On the Saturday September 26, 2026 edition of The Richard Crouse we meet Alex Spring, a bold new voice in crime fiction whose debut novel, Lower City, is in fine bookstores everywhere.
Set in Hamilton, Ontario, during a tense October 2025 marked by job insecurity, rising rents, and social polarization, the novel follows 26-year-old steelworker Danny Clarke as a series of abductions plunges the city into chaos. Blending the gritty realism of S.A. Cosby with the page-turning pulse of Louise Penny, Lower City is a riveting yet warmhearted story about community, connection, and what it means to grow up and do the right thing.
Then, Anna Lambe, Canada’s newest breakout star from the Arctic and lead of North of North, the hit Arctic-set comedy TV series from APTN, CBC and Netflix, now in Season 2 joins the show.
Rising to prominence with her breakout role in the film The Grizzlies—which earned her a Canadian Screen Award nomination—she has gone on to deliver standout performances in series such as Trickster, Three Pines, and HBO’s True Detective: Night Country alongside Jodie Foster. In 2025 she took the lead in the critically acclaimed comedy North of North, a groundbreaking series set in the Arctic that has captivated audiences worldwide.
Season two builds on Season 1’s mix of heartfelt comedy, family dynamics, small-town gossip, cultural authenticity, and personal growth.
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Renée Rodgers to talk about the captivating canine action of “Heart of the Beast,” the provocative “Primetime” and the sports biopic “The Stunt Driver.”
I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” to talk about “American Idol” leaving Los Angeles, what prompted a roomful of critics to burst into applause, and I review Brad Pitt’s latest movie “Heart of the Beast and tell you who the real star of the movie is. On Booze & Reviews I’ll suggest some doggie style cocktails to drink whiule watching the movie!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to wind your watch. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the captivating canine action of “Heart of the Beast,” the provocative “Primetime” and the sports biopic “The Stunt Driver.”
SYNOPSIS: In “The Stunt Driver,” a new dramedy now playing in theatres, Jay Baruchel is Ken Carter, a real-life Canadian stunt driver who plans to drive a rocket car across the Saint-Laurent River, from a 90-foot-high ramp.
CAST: Jay Baruchel, Ed Helms, Ben Foster, Laurence Leboeuf, Joe Cobden, Marc Beaupré, Dan Bakkedahl. Directed by Mike Dowse.
REVIEW: Don’t call Ken Carter (Jay Baruchel) the Canadian answer to dare devil Evel Knievel. “I’m no daredevil,” says Carter. “I’m a stunt driver.” Both performed gravity defying car jumps that put their lives on the line time after time, but Carter, nicknamed The Mad Canadian for the sheer audacity of his stunts, felt that his American counterpart was too showy—“He dresses like a Dallas cowboy cheerleader.”—and often referred to him as “Madame Knievel.”
When the action in “The Stunt Driver” kicks in Carter is planning a career defining stunt, a mile-long jump across the St. Lawrence River in a rickety rocket powered Lincoln Continental. “Evel Knievel has Snake River and I need mine,” he says.
With an NFB film crew documenting the elaborate, but under-funded, construction of a giant ramp pointed toward the mile-long gap over the river between the Quebec launch site and the American landing pad, Carter battles safety concerns, ego, delays and a reluctant engineer (Ed Helms) in his quest to make history and place his name on everyone’s lips.
Rather than recreate Carter’s acts of daring-do “The Stunt Driver” uses the NFB archival of his jumps to great effect. Director Michael Dowse mimics the style of the vintage documentary, seamlessly blending the old and new footage.
The sheer spectacle of Carter’s jumps adds a blast of excitement to the film, but it is the character study that lingers. Baruchel vividly brings the Carter to life, finding the sweet spot between the character’s bravado and his insecurity. Carter was a big personability and Baruchel captures that, his sharp tongue and impulsive behavior, but it’s not a caricature of fast-talking show off. It’s a portrait of a guy who wants to be remembered; to leave something of value behind. An underdog, he’s equal parts, destructive and ambitious, willing to risk his life for glory.
Dramatically, there is a built-in anticlimactic twist to Carter’s story that drains some of the story’s emotional momentum, but despite the unexpected gear shift, the film doesn’t crash and burn because it remains, ultimately, about the human cost of Carter’s ambition.
SYNOPSIS: The story of a man and his dog, “Heart of the Beast” sees Special Forces officer James Belmont and his loyal combat dog Odin fight for survival in the Alaskan wilderness. “It’s not who you live for… It’s who you’d die for.”
CAST: Brad Pitt, J.K. Simmons, Anna Lambe, Uber. Directed by David Ayer.
REVIEW: Brad Pitt stars as Special Forces officer James Belmont, a thirty-year combat veteran haunted by decades of battlefield action. To quiet his troubled mind Belmont and Odin, a three-legged German Shepard combat scouting dog who suffers from PTSD, who is also Belmont’s “greatest love and friend left on this earth,” take a trip to the Alaskan wilderness to experience the healing power of nature.
When their plane crash lands in the middle of nowhere, they are forced to rely on their combat skills to survive in the face of vicious cold, the unforgiving landscape, injury and threats from a variety of predators. The hurdles are huge, but, as Belmont says, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters,” says Belmont. “It’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
Like “The Littlest Hobo” with a taste of “The Revenant’ thrown in for seasoning, “Heart of the Beast” is a simple survival story anchored by a great performance.
But I’m not talking about Brad Pitt. He’s fine, doing a good job with a thinly written character, a resourceful soldier haunted by his past. His work is understated, far more subtle than you might expect from a movie like this.
No, the star here is Uber, the canine actor who plays Odin. He manages to do something George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon have not been able to do, and that’s steal every scene they perform together.
Their relationship—they’re alone on screen for 90% of the movie—is the film’s emotional core. Belmont treats the dog as an equal, a fellow soldier who, like him, has been to hell and back. They have a bond, and that unbreakable connection is the film’s main draw.
Perhaps that’s why a number of flashbacks to their early military service left me with the feeling that director David Ayer, working from a script by Cameron Alexander, missed the chance to tell the more interesting story of the beginning of Belmont and Odin’s bond and battlefield experiences.
Set against the rugged beauty of New Zealand (standing in for Alaska), “Heart of the Beast’s” action is episodic, predictable and only occasionally pulse-racing. It’s a raw portrait of endurance, with a few grim moments and nice cameos from J.K. Simmons as a fellow traveler and “North of North’s” Anna Lambe, but it is the connection between man and dog that carries the movie and may have you reach for a Kleenex in its final twenty minutes.
SYNOPSIS: The new psychological thriller “Primetime,” now playing in theatres, tells the story of how “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen turned true crime into mass entertainment.
CAST: Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers. Directed by Lance Oppenheim.
REVIEW: A sly look at ambition, ego and losing one’s self to the dark side of a job, “Primetime” is a slice of arthouse drama that wonders where entertainment ends and responsibility begins.
Based on the 2007 Esquire magazine article “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die” by Luke Dittrich, “Primetime” sees Robert Pattinson play television journalist Chris Hansen, host of “To Catch a Predator.” The hidden-camera show that saw Hansen unmask child predators by confronting adult men who sought to meet underage girls for sex. “Do you watch television? Well, there’s something you should know. I’m Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC. And you’re about to be a part of television history.”
The controversial show is accused of vigilantism, manipulation and of entrapping its subjects, but nonetheless, is a ratings hit but the ambitious Hansen wants more. “I want something that matters,” he says. “No more bottom feeders. I want a whale.”
To dethrone prime time juggernaut “Lost,” Hansen, working with the Murphy, Texas police department, arranges a sting of a prominent local official with disastrous results. “We’re gonna be bigger than Lost!” Hansen brays, unaware that his quest for ratings at any cost will place him in the uncomfortable position of being at the center of a story.
Director Lance Oppenheim, working from a script by Ajon Singh, takes an arthouse approach to the story. The story of “To Catch a Predator” is, of course, the film’s core, but the filmmaker is more concerned with blurring the line between reality and performance.
Hansen and the decoys, hired to lure predators, perform, rehearsing their lines in advance, and, in the film’s first recreated sting, Hansen enters the scene, flamboyantly whipping aside a curtain to great dramatic effect.
Pattinson hits a career high here, handing in a heightened performance that captures Hansen’s grandiosity without turning him into a caricature. It’s strange work, marked by odd facial expressions and movements, as though his inner thoughts are manifested outwardly. It’s weirdly affecting, both cartoonish and sinister. His voice and practiced cadence evoke Hansen, but it is the off-kilter body language that grabs the character’s spirit.
Despite Pattinson’s Oscar worthy work, and some nice turns from Merritt Wever as Hansen’s “I don’t do feel good” producer and Skyler Gisondo as the aspiring actor hired to be a decoy in their show’s stings, and the stunt casting of Jeff Zucker, who portrays himself at the time when he oversaw programming at NBCUniversal, “Primetime” doesn’t dig deep. It’s a well-performed television satire but it doesn’t offer much insight into Hensen or the audience’s collective thirst for judgement.
On the Saturday September 19, 2026 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we meet award-winning Canadian journalist Greg Hudson. He is the author of the memoir “The Missionary: A Memoir of Superheroes, Sin & Saving Souls for the Mormon Church,” a witty and heartfelt account of growing up Mormon in 1980s Edmonton, serving a mission in Ontario, and ultimately finding his own path.
Then, we meet art curator, consultant, and author Anne Ewen. Today she’ll talk about a new book “CANOE: A Collection of Canadian Art.” It’s a sweeping visual history, which is both a landmark art publication and a love letter to the iconic vessel that persists as a source of artistic inspiration and environmental connection.
Finally, we speak to Desmond Sean Ellington, who is currently playing Davis in the North American tour of Alicia Keys’ “Hell’s Kitchen,” the hit musical from 17-time Grammy® Award winning Alicia Keys — inspired by her life, her music, and her community. We talk about his start working as a background vocalist for gospel/R&B artists before taking up musical theatre and much more.
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
