Posts Tagged ‘Hit Man’

LOOKING BACK AT 2024: THE “NAUGHTY” AND “NICE” LISTS! FIRST THE NICE!

I take a look back at the year that was at the movies. From a chimp who becomes a pop superstar and a 93-year-old action star to an all-singing-all-dancing villain and an enormous elf, the movies gifted us the best and worst–the naughty and nice, the champagne and lumps of coal–of what Hollywood and elsewhere has to offer.

Here is the Nice List, a compendium of the very best films of the year, presented alphabetically.

Instead of attempting to unwind Dylan’s mystique, “A Complete Unknown” director James Mangold, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, wisely opts for a portrait of the time, the America and, in microcosm, the Greenwich Village folk era, that produced the singer. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the battle for civil rights indirectly hang heavy over the film, completing the portrait of the time that fuelled Dylan’s early work.  The back-to-basics approach benefits the movie, allowing Timothée Chalamet’s tour de force lead performance to shine.

A Different Man” is a singular movie. Schimberg digs deep to examine the skin-deep notions of attractiveness, and the effect of beauty on the eye of the beholder.

Part screwball comedy, part fight for survival, “Anora” is a triumph of controlled chaos. As in his earlier films, “Tangerine,” “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket,” director Sean Baker keenly observes his characters with empathy and emotion in stories that examine money, class, and power. An insightfully made look at the wealth divide, with elements of suspense and comedy, it never fails to entertain.

Better Man,” the biopic of Take That singer-turned-solo superstar Robbie Williams is a sex, drugs and British Pop story given an audacious treatment by “The Greatest Showman” director Michael Gracey. A surreal mix of “Behind the Music” and “Planet of the Apes,” it is a raw portrayal of the singer’s vulnerabilities and foibles in which he’s rendered throughout as a CGI monkey. No explanations are offered, and none are needed. Whether it’s a comment on the performing monkey nature of his work, or his ever-evolving emotional state, or whatever, it’s a startling and surprisingly effective gimmick in a wildly entertaining film.

The flirty, intimate and indulgent “Challengers” is a ménage à trois of ever shifting power games, mind games and tennis gameplay in which the power dynamics are batted back-and-forth, just like in a real tennis match.

There are no monsters or supernatural aspects in “Civil War,” but make no mistake, this is a horror film. The horrors of war are detailed in a visceral and chaotic way but it is the idea of a societal collapse that haunts.

Conclave” has a hushed, restrained feel, but even though the characters all carry bibles as they walk the ecclesiastical halls, director Edward Berger understands this story is more pulpy thriller than holy book.

If the word bombastic took steroids it might come close to describing the R-rated “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Filled with fan service, it’s a good time, even if the experience of watching it sometimes feels like being on the inside of a blender set to puree.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is a high-octane apocalyptic tale with a fierce Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth as a charismatic warlord, that features action scenes that’ll make your eyes pop out of their sockets.

The Greatest Night in Pop” doesn’t reinvent the music documentary wheel, but it is more than a star-studded episode of I Love the 80s as it vividly captures the remarkable effort and magic that went into the recording of We Are the World. 

Make no mistake, “Hey, Viktor! is a comedy, first and foremost, and a raunchy one at that, but as it works its way to the end, it careens through a dysfunctional journey of self-discovery. 

Hit Man” is a rom com and a caper comedy with some thrilling twists, anchored by a smart script that acts as a showcase for the lead performances from Glen Powell and Adria Arjona.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is jam packed with big ideas and even bigger action scenes but feels intimate because of its emotional content.

A closer look at the remastered “Let It Be,” free from the furor of the break-up that coloured the 1970 release, reveals the shared joy of creation.

Romance and ‘roid rage collide in “Love Lies Bleeding,” a pulpy romp that is a bloody and brutal twist on the neo noir that harkens back to films like “Wild at Heart” and early Coen bros.

Despite a title that suggests a 1990s teen comedy, “My Old Ass” is a surreal coming-of-age story that stays anchored to reality with natural, heartfelt performances and a great deal of humor.

Nosferatu” will be categorized as a horror film, and there are elements of gore, death and the unnerving auditory experience of hearing Count Orlock drain his victims, but it is an old-school horror movie that aims to unnerve its audience with just a few jump scares and no vats of fake blood. Eggers conveys terror with the film’s atmosphere of dread and depiction of madness, decay and unrelenting, elemental evil

The Piano Lesson” is crisply complex, a tangle of emotion, the paranormal and family dynamics, with characters so carefully written each of them could be the star of their own story.

Younger audience members should enjoy the characters and the animation in “Robot Dreams,” but there is a depth to the story that will strike adults differently.

Because the uplift and empathy on display is such a departure for a prison movie, it would be easy to be cynical about a movie like “Sing Sing.” But it is impossible to deny the crowd-pleasing universal story of the redemptive power of art and community.

Clever and subversive, “Strange Darling” is an expertly made exercise in nihilism. What begins as a standard serial killer flick soon widens and deepens to become a thought provoking, provocative rethink of the whole genre.

The Substance” goes on a bit too long, but director Coralie Fargeat’s gruesome vision, and the finale’s ankle-deep bloodbath, is a thing of terrible beauty.

Suze” is a funny, never-judge-a-book-by-its-cover dramedy, that succeeds because of its engaging lead performances and in the way it presents a platonic relationship based on mutual respect.

Thelma” is something you don’t see very often, a thriller starring a 93-year-old action hero. The fantastic June Squibb, in the lead role, may not exactly be Ethan Hunt, but she’s more endearing and delightful than Jack Ryan and Jason Bourne combined.

A mixture of nostalgia and hard-edged reality, of bittersweet poetry and heartfelt relationships, “We Grown Now” is a nuanced look at the ties that bind and their importance, even when those ties begin to fray.

Part rom com and part essay on what lingers after we’re gone, “We Live in Time” is a five-hankie tear-jerker fueled by the intimate and charismatic performances of its leads Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.

The animated “The Wild Robot” will put you in the mind of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and WALL-E, but carves out its own, unique, rewarding space andhas the makings of a classic.

CTVNEWS.CA: RICHARD ON THE must-watch movies of 2024 (SO FAR)

I write about the best movies of the year (so far) not named “Inside Out 2,” “Deadpool & Wolverine” or “Dune: Part Two.”

“Every week, movies that don’t have the benefits of a bloated marketing budget or the collective charm outreach of the recent Ryan Reynolds/Hugh Jackman ’round-the-world publicity onslaught still provide a big bang for your entertainment buck…” Read the whole thing HERE!

HIT MAN: 4 STARS. “gives Powell a chance to show his versatility.”

A very unusual thing happened when I saw Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” at last year’s TIFF. After the movie’s best and funniest scene, one that shows the comedic chops and chemistry of leads Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, the audience burst into applause. It was a spontaneous, organic moment, the kind usually reserved for comedy clubs, not sold-out festival screenings.

Powell, who also wrote the script, plays Gary, a seemingly mild-mannered psychology and philosophy professor at the University of New Orleans. When he isn’t lecturing to bored students about breaking out of their comfort zones, he leads a quiet life, tending to his pet birds and two cats, Id and Ego.

On the side he works with local law enforcement as a sound technician, secretly recording undercover officer Jasper (Austin Amelio) as he entraps people who want to hire him to kill a spouse or a business partner.

When Jasper is suspended for bad behavior, Gary subs in.

Turns out, he’s a natural, and more importantly, it gives him an adrenaline rush he hasn’t felt for many years. With Jasper out of the picture, Gary dives in, wearing disguises to create a new hitman character for every meeting.

“I realized not everyone fantasized about the same hit man,” he says. “Every sting operation was a performance. And each arrest was like a standing ovation.”

When he meets Madison (Adria Arjona), a distressed wife who wants him to kill her husband, he immediately falls for her. In their meeting he gets her to stop talking before she incriminates herself, and soon, they begin dating. Trouble is, she knows him as self-assured badass Ron, not as the affable Gary.

Complications ensue, culminating in the above-mentioned applause-worthy scene, a mix of slapstick and the pure chemistry between Powell and Arjona, where they know the police are recording them, but continue their conversation as though they don’t.

Very loosely based on the true story of Gary Johnson, as written by Skip Hollandsworth in “Texas Monthly,” “Hit Man” is a rom com with some thrilling twists. Light and frothy, it’s anchored by a smart script that acts as a showcase for the lead performances.

Powell pulls off a full-on leading man turn as a guy who embodies an ideal by creating a role-playing fantasy of what a hit man would be like, based on the wants and needs of the client. It gives him a chance to show his versatility and step away from the bland leading man roles that have marked some of his most popular work to date.

“Hit Man” makes the most of that performance. As the disguises get nuttier and nuttier, and the plot more pretzel-shaped, director Richard Linklater finds a balance between Powell’s showcase work, the script’s big laughs and the story’s inherent tension. It could have gone south very easily, but Linklater pulls off a bit of a magic trick and keeps it hilariously humming along on all cylinders.

TIFF 2023: RICHARD’S TIFF TAKES: what to see and what’S HAPPENING!

Flora and Son,” starring Eve Hewson as a Dublin single mom trying to make a connection with her son, is a rousing crowd-pleaser that breathes the same air as director John Carney’s other films, “Sing Street” and “Once.”

A look at a strained marriage through the lens of a public murder trial, “Anatomy of a Fall” is more concerned with human drama than the procedural aspects of the story. The result is a complex look at the search for truth in relationships and justice in court.

Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard bring raw intensity to “Memory,” a story that essays memories that torment and memories as they disappear. Almost overwhelmed by melodrama, it stays on the right side with committed performances and a bold love story.

The 4K “Stop Making Sense” restoration of the four-decade old movie is a joyful, high-energy revisiting of a classic concert film. A document of a band working at the top of their game, it captures the love of music and performance in a way few other have. And it’s got a good and you can dance to it.

Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich star in the financial drama “Fair Play’s” blistering exploration of workplace gender dynamics. A throwback to the erotic thrillers of the 1980s, its story  of sabotage is smart, sexy and sharp, if a tad long.

Perfect Days” is a contemplative movie that examines the simple pleasures in life. Music, literature and nature are showcased, but this poetic, profound film celebrates finding contentment in all aspects of life.

Dumb Money” doesn’t get bogged down by the financial jargon, although it may be worth a trip to “short sell” Wikipedia page before buying a ticket. Instead, it’s the rousing David and Goliath story of leveling the playing field.

Using first hand sources, the documentary “Sorry/Not Sorry” examines the accusations of sexual harassment leveled against comedian Louis C.K, and his subsequent career come-back. Not ground-breaking in terms of style, but thought provoking in terms of its “judge the art or the artist” perspective.

Edgy and tense, “The Royal Hotel” is a slow burn story about sexual violence and intimidation, power dynamics and revenge, wrapped up in a story about two young women on a work/travel visit to Australia.

Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” is in my top two at TIFF. Glen Powell and Adria Arjona earned a well-deserved applause break after the movie’s best and funniest scene. Their chemistry ignites the movie.

Limbo’s” black and white photography lends a stark and stately field to the study of damaged people, disguised as a police procedural.

Errol Morris‘s latest film, “The Pigeon Tunnel,” is a look at the extraordinary life of David Cornwell a.k.a. prolific author John le Carré. It examines the very essence of truth, and how memory and manipulation play a part in how we shape our world and our perceptions.

Set an a remote, Newfoundland seaport, population thirty, “The King Tide” is an effective supernatural thriller. It takes place in a very specific area, but the story address is universal concerns about parenting and the dangers of isolationism.

Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe,” a look at the life and legacy of legendary children’s entertainer Ernie Coombs, has the same brand of low-key kindness and empathy that made “Mr. Dressup” appointment viewing for several generations of Canadians.

Finestkind” begins as a slice of life drama about a man following his dream, but soon morphs into a credulity stretching story of antiheroes, drugs and fish poaching.

Amanda Seyfried hands in a career best performance as a director helming a production of “Salome” at the Canadian Opera Company. An ambitious meditation on the healing power of art, “Seven Veils” is a dense psychological thriller that examines toxic masculinity and eradicating the male gaze.

Reptile” is a standard good cop in a bad situation drama, given oomph by Benicio del Toro’s badass and quirky performance.