Richard joins CP24 anchor Nathan Downer to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including Denzel Washington in “The Equalizer 2,” the delightful “Eighth Grade” and the biopic “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Erin Paul to have a look at the weekend’s big releases, Denzel Washington in “The Equalizer 2,” the delightful “Eighth Grade” and the biopic “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Like a perfectly cooked egg, or popping the individual pockets of air on bubble wrap or the “pawooof” sound a properly opened bottle of champagne makes, watching Denzel Washington open up a can of whoop ass on bad people is extraordinarily satisfying. His latest film, “The Equalizer 2,” the first sequel in his long and stories career, offers up a cornucopia of fisticuffian delights that should keeps fans of tough guy Denzel happy.
Denzel returns as former secret agent and righter-of-wrongs Robert McCall. Although he’s looking to scale back his ongoing quest to protect and serve the exploited and oppressed, when his former boss and close friend Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo) is murdered, he goes looking for revenge. “You killed my friend,” he says to the baddies, “so I’m going to kill each and every one of you. My only disappointment is that I only get to do it once.” Cue the carnage, Denzel-style.
There’s more, like a subplot with a young artist McCall tries to steer away from gang life and some double crosses, but you don’t go to an “Equalizer” movie for the social messaging or the plot. You go to see Denzel reign holy hell down on people that deserve a punch or two. That’s why the first, largely plot free, half of the movie is more satisfying than the second. We see McCall in random situations doing what he does best, not getting bogged down by the vagaries of narrative style or thematic statements. The fight scenes are don’t vary much, he scopes out the room, mutters a killer one-liner and devastates those who get in his way. It’s in the second half, after Susan’s murder that it sags as the movie strays into procedural territory. McCall’s investigative work leads to another improbable “Equalizer” style climax, although this one, set in a beach town during a hurricane, isn’t quite as ridiculous as the Home Hardware shootout—who knew those places were so dangerous?—in the first film, but it still requires some suspension of disbelief. (Start by asking yourself, when did he have time to hang up all those pictures of Susan in a wild windstorm?)
Director Antoine Fuqua has snapped up the pace from the first film, showcased the action, and added in two great motivators, betrayal and grief. Washington brings gravitas and ferocity to a character stuck somewhere between atoning for his violent life by helping those around him and knocking the snot out of people who get on his bad side. This sequel muddies the character by presenting him as a one-man posse, meting out his own brand of over-the-top justice. You can root for him, just don’t get on his bad side.
Not as trashy as “Death Wish” or as action-packed as “John Wick,” two other exemplars of the man on a crusade genre, “The Equalizer 2” is a solidly entertaining popcorn flick with pretensions of bringing Shakespearean level of pathos to the tale of vengeance. Instead, it’s “Taken” with the special set of skills and without the annoying daughter character.
Richard joins CP24 anchor Nathan Downer to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the giant ape movie “Rampage,” the touching drama “Indian Horse,” the Middle East thriller “Beirut” starring Jon Hamm and Joaquin Phoenix in “You Were Never Really Here.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the weekend’s big releases, the giant ape movie “Rampage,” the touching drama “Indian Horse,” the Middle East thriller “Beirut” starring Jon Hamm and Joaquin Phoenix in “You Were Never Really Here.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
“You Were Never Really Here” is about a man with a special set of skills who rescues young women and yet it couldn’t be any more different from “Taken” and other recent guardian angel action movies.
Joaquin Phoenix stars as Joe, a bulky, bearded veteran who lives with his mother. When he isn’t rescuing young girls from human traffickers he’s doing household chores, helping his mom clean the silver wear or, when memories of his violent past overtake him, trying to kill himself.
Driven by vengeance and haunted by memories of childhood abuse he metes out punishment to human traffickers, violently beating them with fists and hammers. “Can you be brutal?” asks a client. “I can,” he replies calmly.
When a job retrieving Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), the eleven-year-old daughter of a high-ranking New York politician (Alex Manette), from a pedophile ring goes sideways, Joe is forced to delve deeper than ever before.
There is violence in “You Were Never Really Here” but don’t expect a Liam Neeson style action flick. First of all Joe’s special set of skills mainly include surveillance and ball peen hammer assault. Secondly Joe doesn’t have any catchphrases. He’s a secretive man of action, plagued by PTSD and driven by a sense of righteous justice. Think Travis Bickle, not former Green Beret and CIA operative Bryan Mills.
Phoenix delivers a deceptively simple performance. A man of few words Joe expresses himself in other ways and Phoneix finds way to do much while doing very little. The pain in his eyes, amplified by random flashbacks to his troubled youth, reveals both his personal torture and why he works exclusively with mistreated children. More importantly are the traces of humanity that slip through Joe’s blank façade. The way he dotes on his mother or holds a dying man’s hand, singing along with a syrupy pop song, as life slips away. In another scene he instructs his pre-teen rescue to close her eyes, trying to protect what little innocence she has left, before he bludgeons one of her captors to death. It’s in these moments that Joe becomes a fully rounded character and not simply a killing machine.
Scottish director Lynne Ramsay never gives away the game, doling out the details only as necessary. The flashbacks are jagged, poking into the story like a shard of glass slashing through silk. Those elements, bolstered by an anxiety inducing score—loud, abrasive yet beautiful—from Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, combine to present an intriguing, elliptical portrait of a tortured soul.
Welcome to the House of Crouse. This week the director and star of the terrific neo-noir “Sweet Virginia,” Jamie M. Dagg and Christopher Abbott swing by to ask, How do you have a soft spot for a murderous psychopath? Then Shirley Gnome, “the Queen troubadour of intelligent black-comic sex balladry,” stops by to talk carnal cabaret, hecklers and her new album Take It Up The Notch. It’s good stuff! Stop by and sit a spell!
By Richard Crouse – Toronto Star
Centred around a motel in a small Alaskan town, Sweet Virginia is a story of people and a place gripped by greed, frustration and murder.
“I’m originally from a small town,” says the Timmins, Ont.-born director Jamie M. Dagg, “so I’m really fascinated by how the lack of anonymity in small communities changes the dynamics and how people relate to one another where everyone is incestuously interwoven into the fabric of the community. Keeping secrets is really difficult.”
In the film, opening Friday, Christopher Abbott is Elwood, a dead-eyed psychopath who comes to town to do a job. He’s been contracted to kill a man. He does the hit, callously killing two innocent bystanders in the process. Waiting for his money, he checks into the motel run by Sam (Jon Bernthal, star of The Punisher on Netflix), a former rodeo star now sidelined by injuries. The two men strike up a friendship as Elwood grows edgy and unpredictable waiting for the person who hired him to cough up his fee… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at “The Disaster Artist,” the neo-noir “Sweet Virginia” and the buddy flick “Suck It Up.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
