SYNOPSIS: In “The Instigators,” a new heist comedy film now streaming on Apple TV+, Matt Damon and Casey Affleck play desperate father Rory and ex-con Cobby, unlikely partners thrown together to rob a corrupt politician’s war chest. When the caper goes sideways, the inept thieves hit the road, doing whatever it takes to stay one step ahead of the police, the mayor’s henchman and a vengeful crime boss. “We’ve got to find these guys before the cops do,” says kingpin Dechico (Michael Stuhlbarg), “and put them down before they can talk.”
CAST: Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alfred Molina, Jack Harlow, Ving Rhames, Ron Perlman, Paul Walter Hauser, Toby Jones. Directed by Doug Liman.
REVIEW: Fresh off their success in “Oppenheimer,” Damon and Affleck reteam in a movie that mixes-and-matches a caper with a political satire, action with a buddy comedy. It’s a laundry list of genres, but it works, aided by a terrific ensemble cast and the steady hand of director Doug Liman.
Liman and Damon, of course, first worked together twenty-two years ago on “The Bourne Identity.” While their new movie features some action, a really solid car chase and exploding buildings, the two characters, super spy Jason Bourne and the down-on-his-luck Rory, are polar opposites.
Bourne suffered from psychogenic amnesia, and used his special set of skills to rediscover his past. Rory is very much aware of his past, of his failings as a father, and Damon plays him as an everyman, a desperate guy who’ll do whatever it takes to make a few extra bucks for his estranged family, no matter the cost to him personally. Damon skilfully balances the character’s backstory with the increasing absurdity of his present-day situation.
In a rare humorous performance, Affleck is the more obviously funny character, and yet, Cobby is not just comedic construct. He’s a small-timer, used to things going sideways, and much of the humor in the film comes from his deadpan reactions as their situation worsens.
In a strong supporting cast, featuring heavy-weights like Michael Stuhlbarg and Alfred Molina in what are essentially extended cameos, Hong Chau as Rory’s psychiatrist, is a standout, both empathetic and hilarious.
“The Instigators” has everything you expect from a film about a heist gone wrong, but really, it’s not about the robbery or the explosions. It’s about the budding friendship between Rory and Cobby. Brought together by adversity and desperation, they become unlikely allies in a film that cleverly and humorously breathes new life into the failed-criminals-on-the-run genre, through interesting characters, some high-powered action and genuinely funny situations.
“Road House,” the 2024 Prime Video riff on the much-loved 1989 cult classic of the same name, isn’t so much a remake of the Patrick Swayze flick, but a modern tribute to the cartoon violence of 1980s movies.
Jake Gyllenhaal is Elwood Dalton, a disgraced UFC fighter with a troubled past and an even more troubling left hook. A one-man army, he is a soft-spoken bruiser who usually gives his victims the chance to turn tail and run before he pummels the hell out of them. “Before we start,” he asks, “do you have insurance? Is your coverage good? Like, you have dental?”
After a self-inflicted near-death experience, he finds himself working as a bouncer at the Road House in the picturesque Glass Key, Florida. Brought in by second generation owner Frankie (Jessica Williams), it’s his job to bring order back to the place, even if that means busting a few heads.
As the fists fly, Dalton finds himself caught up in a turf war between Frankie and a rich, mobbed up local family who want to turn the Road House into a resort. When the family brings in a walking, talking wrecking crew (Conor McGregor) to seal the deal, Dalton becomes afraid… “Afraid of what happens when someone pushes me too far.”
Other than bars, bouncers and brawls, “Road House” doesn’t have much in common with the original. The previous film wasn’t exactly nuanced, but at least they took the time to give the bar, the Double Deuce, a name. Here it’s just called Road House. It’s a small detail, and they joke about it in a self-aware way in the film, but it signals a simplicity that permeates the entire, bloody affair.
Not that we can reasonably expect much depth in a movie about a bare-knuckle brawler. What you can expect is the dichotomy of Dalton as aa violent man who hates violence. Gyllenhaal plays him as an affable guy who’ll break your arm, but take the time to drive you to the hospital after the fight is done. The Tai Chi, philosophy and Ph.D. that defined Swayze’s take on the character are gone, replaced by Gyllenhaal’s wide smile and fists of fury.
His Dalton is interesting when the fists are flying—director Doug Liman has a way with staging big, fun fight scenes that mix MMA with slapstick and Russian car rash videos—but less so when he’s not in action. That is emphasized with the introduction of McGregor. With a maniacal grin, a skip to his step and an unstoppable Terminator approach to fisticuffs, his ridiculous performance is the blast of energy the movie needs after a saggy middle section.
“Road House” may disregard the original movie, but it doesn’t disregard its audience. The fight scenes, and let’s face it, that’s why we’re here, are high-octane, old-school battles that punch above their weight.
On paper “Chaos Walking,” a new dystopian movie starring Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland and now on PVOD, seems like a can’t fail for sci fi fans. In execution, however, the story of a world where men’s thoughts are manifested for all to see, is a letdown.
Based on “The Knife of Never Letting Go,” the first book of the Patrick Ness “Chaos Walking” trilogy, the story takes place in the year 2557 in a place called Prentisstown on the planet New World. Colonized by refugees from Earth, New World’s original inhabitants, the Spackle, fought back, slaughtering many of the male settlers and all the women. The surviving men contracted something called “The Noise.”
“It happened when we landed on the planet,” says Mayor Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen). “Every thought in our heads is on display.”
Prentisstown residents, like Todd Hewitt (Holland), walk around with their thoughts exposed like wisps of multicolored cigarette smoke swirling around their heads.
When her spaceship crash lands on New World it leaves earth woman Viola (Ridley) stranded in this strange world. Todd, who has never seen a woman before, helps her navigate the dangers of her new home, as they both discover the deeply held secrets of New World.
“Chaos Walking” has ideas that feel ripe for satire, social commentary and drama but squanders them in favor of crafting a tepid young adult friendly dystopian story. Todd’s “Noise” reveals the kind of thoughts a teenager may have when first laying eyes on a girl, although in a g-rated fashion. His inner voice mumbles “Pretty” in Viola’s presence, but that’s about as deep into his psyche we get. It’s a shame because the “Noise” device could have been used to provide some much-needed humour into this earnest story. Or to more effectively drive the plot or the tension between the two characters. Instead, it is inert, a ploy to add some interest to a generic dystopian tale.
“Chaos Walking” was shot in 2017, deemed unreleasable, and has been fiddled with ever since. It hits PVOD as a film of unrealized potential, a minor footnote on the IMDB pages of its stars.
The “war on drugs” is one of the longest battles in American history. In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one,” vowing combat against drug producers and dealers.
Forty years and many billions of dollars later the Global Commission on Drug Policy stated, “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.”
Last year, writing in the New York Times, Mexican journalist José Luis Pardo Veiras echoed those sentiments. “Drugs continue to stream north to the United States, the great user, and firearms enter Mexico in return, where they kill thousands.”
The fight has been a failure for everyone except Hollywood, which has consistently mined the war on drugs for stories and colourful characters. This weekend Tom Cruise stars in the latest tale from the war on drugs, American Made, the real-life story of Barry Seal, adrenaline junkie and TWA pilot.
The story begins with Seal being hired by the CIA to take reconnaissance photos of Soviet-backed insurgents in South America. His life quickly spirals out of control as he becomes a courier between the CIA and Panamanian CIA informant General Manuel Noriega while also working as a cocaine smuggler for the Medellin Cartel.
Drug cartel stories are tailor made for the movies. Populated by bigger-than-life characters like the wealthiest criminal in history, the so-called “The King of Cocaine,” Pablo Escobar, the stories have it all: glamour, drama, moral ambiguity and the primal clash of good and evil. Here are three films with three very different approaches to the war on drugs.
One critic described Sicario as a “French Connection for the drug-fuelled Mexico-US border war.” Starring Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin, it’s a drama about an idealistic FBI agent working with an elite task force to stem the flow of drugs between Mexico and the United States. It’s gritty and certainly not a feel-good movie about winning the war on drugs. Instead, it’s a powerful look at a seemingly unwinnable battle and the toll it takes on its soldiers.
Savages is an over-the-top Oliver Stone movie that sees Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch as drug dealers and two thirds of a love triangle with a California cutie played by Blake Lively. Their product, a potent strain of legal medical-grade marijuana, earns the attention of a Mexican Baja drug Cartel boss (Salma Hayek) who’ll do anything to create a “joint” venture, including kidnapping and murder.
Savages, at its black-hearted best, is a preposterous popcorn movie that sees Stone leave behind the restraint of movies like W and World Trade Center and kick into full bore, unhinged Natural Born Killers mode. It’s a wild, down ’n dirty look into the business of drugs and revenge.
Smaller in scale is End of Watch. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña play patrol cops in Los Angeles’s tough South Central neighbourhood. A routine traffic stop turns into something bigger when they confiscate money and guns from a cartel member. “Be careful,” they’re warned by a senior officer, “You just tugged on the tail of a snake that’s going to turn around and bite you.”
These movies and others, like Code of the West and The House I Live In, prove the winners of the war on drugs are filmmakers.
The War on Drugs is one of the longest battles in American history. In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one, “ vowing combat against drug producers and dealers. Forty years and many billions of dollars later the Global Commission on Drug Policy stated, “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.”
The only winners in the drug wars appear to be filmmakers who have mined a rich vein of stories from the decades long battle.
This weekend Tom Cruise stars in the latest tale from the War on Drugs, “American Made,” the real-life story of Barry Seal, adrenaline junkie and TWA pilot. The story begins in 1978 with Seal mentally on autopilot and looking for thrills. Caught smuggling cigars into the United States, the CIA senses his potential and hires him to take reconnaissance photos of Soviet-backed insurgents in South America.
“The work is covert,” says his recruiter, Agent Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson). “If anyone finds out about it, family, friends, your wife, that would be a problem.”
What begins as a safe and profitable adventure takes a dangerous turn when he becomes a courier between the CIA and Panamanian CIA informant General Manuel Noriega. Next he signs onto an even more dangerous assignment, running arms to the contras in Nicaragua in their battle against the communist Sandinistas.
“Is this legal?” he asks. ”It is if you do it for the good guys,” says his Agent Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson).
Seduced by the money and the excitement he also takes gigs as a cocaine smuggler for the Medellin Cartel. “I’m working for the CIA, the DEA and Pablo Escobar,” he boasts. He sees himself as “just gringo who always delivers,” but his convoluted work life and allegiances make him a person of interest not only to everyone from Pablo “The King of Cocaine” Escobar to the DEA, the FBI and even the White House.
Drug cartel stories are tailor made for the movies. Populated by bigger-than-life characters like the wealthiest criminals in history like the Medellin Cartel members, the stories have it all—glamour, drama, moral ambiguity and the primal clash of good and evil. “American Made” has all that, although played in a lower key than movies like “Blow” or “Cocaine Cowboys.” It has a lighter touch—it’s not too violent and, oddly for a drug dealer movie, has no scenes where anyone actually samples the goods—which keeps things moving along at quite a clip but sheds next to no light on its characters, its go-go 80s setting or the political mess that turned into the Iran-Contra affair.
Echoes of “Top Gun” hang heavy over Cruise as the cockpit king Seals. He’s all teeth and grins, a charmer who can talk his way through almost any situation. He has nerves of steel and high-flying greed, a combo that should give us a compelling anti-hero but instead Cruise plays him as a decent guy who “didn’t ask enough questions.” Didn’t ask enough questions about the personal toll his work running guns and drugs for a cartel. Didn’t ask enough questions about human trafficking. He didn’t ask questions because he was greedy. He liked the suitcases of cash and fancy cars his job provided. If the movie had allowed Cruise (or vice versa) to actually explore Barry’s dark side the film might have delivered more of a punch.
There’s more character work in any episode of “Breaking Bad” or “Narcos” than “American Made’s” entire 115 minute running time but Cruise’s movie does have a sense of humour about itself that makes for an amiable, if not memorable, watch.
Like claustrophobic survival movies “Devil” and “Buried,” the tense new film from “The Bourne Identity” director Doug Liman uses limited locations and characters to tell the story. “The Wall” is a back-to-basics thriller with just three actors, one is never seen, one barely moves while the third carries the day.
Set in 2007 Iraq, Sergeant Allen Isaac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Staff Sergeant Shane Matthews (John Cena) are soldiers on a desert stakeout. Eight dead soldiers litter the area. Their job is to determine cause of death—was it local militia or a highly trained sniper. Twenty hours in they taunt fate, exposing themselves. Shots ring out leaving Matthews, wounded, laying in the open, Isaac nursing a leg wound behind a small brick wall. Pinned down by an enemy sniper, hours pass as Isaac, dehydrated and lightheaded, weighs his options. On the other end of his crackling radio receiver is Juba (voice of Laith Nakli), a poetry spouting Sunni sniper with deadly aim and a way with getting under Isaac’s skin.
“The Wall” is a movie that aims to get into the psyche of soldiers and how men of war deal with loss but for most of its running time is a symphony of misery as Issac grunts, howls and administers some grim self surgery. There are many compelling moments, mostly early on before the first time the thought, “How can this possibly stretch to ninety minutes?” passes through your head. Once it becomes a back and forth between the two men it loses some momentum. What could have been a sly way of discussing the merits, or lack thereof, of the Iraq war effort is, instead, a deep-as-a-lunch-tray look at the psychology of war.
Isaac is a guilt-ridden warrior, unable to return home because of the crushing remorse. Juba, based on a legendary Sunni sniper with at least seventy-five confirmed kills, is a caricature, a snarling serial killer with no real political agenda. Instead he plays cat-and-mouse, drawing the young soldier in—“I just want to have a conversation with you Isaac,” he coos.—before taunting him with over-the-top rhetoric like, “When this is over your skin will be cut from your face; your lying tongue cut from your mouth.”
It can be colourful and powerful but Taylor-Johnson, who was low-key effective in “Nocturnal Animals,” dials it up to eleven here, blowing snot and spit across the screen with every utterance.
“The Wall” is an interesting experiment. It’s a chance for Liman to return to the small-scale filmmaking that made his name—movies like “Swingers” and “Go”—but it feels like it may have been better off as an hour long character study rather than a full blown feature film.
“Edge of Tomorrow” may sound like the title of a soap opera, but it’s actually the name of a new and unusual Tom Cruise alien invasion flick. In it Cruise battles nasty space bugs called Mimics but the story is more “Groundhog Day” than it is “War of the Worlds.”
Set at the height of a worldwide battle between the human race and seemingly indestructible aliens called Mimics, Cruise plays William Cage, a marketing genius who lost his advertising firm when the world was thrown into chaos following the invasion. He now works for the army, selling war to the masses. He’s inspired millions of people to enlist by telling them the story of hero Rita (Emily Blunt), a legendary warrior with more Mimics notches on her belt than the rest of the army combined.
When he is pressed into active service on the eve of a massive offensive, he proves that while he may be an officer, he’s no gentleman. “I can’t stand the sight of blood,” he says trying to weasel out of the dangerous duty, “not so much as a paper cut.” His cowardly antics get him arrested and shipped to the front lines where, following a wild deployment scene that sees Cruise and Co plunged into Mimic territory, he is promptly killed.
That’s right. A Tom Cruise character in a Tom Cruise movie is killed in the first twenty minutes. But this is where things get interesting, and strange.
Instead of shuffling off this mortal coil, he actually wakes up and starts his journey all over again. Over and over he wakes to the unmelodious sound of a drill sergeant calling him “Maggot” but each time he has learned something more that helps him cope with the situation.
The only person who believes his strange story is Rita. Together they “reset the day” repeatedly and start anew with the info he’s learned. Eventually he’ll know enough to beat this unbeatable foe. Trouble is, he has to die every day…
Two thirds of “Edge of Tomorrow” is as Un-Cruiselike a movie as Tom has ever made. The “Groundhog Day” been-there, done-that section of the film is inventive, often played for laughs and presents Cruise in a way we’ve rarely ever seen him—as a coward. It’s a refreshing twist for him and gives him a chance to exercise his rarely used comedic chops. You know he’s going to turn heroic sooner or later, but it’s a blast to see him do something just outside his usual wheelhouse.
Just as important to the film is Blunt’s take on Rita. This is something different for her—she’s arguably best known for the comedy “The Devil Wears Prada”—and for action movies in general. Big budget blockbusters don’t usually make room for female characters unless they are sidekicks or girlfriends. Here Blunt avoids being objectified and is as strong, if not stronger than Cruise.
Director Doug Liman has figured out clever and entertaining ways to show the same thing over and over, keeping it exciting with interesting editing and changing perspectives. The first two reels are packed with energy and invention it’s only when the conventions that made the story enticing are put aside in the last reel that the movie becomes a standard Cruise action flick. A good Cruise action flick but still more standard than the promising first hour.
