FREE FOR ALL FRIDAY: RICHARD ON SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS WITH AMANDA GALBRAITH
I join guest host Amanda Galbraith on the Vassy Kapelos Show to taklk about “F1,” upcoming summer blockbusters and more!
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Kerry Condon’
RICHARD’S CTV NEWSCHANNEL WEEKEND REVIEWS FOR FRIDAY JUNE 27, 2025!
I joined CTV NewsChannel anchor Roger Peterson to have a look at new movies coming to theatres, including the wicked quick “F1,” the AI action of “M3GAN 2.0,” and the family drama of “His Father’s Son.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
BOOZE & REVIEWS: FAST CARS, BRAD PITT AND CAN CON COCKTAILS!
I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” for “Booze & Reviews!” This week I review the wiocked quick Brad Pitt movie “F1” and then, just in time for Canada Day, I’ll tell you all about all kinds of Canadian cocktails and where to enjoy them!
Click HERE to listen to Shane and me talk about the new Anne Murray album, Don Cherry’s podcast and Dan Aykroyd’s ghost!
For the Booze & Reviews look at Brad Pitt in “F1,” and some Can Con cocktails, click HERE!
YOU TUBE: THREE MOVIES/THIRTY SECONDS! FAST REVIEWS FOR BUSY PEOPLE!
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 wicked quick “F1,” the AI action of “M3GAN 2.0,” and the family drama of “His Father’s Son.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SPEEDY REVIEWS: Start Your Engines! Three Racing Movies in 30 Seconds
Fast reviews for busy people! Feel the need for speed as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make a pitstop Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the pedal to the metal “Grand Prix,” the vroom vroom of “Rush” and the wicked quick “F1.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
FI THE MOVIE: 4 STARS. “driven by Pitt’s star power rather than the really fast cars.”
SYNOPSIS: In “F1 The Movie” Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a Formula One driver who became “the best who never was” after his career was sidelined in a terrible crash. Thirty years later he gets back into the game when his former teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), now the owner of a struggling Formula 1 team, recruits him to mentor rookie prodigy Joshua “Noah” Pearce for the Apex Grand Prix team (APXGP). “If the last thing I ever do is drive that car,” Sonny says, “I will take that life. A thousand times.”
CAST: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, and Javier Bardem. Directed by Joseph Kosinski.
REVIEW: A pedal-to-the-metal crowd pleaser, “F1” rides immersive racing scenes and dynamic lead performances to the finish line.
A loud ‘n proud blockbuster by design, director Joseph Kosinski is all about spectacle. Whether that means sweeping sequences of Formula 1 cars whizzing around the track, or beauty shots of star Brad Pitt filling the screen with charisma, Kosinski entertains the eye.
The straightforward tale, however, won’t give your brain the same workout it gives your eyes.
Plot wise, it’s essentially an earthbound “Top Gun: Maverick.” A story of rivals, high speeds and a mentor with something to prove, it follows a very identifiable sports movie blueprint, but you’ll likely be too busy taking in the adrenalized spectacle to feel the déjà vu.
As washed-up racer Sonny Hayes, Pitt does a riff on his “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” character. Cocky and charismatic, he an older lone wolf bound to butt heads with rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). Hayes may be a walking, talking cliché, a Jack Kerouac character forced to confront his past so he can have a future, but through sheer force of will Pitt makes him feel authentic.
Pitt shares an edgy chemistry with Idris. Their rivalry is the film’s heart—much more so than Pitt’s romantic involvement with Kerry Condon’s character Kate—and the evolving relationship between the “the best who never was” and the up-and-comer provides a human backdrop in a movie mostly driven by a need for speed.
The “F” in the title could stand for formulaic, but expertly shot racing sequences and pulse pounding tension make up for the familiar bits.
It’s an old-fashioned summer blockbuster, that, despite its setting, is driven by Pitt’s star power rather than the really fast cars on display.
IN THE LAND OF SAINTS AND SINNERS: 3 STARS. “mixes violence with compassion.”
“In the Land of Saints and Sinners,” a new Irish thriller now playing in theatres, sees Liam Neeson take a welcome step away from the generic action movies that have populated his IMDB page post “Taken.” He’s joined by an all-star cast of Irish actors, including Kerry Condon, Jack Gleeson, Colm Meaney and Ciarán Hinds, in a movie that mixes violence with compassion, revenge with redemption.
In what could be described as an Irish Western, Neeson plays Finbar Murphy, an assassin looking to leave his violent ways in the rearview mirror. His habit of planting a tree atop the remote graves of his victims has left behind a veritable forest, and now Finbar wants to concentrate on penance in the quiet coastal town of Glencolmcille. It’s a relatively peaceful enclave, far away from the political violence of most of 1974 Ireland.
At least it is until IRA team leader Doireann McCann (Condon) and her cohorts arrive, on the run after a car bombing kills several innocent children in Belfast. As Finbar’s life overlap with the newcomers, a deadly war of revenge begins that involves the entire village. “Mr. Murphy has done something,” says Doireann. “Something unforgivable.”
The action at the center of “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” sounds like it could sit nicely on the shelf with any of Neeson’s recent, more generic, actioners, but there’s a different, more nuanced, flavor to this one.
Much of that comes from the performances. The man-with-a-past/protector-of-the-innocent is a role Neeson has played many times before, but the combination of his natural gravitas and, perhaps counter intuitively, his empathy, set Finbar aside from the pack. He’s a stone-cold killer, but understands the toll a life spent holding a gun has extracted from his soul, and that quality adds something new to the Neeson oeuvre. Also, his interactions with up-and-coming-killer Kevin, nicely played by Gleeson, humanizes both characters, and enrich the film with a healthy dose of empathy.
Condon, best known for her Oscar nominated performance in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” plays Doireann as equal parts passion and compassion. She is an extremist, violent and driven by hatred, but Condon allows warmth to peak through the cracks in Doireann’s cold façade.
“In the Land of Saints and Sinners” succeeds because it delivers tension and interesting characters, but, just as importantly, because it drops some of the cliches of Neeson’s recent output in favor of authenticity.
NIGHT SWIM: 2 STARS. “you’ll need to play Marco Polo to find actual scares.”
Aquaphobia, the fear of water, is a real thing. But I’m not sure what you call the phobia at the heart of “Night Swim,” a new horror film starring Wyatt Russell and now playing in theatres.
Based on the acclaimed 2014 short film by Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire, the story of a haunted swimming pool begins as major league baseball player Ray Waller’s (Russell) career ends due to a degenerative illness.
“You’ll always be a baseball player,” his wife Eve (Kerry Condon) tells him, “but that’s not all you are.”
Rebooting his life, he moves into a fixer-upper with Eve, teenage daughter Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and young son Elliot (Gavin Warren).
The house has seen better days, but there is a great school nearby and Ray thinks the backyard pool is the perfect place for the kids to play and for him to work out as a form of physical therapy.
When the renovations are complete, the family enjoys the pool, swimming and playing Marco Polo. “This pool’s the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” Ray says as his health takes an uptick.
But soon strange things happen.
“My kids have seen things,” says Eve, “and I’m afraid something is happening to my husband.”
Voices and visions from the deep end of the pool torment them as a malevolent force somehow is able to identify the family’s wants and desires. But at what price?
“Night Swim” begins with a flashback to 1992 that effectively sets up the pool as a watery menace. Unfortunately, the movie belly flops from there. The idea of drowning is terrifying, especially if someone or something is pulling at your legs, or pushing your head under the surface, but in the theatre you’ll find yourself playing Marco Polo in search of actual scares.
Russell and Condon are blandly appealing in the leads. Both are overshadowed by the kids, Hoeferle and Warren, who, as siblings caught up in a supernatural water trap, raise the story’s stakes. You don’t want anything bad to happen to them, but you do want SOMETHING to happen other than jump scares.
By the time director Bryce McGuire reveals the source of the evil, and offers up an unspeakable solution to the family’s problems, the movie is waterlogged, too soggy to have much of an impact. “Night Swim” never gets out of the shallow end.
THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN: 4 STARS. “Come for the cussing, stay for the performances.”
Fifteen years ago, director Martin McDonagh brought actors Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson together as inept hitmen in hiding in the Belgium-set film “In Bruges.”
Sparks flew.
The terrific trio reunite in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” a new movie, now playing in theatres, that locates the setting to a tiny Irish island, but maintains the chemistry that made “In Bruges” an audience and critical favorite.
Set in 1923 on a windswept island off the west coast of Ireland, the story begins as the Irish Civil War rages on the mainland. With the sounds of gunfire and exploding bombs in the distance, village nice-guy Pádraic (Farrell) goes about his daily routine, stopping by his life-long friend Colm’s (Gleeson) house to collect him on the way to the pub. When his knock at the door goes unanswered, Pádraic peers through the window to see his old friend, sitting and smoking, ignoring the rapping at the door.
Later at the pub, the gormless Pádraic learns why he was snubbed by Colm. “I just don’t like you no more.”
Hurt and confused, Pádraic attempts to patch things up, but Colm is steadfast. He wants to spend his remaining time, no matter many years he has left, doing something meaningful; not making small talk over a pint. Pádraic is dull, Colm says, his conversation a waste of time.
Despite the threat of dire consequences, Pádraic cannot accept that the friendship is over, and what began as a cold shoulder escalates into violence born of humiliation and anger.
The darkly hilarious “The Banshees of Inisherin” uses Colm’s brushoff of his former friend as the engine to drive a universal story of loneliness, what happens when civility fades and the importance of support systems.
McDonagh creates a vivid backdrop for the action. Life on the small island is presented as simultaneously idyllic and stultifying. The rolling hills, greenery and winding country roads are straight out of a tourist brochure. But it’s the soft underbelly, the stuff that lies beneath the quaint façade, that is of interest. Gossip is currency, every house has a secret and the local cop (Gary Lydon) misuses his power on the streets and at home. The movie takes its time in the shift from charming to sinister, from the lighthearted tone of the first hour to the darkness of the last forty minutes.
It is a pleasure to see Farrell and Gleeson together again. There’s an undefinable chemistry between them, one that suggests they have a deep bond, which makes the break in their on-screen friendship so effective.
Gleeson, as a man thinking of his legacy, fighting off the despair of realizing, late in life, that he hasn’t actually felt anything authentic in years, is a towering presence. He has woken up from his isolated, mundane existence and takes extremes to change his life, leaving Pádraic in the dust.
As rock solid as Gleeson is, it is Farrell’s shift in tone from heartbroken to desperate to steely that steals the show. As someone who prided himself in being a “nice” person, watching the darkness grow in him is fascinating. It’s subtle, delivered with sly changes of expression, but compelling as he goes through the stages of grief for his lost friendship.
“The Banshees of Inisherin” would be worth the price of admission only for the inventive use of colloquial Irish swearing. Come for the cussing, but stay for the performances and the palpable sense of devastation that comes when a friendship ends, and there is no one to share a pint with at the local pub.
