Category: Arts and Entertainment

This category is about arts and entertainment.

Review: ‘Un Rescate de Huevitos,’ starring the voices of Bruno Bichir, Maite Perroni, Oliver Flores, Dione Riva Palacio Santacruz, Carlos Espejel, Angélica Vale and Mayra Rojas

September 7, 2021

by Carla Hay

Toto (voiced by Bruno Bichir), Willy (played by Carlos Espejel), Toporocho (voiced by Claudio Herrera), Bacon, Di (voiced by Maite Perroni), Bibi (voiced by Angélica Vale) and Confi (voiced by Gabriel Riva Palacio Alatriste) in “Un Rescate de Huevitos” (Photo courtesy of Pantelion Films)

“Un Rescate de Huevitos”

Directed by Gabriel Riva Palacio Alatriste and Rodolfo Riva Palacio Alatriste

Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Mexico and Congo, the animated film “Un Rescate de Huevitos” features a group of talking animals, as well as human Russians and Mexicans.

Culture Clash: A greedy villainess, who collects valuable eggs for a Russian baron, steals two young “golden eggs,” whose rooster father and hen mother go on the hunt to rescue their children.

Culture Audience: “Un Rescate de Huevitos” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching family-friendly animated adventure stories.

Duquesa (voiced by Mayra Rojas) in “Un Rescate de Huevitos” (Photo courtesy of Pantelion Films)

“Un Rescate de Huevitos” (which means “An Egg Rescue” in English) is a lightweight, fun-filled ride for people who enjoy animation with a predictable story arc that’s entertaining, thanks to the variety of characters and amusing situations. The movie might seem to be a little overstuffed with characters for very young viewers or for people with short attention spans. However, the adventurous plot of the movie is very easy to follow, which makes “Un Rescate de Huevitos” a crowd-pleasing film for many generations.

Directed by brothers Gabriel Riva Palacio Alatriste and Rodolfo Riva Palacio Alatriste, “Un Rescate de Huevitos” is the fourth in Huevocartoon Producciones’ “Huevos” animated series of films that follows the life of a rooster chicken named Toto, beginning from when he was an egg in the first movie to now being a husband and father in this fourth film. The Alatriste brothers (who co-founded Huevocartoon Producciones) co-wrote the “Un Rescate de Huevitos” screenplay.

In “Un Rescate de Huevitos,” Toto (voiced by Bruno Bichir) and his wife Di (voiced by Maite Perroni) are living happily on Granjas el Pollon (El Pollon Farms) somewhere in Mexico. These two lovebirds have welcomed two golden eggs into their family: a boy named Max (voiced by Oliver Flores) and a girl named Uly (voiced by Dione Riva Palacio Santacruz).

These new parents (especially Toto) are very protective of their eggs and get some babysitting help from their egg friend Bibi (voiced by Angélica Vale), who is dating Toto’s egg best friend Willy (played by Carlos Espejel), a former military sergeant. Even though the eggs haven’t become chickens yet, they have minds of their own and want to be independent. Max is very resentful of his father Toto being overprotective, and they have disagreements about it.

The farm’s human owner La Abuelita (voiced by María Alicia Delgado) is so entranced with the eggs’ golden appearance that she enters the eggs into a contest for ranchers and farmers can show off their young animals. The eggs win the grand prize. La Abuelita is proud and delighted, but her joy won’t last long because the eggs are about to be stolen.

At this contest is a Russian egg collector named Duquesa (voiced by Mayra Rojas), a ruthless villain who wants eggs as treasures and as delicacies. She’s looking for chicken eggs to complete her collection. Duquesa (which means “duchess” in English; her real name is Guadalupe) works for Barón Roncovich (voiced by Humberto Vélez), who hosts a gala event in Africa for society’s elite from all over the world. At this event, rare eggs are served as delicacies.

Duquesa immediately wants the golden eggs for Barón Roncovich’s upcoming gala, so she offers to buy Max and Uly for $200, but La Abuelita declines the offer. But that doesn’t stop Duquesa, who orders two hired thugs who are bothers—Panzovich (voiced by Héctor Lee) and Gordimitri (voiced by Juan Frese)—to follow La Abuelita and her family back to the farm. The thug brothers send animal moles with mind-control helmets to the farm to steal Max and Uly.

Uly and Max’s loved ones are frantic when they find that out the two eggs are missing. They form a rescue group consisting of Toto, Di, Willy, Bibi, a goofy Cascarón egg named Confi (voiced by Gabriel Riva Palacio Alatriste) and a mute bacon strip called Bacon. The thugs betray the moles by leaving the helmets on, and the moles can’t take them off without help.

Willy and Bibi find track down one of the moles, whose name is Toporocho (voiced by Claudio Herrera), and they free him from the helmet. In gratitude, Toporocho tells the rescue group that the eggs are on a plane headed to the African country of Congo. The rescuers hitch a ride on the plane, but a series of events get them thrown off the plane and into the jungles of Congo, where they have no idea where they are.

Meanwhile, Max and Uly have been placed in a collector’s jar. They are being held captive with other eggs who are in the same predicament: Torti, a slow-speaking turtle egg with powerful jaws. snake egg Serp (voiced by Gabriel Riva Palacio Alatriste); crocodile egg Coco (voiced by Rodolfo Riva Palacio Alatriste); lizard egg Lagatijo (voiced by Gabriel Riva Palacio Alatriste); ostrich egg Manotas (voiced by Gabriel Riva Palacio Alatriste); iguana egg Iguano (also voiced by Rodolfo Riva Palacio Alatriste); ostrich egg Huevo de Halcón (voiced by Armando González); eagle egg El Huevo de Águila Real (voiced by Mauricio Barrientos); famine quail egg Huevo de Codorniz (voiced by Ximena de Anda); and peacock egg Pavi (voiced by Mónica Santacruz).

Other characters that make appearances in the movie include chicken-eating opossums (and partners in crime) Tlacua (voiced by Fernando Meza) and Cuache (voiced by Rodolfo Riva Palacio Alatriste). There are also two monkeys named El Chango Bananero (voiced by Freddy Ortega) and El Chango Petacón (voiced by German Ortega that are talent scouts for a “Congo’s Got Talent” show, with a lion named Rey León (voiced by Jesús Ochoa), also known as Leonidas I.

One of the best things about “Un Rescate de Huevitos” is that it keeps the adventurous spirit consistent throughout the entire movie, whose pace doesn’t lag. The captured eggs are transported a refrigerator, where they face near-freezing temperatures due to a mishap and almost face death. There’s also some sly commentary about humans, such when the “king of the jungle” lion says, “No one can beat humans. They are the worst predators.”

As the chief villain, Duquesa is a over-the-top character, as expected. In terms of visual style, she seems to be greatly inspired by the Disney character Cruella. And her snarls and cackles are hit all the right beats, but she’s more campy than scary.

The animation for “Un Rescate de Huevitos” is very above-average, but not outstanding. The best visual scenes are in the jungle during the “Congo’s Got Talent” contest. What keeps this movie engaging is the way that the jokes flow well and stay true to the characters.

There are no heavy-handed and preachy messages in “Un Rescate de Huevitos.” It’s simply a breezy escapist movie about family and the appreciation of loved ones. Sometimes that’s all you need if you’re looking for a movie that children and adults can enjoy.

Pantelion Films released “Un Rescate de Huevitos” in select U.S. cinemas on August 27, 2021. The movie was released in Mexico on August 12, 2021.

Review: ‘Chehre,’ starring Emraan Hashmi, Amitabh Bachchan, Annu Kapoor, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Rhea Chakraborty, Raghuvir Yadav and Krystle D’Souza

September 7, 2021

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from left to right: Raghuvir Yadav, Emraan Hashmi, Siddhant Kapoor, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Annu Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan in “Chehre” (Photo courtesy of Anand Pandit Motion Pictures)

“Chehre”

Directed by Rumi Jaffery

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the dramatic film “Chehre” features an almost all-Indian cast of characters (with a few white people) representing the middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: During a snowstorm, a traveling advertising executive finds himself stranded in a mansion with strangers who want to play a dangerous “mock courtroom trial” game with him. 

Culture Audience: “Chehre” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in “trapped in the snow” mystery thrillers and don’t mind if the movie has ridiculous plot holes and takes too long to tell the story.

Rhea Chakraborty in “Chehre” (Photo courtesy of Anand Pandit Motion Pictures)

“Chehre” earnestly tries to be an intriguing mystery thriller, but the entire film buries a badly conceived plot in a steady pile-on of nonsense, just like the snowstorm that takes place during the movie. This snowstorm is the reason why the main characters are confined to a mansion, where a guest at the house is pressured into playing a game where he is the defendant in a mock trial. During this trial, secrets are revealed and not everyone might survive this game.

“Chehre” (which is the Hindi word for “faces”) is a little too long (139 minutes) and a little too bloated to sustain this flimsy story, which gets more ridiculous as time goes on. It’s not a boring film, but it seems as if the filmmakers became too enamored with adding in ludicrous complications, in order to stretch out the movie in unnecessary ways. Directed by Rumi Jaffery, who co-wrote the “Chehre” screenplay with Ranjit Kapoor, “Chehre” wants desperately to be a horror-inspired thriller, but it’s more like a soap opera than a scary movie.

You know you’re in store for a self-indulgent film when the opening credits scene features a nearly five-minute morality lecture from the movie’s most judgmental character: Lateef Zaidi (played by Amitabh Bachchan), who is sitting in a chair inside an empty room of a mansion. He is later revealed to be a criminal prosecutor. And he rambles on about how life is a series of judgments, karma and paying for sins. It telegraphs too early what happens later in the movie.

After hearing this pretentious speech, viewers then see a BMW driving on a deserted road somewhere in India during a snowstorm. The driver is an advertising executive in his early 40s named Sameer Mehra (played by Emraan Hashmi), who is lost and trying to find the road to Delhi. A turban-wearing older man is walking on the side of the road, so Sameer asks this stranger if he is on the road to Delhi. The man says no. And just like that, a tree suddenly falls right in front of the car, making it impossible for the car to pass the tree on the road

There’s no explanation for why Sameer is in this deserted part of India during a snowstorm. It’s all just a contrivance for what happens later in the story. The stranger comes to Sameer’s rescue and says the obvious: There’s no way the car can continue driving forward on the road because the tree is blocking the pathway. The stranger also says that he doesn’t know when officials will arrive to remove the tree.

Sameer is dismayed because he was on the way to an important business meeting, which he will probably no longer be able to attend. The stranger introduces himself as Paramjeet Singh Bhuller (played by Annu Kapoor), and he tells Sameer that luckily a friend of Paramjeet’s lives nearby and would be able to accommodate Sameer to stay there during the snowstorm until Sameer can get help. Sameer gladly accepts the offer. Sameer soon sees that there’s more than enough room to accommodate him because the house where he’ll be temporarily staying is a mansion.

The mansion’s owner/host Jagdhish Acharya (played by Dhritiman Chatterjee) is a retired judge. Also at the house are Lateef (the sanctimonious man seen in the movie’s opening credits) and an elderly man named Hariya Jatav (played by Raghuvir Yadav), who likes to play the flute. Lateef says he’s a chief prosecutor, while Paramjeet is a defense attorney. It’s revealed a little later that Hariya is retired and used to work in law enforcement in a very different capacity from the judge and lawyers.

There are two servants in the mansion: Anna (played by Rhea Chakraborty), a shy and attractive housekeeper/cook in her 20s, and Joe (played by Siddhant Kapoor), a brooding handyman in his 20s who is the “strong and silent” type. Sameer finds out that there’s no cell phone service during this storm. And the land line phone service isn’t available either.

And here’s the first red flag that Sameer should have noticed: He’s told that there’s no Internet service either, even if there hadn’t been a snowstorm. In other words, there’s no way that Sameer can immediately communicate with anyone outside of the mansion. Sameer is annoyed by this inconvenience, but he seems satisfied in knowing that at least he’ll be staying at a mansion with servants.

The BMW that Sameer is driving is owned by the advertising agency that employs him as the president/CEO. The agency is owned by a woman in her 30s named Mrs. Natasha Oswal (played by Krystle D’Souza), whose late husband founded the agency. Her much-older husband died a month earlier, and Sameer was promoted to the top executive position to replace the deceased founder. The movie has flashbacks to Sameer’s life in the year before he came to stay at this mansion.

As the men settle in the living room for some drinks, Sameer is told that it’s a tradition for guests in the house to play a game after they have dinner. Sameer doesn’t seem to care to hear about this game because he doesn’t think he’ll be at the mansion for very long. He’s about to find out the hard way how wrong he is about that.

The men ask Sameer about himself. Sameer tells them that he’s the president/CEO of a successful advertising agency, and he has a MBA degree. He is supposed to be in Delhi to meet with an important client to do a photo ad shoot for Butterfly Collections, which are trinket toys that look and move like real butterflies. Sameer has two of these butterfly trinkets that he gives to Anna, who giggles and expresses childlike delight and fascination with these butterflies.

Sameer also says that he’s happily married and has a 5-year-old son named Varan. Lateef notices that Sameer has a gold cigarette case inscribed with the words “With Love from N.O.” When Lateef is asked who “N.O.” is, Sameer says it’s just a friend. Sameer won’t say if it’s a male or female friend and quickly changes the subject.

After dinner, Sameer gets even more pressure to play the game that the other men say all the guests have to play. They explain the game is a mock courtroom trial where the guest is the defendant. Jagdhish will be the judge, Lateef will be the prosecutor, and Paramjeet will be the defense attorney.

The guest is allowed to choose the crime that the guest is “on trial” for, and Sameer is told that it’s to the guest/defendant’s advantage to be the one to make this choice. If not, the choice will be made for the “defendant” on what the crime will be. And it could be for a crime that might be hard to defend.

Sameer says he’s not interested. But then, Anna chimes in and says it would hurt the host’s feelings if Sameer didn’t play the game. Because he doesn’t want to appear rude, Sameer eventually gives in and says yes. However, Sameer says he won’t choose the “crime” for this “trial” because he’s a good person who hasn’t committed any crimes in real life.

Sameer is very smug and self-assured about how morally pure he is. A little too smug. And when someone sounds too perfect to be true, it’s usually a façade. The other men seem to already know it because when Sameer goes on “trial,” it’s revealed that Sameer isn’t as upstanding as he wants people to think he is.

One of the biggest flaws of “Chehre” is how easily Sameer exposes a lot of his secrets. There are hints that there might be supernatural forces at play in how Sameer ended up at this mansion, because it was all a set-up to trap Sameer. The men at the mansion seemed to have been able to have extraordinary control over the circumstances that led Sameer to that mansion in order to get him to play the “mock trial” game. However, the movie gives no real insight into how supernatural these “mock courtroom” men might or might not be.

The “trial” part of the movie isn’t very well-written because the defense attorney doesn’t even make any closing arguments. And the movie takes a very jumbled and convoluted route (with several flashbacks) to get to what’s obviously is going to happen. There are some very gimmicky “plot twists” that try to rewrite some of what was previously established in the story.

Most of the actors give adequate performances, with Hasmhi faring the best because his Sameer character ends up being the most complicated. Chakraborty has the least-impressive acting of the principal cast members. But maybe that’s because she doesn’t quite know how to authentically portray Anna, who is supposed to have mental health issues because of a past trauma. Unfortunately, “Chehre” has limited stereotypes for the women who have significant speaking roles in this movie: The women are either subservient or seductive in “Chehre.”

Because the movie goes on for too long, viewers might find their patience tested when it’s revealed about halfway through the movie that this is no ordinary game, and the men who instigated this game have sinister intentions. The movie’s visual effects aren’t very good. The secrets that are revealed are as cliché as you would imagine them to be. The only real suspense is in wanting to know how the movie will end. But because there are so many awful characters in “Chehre,” viewers will probably have emotionally checked out long before the movie’s underwhelming conclusion.

Anand Pandit Motion Pictures and Saraswati Entertainment Private Ltd. released “Chehre” in cineams in the U.S., India and several other countries on August 27, 2021.

Review: ‘499,’ starring Eduardo San Juan Breña

September 6, 2021

by Carla Hay

Eduardo San Juan Breña in “499” (Photo by Alejandro Mejia/AMC/Cinema Guild)

“499”

Directed by Rodrigo Reyes

Spanish and Nahuatl with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Mexico, the docudrama “499” features an all-Latino cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A ghostly Spanish conquistador from the 1500s experiences culture shock when he finds himself in Mexico in the early 2020s. 

Culture Audience: “499” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in movies that blend scripted content and non-fiction content to offer a social commentary on the effects of colonialism.

Eduardo San Juan Breña (third from right) with Honduran migrants in “499” (Photo by Alejandro Mejia/AMC/Cinema Guild)

The docudrama “499” offers a bold satirical look at what would happen if a Spanish conquistador from the 1500s suddenly had to live in modern-day Mexico. The movie cleverly shows actor Eduardo San Juan Breña (also known as Eduardo San Juan) in the role of a ghostly, time-traveling conquistador who interacts with non-actors in Mexico. Various people, including this mysterious conquistador, provide voiceover narration. Needless to say, he can’t quite get over the shock that Spain is still not in control of Mexico.

This film won’t be appealing to everyone. And it could’ve easily veered into the type of “the joke’s on you” tone that’s seen in Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” movies. However, “499” puts a unique spin on a story of colonialism and how colonialism’s effects still linger today.

The movie opens with a brief caption giving a history lesson for viewers who are unfamiliar with Spain’s takeover of the Aztec Empire in the land that is now known as Mexico. The caption reads: “In 1521, [Spanish conquistador Hernán] Cortés conquered the Aztec Empire. With a few hundred soldiers and thousands of native allies, he marched from the coast of Veracruz to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.”

In “499,” it’s almost 500 years later after 1521. And the time-traveling, unnamed conquistador who becomes shipwrecked in Mexico is supposed to be some kind of ghost, but he can be seen by people. This conquistador was a soldier in Cortés’ army, and he has no idea how he ended up in modern-day Mexico. Get used to seeing several scenes where he reacts with shock to things such as cars, telephones and modern clothing.

The conquistador’s journey in the movie follows the same path that Cortés took in his invasion of the Aztec Nation. On the coast of Mexico, the conquistador washes up on the beach and is mystified by the sight of plastic cup and a motorcycle. He gets stared at by people on the beach who have no idea why this person is dressed as a conquistador.

The conquistador sees a water gourd, grabs it, and drinks it, as if he’s been thirsty for hours. In a daze and still trying tor figure out what happened and where he is, he then wanders into an elementary school. He collapses from exhaustion and confusion.

He’s next seen by himself outdoors, wondering to himself if he’s dead or in purgatory. Eventually, he meets a young man who says that the corrupt Mexican government abducted and killed the young man’s father for being an activist and a journalist. The father’s body parts were found in a bag.

As a parting gift, the son with this tragic story gives the conquistador a blank journal. The conquistador says in a voiceover, “Cortés would cry with rage to see the savages in charge again … I discovered they were the children of the devil.”

In other words, this isn’t going to be a cute and cuddly time-traveling story about a conquistador who overcomes his racial prejudice and adapts quickly to his new environment. He literally has an “old school” mentality that Spaniards are superior to the indigenous people of this area.

In the city of Veracruz, the conquistador encounters more evidence that Mexico has an epidemic of missing and murdered people. He meets a mother whose 24-year-old son is missing. And he walks through a protest where people are angry that the government isn’t doing enough to find the men who’ve gone missing in the area. In Veracruz, he also goes to a strip club, and his reaction is what you might expect it to be.

In the Sierra, he’s captured by men for trespassing in their wooded area, but he’s released to continue his journey. He also marvels at some pole acrobats. It’s a scene that makes him look like an awestruck tourist. The movie has touches of this type of comedy, but “499” doesn’t let people forget that this is a conquistador who is very unhappy at that the Spaniards are no longer in charge of the land that he and other Spanish soldiers invaded with Cortés.

In the Highlands, the conquistador ends up on the street with some young male Honduran migrants who are looking for work. One man tells the story of how he had to leave home because he was getting gang threats. The migrants also talk about the dangers of crossing the border into Mexico, such as people extorting bribes and train hopping that could lead to injuries or death.

The conquistador is not very pleased to be in the company of these poverty-stricken and desperate men. But this stranger doesn’t know how else he can find work to support himself. It’s not as if there are employment ads looking for a Spanish conquistador from the 1500s.

The conquistador mutters to himself about the Honduran migrants: “These miserable migrants chase after the promise of glory. They remind me of us.” It’s the first indication that this displaced conquistador begins to see that a Spanish soldier in Cortés’ army might have something in common with these Honduran migrants: being at the mercy of a system where only an elite group of people get most of the power, money and glory.

What works so well about “499” is that it shows how this unnamed conquistador gradually begins to understand the damage that was inflicted in the name of colonialism. And even when a country such as Mexico is independent from a colonial country, he learns that brutality and corruption are timeless plagues on any society. The movie intends to make viewers think about how much humanity has really progressed (or not) when certain atrocities still exist today.

In Paso de Cortés, the conquistador goes on a car ride with a military soldier-turned-drug runner, who hides his identity with face coverings. In Tenochtitlan, he meets another person grieving over a loved one: a mother named Lorena Gutiérrez, whose 12-year-old daughter was kidnapped and murdered, mostlikely by criminals involved with drug deal and/or sex trafficking.

The conquistador doesn’t talk much, but “499” is able to convey a detailed story without a lot of dialogue. His interactions with the non-actors in the movie might look too staged at time, which is expected since they knew they were being filmed for a movie. However, their conversations don’t look scripted. Viewers will get the impression that the people who had conversations with the “conquistador” were told about the concept of the film and were asked to tell their unscripted stories on camera.

Non-actors listed in the movie credits are Jorge Sánchez, Martha González and Sixto Cabrera, but it isn’t made clear who they are in the movie. San Juan Breña, who makes his feature-film debut in “499,” fully commits to his role, by moving and reacting as if he’s really from a Spanish conquistador from the 1500s. At times, it looks like he’s doing a comedy sketch, but he never strays too far from the movie’s generally serious tone.

Pablo Mondragón’s musical score for “499” perfectly captures the mood for each scene. And “499” director Reyes brings the right amount of light-hearted flair so that the movie’s tone doesn’t get too dark. The unnamed conquistador isn’t supposed to be a hero or a villain but someone who is a product of a certain environment at a particular point in time.

The end of the movie shows what happened to the conquistador. It’s enough to say that he doesn’t have a time travel machine that will take him back to the 1500s. How the movie concludes is a commentary on what can happen when people open their minds up to different perspectives.

Cinema Guild released “499” in New York City on August 20, 2021. The movie’s release expanded to Los Angeles on August 27, 2021, and San Francisco on September 3, 2021, with more U.S. cities in subsequent weeks.

Review: ‘Nine Days,’ starring Winston Duke, Zazie Beetz, Benedict Wong, Tony Hale and Bill Skarsgård

September 5, 2021

by Carla Hay

Winston Duke and Bill Skarsgård in “Nine Days” (Photo by Michael Coles/Sony Picture Classics)

“Nine Days”

Directed by Edson Oda

Culture Representation: Taking place in an otherworldly dimension, the dramatic film “Nine Days” features a racially diverse cast of characters (white, black, Asian and Latino) representing souls who can observe humans on Earth.

Culture Clash: A “soul gatekeeper” must decide which one among five soul candidates will get to be reborn as a human on Earth. 

Culture Audience: “Nine Days” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching thoughtful dramas about what spiritual life could look like before being born.

Zazie Beetz in “Nine Days” (Photo by Michael Coles/Sony Picture Classics)

What if you were given the responsibility of deciding which souls could be born into humans? And what if you were one of those souls who had to be evaluated as “worthy enough” to be chosen? Those are the questions facing the main characters of writer/director Edson Oda’s feature-film directorial debut “Nine Days,” a somber-yet-hopeful meditative film about the existence of spirits in a dimension where they are chosen to either continue their lives in a human being or disappear entirely.

It’s a heavy burden for anyone to bear, so it’s no wonder that “soul gatekeeper” Will (played by Winston Duke) takes it so seriously, he almost never cracks a smile during the entire story. Will exists in an unnamed dimension that looks like an outpost house in a remote area, where he spends a lot of his time looking at several stacked-up TV monitors at once. (“Nine Days” was actually filmed in Utah.) Each TV monitor shows Will what’s going on at that moment in the lives of various people on Earth. The monitored people’s entire lives are recorded from birth to death on VHS tapes (yes, you read that right), so Will has a massive archive of people’s histories.

There’s one monitored person in particular who has a profound effect on Will. She is a 28-year-old successful violinist named Amanda Grazzini (played by Lisa Starrett), who was a child prodigy and is described as “emotionally strong.” That’s why it’s a shock to Will when Amanda commits suicide by driving her car into a wall. This tragic death happens early on in the movie and is the catalyst for what happens in the rest of the story, so it’s not really spoiler information.

Amanda’s suicide sends the usually unflappable Will into an emotional tailspin. With her soul having left Earth, Will now has to decide which soul will be born on Earth, to replace Amanda’s life that was taken away. Five soul candidates arrive at the house and are interviewed separately by Will.

Each candidate is evaluated for nine days. All of the candidates are told that after this nine-day evaluation process, anyone who isn’t chosen will then cease to exist. Each rejected candidate gets to decide on a personal ultimate fantasy that will get fulfilled as a sendoff.

The five candidates are:

  • Mike (played by David Rysdahl), a serious soul who is prone to worry a lot.
  • Maria (played by Arianna Ortiz), a shy soul who’s somewhat afraid of trying new things.
  • Kane (played by Bill Skarsgård), an arrogant soul who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.
  • Alexander (played by Tony Hale), a wisecracking soul who can be neurotic and insecure.
  • Emma (played by Zazie Beetz), a “free spirit” soul who is naturally inquisitive.

Will has a friendly co-worker named Kyo (played by Benedict Wong), who is not as uptight as Will. Kyo’s job is to give his opinion to Will on whether or not Will has chosen well. Even though Will has a monumental task of deciding which souls will live and which will cease to exist, “Nine Days” makes it clear that Will is not God or some other supreme being. In fact, at one point in the story, Will describes himself as “a cog in the wheel.”

The candidates are told they must answer certain questions about what they would do when faced with certain ethical dilemmas. Will assures them that there are no right or wrong answers, but they must answer truthfully. All of the candidates except for Emma answer the questions.

Emma tells Will that she can’t answer the questions because she doesn’t know how what her answer would be in these ethical dilemmas. Emma also replies to Will’s questions with more questions. This back-and-forth conflict irritates Will, but it also intrigues him.

During this evaluation process, the candidates are encouraged to look at the TV screens to watch the lives of three people on Earth: Rick Virgil (played by Sterlin English), a 14-year-old who is being bullied; Luiza Coolin (played by Erika Vásquez), a newlywed; and Fernando Pereira (played by Álvaro Cortez), a police officer.

“Nine Days” is a richly layered film that might be too much to wade through for people who prefer more straightforward stories about life in other dimensions. The acting is solid all around, but the heart of the movie is in how Will and Emma get to know each other better. Will has a dark secret that is hinted at and eventually revealed. It explains a lot of his angst. If viewers are willing to tolerate the slow pacing of “Nine Days” and immerse themselves in this fascinating story, then they will be rewarded with seeing a movie that will inspire existential thoughts that go beyond the movie’s 124 minutes.

Sony Pictures Classics released “Nine Days” in New York City and Los Angeles on July 30, 2021. The movie’s theatrical release expanded to more U.S. cities on August 6, 2021.

Review: ‘The East’ (2021), starring Martijn Lakemeier and Marwan Kenzari

September 5, 2021

by Carla Hay

Pictured in front row: Martijn Lakemeier and Jonas Smulders in “The East” (Photo by Milan Van Dril/Magnet Releasing)

“The East” (2021)

Directed by Jim Taihuttu

Dutch and Indonesian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1945 to 1950, in Indonesia and the Netherlands, the dramatic film “The East” features a cast of white and Asian characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A young Dutch man is haunted by a dark family secret and his past experiences as a soldier in the Indonesian War of Independence. 

Culture Audience: “The East” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching movies about harsh realities that soldiers experience during and after war, with frank observations of colonialism.

Marwan Kenzari and Martijn Lakemeier in “The East” (Photo by Milan Van Dril/Magnet Releasing)

“The East” could have been just another war film about a young man who starts off as a naïve soldier and ends up emotionally damaged. However, this sprawling epic about a Dutch soldier in the Indonesian War of Independence has some intriguing and unpredictable twists. It’s a movie that’s entirely believable (it’s being advertised as “based on true events”), but it treads on familiar territory in frequently repetitive ways.

“The East” can be considered a better-than-average war movie and should be commended for telling an Indonesian War of Independence story, which has rarely been made into a movie. However, “The East” won’t be considered a war movie classic, such as “Apocalypse Now” or “Saving Private Ryan.” The problem isn’t the 140-minute total running time for “The East,” but it’s how the movie has the occasional tendency to plod into scenes that don’t really go anywhere.

“The East” director Jim Taihuttu co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with Mustafa Duygulu. It’s a story that is told from the perspective of people from a colonial nation (the Netherlands) fighting against a territory (Indonesia) that wants independence. The filmmakers made sure to note the irony that many of the same Dutch soldiers who fought aganst Nazi oppression in World War II were fighting to keep the Indonesian people oppressed by the Dutch in the Indonesian War of Independence, which lasted from 1945 to 1949.

The movie opens in 1945, not long after the Allies (including the Netherlands) have declared victory in World War II. The Dutch military doesn’t have time to rest on its laurels, because Dutch soldiers are being recruited to go to Indonesia to fight against the increasing rebellion of Indonesian people who want their freedom from the Dutch government. “The East,” which takes place from 1945 to 1950, has scenes that take place during and after this war.

Among the new Dutch soldier recruits is Johan Leonard Maria de Vries (played by Martijn Lakemeier), a fresh-faced 19-year-old from Arcen, a village in the northern part of the Dutch province Limburg. Johan, who volunteered to join the Dutch Army, is quiet and keeps mostly to himself. However, on his first day of boot camp, he meets Mattias Cohen (played by Jonas Smulders), who is as hot-headed as Johan is even-tempered. Over time, the brutalities of war change Johan’s sensitive personality, and he becomes cold-hearted and aggressive in combat.

The soldiers in this group of recruits are all in the same age range (late teens to early 20s), and many of them realistically talk about something that preoccupies their thoughts: sex. Expect to hear a lot of macho bragging about sexual exploits; homophobic comments; insulting teasing of anyone who’s not as sexually experienced as the “alpha males”; and constant discussions of looking for casual sex with willing women and prostitutes.

The biggest blowhard in the soldier group is Werner de Val (played by Jim Deddes), who is first seen in the movie boasting about how his father paid for a hooker to service Werner as a gift before Werner went off to war. Werner is a bully who tests other recruits to see if they have the courage to stand up to him. Those who show they’re not intimidated by Werner usually end up earning his respect.

“The East” thankfully doesn’t make a mistake that a lot of war movies make in trying to tell the stories of too many military people at the same time. “The East” keeps things simple by only focusing on the lives of only a handful of military people. Johan is the protagonist, but Mattias and Werner also get enough screen time as supporting characters with distinct personalities.

The recruits are stationed at barracks called Camp Matjan Liar, where they have two main authority figures, who are both no-nonsense leaders: Major Penders (played by Peter Paul Muller), who reports to the camp’s Commander Mulder (played by Mike Reus). But outside of the camp, there’s a military leader who ends up being the most important to Johan and this story: a mysterious free agent nicknamed The Turk (played by Marwan Kenzari), whose real name is Raymond Westerling.

Johan first encounters The Turk when he helps Johan defend an Indonesian man who is being beaten by Japanese soldiers on the street, because the man had accused the soldiers of stealing from him. Because the Japanese military was the enemy to the Dutch in World War II, the Dutch consider any Japanese soldiers in Indonesia to be the enemy too. The Turk is passing by when he sees this civilian attack, and he is able to get the Japanese soldiers to back off from their assault victim and leave.

Johan is immediately impressed by The Turk’s fearless and commanding presence. Back at the barracks, Johan asks who The Turk is and finds out that he is a half-Greek, half-Dutch independent military operative for hire who trained in the British Navy program. He’s nicknamed The Turk because he grew up in Istanbul. Because of The Turk’s successful missions and because he has the added benefit of speaking several languages, The Turk has become somewhat of a legend in the world of military combat.

Johan eventually has other encounters with The Turk, who ends up recruiting Johan and Mattias into an elite special ops unit that The Turk is heading for the Dutch military. The Turk thinks that Johan has a lot of potential to become The Turk’s top protégé. However, it should come as no surprise that Johan sees and is forced to do things under The Turk’s command that eat away at Johan’s conscience. Johan then must decide how far he’s willing to go to please his mentor and rise through the ranks in the Dutch military.

“The East” doesn’t dismiss the perspectives of the Indonesian people during this war, but this is very much a Dutch film. Most of the Indonesian people are portrayed as innocent residents who try to stay out of the military’s way, but it’s often impossible when military raids are common during the war. The Turk has an Indonesian soldier as a right-hand man named Samuel Manuhio (played by Joenoes Polnaija), who obviously believes that Indonesia should remain under Dutch control.

At first, Johan is proud to be part of this special ops team led by The Turk. One of the first things that they do is help a local man in Semarang who says that his two daughters have been kidnapped by a rebel gang called Gaga Hitam. The gang’s leader is named Bakar (played by Lukman Sardi), who is one of the people involved in the rebellion to overthrow the Dutch government in Indonesia. It’s all the Turk needs to know to go after Bakar and his gang.

As gung-ho as Johan and the other Dutch soldiers are about protecting the Dutch government’s reign over Indonesia, there are literally signs that people in Indonesia don’t want to be ruled by the Netherlands anymore. When the recruits arrive by boat in an early scene in the movie, they see another boat with signs greeting them that say “Murderers” and “Free the Indies.” And the racism that’s ingrained in most colonialism is on full display with some of the Dutch soldiers, such as Mattias, who calls the native Indonesians “brown monkeys” in a scene that ends violently.

On a personal level, Johan finds himself getting emotionally attached to a brothel prostitute named Gita Tamim (played by Denise Aznam), who’s about five or six years older than he is. Johan met Gita on a drunken night out with some of his fellow soldiers who went to the brothel. Gita and Johan eventually go out on dates together outside of their sex worker/client encounters. It takes a little while for Gita to let down her guard to trust Johan, but not enough to invite him into her home. Johan eventually finds out if Gita wants a more serious and committed relationship than the one they’ve been having.

“The East” takes place mostly during Johan’s war experiences, but the movie also has flash-forward scenes to show what life was like for him in the Netherlands after the war, circa 1950. It’s here that viewers see that Johan experiences more disillusionment when he finds out the hard way that the Dutch government didn’t keep its promise to have jobs for war veterans who came home from Indonesia.

Johan has difficulty getting a job after the war, because the Dutch lost the war, so many people in the Netherlands treat these war veterans as “failures.” It’s similar to how Vietnam War veterans from the U.S. were treated when they got back home to America. Johan, who is a loner, doesn’t have much family support either. His mother has died, and his father Johan de Vries Sr. (played by Reinout Bussemaker) is in prison.

Some secrets are revealed in this story that explain why Johan reacts in the way that he does to the two people he became emotionally close to during the war: Gita and The Turk. These extra layers to the story make “The East” more compelling than the usual “combat veteran comes home” war movie. Johan isn’t much of a talker, but Lakemeier is an expressive actor with his face and body language so that he makes a memorable impression as this conflicted soldier.

Kenzari’s portrayal of The Turk is also riveting to watch. On the surface, this military leader is self-assured and charismatic. But he’s also devious and ruthless. His charm is a tool that he uses to manipulate people into doing things that go against their morality, just so his subordinates can get the praise and emotional rewards that they crave from him. And although his fearlnessess is certainly an asset in combat, it’s also a sign of someone who could be a dangerous sociopath.

“The East” director Taihuttu has a very good eye for staging scenes in cinematic and authentic ways. There isn’t one scene that looks like a fake movie set. However, the movie has a tendency to meander with scenes that linger too long on people walking or traveling through areas and not doing much. These prolonged shots tend to drag the pace of the film down a little bit, but these are minor flaws that don’t take away from the overall impact of the film. Viewers who have the patience to watch the film until the very end will see how “The East” is not a typical war movie and that not all damage from war is in a combat zone.

Magnet Releasing released “The East” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on August 13, 2021. The movie was released in the Netherlands on May 13, 2021, and in Indonesia on August 7, 2021.

Review: ‘Take Back,’ starring Mickey Rourke, Michael Jai White, James Russo and Gillian White

September 5, 2021

by Carla Hay

Michael Jai White and Gillian White in “Take Back” (Photo courtesy of Shout! Studios)

“Take Back”

Directed by Christian Sesma

Culture Representation: Taking place in Coachella Valley, California, the action film “Take Back” features a cast of African American and white characters (with a few Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An attorney’s past comes back to haunt her as she and her husband become involved in vigilante justice for a sex trafficking ring that has kidnapped their daughter. 

Culture Audience: “Take Back” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching low-quality and ridiculous action flicks.

Mickey Rourke in “Take Back” (Photo courtesy of Shout! Studios)

“Take Back” is a good way to describe the “I want a refund” regretful response of viewers if they have the misfortune of buying or renting this atrocious action flick. You have to wonder what this movie’s producers were thinking to waste money on such an obvious junkpile flop that’s embarrassing to everyone involved. “Take Back” is yet another female exploitation film that tries to look nobler than it really us, just because there’s a vigilante mother who’s one of the main characters. There’s absolutely nothing worth admiring about this movie, unless you think it’s admirable to see Mickey Rourke as a gangster who adores his pet Pomeranians. A sleepwalker has more energy than the “I just don’t care anymore” performance that Rourke has in this awful dreck.

Directed by Christian Sesma and written by Zach Zerries, “Take Back” fails on almost every level of filmmaking. The acting is terrible, the plot and dialogue are beyond stupid, and even the action scenes in this movie are pathetic. Everything is sloppily filmed. About the only thing that the movie has going for it is it that has a few cast members with name recognition, such as Rourke and Michael Jai White, who both have been making trashy, low-budget movies for the past several years.

“Take Back” (which takes place in California’s Coachella Valley) opens with the kidnapping of two drunk women in their 20s who stumble out of a bar, flirt with each other, and then get abducted by men driving by in a van. The men are part of a sex trafficking ring led by a slothful thug named Patrick (played by Rourke), who spends half of his screen time lying on a bed and stroking his Pomeranians. It’s later revealed that Patrick’s real name is Jack, and he has a past connection to one of the movie’s protagonists.

The kidnapped women, one of whom is named Veronica Sanders (played by Emily Unnasch), are taken to a locked and dirty shed in a remote part of the valley, where they are held captive with about five or six other young and pretty women. The goons who are their captors are shown physically harassing and attacking the women in more than one scene. Patrick occasionally checks in on the kidnapping victims, but he lets his henchmen do most of the work in guarding the terrified women. Patrick uses the words “the merchandise” to describe these women.

Meanwhile, married couple Brian (played by Michael Jai White) and Zara (played by Gillian White) are spending their seventh wedding anniversary by boxing each other in a gym for fun. Brian is a martial arts instructor, while Zara is a successful real estate attorney who works for a private law firm. (Michael Jai White and Gillian White are married in real life.)

Zara is Brian’s second wife and the stepmother to Brian’s bright and obedient daughter Audrey (played by Priscilla Walker), who’s about 15 or 16 years old. Audrey’s mother is Brian’s ex-wife, who is not seen in the movie, but there’s a minor subplot where the ex-wife dies of cancer. Michael Jai White is the only cast member in this train wreck movie who seems to make an effort to have believable acting, but it’s still comes out looking corny. As for Gillian White’s acting, let’s just say that “Take Back” is proof that nepotism in getting a movie role can actually make a movie worse.

Now that viewers know that Zara and Brian have fighting skills, Zara is next seen in a small coffee shop, where she puts some of those skills to use when she gets involved in a harrowing incident. A very angry and mentally unstable man has come into the coffee shop, where he begins yelling at the barista (played by Lucia Romero), who seems to be the only employee in the shop. Apparently, the barista was in a relationship with this furious ex, and now he’s threatening her with gun.

And just like that, Zara goes into action by disarming this creep and holding him until he can get arrested. Another customer in the shop has videorecorded the whole incident on his phone. The video soon goes viral and gets more than 1 million views in a short period of time. A woman from Zara’s past has seen this video and is about to pay an unwanted visit to Zara at Zara’s law office.

The woman is named Nancy (played by Jessica Uberuaga), who looks like she’s more comfortable hanging out at a truck stop than at a law firm. She wears garish makeup, a revealing tank top and ripped denim shorts. And she’s often seen vaping. What are the odds that she knows Patrick the pimp?

Nancy also seems to know Zara too. When she shows up at Zara’s office without an appointment, she insists on talking to Zara. Nancy tells Zara that she saw Zara’s viral video and says she knows that Zara’s real name is Kim. Zara insists to Nancy that her name isn’t Kim. Zara also claims that she’s never seen or met Nancy before, but Nancy says that Zara is lying.

Zara tells Nancy to leave the office, by yelling, “Leave me the fuck alone!” But you just know that Zara and Nancy are going to see each other again. This unexpected visit seems to have unnerved Zara, which means that she’s got a big secret that will eventually be revealed. The secret is not surprising at all, considering this movie is as subtle as a bulldozer in a junkyard, which is kind of like how you could describe the abominable acting in this film.

Less than 48 hours after Zara disarmed the crazed gunman in the coffee shop, she goes through another violent experience. While she’s home alone one day, a thug named Cisneros (played by David Will No) breaks into the house with the intent to kill her. Zara is able to fight off her attacker in the living room, and she kills him with a samurai sword that conveniently happens to be in the room. Before this attack, Cisneros was seen talking on a phone to a boss who ordered this home invasion. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who this boss is.

All this trauma in a short period of time has left Zara with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The PTSD comes out in an incident where Zara agreed to help Brian with potential new students at a boxing demonstration at a dojo. However, Zara has a flashback freakout and starts pummeling Brian too hard during the demonstration, and then she abruptly runs out of the building.

This PTSD puts a strain on Zara and Brian’s marriage. And then Brian’s ex-wife dies of cancer. And just so more bad things can happen to this family, Brian and Audrey are driving in Brian’s car when they get carjacked. Brian is tasered while Audrey is kidnapped. What are the odds that Audrey was kidnapped by the sex-trafficking ring that’s run by Patrick?

The kidnapping is reported to law enforcement, but Zara and Brian think that the cops won’t be of much help. And so Zara and Brian take the law into their own hands and go on a mission to find and rescue Audrey themselves. You know exactly how this is all going to end.

There are three characters connected to law enforcement who play a role in this predictable story. Anthony DeMarco (played by Nick Vallelonga) is a former detective who knows a lot about Patrick because he was tasked with investigating Patrick years ago. Detective Frank Schmidt (played by James Russo) and his cop partner Detective Perez (played by Jay Montalvo) are investigating the recent kidnappings.

Another supporting character is Jerry Walker (played by Chris Browning), one of Zara’s clients. Jerry owns a vast park called Lake Cahuilla that he inherited from his father. The scenes were actually filmed at Lake Cahuilla Veterans Regional Park, a 71-acre property owned by California’s Riverside County and located near the Santa Rosa Mountains. Jerry’s property ends up being a part of this movie’s very flimsy plot. “Take Back” is time-wasting trash that should be avoided at all costs, unless you’re a masochist who is compelled to see all of Rourke’s horrible movies in the final years of his career.

Shout! Studios released “Take Back” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD on June 18, 2021.

Review: ‘Rare Beasts,’ starring Billie Piper, Lily James and David Thewlis

September 4, 2021

by Carla Hay

Jolyon Coy, Leo Bill and Billie Piper in “Rare Beasts” (Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media)

“Rare Beasts”

Directed by Billie Piper

Culture Representation: Taking place in London and in the Spanish city of Girona, the dark comedy film “Rare Beasts” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A single mother in London navigates her way through the dating scene and family relationships with cynicism and hope. 

Culture Audience: “Rare Beasts” will appeal primarily to people who can tolerate foul-mouthed and offbeat comedy about love and romance.

Toby Woolf and Billie Piper in “Rare Beasts” (Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media)

“Rare Beasts” tries a little too hard to be the opposite of a typical romantic comedy, but its brazen and often-vulgar attempts at being original end up working well for the story, more often than not. The movie is a memorable showcase for Billie Piper, who is the writer, director and star of “Rare Beasts,” which offers a deeply jaded and brash take on love, dating and family relationships. The tone and language of the movie can be very off-putting to people who want safer and more conventional romantic comedies. But for viewers who are a little more adventurous and who don’t mind watching very unhappy people trying to find love any way that they can (even if the love is all wrong for them), then “Rare Beasts” is a deliberately squirm-inducing ride.

In “Rare Beasts” (which is Piper’s feature-film directorial debut), Piper obliterates the notion that comedic heroines who are looking for love have to be perky and plucky people-pleasers. Piper’s Mandy character, who lives in London, is depressive and often rude. Mandy vacillates between wanting to be independent and wanting to admit she’s looking for a man help her feel more fulfilled. She doesn’t think that “feminism” is a dirty word, but she also thinks that feminism shouldn’t mean that men and women don’t need each other.

Mandy is a single mother to a son named Larch (played by Toby Woolf), who’s about 6 or 7 years old. He’s an eccentric loner child with some emotional issues because he’s prone to randomly throw temper tantrums. The movie infers that Larch is somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Mandy adores Larch, but because she’s not a typical rom-com single mother, she sometimes acts as if she’s embarrassed or burdened by being a single mother because her parental responsibilities can get in the way of her love life. Larch’s father (who is shown briefly later in the movie) is an ex-lover who is not involved in raising Larch because Mandy never told this man that Larch is his son.

The opening scene of “Rare Beasts” sets the tone of what type of movie it is, because almost all the adult main characters in the movie are so forthright with their crassness. Some might call it “brutal honesty,” while others might call it “diarrhea of the mouth.” In this opening scene, Mandy is on a first date with a bespectacled misogynist named Pete (played by Leo Bill), who reveals a lot of his insecurities while Pete and Mandy (who are both in their late 30s) have dinner at a restaurant.

Pete begins his rant by saying, “I find women, in the main, intolerable. But I realize that I can’t live without them. My parents—it’s hard to find a love like that.” Viewers later find out that Pete’s parents have been married for about 45 years. Pete and his family have very conservative and traditional views of love and marriage, including believing that the man should always be the dominant partner in heterosexual relationships.

Right from the start, viewers know that Pete and Mandy will be a mismatch for each other. Pete mentions that he’s very religious, while Mandy says that she’s an atheist. Mandy also tells him on this first date: “In the spirit of honesty, Pete, you should know I give really bad blowjobs.” Then they talk about the use of teeth and gums during oral sex. Mandy says sarcastically, “Do you want teeth by day, gums by night?”

Pete then complains about modern, assertive women by saying, “You’ve got more testosterone running in your veins than blood!” Mandy is alarmed (or is amused?) by Pete’s blantant sexism and replies, “You’re going to rape me, aren’t you? Those are classic rapist remarks.”

The date ends shortly after this thorny conversation. While waiting for a taxi outside the restaurant, Mandy vomits on the street. Even though this date is a disaster, Pete says to Mandy: “You’ll marry me in a year.”

And just as you might expect in a comedy that aims to upend people’s assumptions, Mandy and Pete begin dating each other. And how’s this for potentially messy? Pete and Mandy work together. They’re both screenwriters for an unnamed TV series.

Viewers might be asking themselves, “What are these two people thinking by going into a train-wreck relationship? Are Mandy and Pete that lonely and desperate?” As the unlikely romance between Mandy and Pete continues, the answer is: “Yes, people can make bad relationship choices when they’re lonely and desperate.” You don’t need a movie to show it, because there are many examples of it in real life.

Essentially, Pete is up front from the start that he’s on the hunt for a dutiful wife. Mandy has gotten tired of being a single parent and wonders if her son would be better off if he had a father figure to help Mandy in raising Larch. Mandy and Pete both came along in each other’s lives when they felt they didn’t have any better options for a love partner. And now they’re in a relationship that could lead to marriage. Pete and Mandy predictably argue, because their core values are so fundamentally different from each other.

There are other big reasons why Mandy is in this relationship with Pete, but she doesn’t say it out loud. However, it’s all on display in the movie. First, her mother Marion (played by Kerry Fox), who’s a bitter, chain-smoking divorcée, lives with Mandy and Larch in a very cramped house. It’s obvious from Mandy and Marion’s interactions with each other that they have a love/hate relationship. Mandy is probably thinking that getting married would be the perfect reason to force her mother to live elsewhere, without Mandy being the “villain” to kick her mother out of the house.

Secondly, Mandy is unhappy in her job, which is a male-dominated company called Woo Productions. The details of the TV show she writes for are never really made clear in this movie. But based on conversations, it’s a TV show about women, and it has a mostly female audience. However, the people who run the show are men.

It’s implied that Pete makes a lot more money than Mandy in this job, although they both seem to have the same or similar job titles and duties. It’s probably gone through Mandy’s head more than a few times how she can afford to leave this job that she hates when she is the only breadwinner for her household. (Mandy’s mother Marion is retired. )The fact of the matter is that many people consider a partner’s income as one of many important reasons to get married to that person. Pretending that people don’t think this way is like living in a fantasy world.

Mandy’s boss is a sexist American named Leonardo (played by Trevor White), who gives this type of critique about how she writes screenplays: “Nobody wants to read about miserable women, because they don’t exist.” He also scolds and warns Mandy by saying that she could be close to getting fired: “No more late arrivals, no more sad women, no more miserable conduct.” Meanwhile, it’s shown that Pete can be late for a staff meeting, and he doesn’t get reprimanded by the boss.

In staff meetings, Mandy and her few female co-workers are frequently talked over and treated dismissively by their male co-workers, who think they know better than the women about how women think, feel and act. The disagreements sometimes spill over into arguments between the men and women, but since they all have a sexist male boss at this company, it’s easy to know whose side he takes in these arguments. In real life, Piper has been a star and an executive producer for the female-oriented TV series “The Secret Diary of a Call Girl” (which was on the air from 2007 to 2011) and “I Hate Suzie” (which debuted in 2020), so she knows more than a few things about the gender dynamics of TV creatives behind the scenes.

Underneath the crude conversations that many of the characters have in the movie is some snarky social commentary about women’s self-esteem and how—like it or not—many people in society place a woman’s worth on her marital status or who she’s dating. Mandy’s mother Marion is the type of outspoken, “no filter” person to blurt out to Mandy when they talk about their sex lives: “I’ve never used a condom!” Mandy’s sarcastic reply: “You should probably get tested.” And yet, Marion is still treated like a selfish homewrecker by her ex-husband Vic (played by David Thewlis) because Marion wanted to end their miserable marriage. Vic is an alcoholic who cheated on Marion when they were married.

During parts of the movie, Vic (who lives alone) tries to convince Marion to move back in with him, even though their marriage has been over for six years. Vic alternately tries to put Marion on a guilt trip and gives her phony flattery, by saying that living with him again is the least she can to do help him live longer because she’s better at certain domestic duties (such as cooking and cleaning) than he is. He even goes as far to suggest to Marion that it’s not a good look to be a woman of a certain age who isn’t living with a man. It’s pathetic emotional manipulation that doesn’t work. Marion and Mandy might not always have the best relationship, but they both agree that Vic is too toxic to really trust.

During the course of the movie, there are some “Greek chorus” type scenes of female passersby on the street who chant self-affirming mantras out loud, as if Mandy (and the viewers by extension) can hear their thoughts. It’s the movie’s way of saying that everyday people are wracked with insecurities, but women have to work harder to overcome self-doubt because men are more likely than women to be rewarded for being confident. Later in the movie, during a pivotal scene, Mandy has a soul-baring monologue on the street, and several female strangers congregate and react to what Mandy says.

“Rare Beasts” pokes fun at two rom-com clichés involving a couple who’s dating: the “meet the parents/family” scenario and the “guests at a wedding” scenario. Mandy meets Pete’s family (his parents and three sisters) over a predictably awkward dinner at the parents’ house. During this dinner, one of Pete’s secrets is revealed, and he shows a very nasty side to himself when he lashes out in anger. This scene also re-affirms that Mandy would not fit in well with this very religious and conservative family.

The wedding scene, which takes place in Spain, is more amusing. Pete’s family is a friend of the bride. The bride Cressida (played by Lily James) and the groom Woody (played by Jolyon Coy) are a blissfully happy but shallow couple. (James shares top billing in “Rare Beasts,” but she’s only in the movie for less than 10 minutes.) When Woody is introduced to Pete, Woody says to Mandy, “I hope his penis is as big as his heart!” Meanwhile, Cressida is preoccupied with how the wedding photos will look, and she describes her relationship with Woody as “our brand.”

In contrast to Cressida and Woody’s happiness, Mandy and Pete end up arguing when Pete finds out that Larch’s father Matthew (played by Ben Dilloway) is at the wedding too. It’s a sheer coincidence that Matthew is there. (It’s a big wedding and stranger coincidences have happened in real life.) And even though Matthew is not in Mandy’s and Larch’s lives, Pete (who likes to be the “alpha male”) still feels threatened when he sees that Matthew is better-looking and more self-assured than Pete is.

As unlikable as Pete can be, Mandy is no angel either. She likes to do cocaine at parties. She sometimes acts like she wishes she didn’t have the responsibility of parenthood. (But she’s never cruel to Larch.) And she can be a bit of a whiner who feels very jealous of others when she thinks their lives are going better than hers.

Piper’s directing style for “Rare Beasts” is to present a world where politeness isn’t really considered a virtue. People just regurgitate whatever is on their minds without thinking too much about hurting other people’s feelings or embarrassing themselves. (A perfect example is the scene where Mandy and Pete have sex with each other for the first time.) The tone is snappy, and some of the jokes don’t land very well, but viewers will get the sense that this movie was made by people who are fed up with boring rom-com tropes.

None of the adult characters in this movie has a “cute personality,” even though having a “cute personality” is an expected cliché in a romantic comedy. Piper and the movie’s other principal actors commit to all the unpleasant personality traits of their “Rare Beasts” characters. It’s a consistency that should be admired under Piper’s direction, when too often filmmakers might cave in to pressure to create more “likable” characters in order to make a romantic comedy appealing to the masses.

However, “Rare Beasts” is not a heartless film. Even in this crude and tactless world of “Rare Beasts,” people still want to be loved and respected. Some of them, such as Mandy and Pete, have terrible ways of going about it. The people who will dislike “Rare Beasts” the most will probably be those who expect British romantic comedies to be a certain way that isn’t delivered in this movie. This a very British film, to be sure, but it’s the equivalent of a cup of tea served with a lot of pepper and vinegar.

Brainstorm Media released “Rare Beasts” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on August 20, 2021. The movie was released in the United Kingdom on May 21, 2021.

Review: ‘The Card Counter,’ starring Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan and Willem Dafoe

September 3, 2021

by Carla Hay

Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish in “The Card Counter” (Photo courtesy of Focus Features)

“The Card Counter”

Directed by Paul Schrader

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the U.S., as well as in Iraq in flashback scenes, the dramatic film “The Card Counter” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latinos, Arabs and African Americans) representing the middle-class and working-class.

Culture Clash: An ex-con, who has a dark past as a U.S. military officer, is now a gambling addict facing a moral dilemma on whether or not to get involved in a deadly revenge plot. 

Culture Audience: “The Card Counter” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in neo-noir dramas that explore issues of military PTSD and the fallout of extreme actions made in the name of anti-terrorism.

Oscar Isaac and Tye Sheridan in “The Card Counter” (Photo courtesy of Focus Features)

“The Card Counter” (written and directed by Paul Schrader) is a raw and unflinching portrait of a man tortured by his past and using his gambling addiction as a way to cope. On a wider level, this neo-noir film is a scathing view of the “war on terror” and abuse of power. Oscar Isaac gives an absolutely gripping and fascinating performance as a protagonist struggling to find a sense of morality in a world where many people are rewarded for crimes and punished for trying to do the right thing.

It would be an understatement to say that William Tell (played by Isaac) is feeling spiritually and emotionally bankrupt. Now in his 40s, William spent 10 years imprisoned as a dishonorably discharged ex-military officer in the U.S. federal penitentiary Leavenworth in Leavenworth, Kansas. It’s eventually revealed in the movie’s several flashback scenes why William was imprisoned.

The main thing that viewers find out in the beginning of the movie, which has constant voiceover narration by William, is that he learned to count cards in prison. After he got out of prison, he became a professional gambler (mostly in poker and blackjack), who counts cards to have an advantage in the games. It’s a risky activity that could get him banned from casinos, but so far William hasn’t been caught.

The name William Tell is most associated with the early 14th century Swiss folk hero William Tell, who was a rebel and an expert marksman. It should come as no surprise that the gambler named William Tell in “The Card Counter” is using a partial alias. The William character in this movie changed his last name to Tell after he got out of prison. His real last name is also eventually revealed.

In “The Card Counter,” William is a never-married bachelor with no children and no family members who are in his life. William is currently based in New Jersey, where he spends more time in Atlantic City casinos than he does at home. It’s made apparent very early on in the movie that William is a gambling addict. And, just like most addicts, he uses his addiction as a way to deal with past traumas.

It’s mentioned several times in the movie that William’s past traumas have given him intimacy issues. He’s a loner who’s been celibate by choice for several years. He also has severe nightmares about things that happened in his past when he was a private first-class special ops solider during the Iraq War.

The flashback scenes of what William did as a solider and as a military police officer might be too difficult to watch for viewers who are very sensitive or squeamish. The production notes for “The Card Counter” have a very accurate description of how these disturbing flashback scenes were filmed: writer/director Schrader “wanted the nightmarish scenes to feel like immersive virtual reality—an effect in the movie that feels like descending first-hand into a Hieronymus Bosch-like hellscape. [“The Card Counter” cinematographer Alexander] Dynan employed VR technology to present a flattened, equirectangular version of the standard image.”

One day, while William is hanging out at an Atlantic City hotel/casino, he notices that there’s an industry convention called Global Security Conference that’s taking place at the hotel. One of the keynote speakers is John Gordo (played by Willem Dafoe), a retired U.S. Army major, who now owns a private and lucrative security consulting company that has the U.S. government as its biggest client. When William finds out that John is in the same building, it triggers William into a cascade of negative emotions that he tries to hide. However, William’s curiosity gets the best of him to see John’s speech.

There’s someone else who isn’t happy about John being a lauded speaker at this convention. Unbeknownst to William, there’s someone in the audience during John’s speech who has noticed that William is there and will soon seek out William for a face-to-face meeting. During his speech, John promotes a new product from his company called STABL, which is facial recognition software that’s supposed to be able to detect truth-telling. This technology is supposedly designed to help during interrogations.

After the speech, the person who observed William from afar finds William and introduces himself. His name is Cirk (pronounced “Kirk”) Balfort, a guy in his mid-20s whose deceased father had something in common with William, besides being dishonorably discharged from the U.S. military. While having drinks together at the casino, Cirk tells William how the troubles of Cirk’s father have affected Cirk. After his father’s disgraced military career, his father became an oxycodone addict who regularly abused Cirk and Cirk’s mother. His father eventually committed suicide.

Cirk believes that his father’s downward spiral was the direct result of something that John did. For reasons that are later revealed in the movie, Cirk also believes that William has a grudge against John, so Cirk proposes that he and William join forces to torture and murder John. William immediately says no to this proposition because he doesn’t want to do anything that would put him at risk of going back to prison.

However, William is emotionally touched by Cirk, who seems aimless and depressed about his life and in need of a father figure. Cirk makes it clear that he isn’t the type of person to want to go to college or work in a boring office job. And so, William offers Cirk an opportunity to let William mentor Cirk on how to be a professional gambler who goes on tour, with William paying all of Cirk’s expenses for this training.

How is William going to pay for this road trip? It just so happens that within the same 24-hour period of meeting Cirk, William met a gambling agent named La Linda (played by Tiffany Haddish), who works with a network of mysterious and wealthy people who like to invest in professional gamblers and get a cut of the winnings. Her job is to find talented gamblers to sign with her as their agent, so she can pass on some of the prize money to these rich investors, who fund the gambling tours for her clients.

La Linda has been observing William for a while and admires his talent. And when she approaches him to become his agent, it’s in a flirtatious but business-minded manner. At first, William turns down her offer to become his agent because he prefers to work alone. However, after William gets the idea to mentor Cirk, he tells La Linda that he’ll take her up on her offer because he needs the money for this mentoring road trip. (Although “The Card Counter” is supposed to take place in various states, the movie was actually filmed in Mississippi, mostly in Gulfport and Biloxi.)

Much of “The Card Counter” is about this road trip and the friendship that forms between William and Cirk. Eventually, William is hired to enter a major poker tournament. Viewers see that when William checks into a hotel room, he has a habit of covering all of the furniture with bedsheets and using gloves. It’s as if he’s paranoid about leaving any fingerprints and DNA behind in these hotel rooms. Is he trying to hide something or hide from someone?

Even though Cirk and William learn to trust each other, Cirk can’t let go of the idea of murdering John. Cirk repeatedly brings it up, as a way of trying to wear down William to get him to agree. It’s eventually shown if William caves in or not to Cirk’s persistence.

William’s life is also altered when he becomes closer to La Linda. Their sexual tension with each other is evident in their first meeting, but they keep things strictly professional during their first several meetings. One of the more visually stunning scenes in “The Card Counter” is when William and La Linda go on a platonic date to what looks like the Gulfport Harbor Lights Winter Festival, which is known for its elaborate lights displays that evoke a magical aura. It’s here that La Linda and William hold hands for the first time.

Whether or not William and La Linda become lovers is revealed in the movie’s trailer, which unfortunately gives away a lot of moments that should be surprises to viewers. In other words, it’s best not to watch the trailer before seeing this movie. “The Card Counter” has a tone and pacing that are very reminiscent of noir films from the 1940s and 1950s, especially in William’s voiceover narrations, which are often taken from the journals that he meticulously keeps.

Some of the movie’s dialogue that doesn’t involve cursing sounds very much like it’s from the Golden Age of Hollywood, especially in the flirtatious banter between William and La Linda. That’s not the only old-fashioned aspect of the film. As well-crafted as the movie is overall, “The Card Counter” still perpetuates outdated stereotypes that movies like this often have: Only one woman has a significant speaking role in the film. And the main purpose of the woman is ultimately to be the love interest of the male protagonist. All the other women in the movie are essentially background characters or just have a few lines.

Haddish usually plays loud-mouthed, vulgar and unsophisticated characters in raunchy comedies, but with “The Card Counter,” she attempts to break out of that typecasting by portraying someone who is intelligent and is a combination of being upwardly mobile while still being street-smart. However, Haddish still seems a bit uncomfortable playing this type of serious character. It’s not a bad performance, but it’s not as believable as Isaac’s performance.

La Linda is someone who is from East St. Louis and is trying to make a better life for herself while becoming an empathetic friend to William. Unfortunately, Schrader did not develop La Linda’s character enough for her to have a backstory. The closest that viewers will find out about Linda’s past is that she drops several hints to William that she’s used to dating men with prison records. When they first meet, she correctly guesses that William spent time in prison. La Linda also tells William that she doesn’t care about anything bad that he did in his past.

However, William cares a lot about what he’s done in his past because he’s wracked with guilt over it. As much as he’s trying to move on to his new life as a professional gambler, he’s still haunted by his past sins. He reaches a point where he has to decide if participating in an act of revenge will bring him some relief. His fatherly relationship with Cirk is William’s way of trying to get some kind of redemption within himself.

Sheridan is perfectly fine but not outstanding in his role as the emotionally damaged Cirk, who’s hell-bent on carrying out a vendetta. Because the movie is told from William’s perspective, viewers aren’t really privy to a lot of Cirk’s thoughts, except his revenge plan. Cirk also has lingering resentment toward his mother, whom he hasn’t seen or spoken to in quite some time because Cirk thinks his mother should’ve protected him more from Cirk’s abusive father. It’s easy to see how William would want to take Cirk under his wing, because he’s trying to prevent Cirk from experiencing the same regrets that plague William.

Although the “The Card Counter” has several scenes of William gambling, this movie isn’t about who wins or how much the prize money is in these casino games or tournaments. What the movie shows so well is that William has learned the hard way that people’s souls and self-respect can be destroyed not just by abusers but by people doing damage to themselves. In that sense, William is taking the biggest gamble of his life in facing his fears and regrets, because he doesn’t quite know if he should bet on forgiving himself.

Focus Features will release “The Card Counter” in U.S. cinemas on September 10, 2021.

Review: ‘Buckley’s Chance,’ starring Bill Nighy, Victoria Hill and Milan Burch

September 2, 2021

by Carla Hay

Milan Burch in “Buckley’s Chance” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

“Buckley’s Chance”

Directed by Tim Brown

Culture Representation: Taking place in Western Australia’s Outback and briefly in New York City, the dramatic film “Buckley’s Chance” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Aborigine people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A 12-year-old American boy, who grew up in New York City, reluctantly moves with his widowed mother to a remote Australian ranch so that they can live with his paternal grandfather, and the boy encounters unexpected dangers shortly after moving to Australia. 

Culture Audience: “Buckley’s Chance” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching family melodramas that have uneven acting and many ridiculous scenarios.

Bill Nighy in “Buckley’s Chance” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

“Buckley’s Chance” starts off as an earnest but bland family drama before it takes a steep nosedive into being an idiotic chase movie with very little suspense on how it’s all going to end. Not even the talent of the great British actor Bill Nighy can save this corny mess of a film. If the crime drama part of the movie had been written better, “Buckley’s Chance” might have been a film worth watching. But it all just becomes sloppily executed nonsense, including expecting people to believe that a dingo (a wild canine) can suddenly act like a friendly domesticated dog that knows how to do tricks, like shake hands with people.

Directed by Tim Brown, who co-wrote the “Buckley’s Chance” screenplay with Willem Wennekers, “Buckley’s Chance” is the story of what happens when a troubled 12-year-old American boy named Ridley Anderson (played by Milan Burch) moves with his widowed mother from New York City to a remote Outback ranch in Western Australia. Ridley finds out more about his Australian father’s side of the family, and he ends up getting kidnapped over a property deal. Ridley’s kidnapping doesn’t happen until the last third of the movie. Until then, expect to see a lot of scenes of Ridley pouting and sulking because he never wanted to move to Australia in the first place.

Ridley’s mother Gloria Anderson (played by Victoria Hill) is kind and patient, but she’s at her wit’s end on what to do about Ridley. They moved to Australia because Ridley has a history of having anger problems, which have gotten worse ever since Ridley’s father died about a year ago. Ridley’s emotional problems have been so bad that he’s been expelled from several schools. And because Ridley was very close to his father, Ridley grief has made him more likely to lash out in anger. He’s not dangerously violent, but he has very rude tantrums.

Gloria has made the drastic decision to start over in Australia, a country where she’s never lived and where she doesn’t know anyone. Ridley and Gloria will be living at Buckley’s Chance, the name of the sheep ranch that’s owned by widower Spencer Anderson (played by Nighy), the estranged father of Gloria’s late husband Bryce Anderson. The ranch is in an unnamed town in Western Australia, but the movie was actually filmed in Dangar Falls and Broken Hill in Australia. Bryce (played by Josef Brown, in a few flashbacks), who was Spencer’s only child, was a firefighter who died while saving people in a fire.

Bryce and Spencer hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for at least 20 years before Bryce died. Spencer did not attend Bryce’s funeral. Gloria knows very little about what went wrong in the relationship between Bryce and Spencer, because it was a sore subject that Bryce didn’t want to discuss with anyone. All she knows is that Bryce abruptly moved to the United States not long after he graduated from high school, because of a falling out that Bryce had with Spencer.

It’s under these tense circumstances that Gloria is hoping that moving in with Spencer will help heal this family rift. She also wants Ridley to be in an environment where he can have more discipline and be less likely to get into trouble. Of course, Ridley immediately hates living in a place that’s vastly different from New York City, and he’s resentful of having to abide by Spencer’s strict rules. Spencer is determined to turn this city boy into a skilled rancher.

The only thing that Ridley is interested in doing is filming videos with his video camera. It seems like he’s an aspiring director but he doesn’t really know it yet. Spencer has no patience for Ridley’s compulsion to constantly make video recordings of everything. When they go camping together, Spencer gets irritated when Ridley wants to film Spencer doing mundane things such as taking a nap or starting a fire.

Needless to say, Ridley and Spencer clash with each other almost from the beginning. When Spencer gives Ridley the nickname Riddles, Ridley snaps at his grandfather that his name is Ridley, and he better not be called Riddles. When Spencer tries to teach Ridley how to use a rifle by telling him to shoot a dingo that’s on the property, Ridley fumbles and misses his target, and Spencer gripes, “That was a waste of a bullet.”

Gloria doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with Spencer either. She’s very wary of letting Ridley learn how to use a gun. But when Spencer explains that people who live in this rural area need to know how to use a gun for protection against wild animals, Gloria reluctantly lets Spencer teach Ridley, on the condition that Ridley can only use a gun when an adult is nearby.

Ridley has a problem with the idea of shooting dingos, while Spencer insists that dingos need to be kept away and killed if necessary because dingos could be harmful to people and the ranch’s sheep. There’s a small pack of dingos (about five or six) that hang out in an open field near the ranch. One of the dingos is a tan male that escaped being shot by Spencer.

Ridley and the dingo make eye contact in a way that you just know this dingo is going to become like a pet to Ridley. It’s one of the more ridiculous aspects of this movie because the cutesy and contrived way that this dingo behaves is not like a how a feral dingo would behave in real life. Ridley sees the dingo again, when he rescues the canine from being caught in a barbed wire fence while Ridley and Spencer have gone camping.

Spencer has a friendly ranch hand named Jules Churchill (played by Kelton Pell), who is the only Australian adult who doesn’t seem to immediately get on Ridley’s nerves. Jules is a former high school classmate of Bryce, who was a star player on the school’s rugby team. Gloria and Ridley get a little bit more insight about what Bryce was like in his teen years from Jules, since Spencer is very resistant to talking about Bryce.

Spencer tells Ridley that the ranch’s name Buckley’s Chance is inspired by the Australian folk tale of an escaped prisoner named William Buckley, who hid in the wilderness. Years after most people thought Buckley was dead, he suddenly came out of the wilderness—and he was healthy and in great shape. His against-all-odds survival spawned the catch phrase of something having a “Buckley’s chance” if it can beat the odds and exceed expectations. It’s predictably used as a heavy-handed metaphor for what Ridley experiences in this story.

One night, Ridley overhears Spencer talking to Jules in a private conversation. Spencer tells Jules, “I’m trying to run a sheep station, not take care of a grieving widow and her son.” Jules asks why Spencer didn’t decline Gloria’s request to live at the ranch. Spencer explains that he didn’t want it on his conscience to turn his back on his family.

After hearing this conversation, Ridley feels even more alienated from Spencer and even more miserable living in Australia. Ridley verbally lashes out and throws tantrums in public and in private. Slowly but surely, more information eventually comes out about what really happened to cause Bryce to move far away from Australia and stop talking to Spencer. But there’s a lot more family angst, with Ridley at the center, to get through before these family secrets are revealed.

“Buckley’s Chance” unrealistically shows only a few people (including Spencer and Jules) working on the ranch. It’s a low-budget movie, but it wouldn’t have been that hard to hire some extras for a scene or two to show more people working at this ranch. It’s a ranch that’s supposedly so huge that a big company named Plunkett wants to buy the northeastern part of the ranch’s land, but Spencer has refused the lucrative offer.

It’s not stated what type of company Plunkett is, but it’s common knowledge that if Plunkett owned the land that it wants to buy from Spencer, the company would be able to employ numerous people in the area. Many of the townspeople aren’t happy that Spencer is being stubborn about refusing to sell this part of his land. They think Spencer’s unwillingness to sell the land is depriving the area of an economic boost that the area needs.

One of the pro-Plunkett townspeople is named Cooper (played by Martin Sacks), who angrily confronts Spencer about this stymied business deal when Spencer, Ridley and Gloria are having lunch at a diner one day. It’s the first time that Ridley and Gloria find out that the land is a big source of contention and that Spencer is very unpopular with the locals because he refuses to sell the land. Cooper has two lowlife cronies named Oscar Wallace (played by Anthony Gooley) and Mick Wallace (played by Ben Wood)—two dimwitted brothers who later threaten Spencer, who remains unmoved.

Without Cooper’s knowledge, Oscar and Mick end up kidnapping Ridley in a foolish attempt to get Spencer to change his mind about selling the land. Oscar is the bossy brother who comes up with the haphazard schemes and gives orders to Mick. Oscar and Mick plan to hold Ridley hostage until Spencer sells the land to Plunkett.

It’s a crazy idea, of course, and these bungling criminals find out that Ridley is smarter than they thought he was. Ridley escapes and encounters all kinds of obstacles in trying to find his way back to the ranch or to find help, when he has no food, water or survival gear. Blundering brothers Mick and Oscar are in hot pursuit.

And suddenly, Ridley has unrealistic strength, as if he’s some kind of superhero. There he is hanging off of a deadly cliff like he’s Spider-Man. There he is surviving a deadly waterfall like he’s Aquaman. And, of course, the dingo shows up to help Ridley, who names the dog Buckley. None of this is spoiler information, because it’s all in the “Buckley’s Chance” trailer.

And even though a 12-year-old boy has gone missing in the Australian Outback, the search-and-rescue team is woefully small, consisting of only a few police officers. An unnamed patrol officer (played by Julia Billington) is the only cop who’s consistently shown doing any real investigating. However, the one thing that’s somewhat realistic about the investigation is that the adults mistakenly think at first that Ridley has run away, not been kidnapped. Considering Ridley’s troubled history, and because the kidnappers didn’t leave a ransom note, it would be easy to make that assumption.

The hokey tone of “Buckley’s Chance” is even more annoying because of the cornball musical score that sounds like it’s from a sappy TV-movie of the week that has absolutely no interest in doing anything original. It all just a blatant sign that “Buckley’s Chance” will follow the same overused formula of other movies about a boy lost in the wilderness. And although the human/dingo bonding in “Buckley’s Chance” can be considered endearing, it’s more than a little irresponsible to make it look like a dingo can suddenly act like a domesticated dog that’s got some training.

The acting in “Buckley’s Chance” is either mediocre or terrible. Nighy is a better actor in other movies, and he struggles with doing any accent that isn’t British. His natural British accent comes through many times, even though he’s supposed to be portraying a lifelong Australian. “Buckley’s Chance” is told from the perspective of Ridley. And unfortunately, this role needed a more talented actor than Burch, who is too stiff in some scenes and who over-emotes in other scenes.

“Buckley’s Chance” does have some good scenic cinematography of Australia, but you can find similar footage from many professional video travelogues of Australia. At least in a travelogue, you wouldn’t have to sit through a lot of terribly unrealistic action scenes and the cheesy melodrama that stinks up “Buckley’s Chance.” In an effort to make this movie seem more exciting, the filmmakers overstuffed the last third of the movie with idiotic action scenes that ruined any shot of credibility that this movie would have had.

Vertical Entertainment released “Buckley’s Chance” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on August 13, 2021.

Review: ‘Raging Fire,’ starring Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tse

September 1, 2021

by Carla Hay

Donnie Yen in “Raging Fire” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Raging Fire”

Directed by Benny Chan

Cantonese with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Hong Kong, the action flick “Raging Fire” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the middle-class, wealthy and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: An upstanding cop battles against a former protégé, who leads a gang that works for a corrupt and wealthy businessman. 

Culture Audience: “Raging Fire” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Donnie Yen, the late filmmaker Benny Chan and Chinese action flicks that have predictable plots.

Nicholas Tse in “Raging Fire” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Raging Fire” delivers everything you might expect of a formulaic action flick, which means that it delivers nothing surprising or innovative at all. This is strictly a movie for people who just want to see a lot of choreographed violence and don’t care much about having an intriguing story where viewers are challenged to solve mysteries along with the main characters. And that’s a disappointment, considering the protagonist is a police officer who’s been given the task of finding and capturing an elusive, murderous gang and the corrupt businessman who’s hired these thugs.

“Raging Fire” is the last movie directed by Benny Chan, who died of nasopharyngeal cancer in 2020, at the age of 58. It’s not a terrible movie, but it’s certainly not his best. And at 126 minutes, “Raging Fire” is a little too long, considering there’s not much of a plot and the movie has a little too much repetition of similar scenarios. It’s the same old story that dozens of other movies have already had: an ethical cop leader leads a team to take down a group of criminals. And there’s a wealthy person who wants to take over the world—or at least dominate a certain part of the world and get richer by having other people do the dirty work. Yawn.

In “Raging Fire,” which takes place in Hong Kong, the cop in charge is Cheung Sung-bong (played by Donnie Yen), also known as Bong, who works for Hong Kong’s Regional Crime Unit. Bong has a reputation as a fearless leader who can get the job done well. He has an excellent track record of catching major criminals. And therefore, you know exactly how this movie is going to end before it even starts.

Yau Kong-ngo (played by Nicholas Tse), also known as Ngo, is Bong’s former protégé who has gone rogue and formed a gang of criminals. In the beginning of the “Raging Fire,” Bong and his team have raided a warehouse lair of drug dealers. However, Ngo becomes a masked interloper who creates chaos in this raid when he becomes a sniper who kills off some of the people in the building.

Ngo is ruthless and insists on unwavering loyalty from everyone in his gang, which consists primarily of other former cops. Coke Ho (played by Ken Law) and Wong (played by Brian Siswojo) are like the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum of Ngo’s gang because these two are very close to each other and practically inseparable. There’s also Chiu (played by Henry Mak), who is self-conscious about the burn scar on the right side of his face and is often teased about his scar by other people. Other members of the gang are Mok Yik-chuen (played by Yu Kang) and Chu Yuk-ming (played by German Cheung).

People on Bong’s team include Yuen Ka-po, also known as Beau (played by Patrick Tam), who is Bong’s superior officer. Bong’s Regional Crime Unit subordinates are Chow Chi-chun (played by Deep Ng), token female Turbo Lui (played by Jeana Ho), Kwan Chung-him (played by Bruce Tong) and Cho Ning (played by Angus Yeung). These cops do not have distinct personalities and are just there to literally be backup characters in fight scenes.

A rich bank mogul named Fok Siu-tong (played by Kwok Fung), who owns HK Fortune Banking, is financing Ngo’s gang and is calling the shots in whatever crimes they commit. “Raging Fire” has double crosses, a crystal meth drug bust worth about $48 million, a past kidnapping, a criminal trial and a hostage situation crammed in between the expected fights with fists, guns, knives and bombs.

As is usually the case in action flicks like “Raging Fire,” it’s all about the men, since women are usually reduced to subservient roles. Bong has a pregnant wife named Anna Lam (played by Qin Lan), who’s not much more than the stereotypical “worried wife at home” of the movie’s action hero. Chiu has a mean-spirited girlfriend named Bonnie (played by Leung Ying Ting Rachel), who isn’t in the movie long for the most predictable reason in a movie that doesn’t value women very much.

The fight scenes in “Raging Fire” certainly have a lot of energy but not much imagination. The hostage scene is beyond ridiculous. And as for the movie’s dialogue and acting, let’s just say that this movie is far from award-worthy. “Raging Fire” could be just silly fun for viewers. But considering that these action stars and filmmakers have done much better movies, “Raging Fire” is unfortunately a misfire that will be most-remembered as director Chan’s last film.

Well Go USA released “Raging Fire” in select U.S. cinemas on August 13, 2021. The streaming service Hi-YAH! will premiere the movie on October 22, 2021. The movie’s release date on digital and Blu-ray is on November 23, 2021.

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