he once knew but whose rules have changed.

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

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opened Wednesday)

Genre: Action

Rating: R (for strong violence including a sexual assault, language, sexuality/nudity and brief drug use)

Raja Natwarlal

(UTV) Emraan Hashmi, Humaima Malik, Kay Kay Menon, Deepak Tijori. After a small time con man is wronged by a big time gangster, the grifter seeks the help of his mentor to get his revenge on the crook.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood

Rating: NR

Armored

Matt Dillon finally gets around to reading the script. "That's how it ends? SERIOUSLY?"

(Screen Gems) Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, Columbus Short, Fred Ward, Skeet Ulrich, Jean Reno, Milo Ventimiglia, Amaury Nolasco, Andre Jamal Kinney, Lorna Raver, Nick Jameson, Glenn Taranto. Directed by Nimrod Antal

There’s no such thing as the perfect crime. Technology has made it increasingly more difficult for criminals to ply their trade. If professionals can’t come up with a perfect crime, what kind of hope does an amateur have?

Ty Hackett (Short) is a decorated war veteran who has fallen on hard times. After the death of his parents from long illnesses, he has become legal guardian of his teenaged brother (Kinney) who is more interested in tagging than attending classes. Ty has gotten a job as an armored car security guard through family friend Mike (Dillon). He’s the new kid on the block in a tight crew that includes Baines (Fishburne), Quinn (Reno), Dobbs (Ulrich) and Palmer (Nolasco). They stage a fake heist to haze the rookie.

Except that it wasn’t just a prank, it was a run-through. You see, the guards have decided that they want a piece of the pie and they’ve come up with a foolproof way to do it. They drive their two trucks to an abandoned factory that is a radio and cell phone dead zone, unload the $40 million that they are carrying during a particularly busy period and torch the trucks, claiming that they’d been jacked. No witnesses, and after some initial suspicion if they are disciplined and don’t spend their money unwisely, the money will be theirs once the heat dies down. Nobody gets hurt.

Mike presents the plan to Ty over chili dogs and at first the straight-arrow Ty wants no part in it, but with the house in foreclosure and now child services sending a caseworker (Raver) to investigate his brother’s infrequent class attendance could potentially split the brothers up lead Ty to finally agree to the plan.

Unfortunately, nobody thought to scout the factory and make sure nobody was there. A homeless man (Jameson) who was apparently living there observes what’s going on and the crew of professional security guards panic. Guns are fired, the homeless man is killed and Ty makes a decision to lock himself in one of the armored cars (which still has half the loot in it) rather than continue on with the robbery which he agreed to participate in. The guards huff, and they puff but they can’t blow the doors down. Things are further complicated when an inquisitive cop (Ventimiglia) hears the commotion in the abandoned factory and gets critically injured by the trigger-happy Baines put further pressure on the conscience-stricken Ty.

Director Antal has a couple of terrific films in his background (Kontroll, Vacancy) and the reboot of the Predator franchise in his future but something tells me this won’t be remembered as a highlight of his filmography. It’s not badly directed – the action sequences are in fact very well done – but the script is poor.

Frankly, I find the behavior of every one of the characters to be a bit out of whack with reality. I believe the intention here was to show the pressure cracking the bonds of the thieves from within but quite frankly, we get behavior that’s just inexplicable. Baines turns out to be a trigger-happy lunatic – who knew? – which would probably come as a shock to the security transport company that hired him. Apparently that little detail escaped the rigid interview and probationary process that armored transport security personnel undergo in order to be allowed to have access to the kind of money these guys have access to on a daily basis. And it seems to me that for trained professionals, they fell apart rather easily when the homeless guy shows up.

Worst of all is Ty, who has the most motivation of all to want the cash; he’s on the verge of losing his home and his brother. He is also a trained and decorated soldier, yet time and time again he puts other people in jeopardy after it is clearly demonstrated that his former crew is willing to kill. Not a very smart soldier, apparently. Also, none of the trucks have GPS devices in them, something that even pizza delivery cars have. A point is made that the trucks are to get them shortly, which is what makes the timing of the heist crucial.

Still, Short is likable enough as Ty which is a good thing, because when he makes his moral stand logic and real human emotion seems to go out the window. Any person who is risking his family would probably at least have some sort of second thoughts but there are none displayed at any time by the young ex-soldier. And while I won’t reveal the movie’s ending, it comes very abruptly and is not terribly satisfying. You are left staring puzzled at the screen mumbling “Really? That’s all?” in a dazed voice into your empty tub of popcorn.

Armored isn’t a bad movie but it isn’t a good movie either. The actors are solid, particularly veterans like Fishburne, Dillon and Reno. If the script had matched their efforts, this might have been entertaining. Unfortunately, this is barely passable in that regard.

REASONS TO GO: The action sequences are pretty intense. Short is extremely likable in the lead.

REASONS TO STAY: Ty’s not always entirely believable in his actions. As a matter of fact, the script has a lot of logic issues.

FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of bang bang, a little bit of oozing wounds and a crapload of f bombs.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The last time Dillon and Fishburne were in a film together was Rumblefish in 1983.

HOME OR THEATER: This has rental written all over it.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: Public Enemies