I appear on “CTV News at 11:30” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the best movies and television to watch this weekend, including the stop-motion animated “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” the rerelease of “Se7en” and the spy thriller “Harbin.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV Atlantic anchor Todd Battis to talk about the stop-motion animated “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” the sports drama “The Fire Inside” and the rerelease of “Seven.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the CTV NewsChannel to talk about the animated “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” the spy thriller “Harbin” and the rerelease of “Seven.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a high five! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the animated “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” the spy thriller “Harbin” and the rerelease of “Seven.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
For better and for worse, “A Good Person,” the new drama, written and directed by Zach Braff, starring Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman, and now playing in theatres, is a portrait of the messiness of addiction.
Pharmaceutical rep—and part time jazz singer—Allison’s (Pugh) happy, carefree life falls apart when the car she is driving veers off the road, leaving two relatives dead, her future sister-in-law Molly (Nichelle Hines), and Molly’s husband Jesse (Toby Onwumere). Allison survives, but to combat residual pain, is prescribed OxyContin painkillers.
Now, a year later, consumed with guilt, she is unemployed, living at home with her mother Diane (Molly Shannon), estranged from fiancé Nathan (Chinaza Uche) and addicted to the opioids.
Allison’s life shifts when she bumps into Daniel (Morgan), the father of her ex-fiancé and Molly, who perished in the crash, at an AA meeting. The stern, ex-cop—who leans into pronouncements like, “Better to be half-an-hour early, than one minute late.”—blames Allison for the accident, but attempts to find common ground with her and possibly chart a course through their shared grief.
“Neither of us chose this fate,” he says, “but perhaps we can find a way to love it.”
“A Good Person” features fine performances from Pugh and Freeman, but, despite its heavy subject matter, defaults to a feel-good vibe in scene after scene.
Pugh, even with her movie star glow, convinces as a person drained of the will to live and Morgan’s mix of grandpa and Dirty Harry is entertaining and occasionally moving, but they are undone by a script laced with platitudes. Written by Braff, the story brushes up against the edges of the emotionality required to give us all the feels, but every time it begins to feel authentic, it takes a turn to the artificial. Braff never met a manipulative moment he couldn’t exploit, and it blunts the effectiveness of the storytelling.
“A Good Person’s” set-up suggests a deep dive into survivor’s guilt, addiction and, ultimately, forgiveness, but the lack of jagged edges and grit feels more Hallmark than harrowing.
Sidney Poitier, who passed away in January 2022, led a remarkable life, one vividly portrayed in the Oprah Winfrey-produced documentary “Sidney,” now steaming on Apple TV+. “He doesn’t make movies, he makes milestones,” says U.S. President Barack Obama in the film, “milestones of America’s progress.”
In an interview shot with Winfrey in 2012, the “To Sir with Love” actor, staring directly into the camera, tells of his childhood in Nassau. A master storyteller, he recalls how he almost died as a baby, shares wonderful stories about his loving parents, recalls seeing a car for the first time, and marvels at his first glance into a mirror.
His move to the United States from a predominantly Black community in the Bahamas, is fraught with racism and threats of violence from the Ku Klux Klan, but tempered by kindness from a waiter who helps him learn to read, using the newspaper as a textbook.
Landing in Harlem, he is introduced to the world of acting, and has the good fortune to go on as an understudy in a New York City stage production on the same night a big-time Broadway producer is in the house. That leg up set on a path that would see him become the first Black man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor (for 1963’s Lilies of the Field), a civil right activist and diplomat.
It is a comprehensive, linear look at Poitier’s life, one that brings Winfrey to tears, and in the retelling of a pivotal scene in “In the Heat of the Night,” where Poitier, as detective Virgil Tibbs responds to being slapped by a white redneck, by slapping him back, brings a delightful response from Morgan Freeman.
Director Reginald Hudlin assembles a mix of archival footage, new interviews with Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Winfrey and others, and plenty of film clips, to present a well told story of a well lived and influential life. The result is an entertaining and informative doc about an extraordinary life. “When I die,” Poitier said, “I will not be afraid of having lived.”
Based on the 1982 film of the same name by Harry Hurwitz, “The Comeback Trail,” now on VOD, is star Robert de Niro’s third Hollywood satire after 1997’s “Wag the Dog” and 2008’s “What Just Happened.” It doesn’t pack the same kind of sardonic punch as those films but supplies a laugh or two.
Set in 1974, De Niro plays Max Barber, a Hollywood hanger-on and producer of bottom-of-the-bill b-movies with names like “Killer Nuns.” He dreams of the big time, of making an epic but his reputation and lack of money put his dream out of reach until he concocts a deadly scam.
With his unsuspecting partner and nephew Walter (Zach Braff), Barber sets up a new film starring Duke Montana (Tommy Lee Jones), a suicidal western star living in a home for retired and forgotten, actors. The tough old coot spends his days playing Russian Roulette, but when Barber offers him a gig, Duke thinks this might his comeback and puts away the gun.
Barber, who is being pressured by gangster Reggie Fontaine (Morgan Freeman) to repay a sizeable loan, has other ideas. His scam is to kill Duke, shut down the movie he never planned to finish, and, make a killing, literally, with the insurance money.
But, like so many things in Barber’s life, his scheme doesn’t go as planned.
“The Comeback Trail” is a movie in love with the movies. Barber and Fontaine banter in movie references—“I’m gonna choke you.” “Like Tony Curtis in the Boston Strangler?”—and, ultimately, it sings the praises of the power of the movies to inspire and transform lives.
Film fans may enjoy the sentiment but they likely won’t be as impressed by the slack pacing and obvious telegraphing of joke after joke. It takes ages to get to the heart of the one-joke premise and, while there are mild laughs sprinkled throughout, as soon as director George Gallo (who wrote “Midnight Run”) allows the story to limp on to the film set-with-the-film, the movie starts to run out of steam.
Of the three Oscar winners who headline “The Comeback Trail,” only Jones appears invested in creating a memorable character. His take on the “broke-down-over-the-hill-has been” Montana has enough flashes of pathos to hint at what this movie could have been, a bittersweet comedy about the dreamers who live and breathe celluloid, but the movie’s silly tone lets him down.
“The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard,” the odd couple buddy flick starring Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson and now playing in theatres, is a story about finding your logical, not biological family, disguised as violent shoot ‘em up comedy.
As the movie begins Michael Bryce (Reynolds) is “like a belly dancer without a torso.” He’s lost his bodyguard license and is in therapy. Tormented by bad dreams, he’s fixated on a customer who was killed by hitman Darius Kincaid (Jackson) while on his watch. On sabbatical in Capri (“like the pants”) Italy, he imagines a world without bodyguards or guns.
But his newfound inner peace doesn’t last long. Just as he is shaking off his old life he is drawn back into the game, hunted down by Sonia Kincaid (Salma Hayek), who uses fire power and moxy to lure him out of semi-retirement to rescue her husband, Darius. That’s right, the guy who has been haunting Michael’s dreams.
As the bodies pile up in the wake of their rescue attempt, it turns out Darius actually said, “Get me anyone BUT Michael Bryce!” Nonetheless, this mismatched trio work together to prevent a madman (Antonio Banderas) from destroying Europe and throwing the world into chaos.
“The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” is a sequel to the equally noisy 2017 film “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” but despite the appealing leads and the addition of Hayek, Banderas and Morgan Freeman, doesn’t have the same silly charm. The first movie was an over-the-top mish mash of exotic locations, violence, jokes and romance. The sequel contains all those elements, but is somehow less than the sum of its parts.
Given the talent involved, this should be more fun.
Reynolds works his way with a line like a master tradesman, recalling the kind of goofy smart aleck characters he played early in his career. Jackson makes use of his expertise with swearwords and is only upstaged by Hayek, whose entertaining use of salty language would make a sailor blush. But, take away those sweary flourishes, and you’re left with is a few quick laughs, casual video game violence, a body count that rivals the “Lord of the Rings” franchise and an unconvincing attempt at sentimentality.
Between the gun battles is a thinly sketched subplot about finding family wherever you can, but it is played for laughs and gets lost in the ballet of bullets and explosions.
“The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” is pure escapism, a loud, brash movie that mixes well with popcorn, but leaves a funny aftertaste in your mouth.
If action movies are the heavy-metal of the film world then “Angel Has Fallen,” starring Gerard Butler in his third turn as Secret Service Agent Mike Banning, is the Ywengie Malsteen of the genre. It’s too loud, too frenetic with too many notes.
After years on the job Banning is starting to feel the wear and tear of protecting the president. Concussions have given him with migraines and insomnia. Getting knocked around by bad guys has left him with painful compressed discs, and his doctor is not hopeful. “You’re a disaster waiting to happen.”
Things aren’t much better at work. According to President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) the White House is, “leakier than a submarine with a screen door,” with top level info somehow making its way into the hands of nosy reporters. “I don’t know who to trust anymore,” says Trumbull. Of course, he trusts Banning, so much so he chooses him to head the massive security team accompanying him on a fishing trip. Out on the water it’s chilly, but idyllic until the hundreds of drones swoop in, wiping out the entire POTUS security detail except for Banning.
Later, in the hospital Banning is grilled by an FBI agent. “The president is in a coma and your whole team is dead. Tell me how that happened.”
Trouble is, he doesn’t remember and the FBI, who have discovered his DNA on launch controls, encrypted folders and a $10 million in an offshore bank, look at him as the sole suspect. “President Trumbull’s top guardian angel has fallen tonight,” screams a news report.
Banning has saved cities, rescued presidents but can he save himself? Cue the explosions and a rather memorable cameo from Nick Nolte as, what else, a grizzled old man.
“Angel Has Fallen” plays its hand at every turn, telegraphing the obvious, making sure the audience, who likely aren’t paying attention to the dialogue in anticipation of more explosions, get every detail. That means no suspense, just loud noises. Lots of them. Former stuntman-turned-director Ric Roman Waugh loves to blow things up, filling the screen with flames and your ears with booms. It’s the stuff of action movies, but when coupled with dialogue that sounds like it was run through the Cliché-O-Matic—”I’m not going to stop until I prove you really did this!”—the action is more of a distraction from the story than a compliment to it.
The film has under currents of social commentary. A bad guy bets on “making America strong again” and Danny Houston’s character, a war dog named Wade Jennings, ushers in a conversation on private soldiers, but neither are explored in any depth.
“Angel Has Fallen” has its pleasures. Nolte is a gas and fans of pyrotechnics will be satisfied but it feels more like a direct to steaming actioner than a big screen experience.
