Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make the bed! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the bullet ballet of “Ballerina,” fishy thriller “Dangerous Animals” and the horror comedy “I Don’t Understand You.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV Atlantic anchor Stephanie Tsicos to talk about the the bullet ballet of “Ballerina,” fishy thriller “Dangerous Animals” and the exorcism flick “The Ritual.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 28:18)
I join CP24 to talk about the big movies hitting theatres this week including the bullet ballet of “Ballerina,” fishy thriller “Dangerous Animals,” the horror comedy “I Don’t Understand You,” the animated “Predator: Killer of Killers” and the exorcism flick “The Ritual.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” for “Booze & Reviews!” This week I review “Ballerina,” the latest film in the “John Wick Universe” and tell you about the place where real and fictional hitpeople hung out and an assassin’s cocktail.
Listen HERE as Shane and I talk about the celebrity tattoo regret and Sydney Sweeney, celebrity entrepreneur.
Click HERE to hear my Booze & Reviews review of “Ballerina” and learn about the bars hitmen hang out at.
I join CP24 to talk about the big movies hitting theatres this week including the bullet ballet of “Ballerina,” fishy thriller “Dangerous Animals” and the Netflix series “Sirens.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including the bullet ballet of “Ballerina,” fishy thriller “Dangerous Animals,” the horror comedy “I Don’t Understand You,” the animated “Predator: Killer of Killers” and the exorcism flick “The Ritual.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: Taking place between the events of “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” and “John Wick: Chapter 4,” “Ballerina,” sees Ana de Armas as a newly minted Ruska Roma assassin looking to exact revenge for her father’s death. “Your childhood was taken from you,” says her mentor (Anjelica Huston), “It’s that pain that drives you.”
CAST: Ana de Armas, Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Norman Reedus, Anjelica Huston, Lance Reddick, Ian McShane, Keanu Reeves. Directed by Len Wiseman.
REVIEW: A sequel ready spin-off of the “John Wick” movies, it’s a shame that “Ballerina’s” storytelling isn’t quite as agile as its main character.
The origin story of Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), “Ballerina” begins with childhood trauma. After witnessing the murder of her father at the hands of a killer cult, she follows in the footsteps of John Wick to become a highly trained Ruska Roma assassin.
With vengeance on her mind, and “Lux in tenebris,” a Latin phrase that translates to “light in darkness” tattooed on her back, she vows to hunt down the man responsible for the father-sized void in her life.
The story of rules and consequences—”When you deal in blood there must be rules or nothing matters,” says Ruska Roma Director (Angelica Huston)—borrows the framework of “John Wick” but forgets to bring the fun.
The first Wick film was a masterclass in restrained filmmaking. Well, perhaps that’s not exactly the word, the body count is too high to be considered restrained, but it was economical in its approach. The stripped-down storytelling eliminated any excess. From its set-up to blood-soaked finale, it was uncompromisingly lean and mean.
“Ballerina’s” approach feels overstuffed and yet slack by comparison. Director Len Wiseman allows the story to get tangled up as he interweaves the tale of Eva’s vengeance with Wick’s Wild World of Assassins.
Our introduction to Eva should come with high stakes. If John Wick is willing to reign holy hell down on the men responsible for the death of his dog, imagine what Eva could do to avenge her father. There will be blood, but because we only see the father at the beginning of the film, the stakes don’t seem all that elevated. Instead, “Ballerina” is a series of Wickian set pieces supervised by Chad Stahelski that provide the appropriate amount of gun-fu and face stomping, etc that you would expect, but apart from two standout sequences the action has a sameness that made me agree with Gabriel Byrne’s character when he said near thew end of the movie, “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
Two of the action scenes, however, deliver the kind of inventiveness you expect from a Wick movie. A high kicking set piece in a restaurant features a plate smashing scene that is funny, a bit ridiculous and creative and a literal fire fight adds visual pizazz but much of the action looks like generic video game violence.
“Ballerina” delivers on the franchise’s promise of a high body count but suffers from low stakes and a serious case of “off-shoot-itis.” Stuck somewhere between trying to replicate the vibe of the Wick films and forging a new path within that universe, it’s mired in the mushy middle.
The title “Silent Night,” action icon John Woo’s first American film in twenty years, is a double entendre. On one hand it refers to the holiday season in which most of the action takes place, but it’s also a nod to the film’s construction. With no dialogue, it’s a quiet movie about a guy who makes a lot of noise.
The movie begins with a bang as Brian Godluck (Joel Kinnaman), dressed in a Rudolph Christmas sweater and sleigh bell necklace, attempts to outrun two cars filled with gun toting bad guys. The odds are not tilted in his favor, and soon he is in hospital with a bullet-sized hole in his throat. Alive but unable to speak through shredded vocal cords, he’s lucky to be alive but doesn’t seem too happy about it.
Returning home with wife Saya (Catalina Sandino Moreno) it’s revealed he is not the only victim. Turns out, on the previous Christmas Eve a stray bullet killed their young son Taylor in the front yard of their Texas home.
Haunted by the loss of his son, Brian hits the bottle, spending his days drunk and disengaged, waiting for the police to get on the case. At an appointment with Detective Dennis Vassel (Scott Mescudi), Brian spots the Most Wanted posters for the men responsible for murdering his son.
It triggers something in him; a fierce need for revenge. He becomes a one-man army, builds up an arsenal, trains in self-defense, does surveillance on the baddies and writes “Kill Them All” on the calendar on Christmas Eve.
Those looking to “Silent Night” for the patented John Woo full-on assault action will be disappointed. After the pulse-racing opening sequence the movie becomes ninety percent set-up, leading to a generic shoot-out so dull it makes “My Dinner with Andre” seem exciting by comparison. A fight scene between Brian and a gang member is promising, but ultimately leads nowhere.
The gimmick, cutting all dialogue save for the odd police scanner buzz, radio news report or the self-defense videos Brian watches, works against the effectiveness of the storytelling. Woo’s poetic visuals are evident, although a tear that turns into a bullet feels a little heavy handed, but the lack of dialogue reduces the characters to one dimension.
Kinnaman’s vacillates between ennui and bloodthirsty, but not much in between. We don’t know anything about him and because he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t even get a cool, “what I do have are a very particular set of skills” speech.
But at least he has some range. The gang members are meat puppets, snarling bullet catchers with targets on their backs and nothing more. This is a basic good vs. evil bullet ballet, but some kind of character work might have gone a long way toward making us care about the people on screen and their stories.
“Silent Night” takes a long time to get where it is going, and once it gets there, isn’t worth the wait.
