action Archives – Page 2 of 24

Review: ‘Vidaamuyarchi,’ starring Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra and Arav

February 13, 2025

by Carla Hay

Ajith Kumar in “Vidaamuyarchi” (Photo courtesy of Red Giant Movies)

Directed by Magizh Thirumeni

Tamil and Azerb with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Azerbaijan and in Tbilisi, Georgia, the action film “Vidaamuyarchi” (a remake of the 1997 American film “Breakdown”) features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A man becomes a vigilante after his wife is kidnapped during their road trip.

Culture Audience: “Vidaamuyarchi” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and superhero movies that are utterly formulaic.

Arjun Sarja in “Vidaamuyarchi” (Photo courtesy of Red Giant Movies)

“Vidaamuyarchi” is like a vehicle stuck in the mud and spinning its wheels. This bloated 150-minute action flick (about a vigilante looking for his kidnapped wife) has choppy editing, hokey acting and phony-looking fight scenes. If you want to watch a movie that thinks “loud and messy” means “suspenseful and compelling,” then “Vidaamuyarchi” is the movie for you. Everyone else should steer clear.

Written and directed by Magizh Thirumeni, “Vidaamuyarchi” is a remake of the 1997 American film “Breakdown,” starring Kurt Russell, J.T. Walsh and Kathleen Quinlan. “Vidaamuyarchi” (which means “perseverance” in Tamil) is unnecessarily in non-chronological order, which makes the timeline more jumbled than it needed to be. A lot of superfluous flashbacks detour the basic gist of the story.

In “Vidaamuyarchi,” wealthy businessman Arjun (played by Ajith Kumar) and his wife
Kayal (played by Trisha Krishnan) are a Tamil-speaking Indian couple who have been married for 12 years when she asks for a divorce. Flashbacks show how Arjun and Kayal met while they were both at a vacation resort in Tbilisi, Georgia, which is Kayal’s hometown. There was an immediate attraction between Arjun and Kayal.

Shortly after Arjun and Kayal met, his job transferred him to Baku, Azerbaijan. Arjun and Kayal continued to keep in touch and had a long-distance relationship. When he proposed marriage to her, she immediately accepted and moved to Baku after they got married. Their courtship is as corny as it can be, like a poorly written romance novel.

In an early flashback scene in the movie, not long after Arjun and Kayal met at the vacation resort, Arjun climbs up a resort building to get to the high-rise balcony attached to the room where Kayal is staying. Arjun makes this unannounced visit at approximately 2 a.m. (Can you say “stalker”?)

When Kayal asks Arjun why he didn’t just take an elevator, he says he wanted to impress her by climbing up to the balcony. He then proposes marriage to her and gives her an engagement ring. Arjun and Kayal have a lavish wedding attended by family members and friends.

Another flashback shows that about three years into their marriage, Kayal had a miscarriage and found out she could no longer conceive children. This infertility issue puts a strain on her marriage to Arjun because Kayal becomes more emotionally distant from him. Shortly before she asks for the divorce, Kayal confesses to Arjun that she had an affair with another man, but the affair is over.

Arjun doesn’t want to get divorced because he still loves Kayal, but she’s made up her mind to divorce Arjun because she says she’s no longer happy in the marriage. Kayal tells Arjun that she is going to temporarily live with her parents in Tbilisi. Arjun offers to drive her there. The drive from Baku to Tibilisi is about 356 miles or 574 kilometers. It would take about seven hours to get there by car.

Most of “Vidaamuyarchi” takes place on a remote desert expressway in Azerbaijan. The first indication that this will be a hellish road trip is when a Hummer nearly drives Arjun nd Kayal off of the road. The Hummer’s driver is a stranger in his late 20s or early 30s named Michael (played by Arav), who gives Arju and Kayal a creepy grin, flips his middle finger at the couple, and drives away. There are no other vehicles on the road during this near-collision.

At a gas station convenience store, Kayal meets a seemingly friendly married Indian couple named Rakshith (played by Arjun Sarja) and Deepika (played by Regina Cassandra), who both strike up a conversation with Kayal because they all speak Tamil. Deepika says that Rakshith is an architect who used to work for the financial company Morgan Stanley. Arjun is outside getting gas for the car when Michael and his Hummer drive up to the gas station. This time, Michael has about four male companions with him.

Michael and Arjun have a verbal confrontation. It looks like it will turn into a physical brawl until one of Michael’s friends tells Michael that they need to leave. Michael and his pals drive off in the Hummer. But will this be the last time that they’re seen in the movie? Of course not.

Not long after this conflict, there’s another problem: Arjun’s car breaks down on the road. Michael and his hoodlum cronies come back in the Hummer. Michael throws a beer bottle near the couple. It looks like another confrontation is going to happen.

But guess who comes to the “rescue”: Rakshith and Deepika, who are in a large freight truck. Rakshith and Deepika show up while Arjun and Kayal are stranded with these thugs, who quickly drive away when they see that help has arrived.

Why would an architect need to be driving a freight truck? It’s a question that a trusting Arjun and Kayal don’t bother ask. The immediate trust that Arjun and Kayal give to these two strangers will turn out to be a dangerous mistake.

Arjun and Kayal don’t know the area very well. Rakshith and Deepika say that the nearest mechanic is about 60 miles (96 kilometers) away. Their cell phones can’t get any signals, so Rakshith and Deepika offer to take Kayal to a restaurant/bar called Jabbar’s Cafe, which has a landline phone that they can use to call to get the car towed. It’s an offer that Arjun and Kayal eagerly accept.

Arjun and Kayal don’t ask for details, such as the name or address of the mechanic. The plan is for Arjun to stay with the car and wait for it to be towed. After the car is towed, the plan is for Rakshith and Deepika to give Arjun a ride to Jabbar’s Cafe, where Kayal is supposed to be waiting for him. Things don’t go according to this plan.

After Rakshith and Deepika and Kayal leave, Arjun is able to start his car. He still waits for Rakshith and Deepika. Even if his cell phone got a signal. Arju foolishly never asked for Rakshith’s or Deepika’s phone number. After waiting for quite some time, Arjun doesn’t see a tow truck, Rakshith or Deepika. Arjun figures out that something is very wrong.

Arjun frantically drives around until he finds his way to Jabbar’s Cafe and doesn’t see Kayal anywhere in or near the place. Arjun begs Jabbar the owner/manager (played by Kazim Abdullayev) to ask the customers if they have seen Kayal. (Arjun has a photo of her on his phone.) No one claims to have seen Kayal, except for a drunk woman at the bar, who says, “Your wife eloped with a truck driver.”

Most of the rest of the movie is about Arjun trying to find Kayal. Arjun has contact with local law enforcement to report the kidnapping and to seek help for Arjun with his search. But for reasons what won’t be revealed in this review, things go horribly wrong for Arjun. He has a misunderstanding encounter with a police officer (played by Javanshir Hadiyev), who ends up thinking that Arju is a mentally ill liar.

Michael and his thug pals come back into the picture, of course. Rakshith and Deepika are also seen again. It’s eventually revealed what happened to Kayal. “Vidaamuyarchi” has such an incoherent and idiotic way of getting to the story’s conclusion (none of it is believable), the only good thing that will result from reaching the end of this movie is that your senses will no longer have to endure this onslaught of annoying cinematic garbage.

Red Giant Movies released “Vidaamuyarchi” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on February 6, 2025.

Review: ‘Captain America: Brave New World,’ starring Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Xosha Roquemore, Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Tim Blake Nelson and Harrison Ford

February 12, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Captain America: Brave New World”

Directed by Julius Onah

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Washington, D.C. area (and briefly in Mexico), the sci-fi/action film “Captain America: Brave New World” (based on Marvel Comics characters) features a racially diverse cast of characters (African American, Latin, Asian and white) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Sam Wilson (also known as Captain America) and his allies get into conflicts with new opponents who are on quest for world domination, including the monster Red Hulk.

Culture Audience: “Captain America: Brave New World” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and superhero movies that are utterly formulaic.

Red Hulk (played by Harrison Ford) in “Captain America: Brave New World” (Photo by Eli Adé/Marvel Studios)

It’s almost obscene that so much money was spent on “Captain America: Brave New World” and yet this superhero sequel has so little innovation, wit or visual style. The characters are bland in this underwhelming story. “Captain America: Brave New World” (which had a reported $180 production budget) might have been impressive in 2008, when the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) launched with 2008’s “Iron Man.” However, there have been so many great advancements in the MCU since then, “Captain America: Brave New World” is most definitely a stumble backwards.

Directed by Julius Onah, “Captain America: Brave New World” has five credited screenwriters: Onah, Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson and Peter Glanz. It seems to be a case of “too many cooks in the kitchen,” based on the results in this substandard screenplay. The film editing is choppy, which means the filmmakers didn’t know how to make this meandering story any better.

The good news for people who’ve grown tired of trying to keep up with all of the MCU spinoff series on the Disney+ streaming service: You don’t really to see the Disney+ limited series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” to understand what’s going on in “Captain America: Brave New World.” As already shown in 2019’s blockbuster MCU movie “Avengers: Endgame,” Steve Rogers (played by Chris Evans) retired and passed on the Captain America title and shield to a reluctant Sam Wilson (played by Anthony Mackie), also known as superhero Falcon.

In “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” Sam mentored Joaquin Torres (played by Danny Ramirez), a U.S. Air Force first lieutenant who is an eager young protégé to Sam. After Sam officially became the next Captain America, Joaquin got the title of being the new Falcon. “Captain America: Brave New World” shows Joaquin as the Falcon. “Captain America: Brave New World” co-screenwriter Spellman was the showrunner for “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”

In the beginning of “Captain America: Brave New World,” Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (played by Harrison Ford) is an elderly former U.S. Army general who has recently been elected President of the United States. In 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk” (the second MCU movie), the role of Thaddeus Ross was previously played by William Hurt, who died in 2022. Thaddeus is a widower and a warmonger who is estranged from his daughter Dr. Betty Ross (played by Liv Tyler) because Thaddeus became an enemy of Betty’s then-boyfriend Dr. Bruce Banner, also known as the Incredible Hulk, a giant green monster superhero.

Meanwhile, a very early and messy scene in “Captain America: Brave New World” takes place in Oaxaca, Mexico, where Sam and Joaquin do an exposition-dump dialogue so they catch viewers up to speed about their respective new superhero roles. Sam mentions that his new Captain America suit was a gift from Wakanda. (For people who don’t know, Wakanda is the African birthplace of superhero Black Panther.)

In a poorly constructed fight scene, Sam and Joaquin save members of a Catholic church in Oaxaca. It’s where the heroes encounter the villain Seth Voelker, also known as Sidewinder (played by Giancarlo Esposito), who leads a mercenary group called Serpent. Some fighting ensues between the heroes and villains. Sidewinder appears and re-appears in different parts of the movie, which doesn’t really know what to do with Sidewinder.

Sam and Joaquin then go to Baltimore, Maryland, where they meet up with elderly widower Isaiah Bradley (played by Carl Lumbly), who is described as “the forgotten Captain America.” Isaiah is a bitter recluse, who tells Sam and Joaquin that the U.S. government imprisoned Isaiah for years and conducted illegal experiments on him. Sam and Joaquin have been invited to a gala event at the White House and invite a reluctant Isaiah to accompany them at this event, which has officials from various countries in attendance.

Sam shares Isaiah’s skepticism about governments and the belief that superheroes should not work for any government. However, Sam and Joaquin are admittedly star-struck and flattered that they are President Ross’ invited guests at this event. President Ross uses the event to show off that the U.S. has possession of Adamantium, which is described as “the world’s most versatile element.” The Adamantium, which looks like a slab of mineral rock, is in a glass display case.

During President Ross’ speech, Isaiah suddenly takes out a gun, shoots the glass display case, steals the Adamantium and shoots at the Secret Service agents who are trying to capture him. It doesn’t take long for Isaiah to be captured, but he insists he blacked out during the shooting and has no memory of knowledge of why he committed these crimes. Sam believes Isaiah and sets out to prove his innocence.

And there’s yet another villain in the story: Samuel Sterns (played by Tim Blake Nelson, reprising his role from “The Incredible Hulk), a disfigured scientist who holds the key to the story’s big mystery. Samuel’s role in this formulaic movie fails to be menacing enough to create an effective sense of danger. He mainly just sits around in a lab and occasionally goes on rants.

The rest of “Captain America: Brave New World” can be figured out from watching the trailer, which reveals too much. Although many viewers already know that Thaddeus is going to turn into the supervillain Red Hulk, other viewers won’t know that, but the movie’s trailer reveals it anyway. And because Tyler’s name is listed on the movie’s poster as one of the movie’s headliners, no one should be surprised to see the Betty Ross character in “Captain America: Brave New World,” even though her appearance is really just a brief cameo. Another character cameo appearance that should come as no surprise to anyone who knows about “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”

Mackie and Ramirez have a fairly convincing rapport as friends and work colleagues Sam and Joaquin, but the dialogue they’re given is so trite, it weakens the quality of the movie. Ford has played gruff and stern U.S. presidents in other movies, and he’s really just doing another version of those presidential characters in “Captain America: Brave New World.” The only difference is that his character turns into a CGI-created giant monster, with mediocre visual effects.

The female characters with the most screen time in the movie are secondary sidekicks. Ruth Bat-Seraph (played by Shira Haas) is an Israeli-born former Black Widow operative, who was trained in the notoriously brutal Red Room. Ruth, who is the top security advisor to President Ross, has only three facial expressions in the movie: scowling, pouting and emotionally disconnected. There are fight scenes where short and thin Ruth takes on several armed men at once who are twice her size. And even though Ruth doesn’t have superpowers, these ludicrous-looking fight scenes are all supposed to be believable.

Leila Taylor (played by Xosha Roquemore) is the leader of President Ross’ Secret Service detail. She’s given even less to do than Ruth. Leila mostly just stands around with worried expressions on her face. Her purpose in the movie is to warn President Ross not to do something that he’s going to do anyway. Leila is an example of how the movie squanders opportunities to make supporting characters more interesting.

“Captain America: Brave New World” might satisfy viewers who worship anything that Marvel puts out, but the consistent quality that Marvel movies and TV shows had in the 2010s has now become hit or miss in the 2020s. Even the “Captain America: Brave New World” end-credits scene is boring and not worth watching because it adds nothing important as a preview of what could happen in subsequent MCU stories. Captain America: Brave New World” isn’t an actively terrible movie, but it’s a terribly disappointing film on many levels.

To put it bluntly: “Captain America: Brave New World” will be remembered for being the movie that confirms what was already widely reported: Thaddeus Ross asks Sam to assemble an Avengers team, also known as the MCU’s real cash cow. In that sense, “Captain America: Brave New World” is just a placeholder movie and not an essential or noteworthy breakthrough for the MCU.

Walt Disney Pictures/Marvel Studios will release “Captain America: Brave New World” in U.S. cinemas on February 14, 2025.

Review: ‘Love Hurts’ (2025), starring Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose

February 11, 2025

by Carla Hay

Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose in “Love Hurts” (Photo by Allen Fraser/Universal Pictures)

“Love Hurts” (2025)

Directed by Jonathan Eusebio

Culture Representation: Taking place in Milwaukee, the action comedy film “Love Hurts” features a racially diverse cast of characters (Asian, African American and white) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A seemingly mild-mannered real-estate agent has a criminal past that catches up to him when his female former partner in crime and his crime boss brother both seek revenge on him.

Culture Audience: “Love Hurts” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and action flicks that care more about stunts than having a good story.

Lio Tipton, Ke Huy Quan and Mustafa Shakir in “Love Hurts” (Photo by Allen Fraser/Universal Pictures)

The only real pain in “Love Hurts” is watching Oscar winners Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose stuck in this cinematic junk. This mindless action comedy about double-crossing crooks is plagued with horrible dialogue and repetitive fighting that looks too fake. It’s an insult to movie fans that “Love Hurts” was released in theaters because it’s not worth the price of movie ticket and isn’t even worth people’s time to watch it elsewhere.

Directed by Jonathan Eusebio, “Love Hurts” was written by Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard and Luke Passmore. All that means is it took three people instead of one or two to come up with this garbage screenplay. “Love Hurts” is the feature-film directorial debut of Eusebio, who has a background in stunt coordination. It’s probably why the movie is so enamored with its fight scenes and doesn’t care that the screenplay is recycled trash.

“Love Hurts” takes place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but was actually filmed in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It’s a simple-minded plot that gets dragged out by fight scenes that become so mind-numbing, they actually make the movie very boring. Most of the cast members don’t even try to make the stupid dialogue sound convincing. “Love Hurts” is so lazy, all of the story’s ideas have been done before in other movies, but much better in most of these other films.

In “Love Hurts,” Marvin Gable (played by Quan, the Oscar-winning actor from 2022’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once”) is a mild-mannered, dorky real-estate agent who is a bachelor with no children. Marvin, who travels by bicycle, works for a company named Frontier Realty, which has ads with his photo in various places, such as bus stop benches. Marvin’s biggest rival is Jeff Zaks (played by Drew Scott of “Property Brothers” reality TV fame), who has a macho image in his ads.

Most of “Love Hurts” takes place close to Valentine’s Day. Marvin is the type of real-estate agent who will give Valentine’s Day cookies to prospective clients when he shows them houses. During the movie, he gets a Regional Realtor of the Year plaque award from his boss/mentor Cliff Cussick (played by Sean Astin), in a role that reunites former “Goonies” stars Quan and Astin. Marvin’s assistant is a mopey bachelorette named Ashley (played by Lio Tipton), who is pessimistic about finding true love.

In the beginning of the movie, Marvin notices that someone has been defacing his real-estate ads by drawing a Hitler moustache on his face. At first, Marvin immediately suspects that his competitor Jeff is behind this insulting graffiti. But then, Marvin gets an ominous note in the mail indicating there’s someone else who has a grudge against him. The note says, “I’m Back!”

The movie then has very sloppy editing by showing Marvin getting knocked unconscious by someone who was in his office. Marvin wakes up to find that a knife has been plunged into his left hand. A thug named the Raven (played by Mustafa Shakir) is holding him hostage behind the closed office door because the Raven wants Marvin to tell the Raven where someone named Rose Carlisle (played by DeBose) is located. Marvin knows who Rose is but she says he doesn’t know where she is.

As already revealed in the “Love Hurts” trailer, it turns out that Rose was the one who sent that mysterious note to Marvin. She’s out for revenge because Marvin had a previous life as an assassin, Rose was his partner in crime, and he betrayed her on a job that they did together and left her for dead. Marvin then started a new life as a realtor. Marvin says early on in the movie that he’s in love with Rose.

The Raven works for Marvin’s crime boss brother Alvin “Knuckles” Gable (played by Daniel Wu), who wants to find Rose and who is also estranged from Marvin. Knuckles has also dispatched a goon named Renny Merlo (played by Cam Gigandet) to find Rose and tells Renny that Rose has to be brought back alive to Knuckles. Marvin is also on Knuckles’ target list because Knuckles hates that Marvin has rejected Knuckles and a life of crime.

Meanwhile, two dimwitted hoodlums named King (played by Marshawn “Beastmode” Lynch) and Otis (played by André Eriksen) do a home invasion on Marvin and beat him up because they’re looking for Rose too, and they think Marvin has the answer. Rose does some roughing up of her own when she captures a criminal associate named Kippy Betts (played by Rhys Darby), who is tied up and forced to make a confession. It should come as no surprise when secrets are revealed about who betrayed whom in this silly jumble of unlawful schemes and trickery.

All of these criminal characters are shallow, with nothing interesting revealed about them—unless you think it’s interesting that Otis tells King that Otis’ wife recently left Otis because she thinks Otis is “emotionally constipated,” which is an accurate way to describe this time-wasting movie. All of the performances are mediocre at best or unwatchable at worst. And none of the characters can be considered “compelling” or “impressive.”

When Rose inevitably shows up and sees Marvin again, it’s when they are both at a bar. Marvin asks her, “Why couldn’t you just stay dead?” Rose answers, “Because it’s humiliating.” Although it surely couldn’t be as humiliating as being an Oscar winner going from winning many awards for a Steven Spielberg movie (DeBose won an Academy Award for Spielberg’s 2021 remake of “West Side Story”) to the tacky depths of “Love Hurts,” which looks like it belongs on a low-tier, free streaming service.

“Love Hurts” shows people getting beaten, shot, kicked, stabbed or punched every 10 minutes, with moronic dialogue in between. After a while, it becomes tiresome to watch. Somehow, the Raven and Ashley end up spending time together in a subplot that is transparent about its intentions.

The “romance” between Marvin and Rose never looks convincing. And that’s not just because there’s an age gap that perpetuates the sexist stereotype of a middle-aged male star of an action film having a love interest who’s about 10 to 20 years younger. Quan (who was 53 when this movie was released) and DeBose (who was 34) have no real chemistry with each other.

Quan is very likable in other movies, but his “Love Hurts” performance is an awkward mix of portraying a cheerful nerd and a hardened fighter. The movie (which has obvious stunt doubles for the cast members) can never give a clear sense of who Marvin really is. “Love Hurts” depicts Marvin and everyone else as underdeveloped characters that you won’t care about by the end of this dreadful movie. And when “Love Hurts” tries to tack on sappy sentimentality at the end, after showing so much over-the-top violence, it’s about as satisfying as an empty box of Valentine’s Day candy.

Universal Pictures released “Love Hurts” in U.S. cinemas on February 7, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on February 25, 2025.

Review: ‘Sky Force’ (2025), starring Akshay Kumar, Veer Pahariya, Sara Ali Khan and Nimrat Kaur

February 9, 2025

by Carla Hay

Veer Pahariya and Akshay Kumar in “Sky Force” (Photo by PVR Inox Pictures)

“Sky Force” (2025)

Directed by Sandeep Kewlani and Abhishek Anil Kapur

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1965 to 1991, in India and in Pakistan, the action film “Sky Force” (based on a true story) features an Indian and Pakistani cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A wing commander in the Indian Air Force is haunted by the disappearance of his close friend/protégé, who went missing during the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965.

Culture Audience: “Sky Force” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and formulaic war movies.

Akshay Kumar in “Sky Force” (Photo by PVR Inox Pictures)

“Sky Force” has noble intentions to celebrate Indian Air Force heroes of the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965. However, this action flick (based on real events) is too routine and too bloated for a story that deserves a better movie. The acting and visual effects are very mediocre, considering the large budget for this film.

Directed by Sandeep Kewlani and Abhishek Anil Kapur, “Sky Force” (which takes place in India and Pakistan) was written by Kewlani, Aamil Keeyan Khan, Carl Austin and Niren Bhatt. The movie’s time period ranges from 1965 to 1991. “Sky Force” is based on the true story of Indian Air Force members Om Prakash Taneja and Ajjamada Boppayya Devayya.

In “Sky Force,” Wing Commander Kumar Om “K.O.” Ahuja (played by Akshay Kumar), who is this movie’s version of Taneja, is a respected leader in the Indian Air Force. K.O. is a mentor to T. Krishna Vijaya (played by Veer Pahariya), a rebellious younger pilot who reminds K.O. of Kumar’s deceased younger brother Monu. Krishna’s Air Force nickname is Tabby, which is the name he prefers to be called in his everyday life. Tabby is this movie’s version of Devayya.

K.O. and Tabby are both stationed at Adampur Air Force Station, where group captain David Lawrence (played by Manish Choudhary) is their supervisor. (David will later be promoted Air Commodore in the 1970s.) K.O.’s Air Force nickname is Tiger, which is also the name of the squad that he leads. David is strong-willed and considers himself to be ethical when it comes to war rules of engagement. Unfortunately, “Sky Force” makes the other Indian Air Force colleagues utterly generic.

The other members of the Tiger Squad of Air Force pilots (who all have animal nicknames) are Debashish “Cockroach” Chatterjee (played by Soham Majmudar), Prakash “Panther” Rajput (played by Ritik Ghanshani), Duck (played by Fayaz Khan), Goat (played by Karan Chaudhary), Rhino (played by Ramakrishna Dixit), Owl (played by Ankit Kaushik), Scorpio (played by Sagar Rana), Shark (played by Vishal Jinwal), Spider (played by Lakshay Chawla) and Fox (played by Abhishek Mahendra). Viewers won’t remember much about these supporting characters because they don’t have personalities that stand out from each other.

In the Indo-Pakistani air war of 1965, Pakistan attacks India in nighttime battles on Adampur Air Force Station and other Indian Air Force stations on September 6. It’s considered an unfair fight because Pakistan knew that India had outdated planes that were ill-equipped to do combat at night. Pakistan also had an advantage because the United States had recently gifted Pakistan with 12 Star Striker fighter planes.

K.O. had warned David that Pakistan would use this strategy, but David did not take K.O.’s advice to have India attack first. “We are a peace-loving country,” David tells K.O. when explaining that India will only attack in self-defense.

K.O. is put in charge of a mission for the self-defense attack on Sargodha, the most powerful military air base in Pakistan. The mission—set to take place on September 7, 1965—is called Sky Force. There’s some drama between Tabby and K.O. because Tabby objects to being put on standby for the Sky Force mission because Tabby is considered too much of an unpredictable loose cannon. It was David’s decision to put Tabby on standby, but K.O. refuses to tell Tabby who made the decision when Tabby asks K.O.

Tabby is eventually allowed to participate in air combat, but he goes missing during combat. K.O. feels tremendous guilt about it, and he vows to find out what happened to Tabby. Tabby’s wife Geeta Vijaya (played by Sara Ali Khan), who is pregnant with their daughter, bitterly blames K.O. for Tabby’s disappearance. Geeta decides to end her friendship with K.O. and K.O.’s wife Preeti Ahuja (played by Nimrat Kaur) and remains estranged from them for years.

Years later, in 1971, a Pakistani military plot named Ahmed Hussain (played by Sharad Kelkar) is captured by the Indian military. (Ahmed is this movie’s version of Amjad Hussain.) K.O. interrogates Ahmed and finds out that Ahmed was given an award for killing an Indian officer during the 1965 war. Ahmed has a story to tell that might have clues to the mystery of what happened to Tabby.

“Sky Force” lumbers along with typical combat scenes, which often don’t look believable because of the questionable visual effects. These action scenes also have numerous slow-motion shots that look very hokey. Highlights of the action are the aerial views, which are breathtaking but fleeting. The movie’s dialogue is average at best and silly at worst. And because the story is told in non-chronological order, some of the movie’s timeline is messy.

Worst of all, this 125-minute movie (which could have been at least 30 minutes shorter) wastes a lot of time on unnecessary scenes and then rushes through the storyline about what happened to Tabby. “Sky Force” isn’t overly jingoistic, but the main characters don’t have much depth beyond predictable stereotypes. “Sky Force” ultimately comes across like a big-budget video game instead of a meaningful cinematic event about Indian war history.

PVR Inox Pictures released “Sky Force” in U.S. cinemas and in India on January 24, 2025.

Review: ‘Alarum’ (2025), starring Scott Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, Willa Fitzgerald, Mike Colter, Isis Valverde and Joel Cohen

February 1, 2025

by Carla Hay

Scott Eastwood and Sylvester Stallone in “Alarum” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Alarum” (2024)

Directed by Michael Polish

Culture Representation: Taking place in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, the action film “Alarum” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Two married assassin spies, who used to be opponents, are targeted by an intelligence network of criminal anarchists, who want to gain possession of a valuable flash drive.

Culture Audience: “Alarum” will appeal mainly to fans of the movie’s headliners and people who don’t mind watching bottom-of-the-barrel action flicks.

Mike Colter in “Alarum” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

Creatively bankrupt on every level, “Alarum” is a mindless mess of an action film that goes through the motions until its very lazy and abrupt ending. The performances are never believable in this moronic story about spies fighting over a flash drive. That’s essentially the entire limp plot of “Alarum,” which is time-wasting junk, even though some well-known actors are in the movie’s cast.

Directed by Michael Polish and written by Alexander Vesha, “Alarum” takes place mostly in Gdańsk, Poland, and briefly in Prague, Czech Republic, and in Prešov, Slovakia. The movie was actually filmed in Oxford, Ohio. “Alarum” has characters that you won’t care about because they are so hollow, and most of the acting in the film is terrible.

The protagonists of “Alarum” are two American spouses who are assassin spies: Joe Travers (played by Scott Eastwood) and Lara Travers (played by Willa Fitzgerald), whose maiden name was Larissa Moss. As shown in the movie’s opening scene, Joe and Lara met in Prague, in 2019, when she was assigned to kill him when he worked for the CIA. They crashed out of a high-rise hotel window during this life-or-death fight.

The movie then fast-forwards to 2024 in Gdańsk. Joe and Lara are now married. (Their courtship is never shown in the movie.) It’s soon revealed that Joe (whose code name was Archibald) went rogue and abandoned the CIA in 2019, which is why Joe and Lara have gone into hiding. It’s implied that Joe and Lara make money by being low-level con artists.

Joe and Lara are in a hotel room as they get ready for a dinner double date with a married couple named Roland Rousseau (played by Joel Cohen, who is one of the producers of “Alarum”) and Bridgette Rousseau (played by Isis Valverde), who don’t know that Joe and Lara are spies. Before going to this dinner at a restaurant, Joe and Lara are in their hotel room and have a petty disagreement over what lies they will tell the Rousseaus.

Joe wants Lara to pretend that she has obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), while Lara wants Joe to be the one to pretend he has OCD. Lara agrees to be the one to pretend to have OCD, but then Lara blurts out during the dinner that Joe has OCD. Back in their hotel room, Joe tells Lara that he’s irritated that Lara didn’t go along with the original plan. It’s one of several pointless sequences in “Alarum.”

Not long after this awkward dinner, Joe and Bridgette are part of a tourist group that witnesses the crash of a small plane, which was shot down from behind by snipers in another plane. At the crash site, Joe sees that this plane (which has no survivors) is from the Drug Enforcement Agency. The only two people on the plane were the pilot and a co-worker passenger.

Joe somehow knows that he needs to get a flash drive (which he calls a “flight pill”) from the dead pilot’s stomach. Joe retrieves this flash drive in a gruesome manner. And somehow, there’s a secret surveillance device on the plane that picks up the sound of Joe talking and transmits this audio surveillance to the CIA. That’s how the CIA finds out that Joe is in Poland.

It’s later revealed that this flash drive has something to do with Alarum, a secretive group that “wants to tear down the tyranny” of the government intelligence network. Now that Joe has the flash drive, he and Lara are targets of people who want to kill Joe and Lara and get the flash drive. Various chase scenes and violent fights ensue. All of them look phony and badly choreographed, with tacky visual effects.

Other characters in this cinematic garbage dump are a corrupt operative named Orlin (played by Mike Colter, an American actor doing a terrible African accent), whose African nationality is vague and who has a team of henchman; CIA deputy director Roland Burbridge (played by D.W. Moffett), who just talks on a phone while he’s sitting at a desk; CIA agent Kirby (played Mark Polish), a generic subordinate who’s eager to impress Roland; and a rebellious mercenary named Chester (played by Sylvester Stallone), who is hired by the CIA to find and kill Joe because Roland thinks Joe has joined Alarum. Everything about “Alarum” is so mind-numbingly horrible, it’s an embarrassment for anyone involved in this junkpile film.

Lionsgate released “Alarum” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and on VOD on January 17, 2025.

Review: ‘The Last Front’ (2024), starring Iain Glen, Sasha Luss, Joe Anderson, Koen De Bouw, David Calder, James Downie and Emma Dupont

January 21, 2025

by Carla Hay

Iain Glenn in “The Last Front” (Photo courtesy of Enigma Releasing)

“The Last Front” (2024)

Directed by Julien Hayet-Kerknawi

Culture Representation: Taking place in Belgium during World War I, the action film “The Last Front” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A Belgian farmer leads a group of villagers in his community in resisting an invasion by German soldiers.

Culture Audience: “The Last Front” will appeal mainly to people who don’t mind watching generic war movies.

Sasha Luss in “The Last Front” (Photo courtesy of Enigma Releasing)

Filled with generic dialogue and bad acting, the action drama “The Last Front” re-uses the same formulas in many other movies about an underdog hero. In this case, it’s about a Belgian farmer leading a resistance against German invaders during World War I. Almost everything in this unimaginative movie can be predicted.

Directed by Julien Hayet-Kerknawi (who co-wrote “The Last Front” screenplay with Kate Wood), “The Last Front”(which was filmed on location in Belgium) has an overly simplistic story that is stretched out by tepid battle scenes. Leonard Lambert (played by Iain Glen) is a widower farmer who is dealing with the fact that his adult son Adrien (played by James Downie) is having a “forbidden” romance with Louise (played by Sasha Luss), the daughter of the prominent Dr. Janssen (played by Koen De Bouw), who doesn’t approve of the relationship.

Here’s an example of the boring and clunky dialogue in the movie: Leonard comments to Adrien about Louise: “She’s not the right woman.” Adrien replies, “But we’re in love.” Leonard says, “Your mother and I were in love. It wasn’t enough.” Adrien responds, “You don’t know Louise.” Leonard says, “I know what living on a farm does to a woman … If you love her, you’ll let her go.”

German soldiers, including the cartoonish villain Laurentz (played by Joe Anderson), invade the village where the Lambert family lives. Laurentz’s father Maximilian Von Rauch (played by Philippe Brenninkmeyer), who is in command of the soldiers, have conflicts with each other because Maximilian thinks that Laurentz’s ruthlessness is out of control. This family turmoil is treated in a very superficial manner with more dull dialogue.

Maximilian asks Laurentz: “When did you become such a monster?” Laurentz replies, “I am not a monster. I am a soldier.” Maximilian wants Laurentz to resign instead of being court martialed and says to Laurentz: “You shame our country. You shame our family.” Laurentz calls Maximilian a “sentimental old fool” at one point during their bickering.

Leonard, Louise, Leonard’s adult daughter Johanna (played by Emma Dupont), a farmhand named Fergal (played by Kevin Murphy) and a priest named Father Michael (played by David Calder) are among those fighting to stay alive during the German invasion. All of these characters have utterly bland personalities and are depicted with unimpressive acting. The resistance to the invasion plays out in the most stereotypical way that might entertain people who can’t get enough of cliché-ridden war movies where one person leads a ragtag group of underdogs to a predictable outcome.

Enigma Releasing released “The Last Front” in select U.S. cinemas on August 9, 2024.

Review: ‘Octopus With Broken Arms,’ starring Xiao Yang, Tong Liya, Duan Yihong and Cya Liu

January 18, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Octopus With Broken Arms”

Directed by Jacky Gan

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in China, the action film “Octopus With Broken Arms” features an all-Asian cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A billionaire widowed businessman fights mysterious enemies after his 8-year-old daughter is kidnapped.

Culture Audience: “Octopus With Broken Arms” will appeal mainly to people who don’t mind watching action crime thrillers that are convoluted, just for the sake of having “shocking” twists.

A scene from “Octopus With Broken Arms” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)

“Octopus With Broken Arms” has plenty of suspenseful action, but it has too many far-fetched plot twists. The melodramatic overacting looks too fake and does a disservice to the film’s serious subject of children who are kidnapped and enslaved. “Octopus With Broken Arms” takes this subject and puts in a very manipulative story that constantly insults viewers’ intelligence

Directed by Jacky Gan and written by Li Peng, “Octopus With Broken Arms” (formerly titled “Sheep Without a Shepherd 3”) takes place in unnamed cities in China. The movie begins by showing billionaire widower Zheng Bingrui (played by Xiao Yang) proudly watching his 8-year-old daughter Tingting (played by Chloe Ye) performing on stage for a school play. Tingting’s teacher Li Huiping (played by Tong Liya) seems to have a good relationship with her, which is why Bingrui invites Huiping to Tingting’s upcoming birthday party.

Bingrui is the chairman of Ruiting Group, a company that he owns. It’s briefly mentioned in a news report that Ruiting Group makes facial masks. Because of his wealth, Bingrui is famous throughout China. The movie is named “Octopus With Broken Arms” because Tingting, Bingrui and Huiping having matching octopus stamps on their hands.

At the birthday party, things seem to be going well until Tingting disappears. Not long after the disappearance, Bingrui gets a call demanding a $100 million ransom (which is about ¥732,500 RMB) for the return of Tingting. Bingrui is willing to pay the money, but he understandably wants law enforcement to catch the kidnapper or kidnappers.

Bingrui immediately names two possible suspects: Shi Fu’an (played by Feng Bing) is someone who is Bingrui’s enemy, for reasons that are revealed later in the movie. The other suspect is a mute gardener named Lu (played by Bokeh Kosang), who was seen on a surveillance video appearing to driving Tingting to Fu’an’s home. Lu goes through an intense and brutal interrogation by police.

However, early on in the movie, it’s shown that someone else has been making the ransom calls, using a device that disguises the caller’s voice. This person wears a hooded jacket and is in a room that has several video monitors that can watch every move made by Bingrui, even when Bingrui and Huiping zip around on a boat in a lake to deliver the ransom money. This “everywhere all at once” video surveillance is when the movie starts to fall apart and spirals into nonsense.

Meanwhile, another child named Daymond Pankong (played by Chayanon Akradamrongdet) is kidnapped and used as bait for Bingrui to find Tingting. Pangkong is named after his father (played by Jack Kao), who is the director of China’s National Security Agencyu. There’s also a woman named Yayin (played by Cya Liu), who has a big role in the story because of something that happened in her past.

The police leader in the child kidnapping investigation is police captain Zhang Jingxian (played by Duan Yihong), who is somewhat helpful, but “Octopus With Broken Arms” is really about making Bingrui the vigilante action hero of the story. Liang Su’e (played by Sandrine Pinna) is a police officer who assists in the case. The violence in “Octopus With Broken Arms” can be quite gruesome, such as a scene depicting a child’s finger being cut off by a kidnapper. There are also shootouts, chase scenes, fist fights, explosions and other action movie clichés.

A tragedy that happened in 2017 is the catalyst for some of the characters’ motives. As explained in the movie, in June 2017, a ship was headed to the border of China, when a gas leak caused the ship to explode. All 619 people on board were killed, including 23 children. The people on the ship were refugees trying to cross the border illegally.

The relationship between Bingrui and Huiping is never adequately explained. Why is this schoolteacher running around with Bingrui and getting herself into dangerous situations like a superhero sidekick? It’s because she’s in a preposterous movie.

Unfortunately, “Octopus With Broken Arms” tries to cram in too many ideas without much cohesive thought. The movie jumps from one plot twist to the next—and almost none of them are believable. The choppy editing often makes “Octopus With Broken Arms” look incoherent. And by the time secrets are revealed (along with the movie’s many plot holes), none of it makes enough sense for the movie’s ending to have its intended impact.

CMC Pictures released “Octopus With Broken Arms” in select U.S. cinemas on January 10, 2025. The movie was released in China on December 28, 2024.

Review: ‘Game Changer’ (2025), starring Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, S. J. Suryah, Srikanth and Sunil

January 17, 2025

by Carla Hay

Ram Charan in “Game Changer” (Photo courtesy of Zee Studios)

“Game Changer” (2025)

Directed by S. Shankar

Telugu with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Andhra Pradesh, India, the action film “Game Changer” features a predominantly Indian cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A district magistrate becomes a politician in his fight against corruption.

Culture Audience: “Game Changer” will appeal mainly to people who don’t mind watching mindless action movies that are too long.

Ram Charan and Kiara Advani in “Game Changer” (Photo courtesy of Zee Studios)

It’s ironic that the title of this movie is “Game Changer,” because everything about this bloated film uses the same formulas as the worst action movies about a hero fighting corruption: It’s loud, obnoxious, idiotic, and too long. The musical numbers in this 165-minute cinematic abomination are tacky and awkwardly placed. And the acting performances are utterly generic.

Directed by S. Shankar and written by Vivek Velmurugan, “Game Changer” takes place in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. That’s where district magistrate Ram Nandan (played by Ram Charan)—a former police officer who is based in the city of Visakhapatnam—acts like a one-man army against criminals. He uncovers a drug smuggling operation and other criminal activities.

“Game Changer” is overloaded with scenes of people shouting at each other and fighting each other. There’s a subplot about a rivalry between the unscrupulous sons of Andhra Pradesh’s chief minister Bobbili Sathyamoorthy (played by Srikanth), who is shallow cliché of a corrupt patriarch in power. Elder son Bobbili Munimanikyam (played by Jayaram) is the home minister of Andhra Pradesh. Younger son Bobbili Mopidevi (played by S. J. Suryah) is the minister of Andhra Pradesh.

At one point, Ram decides to run for political office at the urging of people in the community. It leads to a long-winded and annoying part of the movie where over-the-top things happen, such as a one of Ram’s enemies using a bulldozer to destroy an election building. All the violence in the movie looks unrealistic, including the fake-looking visual effects.

Ram is a bachelor whose family has been pressuring him to get married. Strangely, Charan also plays the role of Ram’s father Appanna, who is the founder of the Abhyudayam Party. Appana’s wife/Ram’s mother Parvathy (played by Anjali) has a one-note role in the movie: nagging Ram to find a wife.

Ram’s love interest is Deepika (played by Kiara Advani), a medical doctor who is seen dancing more than doing actual work as a doctor. Charan and Advani do not have believable romantic chemistry as Ram and Deepika, so the love affair in “Game Changer” just falls flat. Ram also has a close friend named “Side” Satyam (played by Sunil), who is a fairly forgettable character.

The sound mixing in “Game Changer” is horrendous, with too many scenes that blare music and sound effects at extremely irritating levels. It’s an overly long movie that has choppy film editing in scenes that abruptly end and then incoherently go to the next scene. No amount of editing could erase all the garbage filmmaking that’s in “Game Changer,” which is a complete waste of time for anyone who watches this rotten spectacle.

Zee Studios released “Game Changer” in U.S. cinemas and in India on January 10, 2025.

Review: ‘Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,’ starring Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr.

January 11, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera”

Directed by Christian Gudegast

Some language in French and Sicilian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in France, Belgium, Italy, Sardinia, and the United States, the action film “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” (a sequel to 2018’s “Den of Thieves”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An American police detective tracks down an American fugitive thief in Europe, and they assemble a team to rob a World Diamond Center in Belgium.

Culture Audience: “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and derivative action movies that don’t do anything imaginative.

O’Shea Jackson Jr. in “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” (Photo by Rico Torres/Lionsgate)

Struggling for a reason to exist, “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” fails to be an exciting thriller about a diamond heist. This dreadful action sequel gets bogged down by dull pacing, wooden acting and terrible dialogue. There wasn’t a huge demand for this sequel in the first place. And if you have the patience to watch all of this sloppy and boring movie, it’s easy to see why this middling franchise has overstayed its welcome and should have ended with the first “Den of Thieves” movie.

Christian Gudegast wrote and directed 2018’s “Den of Thieves” and 2025’s “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera.” The first “Den of Thieves” movie was by no means great, but it at least had characters with somewhat entertaining personalities. In “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” all of the characters have the personalities of cardboard cutouts. The action in the first “Den of Thieves” also had an adequate level of suspense. In “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” the characters do a lot of talking for the first 40 minutes of this 144-minute movie before there’s finally a big action scene.

Even though “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” was released seven years after the original movie, the story picks up less than a year after the events of the first “Den of Thieves” movie. Nicholas “Big Nick” O’Brien (played by Gerard Butler), a detective in the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department detective, is angry that he was duped by former confidential informant Donnie Wilson (played by O’Shea Jackson Jr.), who has disappeared with millions of dollars in stolen cash

Mild spoiler alert if you don’t know what happened at the end of “Den of Thieves”: Donnie turned out to be the mastermind of a massive cash theft from the U.S. Federal Reserve. While his colleagues were killed or captured, Donnie hid the stolen loot in an offshore Panama account and fled to London. The ending of “Den of Thieves” implied that Donnie’s next big theft would be a diamond heist.

Unfortunately, “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” assumes that viewers already know what happened in “Den of Thieves,” which is an annoying thing for a sequel to do. In “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” Donnie does indeed get involved in stealing diamonds. He has teamed up with a group of Balkan outlaws called the Panthers to rob an airplane flight carrying diamonds from Johannesburg, South Africa. “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” (which was filmed mostly in Sardinia) never credibly explains why this group of Balkan thieves would allow an American outsider (and potential double crosser) to join their gang.

The plane is hijacked in Brussels, Belgium, because the Panthers have disguised themselves in Police Federale SWAT outfits. The Panthers’ jewelry haul, including a rare pink diamond, is worth tens of millions of U.S. dollars. The person who owns this pink diamond is Sardinian mafia boss Matteo “The Octopus” Venzolasca (played by Adriano Chiaramida), which predictably means that he and his thugs will be looking for the Panthers too.

An early scene in “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” shows that back in the United States, Nick’s wife has divorced him and taken custody of their kids. His law enforcement reputation has gone downhill because Donnie escaped. And now, Nick wants revenge by tracking down Donnie.

So what does Nick do? He has sex with a stripper named Holly (played by Meadow Williams), who has connections to Donnie’s former gang of thieves, so that Nick can get information from Holly about where Donnie is and what he did with the stolen Federal Reserve money. After Nick has sex with Holly, he handcuffs her, interrogates her, and says he won’t release her until she tells him the information he wants to know.

However, Holly reveals to Nick that she secretly videorecorded their sexual encounter. She blackmails Nick by saying that she’ll tell him what he wants to know, but she wants a cut of the stolen money in return—or else she’ll release the sex video to Nick’s supervisors. Nick reluctantly agrees to this illegal deal. Holly tells Nick that Donnie hid the money in Panama.

In the scene with Holly and Nick, he mentions some nonsense that he can go anywhere in the world to find Donnie because he was given special U.S. Marshal authority that extends to international territories. He flashes a U.S. Marshal badge to prove it. It’s all just so ludicrous. And it’s really just an excuse for Nick to do a lot of globetrotting, but “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” is more of a slog than an adventure.

After the plane hijacking, Donnie has been hiding out in Paris, where he is using the alias Jean-Jacques Dyallo. Donnie is pretending to be a gem dealer from the Ivory Coast but is completely unconvincing because Jackson does a terrible job of trying to sound like an African who can speak French. Half of the time, he sounds like an American with a fake accent. The fake accents in “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” are unintentionally funny parts of the movie.

Donnie goes to the Nice Financial Diamont Bank to do a shady business transaction. The bank’s corrupt head of security is Chava Falcon (played by Nazmiye Oral), who works with the Panthers. In one of the movie’s most idiotic scenes, Donnie (posing as Jean-Jacques) and Chava go to the World Diamond Center to try and sell these stolen diamonds—even though in real life, these stolen diamonds would surely be on the radar of a place like the World Diamond Center, which gets alerts about high-profile diamond thefts. Chava has a colleague named Olivier (played by Stéphane Coulon), who works as the bank’s concierge.

Nick gets a tip that Donnie is in Paris. Nick goes to Paris and meets up with police chief Hugo Kaman (played Yasen Zates Atour), who leads a task force named Pantera, which has been trying to apprehend the Panthers. Nick tells Hugo about Donnie because Nick suspects Donnie is involved with the Panthers. Nick and Hugo look at surveillance video of Donnie at the Nice Financial Diamont Bank, but Nick pretends that the man in the video isn’t Donnie.

That’s because Nick has his own agenda for wanting to find Donnie. After Nick knows for sure that Donnie is in the Paris area, the next thing you know, Nick suddenly shows up at the same outdoor cafe where Donnie is eating by himself. Instead of taking Donnie into custody, Nick tells Donnie that Nick is financially broke and wants to be part of Donnie’s next heist. Donnie agrees and introduces Nick to the Panthers.

As for the Panthers, they are hollow people who are tedious to watch. Panthers leader Jovanna (played by Evin Ahmad), nicknamed Cleopatra, is supposed to be both a seductive femme fatale and a ruthless mastermind. Ahmad, who stiffly performs in her scenes, is very unconvincing in this role. Jovanna comes across as a starlet who’s more skilled at posting photos of herself on Instagram than leading international jewelry heists.

Jovanna inexplicably lets Donnie take charge of planning the Panthers’ next heist: robbing the World Diamond Center in Belgium. It’s a laughable part of the movie because Donnie can barely speak with a French accent and is an obvious con artist. In real life, professional thieves on this level wouldn’t want to have someone in charge who stands out like an obvious suspect.

The other Panthers are equally boring and superficial. Dragan (played by Orli Shuka) is Jovanna’s “intellectual” right-hand man, who doesn’t really do anything to show he’s as smart as the movie wants us to think Dragan is. Dragan’s specialty is picking locks and other security issues. Dragan doesn’t really trust Donnie, but that’s not an indication of above-average intelligence. It’s just common sense. The Panther “goons” are handsome Marko (played by Dino Kelly) and average guy Slavko (played by Salvatore Esposito), who are the Panthers members who are most likely to be able to handle themselves in fist fights.

“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” awkwardly veers into soap opera territory in a moronic scene at a nightclub, where Nick, Donnie and the Panthers get high from smoking hashish. Nick starts dancing seductively with Jovanna. Slavko discreetly tells Nick to stop dancing with Jovanna because she’s Marko’s ex-lover, and Marko is getting upset that Jovanna is dancing with Nick. And predictably, a fist fight breaks out between Nick and Marko.

The reunion of Nick and Donnie should have brought a lot of interesting tension to the story. Instead, Nick and Donnie act like petulant teenagers who do things like argue over who’s a better swimmer. It’s all just so embarrassing to see grown men act this way. Butler (who is one of the movie’s producers) looks bored in his portrayal of jaded and world-weary Nick. Jackson’s performance as Donnie is not interesting enough to elevate this misguided film.

There’s a scene that attempts to give Nick and Donnie some emotional depth, when they open up to each other about why they chose their career paths. Donnie, a California native, says his interest in becoming a thief began when he was a teenager from a working-class/poor household and had to walk to school from his hometown of Hawthorne to Torrance as part of his school’s racial integration program.

During these walks through upscale neighborhoods, Donnie says he learned to case the houses and find out residents’ routines, such was when they weren’t home during the day. It was only a matter of time before he broke into a house. Because “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” has no imagination, Donnie is a negative racial stereotype of an African-American man who was raised by an underprivileged single mother and who turned to a life of crime. Donnie mentions that when he was a child, he witnessed his father getting killed.

Nick has his own childhood sob story, which he tells to Donnie in this conversation. His father was shot and was left with a permanent limp. The shooter was never caught. Nick says this incident motivated Nick to go into law enforcement. The entire shaky premise of “Den of Thieves: Pantera” is that Nick has decided to become a secret criminal, but it’s never believable that the Panthers would let Nick become part of their group so easily.

In a separate scene that’s meant to show Nick’s “vulnerable” side, Nick inexplicably shows up at Hugo’s church when divorced father Hugo is there attending a service with his son and daughter, who are about 4 to 7 years old. This scene is poorly written and shows Nick acting like a stalker, as he sits behind Hugo and the children, and then follows them outside after the church service ends. The main purpose of this scene is so Nick can tell Hugo that he’s a divorced father too.

“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” wastes a lot of time on monotonous conversations and underwhelming action scenes. The first “Den of Thieves” movie had a compelling chief villain who got a lot of screen time. But “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” doesn’t have a clear-cut chief villain, which is sorely needed to maintain viewer interest in a crime movie.

On a technical level, “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” has a lot of dark and drab cinematography that makes many of the scenes look too murky and unappealing. The musical score is competently generic. Tighter film editing might have benefited this rambling and incoherent film, although the movie’s weakest link is still the awful screenplay.

The scenes showing heists and getaways do nothing clever and are just inferior ripoffs of better movies about jewelry heists. The “twist” ending of “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” makes it clear that another sequel is planned. But there isn’t enough in “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” for most viewers to care about the continuation of this disappointing story.

Lionsgate released “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” in U.S. cinemas on January 10, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on January 28, 2025.

Review: ‘Carry-On,’ starring Taron Egerton, Sofia Carson, Danielle Deadwyler and Jason Bateman

December 25, 2024

by Carla Hay

“Carry-On”

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, the action film “Carry-On” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent is forced to participate in a terrorist plot, where he has been told that he has to let a certain carry-on suitcase past the X-ray machine that he is monitoring and onto a certain plane, or else his pregnant girlfriend will be murdered.

Culture Audience: “Carry-On” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and action movies that are predictable but enjoyable.

Jason Bateman in “Carry-On” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Carry-On” is a preposterous but entertaining thrill ride about an airport security agent caught up in a deadly terrorist plot involving a smuggled carry-on suitcase. The movie doesn’t take itself seriously and has well-cast heroes and villains. This is the type of movie made for escapism for viewers—not to make any meaningful statements or to provoke deep thoughts.

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and written by T.J. Fixman, “Carry-On” takes place in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve. The movie was actually filmed in New Orleans, mainly at the decommissioned terminal at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. “Carry-On” begins by showing two Russian thugs named Olek (played by Jeff Pope) and Yuri (played by Raymond Rehage) at a large greenhouse somewhere in Los Angeles. The movie’s chief villain (played by Jason Bateman)—an assassin whose name is never revealed—enters the greenhouse, shoots Olek and Yuri, and then sets the greenhouse on fire.

The next scene in “Carry-On” shows live-in couple—30-year-old Ethan Kopek (played by Taron Egerton) and 27-year-old Nora Parisi (played by Sofia Carson)—waking up to get ready to go to work. Ethan and Nora, who have been dating each other for three years, both work at Los Angeles International Airport, also known as LAX. Ethan is a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent. Nora is an operations manager at North Wind Airlines, a company that was fabricated for this movie.

Nora is pregnant with her and Ethan’s first child, but the movie never says how far along she is in her pregnancy. Based on her physical appearance and conversations about the pregnancy, Nora is probably two or three months pregnant. Ethan and Nora are a happy couple looking forward to the birth of the child, but Ethan has some lingering insecurities that are affecting the relationship.

It’s eventually revealed in conversations that Ethan, who is originally from New Jersey, isn’t satisfied with the way his career is going. He moved to Los Angeles to be with Nora after she was hired by North Wind, which requires her to live in the Los Angeles area. Ethan only became a TSA agent at LAX so he and Nora could work in the same building.

What Ethan really wants to do with his life is be a police officer. He applied to enroll at a police academy once and was rejected. He was so hurt by this rejection that he hasn’t bothered to apply again, even though Nora keeps encouraging Ethan to re-apply. Nora candidly tells Ethan that when he applied to a police academy, it was the last time she saw him truly excited about his life.

A little later in the movie, it’s revealed there are other reasons for Ethan’s insecurity and disillusionment about becoming a police officer: His father (who’s never seen in the movie) also wanted to be a police officer and applied to a police academy several times but was always rejected. Ethan’s father is now an Uber driver. You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to know that Ethan is afraid he’s going to end up just like his father—doing a job he doesn’t really like because he couldn’t get his dream job.

It’s under these circumstances that Ethan arrives for work late (which apparently isn’t the first time), where he has a reputation for being likable but not particularly reliable. It’s why Ethan has been assigned the job of a metal-detector agent instead of the more challenging job of being an X-ray agent responsible for operating the equipment that scans carry-on items. It’s also why Ethan hasn’t been promoted in the three years that he’s had this job.

Ethan’s closest friend at his job is a mild-mannered co-worker named Jason Noble (played by Sinqua Walls), a married father who is a TSA agent who operates X-ray machines. Jason advises Ethan to try to get a promotion to have this type of job because Ethan is going to need more money to raise a child. Their boss Phil Sarkowski (played by Dean Norris) bluntly tells Ethan that he hasn’t given Ethan a promotion because Ethan acts like he doesn’t want to be at this TSA job. Ethan promises that he will be more responsible and wants to prove that he’s worthy of getting a promotion.

Jason tells a skeptical Phil that Jason will switch job responsibilities with Ethan on that day so Ethan can get a chance to show that he has the ability to do the X-ray job. Phil reluctantly agrees. It’s the first of many things that don’t ring true in “Carry-On” because there’s nothing to show that Ethan was trained for this X-ray job before being suddenly thrust into it.

Of course, this unlikely but still possible twist of fate is why Ethan is in the proverbial “hot seat” that makes him the distressed hero of the story. He becomes a target when terrorists force him to allow a certain passenger and the passenger’s carry-on suitcase through the X-ray machine and onto the plane. The terrorists refuse to say what’s in the suitcase, but Ethan finds out that the plan is to kill all of the approximately 250 people on the plane after the plane is in flight. (This review won’t reveal what’s in the suitcase, except to say it’s not an obvious weapon, such as a bomb.)

It isn’t long before Ethan is contacted by the person who forces Ethan to participate in this deadly terrorist plot. This person (the same killer from the movie’s opening scene) becomes Ethan’s chief adversary. Even though this assassin’s name is never revealed in “Carry-On,” in the movie’s end credits, he is listed only as Traveler. This elusive killer is able to avoid detection because he looks like a regular middle-aged guy who’s able to blend in easily.

Traveler has an unnamed accomplice, identified as Watcher (played by Theo Rossi), who is stationed in a repair van in an airport parking lot. Somehow, this van has surveillance equipment that can track several areas inside the airport. One of the repeated scenarios is that Watcher and Traveler are constantly tracking Ethan in the airport through surveillance, which makes it harder for Ethan to get help when he finds himself embroiled in this terrorist plot. It’s a very far-fetched scenario. Ethan is able to find a few “blind spots” in the airport that the terrorists can’t see.

Watcher and Traveler are able to quickly find out a lot of personal information about the TSA agents. These two criminals had originally planned to force Jason into their terrorist plan by holding Jason’s wife and daughter hostage. But when Watcher and Traveler see that Ethan is working at the X-ray station where Jason normally works, they decided to target Ethan under the threat of killing pregnant Nora.

Traveler tells Watcher about this sudden change of plans: “Let’s pivot. Fill in some blanks. No matter what, this gets done today.” Traveler is able to get a cell phone placed on the conveyer belt that Ethan is operating. Just as Ethan sees that no airline passenger has claimed this phone, he sees text messages appear on the phone telling Ethan to wear an ear bud that is placed nearby.

It’s the first time that Ethan hears from Traveler, who communicates with Ethan through this ear bud. Traveler tells Ethan about the plan and describes in detail what the passenger and briefcase look like. Ethan later finds out that the passenger carrying the briefcase is named Mateo Flores (played by Tonatiuh), who is wearing a red baseball cap. At first Ethan thinks it’s all an elaborate prank. But when Traveler tells Ethan how many personal details he knows about Ethan’s life, Ethan is convinced this is no prank.

Traveler not only threatens Ethan by saying Nora will be killed if Ethan doesn’t follow Traveler’s orders but Traveler also threatens to kill other people inside the airport if Ethan tries to get help or report this terrorist plot. Traveler says that if Ethan does something such as removing the ear bud to cut off contact with Traveler, that could get someone killed too. At one point, Traveler asks Ethan if he would rather have 250 people die on an airplane or thousands of people die in an airport.

When Ethan asks Traveler if he’s a terrorist, Travel replies: “I consider myself a freelance facilitator.” It’s implied throughout the movie that Traveler and Watcher are “middle men” hired by a larger entity, which is never named in the movie. Traveler is often cold and detached, but he also has a tendency to rant and ramble about things that irritate him. During some of his rants, he reveals his contempt for millennials and Gen Z people, whom he thinks are wimpy and over-reliant on technology. Traveler also thinks he’s the smartest person in the room who’s skilled at psychoanalysis as a way to predict and manipulate people’s actions.

“Carry-On” has a few supporting characters who are pivotal to the story. Los Angeles police detective Elena Cole (played by Danielle Deadwyler) is the first law enforcement officer to suspect that there might be a terrorist plan put into motion at LAX. She’s later joined by Agent Alcott (played by Logan Marshall-Green) from the FBI. Ethan also has a TSA co-worker named Eddie (played by Gil Perez-Abraham), an aspiring rapper who shamelessly peddles his music to his co-workers and other people at the airport. Eddie is the movie’s “comic relief” character.

“Carry-On” has some other intentionally comedic moments, including a montage of angry and difficult passengers who feel that they’re being inconvenienced in some way by the TSA screening process. Traveler also has some wry comments that are meant to show that he’s deeply cynical about how society works and he’s just a hired gun who doesn’t care about taking sides in politics when it comes to the work he’s hired to do. Detective Cole also has some one-liner jokes that are a bit corny but are intended to bring some laughs.

“Carry-On” is an effective thriller not just because of the adrenaline-packed actions scenes but also because of the performances from the movie’s talented cast members. A movie like this is often appealing because of the chief hero and the chief villain. Egerton is able to be a vulnerable “everyman” who’s easy to root for when it’s time for Ethan to show he’s a lot braver and smarter than most people think he might be. Bateman is also quite convincing as a mysterious but menacing terrorist. “Carry-On” doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a crowd-pleasing movie that has a few twists to its formulaic plot but ends up right where most viewers expect.

Netflix premiered “Carry-On” on December 13, 2024.