Richard and CP24 anchor Courtney Heels have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the English antics of “The Gentlemen,” the heartfelt heroics of “The Last Good Measure” and the spacey drama of “Color Out of Space.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CTV NewsChannel to have a look at the weekend’s big releases including the heartfelt heroics of “The Last Good Measure” and the spacey drama of “Color Out of Space” and Guy Ritchie’s return to form in “The Gentlemen.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres including Guy Ritchie’s return to the street in “The Gentlemen,” the heartfelt heroics of “The Last Good Measure” and the spacey drama of “Color Out of Space.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
A weekly feature from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest and most interesting movies! This week Richard looks at the return of “Snatch” style Guy Ritchie in “The Gentlemen,” the war drama “The Last Good Measure” and the first weird Nicolas Cage movie of 2020 “Color Out of Space.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk the new movies coming to theatres including the wham-bam-thank-you-maam theatrics of “The Gentlemen,” the heartfelt heroics of “The Last Good Measure” and the spacey drama of “Color Out of Space.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“The Last Full Measure” is the story of two men who are driven by a sense of duty to people they never met.
Based on a true story of bravery during one of the “bloodiest days” of the Vietnam War, the movie begins thirty-two years later when Pentagon staffer Scott Huffman (Sebastien Stan) takes a meeting with Master Sergeant Thomas Tully, Air Force Rescue, retired (William Hurt). Tully wants Huffman’s help to posthumously upgrade U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen William H. Pitsenbarger’s (Jeremy Irvine) Air Force Cross medal to a Medal of Honor, America’s highest and most prestigious personal military decoration. Huffman, an ambitious Department of Defence lawyer, thinks it is a waste of time but is ordered to, “take a few days and collect some war stories,” by his boss Carlton Stanton (Bradley Whitford).
His research connects him with survivors of the battle, U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division soldiers Takoda (Samuel L. Jackson), Burr (Peter Fonda) and Mott (Ed Harris), men whose lives were saved by Pitsenbarger. At first he regards their stories as an exercise in “post traumatic exorcism” but soon comes to realize that Pitsenbarger made what Abraham Lincoln called “gave the last full measure of devotion” to help men he didn’t know. By bravely inserting himself into the middle of an ambush he saved over sixty soldiers, losing his life in the process and yet was not awarded the military’s highest honor. With the support of Pitsenbarger’s parents (Christopher Plummer & Diane Ladd), Huffman risks his professional life to go ona journey of self-discovery and uncover a conspiracy that extends to the highest reaches of power at the Pentagon.
Told in flashbacks to the fateful day on the battlefield, “The Last Full Measure” is part detective story, part examination of what it means to be a soldier. Huffman’s interviews reveal men troubled by the events of a life time ago, riddled with PTSD, unable to sleep or function in regular society. Tully, in particular is wracked by survivor’s guilt, the feeling that he didn’t do enough while Pitsenbarger gave his all. These scenes aren’t subtle but what they lack in finesse they make up for in sheer thought-provoking power.
The film’s strength may be as a conversation starter regarding the psychological price soldiers pay when they return from war. But as well-intentioned as the film’s messages of respect for the sacrifices of the fallen are, “The Last Full Measure” succumbs to melodrama at almost every turn. Clichéd, tough guy dialogue and characters that feel more like a collection of tics than actual fully rounded people, detract from the film’s serious message.
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Erin Paul to have a look at the weekend’s big releases, “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” the Christopher Plummer road trip “Boundaries,” the family drama “Leave No Trace” and the love letter to one of Manhattan’s most famous hotels, “Always at the Carlyle.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at the latest Marvel superhero flick “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” the Christopher Plummer road trip “Boundaries” and the glitz documentary “Always at the Carlyle.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
The trouble with making a feel good movie about a scoundrel is twofold. Either the scoundrel is neutered, which makes them less interesting, or remains a scoundrel, which complicates the feel good vibe. “Boundaries,” a new film starring Vera Farmiga and Christopher Plummer, tries to have it both ways and ends up in the mushy middle.
Farmiga is Laura, a single mom with son Henry (Lewis MacDougall), a house full of rescued animals and daddy issues. “I’m so messed up I can’t even tell my therapist everything,” she says. She’s been working at setting up boundaries with her father Jack—when he calls the name display reads, “Don’t Pick Up!”—but when he gets kicked out of his nursing home due to his “unorthodox“—i.e. “illegal”—ways of making money she agrees to help him by driving him to Los Angeles to live with his other daughter Jojo (Kristen Schaal).
The formerly estranged father and daughter, along with Henry and a backseat full of stray dogs set out for what should be an uneventful trip. Trouble is, Jack is the above-mentioned scoundrel and a drug dealer who fills the trunk with $200,000 of marijuana he plans on selling along the way. When he isn’t dealing they detour to visit old friends, like Stanley (Christopher Lloyd), a nudist art forger and other ghosts from Jack and Laura’s past. As dad gets up to his old tricks Laura sees a different side of the man she thought she knew. But can he really change or is her ex-husband Leonard (Bobby Cannavale) right when he says, “An elephant will always be an elephant. He will never be a monkey.”
“Boundaries” has a fine cast trapped by a conventional script.
Farmiga battles through the family dramedy clichés to portray Laura as vulnerable and protective, a woman who has filled the hole in her heart with her stray animals and a fierce love of her Henry.
MacDougall is strong as a troubled youth who, when he isn’t drawing nude portraits of his friends and teachers to reveal their true souls, is caught up in the adventure of getting to know his untraditional grandfather.
It is Plummer, however, who brings the charm. He’s likely too old to be playing Farmiga’s father but his trademarked twinkle shines through. When Laura says, “You make people fall in love with you and then you leave,” she sums up both Jack’s appeal and his selfishness. Plummer, at 88, is a formidable actor whose mere presence elevates this Cliché-A-Thon from “Old Codger on a Road Trip Part XXII” to “Skilful Actor Transcending the Material.” It’s a terrific performance that nonetheless rings hollow. Jack is a man who only ever cared about himself, who abandoned his family and calls his relationship with Henry “a temporary situation,” and is the square peg rammed into this round hole of a feel good story.
In movies like “Boundaries” (MILD SPOILER!!) everyone gets a happy ending but Jack would have been more interesting if writer-director Shana Feste had allowed the scoundrel to remain a scoundrel.
