Boston Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Riff Raff’ (2025), starring Jennifer Coolidge, Ed Harris, Gabrielle Union, Lewis Pullman, Pete Davidson and Bill Murray

March 9, 2025

by Carla Hay

Gabrielle Union, Miles J. Harvey and Ed Harris in “Riff Raff” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate)

“Riff Raff” (2025)

Directed by Dito Montiel

Some language in Italian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Maine and in Boston, the comedy/drama film “Riff Raff” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An ex-criminal, his wife and his teenage stepson have their lives disrupted when his estranged adult son from a previous marriage unexpectedly shows up because he’s hiding from criminals who want to kill the wayward son.

Culture Audience: “Riff Raff” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and don’t mind watching a meandering and clumsy crime dramedy that isn’t as interesting as it thinks it is.

Bill Murray, Pete Davidson and Scott Michael Campbell in “Riff Raff” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate)

“Riff Raff” would’ve been more interesting if this comedy/drama focused on the mismatched criminals played by Bill Murray and Pete Davidson, who have the best scenes in the movie. The dysfunctional blended family at the center of the story is a dull drag. Murray and Davidson, whose “Riff Raff” characters are bickering opposites, have wickedly funny scenes that succeed in the movie’s intention to be a dark comedy. Unfortunately, their scenes are less than one-third of this disappointing dud of a film.

Directed by Dito Montiel and written by John Pollono, “Riff Raff” had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. “Riff Raff” is obviously trying to be like the crime movies that filmmaker Quentin Tarantino made in the 1990s, but “Riff Raff” falls woefully short because most of the characters are tedious and two-dimensional. The story is supposed to unfold in layers but ends up being a jumbled mess.

“Riff Raff” (which takes place in Maine and in Boston) begins by showing an elderly man named Vincent Gaultier (played by Ed Harris) having an easygoing, heart-to-heart talk with his teenage stepson DJ (played by Miles J. Harvey) in the living room of the family’s vacation home in Maine. (“Riff Raff” was actually filmed in New Jersey.) The movie’s opening scene has Vincent and DJ talking about DJ’s future.

DJ’s mother is a homemaker named Sandy (played by Gabrielle Union), who has been married to Vincent for an untold number of years (definitely less than 10 years), after being a widow. Sandy (who’s about 20 years younger than Vincent) was previously married to DJ’s father Laurence (played by Eli Massillon), whose sudden death is something that Sandy doesn’t like to talk about. However, a flashback shows how Laurence died. Sandy doesn’t like to talk about her marriage to Laurence at all.

DJ is going to be a first-year student at Dartmouth College in the autumn. Throughout the film, there are many examples of why DJ was accepted into this prestigious Ivy League college: He’s very intelligent and unapologetically nerdy when spouting trivia facts that he seems to infuse in almost every conversation.

DJ has recently had his heart broken by a love interest named Brittany, who’s never seen in the movie. It’s unclear if Brittany was ever DJ’s official “girlfriend” or if they were just casually dating, but it’s mentioned that Brittany abruptly dumped DJ for a soccer player right before DJ and Brittany were supposed to go to their prom together as dates. “Brittany’s a jerk,” Vincent tells DJ to comfort him. As for DJ’s future dating prospects, Vincent advises DJ to repeat to himself: “You’re not going to settle.”

DJ’s despondency over his love life leads Vincent to tell DJ a secret that he knows Sandy doesn’t want DJ to know: Laurence cheated on Sandy during their marriage. Vincent makes DJ promise that DJ won’t tell Sandy that Vincent told DJ this information. Vincent also wants DJ to pretend that DJ doesn’t even know this information.

It’s the first indication that this family has secrets and hidden resentments. And it’s also the first indication that Vincent isn’t the great father he appears to be. There is no good reason for Vincent to tell DJ this information about DJ’s dead father. Telling this information to DJ would hurt DJ’s feelings and would selfishly make Vincent look like a better husband/father than Laurence was. Laurence died when DJ was very young, so DJ has mixed feelings about Laurence not being in his life.

By all accounts, Vincent and Sandy have a solid marriage where they are faithful to each other. Sandy is the type of person who likes things to be as perfect as possible, without any disruptions to her plans. The home is meticulously well-kept. The family also owns another upscale home in the Boston area. It’s later mentioned that this vacation house in Maine is a “secret getaway” house that Vincent owns under someone else’s name.

A lot of Sandy’s “perfect life” image is a façade: Vincent obtained his wealth by being a criminal, but Vincent has now “retired” from a life of crime. Flashbacks reveal that Sandy knows about Vincent past life as a criminal but doesn’t really care, as long as he’s not currently involved in criminal activities, and she can enjoy the life of being a spoiled and pampered housewife.

However, Vincent’s past comes crashing back into his current life on this day when he’s having this talk with DJ. Three people who live in the Boston area show up unannounced at this vacation house: Vincent’s adult son Rocco (played by Lewis Pullman), who is brooding and has a violent bad temper; Rocco’s pregnant Italian-immigrant girlfriend Marina (played by Emanuela Postacchini), who is open and friendly; and Vincent’s ex-wife/Rocco’s mother Ruth (played by Jennifer Coolidge), who is unconscious when they arrive at the house.

When Ruth regains consciousness, she says she was drugged without her knowledge. However, it’s obvious that frequently intoxicated Ruth probably had a lot to do with why she was in that unconscious state. Ruth is the most obnoxious character in the movie, because she mostly just complains rudely, insults other people, and acts ditzy in her frazzled state of mind. Coolidge continues to be typecast as a talkative, scatter-brained character.

Rocco has not seen or spoken to Vincent in quite some time. Vincent isn’t happy at all to see these uninvited visitors—especially ex-wife Ruth, because they had a very bitter divorce. Rocco quickly introduces Marina as someone he’s been dating for almost a year. Marina is eight-and-a-half months pregnant with their first child, who is a boy. Before Rocco and Marina became a couple, she dated another thug in the Boston area named Johnnie (played by Michael Angelo Covino), which means she has an attraction to “bad boys.”

When people ask Rocco or Marina if a name has been chosen for the couple’s unborn son, these expectant parents say yes, but it’s a secret. The end of the movie shows what they’ve named their son. And it’s the most predictable choice possible. It’s also a missed opportunity for “Riff Raff” to have a great joke at the end of the film, instead of having a boring and formulaic ending.

“Riff Raff” stumbles for far too long with awkward family scenes before it’s finally revealed the reason why these three unexpected visitors went to this vacation house in Maine: Rocco is hiding from a crime boss named Leftie Hannigan (played by Murray), who wants to kill Rocco because of something that Rocco did. (It’s revealed in a flashback what Rocco did to get Leftie on a murderous vendetta.) Leftie’s sidekick is a bumbling dimwit named Lonnie (played by Davidson), who constantly frustrates cold and calculating Leftie for making stupid mistakes.

Marina and Ruth both know what Rocco did to be put on Leftie’s hit list. Vincent knows Leftie from Vincent’s criminal past. But at least half of “Riff Raff” is about Ruth and Rocco showing resentment for the comfortable and “respectable” life that Vincent has made for himself, Sandy and DJ. Predictably, Ruth and Sandy despise each other. Rocco is jealous of DJ because DJ gets the type of devoted fatherly attention from Vincent that Rocco never got from Vincent.

Leftie and Lonnie’s hunt for Rocco is oddly dropped into the story about halfway through the movie, when it should have been introduced much earlier in the story. The one truly hilarious scene in “Riff Raff” is when Leftie and Lonnie go to the house that Vincent owns in a Boston suburb. Instead of finding Rocco there, Leftie and Lonnie encounter two nosy and talkative neighbors: a married couple named Garrison (played by P.J. Byrne) and Janet (played by Brooke Dillman), who are curious about these two strangers.

“Riff Raff” undoubtedly has a very talented cast. However, their talents are wasted in this film that moves at an uneven pace and focuses mostly on the blandest characters in the movie. Union does a serviceable job as image-conscious Sandy, but the rest of the characters in Vincent’s family have hollow personalities, with equally hollow acting performances. The contrasts between the “Riff Raff” scenes with and without Murray and Davidson are too noticeable in showing that “Riff Raff” really only comes alive when Murray and Davidson are in the film. All the other scenes are like watching potentially good ideas slowly die from a painful death.

Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate released “Riff Raff” in U.S. cinemas on February 28, 2025.

Review: ‘It Ends With Us,’ starring Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj and Brandon Sklenar

August 7, 2024

by Carla Hay

“It Ends With Us”

Directed by Justin Baldoni

Culture Representation: Taking place mainly in Boston and briefly in Plethora, Maine (with flashbacks to scenes taking place in Plethora, about 15 years earlier), the dramatic film “It Ends With Us” (based on Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians and black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A florist meets and falls in love with a charismatic neurosurgeon, who gives up his playboy ways to date her, but things get complicated when she sees a dark side to him, and she finds out that her high-school sweetheart is still in love with her.

Culture Audience: “It Ends With Us” will appeal primarily to people who fans of star Blake Lively and the book on which the movie is based, as well as romantic dramas that deal with serious topics such as domestic abuse and generational trauma.

Blake Lively and Brandon Sklenar in “It Ends With Us” (Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures)

Talented performances from the principal cast members give emotional resonance to the melodrama in “It Ends With Us.” This worthy book adaptation effectively shows how abuse and generational trauma can be toxic when mixed with love and loyalty. “It Ends With Us” is a story that frankly displays, in sometimes heart-wrenching ways, how difficult it can be to leave an abusive relationship and how a public persona doesn’t always match someone’s true self in private.

Directed by Justin Baldoni and written by Christy Hall, “It Ends With Us” is based on Colleen Hoover’s best-selling 2016 novel of the same name. There’s a love triangle in the movie, where the three main adult characters are about 10 years older than they are in the book. Although there might be some fans of the book who won’t like that these characters’ ages are changed in the movie, people who see the movie can attest that making the characters older in the movie actually gives the story more poignancy. That’s because the relationship mistakes seen in this story can’t be blamed on the characters being too young and inexperienced when it comes to relationships.

The “It Ends With Us” begins by showing Lily Bloom (played by Blake Lively), who’s in her early 30s, driving to her hometown of Plethora, Maine, to attend her father’s funeral. Lily’s father Andrew Bloom (played by Kevin McKidd, shown in flashback scenes) was the mayor of Plethora and a well-respected member of the community. Lily’s widowed mother Jenny Bloom (played by Amy Morton) is happy to see Lily (who is an only child) but tells Lily that she wishes Lily would stay in contact with her.

Lily and Jenny have a complicated relationship that is later explained in the movie. Besides the fact that Lily has been avoiding her mother for years, it’s obvious that Lily has conflicted feelings about her father too. Lily has been asked to write a eulogy for her father, but she’s been postponing writing this eulogy. She’s expected to read the eulogy at the funeral.

On the day of the funeral, Jenny is disappointed to find out that Lily hasn’t written the eulogy yet. Jenny tells Lily just to write down and say five things that she loved about Andrew. At the funeral service, when Lily is in front of the crowded church, Lily tries to say something for the eulogy, but she can’t.

Lily makes a quick apology and leaves the funeral. Lily leaves behind the note paper where she was supposed to write five things she loved about her father. The five notation marks are blank.

The movie then fast-forwards to Lily sitting on the rooftop of an upscale Boston apartment building at night, when she’s startled to see a good-looking man (who’s in his late 30s) storming through the rooftop door and angrily kicking a chair. He’s suprised to see her there and says he’s sorry for this temper tantrum and explains that he’s had a bad day. Lily tells him that she doesn’t live in the building but she’s on the rooftop because she’s “just visiting.” She doesn’t say who she’s visiting in the building.

Lily eventually tells him the reason why she’s in Boston: She’s going to open a flower shop, which has been her lifelong dream. Lily says she’s been “obsessed with flowers” since she was a child. And she jokes that her name Lily Bloom might seems like a contrivance, considering her flower obsession, but she tells him that it’s her real name.

After some flirting, he introduces himself as Ryle Kincaid (played by Baldoni) and says he lives on the top floor of the building, next to his sister and her husband. Ryle then tells Lily that he’s a neurosurgeon. Her reaction is to laugh because she said she thought he was a “crypto bro” or an “expensive prostitute.” Ryle is intrigued by Lily, who is immediately attracted to him too, but she doesn’t really want to show it and is somewhat guarded with him at first.

Ryle turns on the charm and tells her they should play a Naked Truth game, where they tell each other an intimate secret that most people in their lives don’t know. Ryle tells Lily that the reason why he was so upset is because earlier that day, he operated on a 6-year-old boy who had been accidentally shot by his underage brother, but the gunshot victim died. Lily expresses sympathy and decides to open up to Ryle by telling him that she lost her virginity to a homeless guy named Atlas when she was in high school. Lily explains the homeless guy was a fellow student.

The movie has several flashbacks showing how the relationship developed between Atlas and Lily, who were each other’s first love when they were about 17 or 18 years old. In these flashbacks, teenage Lily is played by Isabela Ferrer (who has a striking resemblance to Lively), and teenage Atlas is portrayed by Alex Neustaedter. These flashbacks show Atlas and Lily had a tender romance where they treated each other with kindness and respect, even though some snobbishly cruel students at the school insulted Atlas and Lily as a couple because they knew Atlas was homeless.

Lily and Atlas kept their relationship a secret from Lily’s parents because she knew that her strict and controlling father would not approve of the relationship. Atlas was homeless at the time because he said his single mother kicked him out because she chose her abusive boyfriends over Atlas, who has a hand injury from when he tried to protect his mother from one of these abusers. Lily then confesses to Atlas that her father often hits her mother.

This shared trauma of coming from an abusive home ends up bringing Atlas and Lily closer together. Atlas tells her that after he graduates from high school, he’s enlisting in the U.S. Marines, but his dream is to one day move to Boston, which he thinks is the greatest city in the world. It’s implied in the movie that Atlas and Lily never had a bitter breakup. Their lives just went in different directions, and they didn’t stay in contact with each other after they graduated from high school.

“It Ends With Us” seamlessly goes back and forth between showing the present-day relationship that develops between Lily and Ryle and the past relationship between Lily and Atlas. During the first conversation that Lily and Ryle have on the apartment rooftop, he tells her up front that he wants to have sex with her but he’s not interested in falling in love. He also admits that he’s a playboy who’s not ready to give up his dating lifestyle.

“Love isn’t for me,” Ryle says. “Lust is nice though.” Lily asks Ryle about his overtly sexual pickup technique: “How many women as this worked on?” He answers with a cocky smile, “All of them.” Lily plays hard to get, which makes Ryle want her even more.

Meanwhile, Lily has to do a fixer-upper job for the retail space where she’ll have her flower shop in Boston. Her shop is called Lily Bloom’s, which has a bohemian chic decor. Lily’s first hire for the shop is a talkative and friendly neurotic named Allysa (played by Jenny Slate), who saw Lily’s “Help Wanted” sign before the shop opened and impulsively went into the shop to apply for the job. Allysa admits that she doesn’t like flowers (Allysa explains why, much later in the movie), but Allyssa is so impressed with Lily’s passion for flowers, Allysa says she wants the job anyway.

Lily instinctively likes Allysa as a person and hires her on the spot. Allysa and Lily quickly become best friends. Allysa and her multimillionaire husband Marshall (played by Hasan Minhaj) have a happy marriage, and they welcome Lily into their lives. It’s mentioned later in the movie that Marshall is a tech entrepreneur who sold his company for a nine-figure sum. Marshall is eager to impress people in his social circle to show how much he pampers and adores Allysa.

On the flower shop’s opening day, Lily gets her first customer: Ryle. And she’s in for a shock when she finds out that Ryle is Allysa’s brother. Allysa knows about Ryle’s playboy reputation. And when Allysa sees that Ryle and Lily have an intense attraction to each other, she warns Ryle to stay away from Lily. But you know where all of this is going, of course.

Lily, Ryle, Allysa and Marshall go on double dates together, such as bowling. After this bowling date, Lily tell Ryle that she just wants to be “friends” with him. However, Ryle practically begs Lily to let him kiss her so that he can “get it out of his system.” They kiss in a way that you know will lead to something more.

The first time that Lily and Ryle spend the night together, it’s after Lily went to Allysa’s birthday party. Even though Ryle and Lily have a hot and heavy makeout session at his place, Lily insists that she doesn’t want to have sex with him that night, so they spend the night together by cuddling and kissing in bed. Ryle is respectful and doesn’t pressure Lily into do anything sexual with him that she doesn’t want to do.

However, Ryle comes across as someone who is used to getting his way and knows what to say and do to seduce women. It’s only a matter of time before he and Lily fully consummate their relationship. (The movie’s sex and violence are subtle, not explicit.) Ryle also “love bombs” Lily by being very romantic and doing everything he can to convince Lily he’s the perfect love match for her.

The morning after Ryle and Lily spend their first night together, Allysa finds out when she comes over for an unannounced visit. Allysa is apprehensive about this budding romance, but Allysa also knows she has no right to interfere if Lily and Ryle say that they are happy together. Allysa tells Ryle that she doesn’t want Ryle to break Lily’s heart. Allysa tells Lily that she doesn’t want their friendship to be ruined if things don’t work out between Lily and Ryle. Ryle and Lily eventually tell each other that they love each other. Lily then moves into Ryle’s place.

One evening, Ryle and Lily have a romantic date at a new restaurant called Root. Lily is in for another shock when the restaurant owner comes over to introduce himself: He’s none other than Atlas (played by Brandon Sklenar), who is surprised to see Lily there too. Lily goes into a back room to have a private conversation with Atlas. They update each other on what’s been going on in their lives since they last saw each other when they were high school.

Lily and Atlas still have an emotional connection that’s hard to deny. Lily tells Atlas that Ryle is her boyfriend and she’s happy with Ryle. Atlas says he has a girlfriend named Cassie. When Lily rejoins Ryle at the dinner table, he can tell something is “off” with Lily. She doesn’t tell Ryle that the owner of the restaurant is Atlas, the guy she dated when they were in high school.

None of this is spoiler information because all the marketing materials for “It Ends With Us” reveal that much of the story is about this love triangle. What isn’t revealed is the trouble in Lily and Ryle’s relationship. On the surface, Ryle is loving and attentive. But he gets jealous easily, he has a bad temper, and he has some ways about him that are overly controlling when it comes to his relationship with Lily. The specifics of these problems won’t be revealed in this review.

Observant viewers will notice that Ryle has a tendency to make big romantic statements and gestures so he can be the center of attention and when he wants to prove to Allysa that he’s not a brother who’s a heartbreaker. The first time that Ryle tells Lily that he wants to seriously date her, it’s in front of Allysa. Later in the movie, after Allysa and Marshall have a big life-changing moment, Ryle uses it as an opportunity to propose marriage to Lily. These are all signs of Ryle being a narcissist.

When Allysa and Lily started to become friends, Allysa told Lily that Allysa’s mother gave birth to three kids in three years. Allysa and Ryle had a brother named Emerson, who died when Allysa and Ryle were children. Emerson’s death is a sore subject that Allysa and Ryle don’t really like to talk about, but it makes Lily more sympathetic to Ryle. Whether Lily wants to admit it or not, she seems to be attracted to emotionally damaged men with childhood traumas.

“It Ends With Us” is predictable in some ways but also has a few twists and turns that will surprise people who don’t know what happens in the book. All of the cast members, particularly Lively and Baldoni, give authentic-looking performances. Lively (who is one of the producers of “It Ends With Us”) portrays Lily with an exuberant spirit that fully embodies Lily’s compassionate, intelligent and independent personality. But it’s also a performance that skillfully shows how Lily’s self-worth gets eroded when she starts to question her judgment and blame herself for things that aren’t really her fault.

As an actor/director, Baldoni should be commended for directing a movie where he plays a character who is not necessarily the hero. However, there’s a still little bit of director vanity in the movie because of the frequent comments about how handsome Ryle is. Overall, it’s an adept performance in depicting how abuse comes in many forms, and it’s not always obvious to the people who are targets of the abuse. Many abusers also don’t think their abuse is as bad as it is because they also justify it by all pointing out all the “good” things they do for the people they abuse.

“It Ends With Us” shows the realities of how on the outside, a couple can look “aspirational” and “perfect,” but there are deeply troubling things about the couple’s relationship on the inside. It’s not a preachy movie that shows any crusaders who come to the rescue. “It Ends With Us” has more realistic scenarios of how loved ones of abuse victims are often powerless to help abuse victims who feel trapped and who stay in the abusive relationship.

Allysa and Marshall are the movie’s occasional comic relief on the surface. But the more sobering reality is that Allysa and Marshall are so busy trying to impress people by doing their own version of curating the “perfect couple” image, they don’t see signs when people close to them might be hurting. There are complicated ways to look at what Allysa and Marshall should or should not do, considering the fact that Lily and Ryle are adults who are responsible for their own lives and their own choices.

Lily’s mother Jenny represents the choices that people make to stay in an abusive relationship and how those decisions can affect children who are involved. Morton gives a wonderfully nuanced performance as a mother who is emotionally wounded and desperate for love and affection wherever she can get it—even if it means putting up with a loved one being awful to her. Jenny doesn’t fully comprehend or understand that Lily has been avoiding her partly out of resentment for Jenny staying in abusive marriage and partly because Jenny represents a past that Lily wants to forget.

Perhaps the biggest weakness of “It Ends With Us” is that it doesn’t do enough with the adult character of Atlas. Sklenar is very good in an underwritten role, where Atlas is mostly presented as a brooding and sensitive guy who’s pining for Lily. More scenes were needed to show more about who the adult Atlas is, instead of portraying him as mostly a lovelorn workaholic. The movie shows more about the teenage Atlas than the adult Atlas, even though much of the story hinges on the choice that adult Lily has to make between Ryle and the adult Atlas.

What saves “It Ends With Us” from being a standard soap opera with tearjerking moments is the empathetic and mature way it depicts how difficult it is for many people in abusive relationships to even admit that they’re in an abusive relationship. The insidious and complicated nature of most abusive relationships is that it’s very common for abusers to have a charming and apologetic side. The abusers make profuse apologies, promise to change, and remind their victims of the good times they had. These tactics often confuse the abuse victims and make their victims hopeful that the abusers will change and things will get better.

“It Ends With Us” also shows the harsh realities that many abusers and their victims don’t seek professional help for their problems. It’s especially true for people who want to maintain a certain public image and don’t want to do anything that would tarnish that image. It would be very easy and quite sexist to dismiss “It Ends With Us” as a weepy “chick flick,” rather than acknowledge that this story has a powerful message that applies to anyone: Instead of blaming abuse victims or abuse survivors about when or if they reported the problem, it’s important to remember that it takes tremendous courage to admit there’s a problem, ask for help, and do what is necessary to stop the problem.

Columbia Pictures will release “It Ends With Us” in U.S. cinemas on August 9, 2024.

Review: ‘The Beekeeper’ (2024), starring Jason Statham

January 23, 2024

by Carla Hay

Jason Statham and Jeremy Irons in “The Beekeeper” (Photo by Daniel Smith/Amazon MGM Studios)

“The Beekeeper” (2024)

Directed by David Ayer

Culture Representation: Taking place in Boston, the action film “The Beekeeper” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A beekeeper with assassin skills goes after the online financial scammers who caused his hive landlord to commit suicide after she lost all of her money to their theft.

Culture Audience: “The Beekeeper” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Jason Statham and action films that don’t take themselves seriously.

Josh Hutcherson in “The Beekeeper” (Photo by Daniel Smith/Amazon MGM Studios)

“The Beekeeper” is a slapstick-styled action film that laughs at itself as much as it wants the audience to laugh at the movie. The vigilante beekeeper in the story delivers more cheesiness than honey, but it works well-enough for escapist entertainment. The comedic element saves this movie from being a bottom-of-the-barrel schlockfest.

Directed by David Ayer and written by Kurt Wimmer, “The Beekeeper” begins by showing the movie’s namesake Adam Clay (played by Statham) in the Boston area. He is tending to his bees on a semi-remote ranch owned by a widow named Eloise Parker (played by Phylicia Rashad), who is renting space on her property for Adam to have his bee business. Adam and Eloise have a mutually respectful relationship. Adam is the strong and silent type, but he has a very good rapport with Eloise, who looks out for him as if Adam were her own child.

One day, Eloise is on her laptop computer when she gets an urgent message on her screen saying that her computer has had a security breach and she should call the emergency phone number on the screen. She reaches a call center, where she talks to a slick manager who offers to help Eloise with her problem. What Eloise doesn’t know is that this manager, whose name is Mickey Garnett (played by David Witts), is really the sleazy supervisor of a financial fraud group that makes millions of dollars per month.

At this moment, Mickey is using his phone call with Eloise as a live example in training the call center’s minions, who all know they’re in the business of stealing from victims, especially gullible senior citizens. Eloise admits she’s not very good at using computers, so she lets Mickey walk her through a step-by-step process to let him get access to her computer. During this process, Mickey is smirking and bragging to his trainees about how Eloise is a perfect target.

It isn’t long before Mickey has hacked into all the bank accounts that Eloise has access to, including a community account that has $2 million. The community account is for a children’s charity where Eloise is the director who is a signatory authority. Mickey quickly steals all of the money in Eloise’s personal bank accounts and the community account, through a electronic transfers that she would not be able to trace. Eloise is completely devastated when she finds out what happened.

The next scene shows an FBI agent named Verona Parker (played by Emmy Raver-Lampman) arriving at Eloise’s darkened house and seeing Adam there with a knife. Verona, who doesn’t know who Adam is, immediately gets suspicious and demands to know what he’s doing there. And that’s when Adam and Verona look nearby and see Eloise dead from a gunshot wound and the gun lying next to her on the floor.

Adam is immediately placed under arrest, even though he insists that he had nothing to do with Eloise’s death. He explains that Eloise was his landlord for his beekeeper business and he would have no reason to harm her. It turns out that Verona is Eloise’s daughter, who was visiting to check up on Eloise after not hearing from her for a while.

A coroner’s report officially rules Eloise’s death as a suicide, so Adam is released from jail. Around the same time, Verona and Adam find out that the motive for Eloise’s suicide was that she felt overwhelming guilt and shame for losing not only all of her money but also the charity’s money. And you know what that means: Verona and Adam both want to find the scam leaders and get justice. However, Verona and Adam both have very different definitions of “justice.”

What’s a vigilante like Adam to do in a crass and violent action movie? He find outs the address of the call center and goes there to burn it down, of course. Adam shows up at the glassy office building with two cans of gas and some lighter fluid. Two security guards are there, but that doesn’t stop Adam. Some of this scene is already revealed in “The Beekeeper” trailer.

It’s enough to say that a lot of mayhem and madness ensue, including Adam causing terror in the call center and making the workers chant, “I will never prey on the weak and vulnerable again.” Adam becomes a one-man revenge army who can implausibly taken on several different opponents at the same time. It’s over-the-top ridiculous and hilarious at the same time.

Mickey isn’t the highest-ranking person in the financial fraud group. His boss is the group leader, a spoiled, rich brat named Derek Danforth (played by Josh Hutcherson), who is the heir to a Boston-based corporation called Danforth Enterprises. Derek’s widowed mother Jessica Danforth (played by Jemma Redgrave) is the president of Danforth Enterprises. (“The Beekeeper” was actually filmed in Boston and London.)

Danforth Enterprises has a fixer named Wallace Westwyld (played by Jeremy Irons), a former CIA director who is tasked with looking after Derek and getting him out of trouble. It’s hinted that Wallace and Jessica used to be romantically involved with each other, because Wallace acts almost like a stepfather to Derek. Wallace, who is very intuitive and jaded, is aware that Derek is involved in illegal activities, but Wallace doesn’t really want to hear the details unless he needs to know.

Derek is a habitual troublemaker, so he’s been keeping Wallace busy. And soon, Adam will be keeping Wallace busy too. Meanwhile, Verona is hot on the trail to bring down Derek’s fraud empire, but she’s in a race against time with Adam, who wants to get to Derek and his cronies first. You know how all of this is gong to end.

Why does this beekeeper have such amazing combat skills? That question is answered in the movie. It should come as no surprise that Adam as a big secret. Someone who knows that secret is current CIA director Janet Harward (played by Minnie Driver), who gives this information to certain people.

“The Beekeeper” is the type of movie where Wallace says of the special type of beekeeper that Adam is: “Beekeepers keep working until they die.” Wallace then says that Adam’s goal is to “keep killing until he gets to the top of the hive.” Some of the cast members look like they have a hard time keeping a straight face when saying all of this campy dialogue.

Nothing about “The Beekeeper” is award-worthy, of course, but the movie is very aware of how mindless it is and has fun with it. Unless a viewer is in a very bad mood, that fun is infectious to watch, as long as there are no expectations that “The Beekeeper” will be more than what it is: an uncomplicated, action-packed vigilante rampage.

Amazon MGM Studios released “The Beekeeper” in U.S. cinemas on January 12, 2024.

Review: ‘Redeeming Love,’ starring Abigail Cowen, Tom Lewis, Nina Dobrev, Logan Marshall-Green, Eric Dane and Famke Janssen

February 12, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Redeeming Love”

Directed by D.J. Caruso

Culture Representation: Taking place in Boston in 1835, and in San Francisco in the 1850s, the dramatic film “Redeeming Love” features a predominantly white cast (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A woman who was sold into prostitution when she was 8 years old meets a religious man who wants to marry her and turn her into a “righteous woman.”

Culture Audience: “Redeeming Love” will appeal mainly to people who like watching tawdry and sexist movies that preach that “sinful” women need religious men to save them.

Abigail Cowen and Eric Dane in “Redeeming Love” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

“Redeeming Love” is a tacky soap opera masquerading as a faith-based movie. The movie’s sexist and awfully preachy message is that an abused woman can overcome child rape, forced prostitution and incest if a religious man falls in love with her. It’s ironic that a movie that’s supposed to be about redemption has no redeeming qualities in how relentlessly tone-deaf and irresponsible it is in filmmaking and in depicting traumatic issues.

“Redeeming Love” (heinously written and directed by D.J. Caruso) makes all of its female characters exist for the sole purpose of fulfilling men’s fantasies. Even the so-called “love story” at the center of the movie is about a saintly man who wants his fantasy fulfilled of having his prostitute “dream girl” becoming his religious and dutiful wife. It’s obvious that the “Redeeming Love” filmmakers don’t want viewers to expect any other outcome.

Caruso adapted the “Redeeming Love” screenplay from Francine Rivers’ 1991 novel of the same name. Filmmakers who turn a book into a movie have the freedom to set the tone of the movie and make cinematic changes that are different from the book. The filmmakers of “Redeeming Love” (with Caruso at the helm) chose to make the female protagonist a mostly pathetic lost soul whose life can only be turned around if she just lets a religious man love her.

The “woman who needs saving” is named Angel (played by Abigail Cowen), who is the most popular prostitute at a San Francisco brothel called Pair-A-Dice. (“Redeeming Love” was actually filmed in South Africa.) The movie, which takes place over several years, opens in 1850 with a scene at Pair-A-Dice, where about 50 dirty and disheveled Gold Rush miners have gathered outside near the front porch for a lottery. It’s not an ordinary lottery. The winner whose number is chosen will get guaranteed time the next day with 23-year-old Angel, who is so in-demand, she doesn’t have time to “service” all the men who want to hire her.

The Pair-A-Dice’s cruel and greedy manager/madam, who only goes by the name Duchess (played by Famke Janssen), proudly oversees this lottery because she knows that Angel is the sex worker who makes the most money for the brothel. At different times in the movie, Duchess is seen physically abusing her young female employees, or ordering her henchmen to inflict abuse if she thinks these sex workers are being insubordinate. Duchess won’t pass up the chance to make money any way that she can from the brothel’s demanding customers.

Duchess makes this announcement to the crowd of men who have eagerly gathered to see Angel: “She’s done shagging for the day. She’s all worn out. I have plenty of other girls—Chinese, African, Spanish—dealer’s choice. But if you want Angel, you’ll have to come back tomorrow. And by guess or by gully, it’ll be your lucky day!” Get used to this type of cringeworthy dialogue in “Redeeming Love,” which is a cesspool of idiotic filmmaking.

Angel is not a “hooker with a heart of gold,” because she’s supposed to be “redeemed,” remember? Instead, Angel is very bitter and angry about her life. She can’t picture herself as anything but a jaded prostitute.

An early scene in the movie shows Angel and some of her co-workers talking about their unhappy and abusive childhoods. An Irish woman named Lucky (played by Jamie-Lee O’Donnell) goes into details about being beaten as a child. Mai Ling (played by Ke-Xi Wu), who is originally from China, says that her father sold her into prostitution.

Flashbacks to Angel’s childhood reveal how she ended up as a sex worker for most of her life so far. Angel’s birth name is Sarah Stafford. The movie flashes back to 1835, when Sarah (played by Livi Birch) was an 8-year-old living in Boston with her single mother Mae (played by Nina Dobrev), who is an outcast in this society because she is an unmarried woman with an illegitimate child.

Sarah’s biological father is wealthy Alex Stafford (played by Josh Taylor), who is married to another woman. It’s implied that Sarah was born from an extramarital affair. Alex doesn’t want to publicly claim Sarah as his child, but he has been sending money and gifts to Mae. He wants Mae, not Sarah, to have the money and gifts.

One day, something happens that has never happened before: Sarah meets Alex for the first time, when he comes over to visit Mae. Mae introduces Sarah and Alex to each other, with a look of hope and apprehension. At first, the meeting is cordial but awkward.

But the meeting turns sour when Alex finds out that Mae took the money he had sent and spent it on Sarah, who also got the gifts that were originally intended for Mae. Alex becomes enraged and begins physically assaulting Mae and verbally degrading her. Sarah witnesses this abuse, including when Alex shouts at Mae that he never wanted Sarah to be born and that Mae should have terminated the pregnancy.

Another flashback reveals that Mae eventually died of an unnamed illness when Sarah was 8. Sarah, who is now considered to be an orphan, ends up in the custody of a sleazy man named John Altman (played by Willie Watson), who tries to get a woman named Sally (played by Tanya van Graan) to agree to take care of Sarah, but Sally refuses. John then tries to sell Sarah to a ruthless Irish criminal named Duke (played by Eric Dane, doing a terrible Irish accent), who runs a brothel where girls are held as sex slaves.

Duke doesn’t just kidnap Sarah. He also orders his henchman Colin to murder John as soon as John brings an innocent Sarah to Duke. One of the first things that Duke says to Sarah after she becomes his captive is that she’s now going to be his “wife.” Disgusting. This is the scene where viewers find out that Duke is a pedophile. Another scene reveals that Duke rapes the girls who are held in his captivity and who are prostituted out to other men.

The movie eventually reveals that Sarah ended up in San Francisco because she ran away from Duke. But is it the last time she sees Duke? Of course not, because he never stopped looking for her, and this movie is filled with sordid melodrama. Duke eventually ends up in San Francisco in the 1850s. He still keeps underage girls as sex slaves. And you can predict the rest, including what happens to Duke.

It might come as a surprise that for all of its disturbing subject matter, “Redeeming Love” is actually not a movie with a rating that recommends a minimum age of 17 for appropriate viewing. It’s actually been rated as appropriate for kids who are at least 13 years old. That’s because there’s no nudity in the movie. And the movie’s sex scenes are very tame.

Still, any parents who decide to let their underage kids watch “Redeeming Love” should know that this is not a wholesome movie at all. There’s a scene where an adult Sarah/Angel ends up having her father Alex as a sex customer. He doesn’t know that she’s his daughter, but she knows exactly who she is. He only knows her as Angel, and he tells her that she looks familiar.

However, Angel/Sarah still doesn’t reveal to him that she’s his abandoned daughter, and she deliberately has sex with him. (This incestuous sex is not shown in the movie, but it is openly discussed.) After Alex finds out the horrible truth, he commits suicide. Based on Sarah’s reaction (she seems happy that her father committed suicide), it’s implied that Angel/Sarah knowingly committed this act of incest for revenge and with the hope that it would lead to her father killing himself.

The incest in this movie might be considered spoiler information for people who don’t want to know about any surprises in the movie’s plot. However, it’s important for viewers to know in advance how this so-called “faith-based” movie has some morally twisted subject matter whose only purpose is to make Angel/Sarah look as trashy as possible. It’s one thing to be a victim of child abuse, which is not the victim’s fault. It’s another thing to be an adult and try to get a parent to commit suicide by knowingly having sex with the parent. It’s absolutely reprehensible.

But if Angel weren’t so “morally bankrupt,” then it wouldn’t make her “male rescuer” look as noble. Michael Hosea (played by Tom Lewis) is a 26-year-old farmer who is first seen in the movie when he’s praying alone in a church and asking God to find him a romantic partner/future wife. “Maybe she likes fishing,” Michael says out loud as he prays. “Maybe she has long legs. You know the kind I need. I trust you,” Michael adds, as if God is in the mail-order bride business.

When Michael first sees Angel in a horse-drawn carriage on the street, it’s “love at first sight” for him. He tells a friend who’s with him that he just saw the woman he’s going to marry. When the friend tells Michael that Angel works at the Pair-A-Dice brothel, Michael is undeterred. It’s at that moment that Michael decides he’s going to “save” Angel.

The movie makes a big deal out of reminding viewers that Michael is a humble and poor farmer. But somehow, Michael has enough money to visit Angel several times, in an effort to court her and get her to marry him. He refuses to have sex with her during these visits, even though Angel offers sex to him as part of the transaction. Michael tells Angel that he doesn’t want to have sex with her until she falls in love with him.

The rest of “Redeeming Love” is a horrendous slog of the ups and downs of Michael and Angel’s relationship. There’s a time-wasting subplot involving Michael’s widower brother-in-law Paul Atherton (played by Logan Marshall-Green), who was married to Michael’s sister Tess, who died in 1847, when she was 21. Paul doesn’t approve of Angel being in Michael’s life. Guess who used to be a customer of Angel’s before Michael met her?

There’s also some tedious drama about fertility that comes to the forefront when a family called the Altmans end up visiting Michael’s farm. This clan includes John Altman (played by Willie Watson), his pregnant wife Elizabeth (played by Lauren McGregor), and their two daughters: Miriam (played by Tayah Ronen Abels), who’s about 14 or 15, and Ruthie (played by Tayah Ronen Abels), who’s about 10 or 11.

The performances in “Redeeming Love” are tonally off-kilter. Some of the cast members ham it up too much with their acting, while others seem bored. Cowen and Lewis (who makes his feature-film debut in “Redeeming Love”) have zero chemistry together as Angel and Michael. Angel is depicted as a fickle and flaky heartbreaker, while Michael is “too good to be true.” The filmmakers clearly want Michael to get most of the sympathy from viewers, even though Angel is the one who’s had the much harder life of being abused and exploited.

Everything about this movie is extremely condescending to women, to the point where it comes across as misogynistic. The female characters with the biggest speaking roles and the most screen time in “Redeeming Love” are involved in prostitution, when there should be a wider variety of women in the movie. That’s an example of Caruso’s sexist writing and directing for this film. “Redeeming Love” is trying to pretend that it’s an epic love story, but it’s really just epic trash.

Universal Pictures released “Redeeming Love” in U.S. cinemas on January 21, 2022. The movie is set to premiere on Peacock on March 7, 2022.

Review: ‘Duty Free,’ starring Rebecca Danigelis and Sian-Pierre Regis

November 25, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Duty Free”

Directed by Sian-Pierre Regis

Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States and the United Kingdom, the documentary “Duty Free” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans) discussing the life of British immigrant Rebecca Danigelis, a longtime hotel employee in the United States who found herself laid-off and looking for work at the age of 75.

Culture Clash: During this tumultuous life transition, Danigelis experienced age discrimination in her job search, and she decided to have a reunion with her estranged adult daughter, who was raised by Danigelis’ older sister in England.

Culture Audience: “Duty Free” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in emotionally riveting stories about family, aging and senior citizens who want to be in the work force.

Rebecca Danigelis in “Duty Free” (Photo by Steve Sherrick/Duty Free Film)

For millions of people, retirement in the usual age range (65 and older) isn’t really an option because they don’t have enough money to retire. It’s an issue that’s not often discussed in mainstream media when there are news reports about the unemployed. But the documentary “Duty Free,” which was filmed over three years, takes a very personal look at the story of Rebecca Danigelis, a senior citizen who was abruptly laid off from her job as a housekeeping supervisor at a Boston hotel in 2016, when she was 75 years old. Dangelis is originally from Liverpool, England, and she immigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s. All three of her children were born in the United States.

Danigelis’ youngest child, Sian-Pierre Regis (who is an entertainment journalist by profession), decided to chronicle the experience of his mother’s unemployment, and it ended up becoming this documentary, which is Regis’ feature-film debut as a director. “Duty Free,” which had its world premiere at DOC NYC in 2020, was largely funded through a Kickstarter campaign. And the result is a very memorable documentary that manages to be intimate yet relatable. This mother and son have a very close relationship, which shines through in a natural and charming way throughout the entire film.

It’s clear from the documentary’s opening scenes that Regis was in the habit of video recording his mother before the footage ended up in this movie. Danigelis is shown on the job at Hotel 140 in Boston, where she worked for 40 years, with the footage showing her explaining the ins and outs of her position as supervisor of the housekeeping staff. Danigelis comments as she gives a tour of her hotel duties: “Housekeeping is the heart of the hotel. It’s a hard job but it’s a very rewarding job because you take things that look like nothing and make them look great.”

Her exact salary isn’t mentioned in the documentary, but she says that she had a relatively low income where she couldn’t earn enough to save for retirement. Regis mentions in the film that his mother spent most of her savings to pay for his college education at Colgate University, where he graduated in 2006. (It’s implied that she did not have a 401K retirement plan with her employer.) Danigelis got to live rent-free at the hotel, on the condition that she would be on call, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That all-consuming work schedule left her very little time to do a lot of things that many working people can do, such as travel a lot or have a weekends free for leisure time.

So why did Danigelis stay in this dead-end job? She explains that working at the hotel was more than a job. She says that her fellow employees and subordinates (who clearly respected her) were like a second family to her. However, the documentary shows that people in the hotel’s management (who are not interviewed in the film) began to show signs that they wanted to force Danigelis out of the job, probably because of her age.

According to Danigelis, after 40 years of having a spotless record on the job, she began to get written up for “insubordination,” which she says was an unfounded accusation. There were other signs that she was being edged out of the job, such as some of her responsibilities were being taken away and she was excluded from certain decisions that were part of her job requirements. The documentary shows, through phone conversations that Danigelis had with her son Sian-Pierre, that she was feeling increasingly frustrated, worried and sad over what she says were management’s obvious attempts to try to get her to quit.

She refused to quit, but feared that she would end up getting fired. And that’s exactly what happened, when one day she was told that her position had been eliminated. The hotel management gave her just two weeks of severance pay, and she was told that she would have one year to find another place to live.

Adding to the stress and financial pressure of her situation, Danigelis is also the caregiver of her schizophrenic son Gabriel, who is Sian-Pierre’s older brother. Gabriel did not participate in the documentary, but he is shown briefly from the back, in one scene in the home where he’s using a desktop computer. Sian-Pierre mentions at the beginning of the documentary that his mother sacrificed a lot to give him and Gabriel a good life. And so, when it was time for his mother to get financial support from him, he didn’t hesitate to help her.

Sian-Pierre is also his mother’s main emotional support, so he spent a lot of time commuting from his home in New York City to Boston, in order to help his mother get her life back on track. He says in a voiceover in the documentary, “At 32, with no savings myself, I had to figure out how to keep us afloat.” That mean that Sian-Pierre (who’s worked as a on-air contributor/producer for MTV, BET and CNN) had to put some of his career on hold while he spent time in Boston.

Danigelis’ job loss was devastating, of course. She describes how she felt about being laid off: “I felt tossed away … Not only did I lose a job, I lost a family.” The documentary includes footage of Sian-Pierre helping his mother try to get back into the job market, by having her sign up for LinkedIn for the first time, looking for jobs online, and helping her craft her updated résumé. But the best parts of the film aren’t about her job search. (Not surprisingly, she experienced a lot of age discrimination while looking for a new job.)

The best parts of “Duty Free” are when Danigelis, with Sian-Pierre’s help, discovers new things about herself. Sian-Pierre mentions that his mother’s job loss and the extra time that he spent with her caused him to find out more about who his mother is as a person. The documentary shows this emotional journey in a very impactful way. Although the movie is about Danigelis, it’s is also about Sian-Pierre, since he gives voiceover narration with his perspective.

Sian-Pierre (who comes across as a very optimistic person) had the idea for his mother to use her unexpected free time to do things that she always wanted to do but never had the time to do before she lost her job. He doesn’t really call it a “bucket list,” but more like a “life list.” The documentary shows him accompanying his mother on all of her “life list” excursions.

Her list is a range of activities that include trying new things for the first time, such as joining Instagram, taking a hip-hop dance class, milking a cow, and skydiving. Also on the list was a nostalgia trip to Detroit, the city where she first settled when she moved to the United States. She discovered during her Detroit visit that the city has changed a lot since when she lived there.

The movie packs the most soul-stirring punch when she and Sian-Pierre go to England to do some family-related things on her “life list.” They include visiting her older sister Elsie’s grave, reuniting with her estranged adult daughter Joanne, and baking a cake with Joanne’s daughter Layla. This trip opens up some emotional wounds that might or might not be healed by the end of the film.

The way that “Duty Free” is edited, Danigelis explains her personal history toward the middle of the film, around the time that she and Sian-Pierre are shown going to England. When she came to America in her 20s, she was a bright-eyed and enthusiastic hospitality worker whose job was to promote tourism in Great Britain. She ended up falling for and marrying an American man. She became a permanent U.S. resident and they settled down in Detroit, where they had a daughter named Joanne.

According to Danigelis, the marriage fell apart because her businessman husband worked a lot and they became distant from each other. After the divorce, Danigelis found out that she had breast cancer. Fearing that she would die and knowing that her ex-husband did not want to take custody of Joanne, Danigelis sent Joanne (who was about 4 or 5 years old at the time) to live with Danigelis’ older sister Elsie in England. Danigelis recovered from the breast cancer, but decided to let Joanne stay in England because she thought that her daughter seemed happy there, and Joanne was living a life that Danigelis could not afford.

Years later, in the 1980s, Danigelis met and fell in love with the man who became the father of Gabriel and Sian-Pierre. She thought they would eventually get married, but they didn’t, because of a big secret that he was keeping from her. While she was pregnant with Sian-Pierre, she found out that her lover was already married and had another family with his wife.

Danigelis’ relationship with this man ended, and she apparently cut off all contact with him, because it’s clear that he was not involved in raising Gabriel and Sian-Pierre. It’s not even mentioned in the movie if he’s dead or alive. In the documentary, Danigelis remembers experiencing racism because her sons are biracial (their father is black) and how she would always proudly stand up for herself and her children when they experienced bigotry.

Does she get to do all the things on her “life list”? And how did achieving any of these goals affect her or her family? The documentary answers those questions in ways that will no doubt make some viewers shed some tears but also feel a lot of the joy that’s in the film.

There are some important lessons that Danigelis learns that can be beneficial to anyone who goes through similar situations or has a family member who does. She finds out that the job she poured her heart and soul into for decades actually prevented her from experiencing many other things she should have experienced in life, such as spending more time with her family. Danigelis couldn’t even go to England for her beloved sister Elsie’s funeral because she couldn’t take time off from work.

It’s a cautionary tale to not let a job take up your life so much that it causes you to lose touch with the people who are most important to you who aren’t co-workers. Danigelis’ story also speaks to a larger issue of how the job market should have better treatment of senior citizens who still want to work or need to work. It’s an issue that will become even more prevalent in society, as today’s young people are expected to live longer than previous generations did, but are less likely to have enough money to retire when they reach retirement age.

One of the harsh realities that Danigelis experiences in her job search is that her years of experience don’t count for much when she’s discriminated against because she looks her age. Even though she makes the mistake of putting the year that she graduated from high school on her résumé (and no one bothers to tell her that’s a big mistake), it still doesn’t erase the problem of age discrimination that she faces when she shows up for an interview or a job fair, and her physical appearance gives away her age.

The documentary does not show any employers blatantly discriminating against her during her job search, but it’s clear from Danigelis getting constantly rejected for jobs, or not getting any response at all when she applies, that her age has a lot to do with her difficulty in finding a new job. It’s implied that employers wrongly assume that because of her age, she’s not physically fit or will have health problems that will affect her job performance. And because she still wants to work in the hospitality industry in hotel jobs that require physical labor and standing a lot, it’s easy to see why some places would be reluctant to hire her.

Through it all, Sian-Pierre is there to lift his mother’s spirits and help her do things that might be out of her comfort zone but end up making her have more appreciation for herself and her life. It’s not all smooth sailing, because Danigelis understandably has moments where she feels defeated and depressed. But “Duty Free” is truly an example of how family members can pull together in a crisis and come out stronger than before. And the movie also sounds an alarm to not undervalue or neglect senior citizens, many of whom might not be as lucky as Danigelis is to have family members who care about them.

UPDATE: Duty Free LLC will release “Duty Free” in New York City on April 30, 2021. The movie’s release will expand to more cities and virtual cinemas on May 7, 2021.

Review: ‘Honest Thief,’ starring Liam Neeson

October 17, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Honest Thief”

Directed by Mark Williams

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Boston area, the action-crime thriller “Honest Thief” has a predominantly white cast (with a few Latinos and African Americans) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A notorious bank robber battles with FBI agents when he decides to turn himself into authorities.

Culture Audience: “Honest Thief” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching predictable thrillers that have a lot of credibility issues.

Anthony Ramos and Jai Courtney in “Honest Thief” (Photo courtesy of Open Road Films)

If there’s an action drama with Liam Nesson as the star, then you can bet that his character in the movie is out for revenge. The problem is that Neeson has made so many of these types of “revenge movies” that they all blend together after a while, except for the “Taken” franchise which is its own separate beast. Therefore, it’s understandable if viewers really can’t tell one Neeson pulpy thriller from the next one. At least with “Honest Thief,” the title is a reminder of what type of character Neeson portrays in the movie. The film’s title might be distinctive, but the movie’s mediocre plot and action definitely are as generic and unimaginative as they can be.

In “Honest Thief” (directed by Mark Williams), Neeson plays Tom Dolan, also known as Tom Carter, a notorious bank robber whose modus operandi is to set off explosives to open a safe in a bank while the bank is closed for business. (Tom lives in the Boston area, and Neeson keeps his native Irish accent for this role.) Tom always chooses banks with older safes (which are easier to open) and which are located next to vacant buildings, so the explosives won’t affect a building next door that has an active business.

Tom has robbed 12 banks in seven states over the past eight years. His total robbery haul is about $9 million, and he’s been successfully able to elude capture for all of these years. Law enforcement has no idea who the bank robber is, and the bank robber is nicknamed the In and Out Bandit by the media, because of how quickly and efficiently he commits the crimes.

But Tom’s life is about to change when he meets Annie Wilkins (played by Kate Walsh), who works as a clerk at a place that rents storage units. Tom goes there to rent a medium-sized unit, which viewers can immediately tell is where he’s going to hide money that he stole from the bank robberies. Tom and Annie flirt a little during this transaction, which indicates that Annie might just become more than a passing encounter.

The movie then fast forwards to one year later. Annie and Tom are now a couple, and they are looking at a big house that Tom is going to purchase in Newton, Massachusetts. Tom then surprises Annie by asking her to move in with him. She’s hesitant because she’s still recovering from a traumatic divorce and is very reluctant to take her relationship with Tom to the level of “live-in partner.”

Annie hasn’t lived with anyone since her divorce. As she tells Tom, “I just don’t want to go through that again.” Tom tells her, “You won’t have to.” And because Annie really likes the house and seems to really love Tom, she then changes her mind and says yes. Annie is studying psychology to become a therapist, which is a skill she’s going to need when she has to deal with all the crazy things that happen to her in this movie.

But what about Tom’s secret life as a bank robber? He’s about to come clean and face the consequences. While staying at the Charleston Hotel, Tom calls the FBI’s Boston office and confesses that he’s the bank robber called the In and Out Bandit. He also mentions that he hates that nickname because he thinks it’s tacky, as if that’s something he should be concerned about in the moment that he confesses to his serious crimes.

The FBI agent who talks to Tom on the phone is Agent Sam Baker (played by Robert Patrick), who listens to Tom’s confession with a great deal of skepticism. Tom tells Baker that he will turn himself in and give back all the money that he stole, on the conditions that he serve a reduced sentence with a maximum of two years, and it must be at a minimum-security prison that’s near Boston.

Baker almost laughs when he tells Tom that the law doesn’t work that way, but Tom stands firm on his demands. When Baker asks Tom why he’s confessing, Tom says it’s because he met a special woman, he can no longer live with the guilt of his big secret, and he wants to start a new life with her after he serves his prison time. Tom hasn’t robbed any banks since he fell in love with Annie.

Tom tells Baker that he’s at the Charleston Hotel in Room 216. Baker then tells Tom that he will look into Tom’s claims, but Baker comments that the FBI has gotten a lot of false confessions from people claiming to be the In and Out Bandit. Tom insists that he’s telling the truth about being the real In and Out Bandit. (And he is.)

While Baker is taking this call, he’s sitting across from his colleague Agent Myers (played by Jeffrey Donavan), who’s even more hard-nosed and more cynical than Baker. Both men have a lot of respect for each other though. Myers considers Baker to be his mentor and closest friend in the FBI.

There’s a minor running joke in the movie that Myers often has his small white-and-brown dog named Tazzie with him. It’s a dog that he doesn’t really want, but he got the dog in a bitter divorce from his ex-wife, who got to keep their former marital home. And, out of spite, he doesn’t want to give the dog back to his ex-wife. Myers doesn’t mistreat the dog, but Tazzie is often seen tagging along with Myers in places that you wouldn’t expect to see a small dog during an intense FBI operation.

The dog’s presence is one of the few semi-humorous things in “Honest Thief,” which takes itself way too seriously for being such a formulaic and substandard movie. (“Honest Thief” director Williams co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with Steve Allrich.) There’s plenty of action, but much of it has so many unrealistic consequences, that anyone watching this movie will have to drop any expectations that “Honest Thief” is nothing more than a cheap retread of Neeson’s other “anti-hero” rampage movies, where he gets angry at certain people and won’t stop until they’re all injured or killed.

Agent Baker thinks that Tom is just another crackpot giving a false confession, so he hands off the report to two subordinate FBI agents named Agent Pete Nivens (played by Jai Courtney) and Agent Mario Hall (played by Anthony Ramos). Nivens is single and very ambitious in his career. Hall is a happily married man with a young son.

The difference between these two men becomes obvious when Nivens complains to Hall about how parents unnecessarily gush about their children to make childless people feel like they’re missing out in life. Nivens basically tells Hall that he thinks being a parent is overrated. Later in the movie, Nivens (who thinks of himself as an “alpha male”) repeatedly manipulates Hall by using Hall’s love for his son as a way for Nivens to get Hall to do what Nivens wants.

Nivens and Hall go to the Charleston Hotel to visit Tom and investigate Tom’s claims. Tom tells these two FBI agents that he hid the robbery money in a storage unit and offers to show it to them as proof. However, Nivens orders Tom to stay at the hotel and says that he and Hall will go to the storage unit by themselves. Tom reluctantly gives them the key to the storage unit and tells them where the storage unit is.

Nivens and Hall go to Tom’s storage unit and find out that Tom was telling the truth, because they find millions of dollars in cash hidden in boxes. Nivens then convinces a reluctant Hall that they should steal all the money for themselves and pretend to everyone else that the money was never there. Nivens appeals to Hall’s desire to be able to pay for whatever his family wants, as a way to persuade Hall that he will never have any more money problems for the rest of his life.

Nivens and Hall are packing up the boxes of cash in their car trunk when Annie suddenly approaches them to ask what they’re doing with Tom’s stuff. Annie mentions that she saw them on the office’s surveillance cameras, and she came outside to investigate. Nivens and Hall lie and tell Annie that Tom asked them to help move some of his items from the storage unit.

Because Tom had told Annie that he was temporarily staying at a hotel due to plumbing repairs in his home, she believes want Nivens and Hall have to say. Even though Annie is suspicious, she asks a lot of leading questions that are easy for the crooked FBI agents to lie about, such as, “How do you know Tom? Did you serve in the Marines with him?” And, of course, they say yes.

Putting aside the fact that they know they’ve been caught on camera taking things out of the storage locker, the stupidity of Nivens and Hall’s decision to steal the money also comes from the fact that they wouldn’t be able to spend all that money without arousing suspicion. And who knows if that stolen bank money has bills that are marked? These are things that FBI agents and other law-enforcement officials are trained to know about, but the corrupt FBI dimwits in this sloppily written movie don’t consider these very realistic factors.

And not to mention that a snake like Nivens wouldn’t hesitate to double-cross his partner in crime, so Hall is incredibly naïve for putting his trust in Nivens. Hall finds out how much of a loose cannon Nivens can be when something happens after Hall and Nivens get back to the hotel and they lie to Tom by saying that they didn’t find any money in the storage unit. What happens next in the hotel sets off a chain of events that lead to Tom going on the run, Annie getting caught up in the danger, and certain FBI agents chasing in dogged pursuit.

When there’s a movie as poorly thought-out as “Honest Thief,” sometimes it can be entertaining because of the action sequences. But the action in “Honest Thief” is very unremarkable and has been seen in dozens of other movies just like it. People get beaten up, there are some explosions, some car chases, some shootouts, some chases on foot. And there are lots of scenes where Neeson just barrels along with injuries that, in real life, would put someone in an emergency room at a hospital.

“Honest Thief” is just another unimpressive action showcase for Neeson as yet another angry and misunderstood loner who’s out for self-righteous vengeance while he goes through the expected motions with gun violence and other predictable stunts. Neeson has been sticking to this formula for quite some time for his action films, so most of his fans should know what to expect. Anyone expecting high-quality entertainment from “Honest Thief” will definitely feel cheated.

Open Road Films released “Honest Thief” in U.S. cinemas on October 16, 2020.

Revere Hotel Boston Common completes $28 million in renovations

April 18, 2017

The following is an excerpt from a Revere Hotel Boston Common press release:

Revere Hotel Boston Common is thrilled to announce the completion of a $28 million transformation, featuring a fully remodeled lobby area, rooftop pool, guest rooms and suites, and 42,000 square feet of versatile private event and meeting spaces. The rebirth of the upscale Back Bay hotel, located at 200 Stuart Street, is inspired by the legendary Paul Revere, and offers a multi-layered guest experience that is equal parts social, intelligent, edgy, and engaging. Designed by award-winning Dawson Design Associates, the property now embodies an abstracted modern interpretation of Longfellow’s iconic poem, and incorporates the symbolism of Paul Revere’s midnight ride through the streets of downtown Boston.

Lobby & Rooftop Lounge Transformation

The sleek and contemporary open lobby is designed as a forum for the people, welcoming visitors to a space that is unmistakably Bostonian. The Stuart Street entrance ushers guests into the energetic space, where a dynamic steampunk lantern sculpture is suspended over the front desk, fabricated from vintage colonial-style lanterns and produced by famed Bostonian artist Bruce Rosenbaum. Complete with custom artwork, including a wall-to-wall mural of the Boston Massacre, a life-size sculpture of Paul Revere’s horse created from recycled materials, and stained glass panels inspired by the Old North Church, the space creates a new gathering place for locals and hotel guests alike. The new lobby bar is wrapped in pounded copper panels and offers libations featuring local spirits from a menu crafted by Boston’s most revered bartenders.

A fully reimagined rooftop pool and lounge now feature a dynamic space welcoming visitors and locals to the award-winning rooftop destination, complete with a full bar and new outdoor and poolside seating and lounge options. A one-of-a-kind destination for fun in the sun in Boston, the seasonal destination offers a menu of New England-inspired classics, fresh seasonal cocktails, and unbeatable views of Boston’s picturesque Back Bay.

Guest Accommodations Remodel

All of Revere Hotel Boston Common’s 356 guest rooms including 50 suites have been fully transformed. From the luxurious linens to the bold carpeting, the new guest rooms are fashion-forward, featuring stylish metallic, leather, and rustic finishes that embody the rebellious spirit of Revere and honor his legacy as a master craftsman. Every guest room, from the spacious 353-square-foot King and Double Queen rooms to the grandiose Presidential Suite, is complete with a private balcony, which is unique to Boston, offering picturesque views of Boston’s Back Bay, as well as sophisticated and functional seating and working stations for both leisure and business travel needs. Transformed bathrooms are fresh and bright, featuring spacious showers and luxurious bath products. Guest rooms are outfitted with the latest technology, including tap key entry, Enseo technology for in-room entertainment, and digital access to the Revere Hotel Boston Common’s curated list of preferred partners that span professional services to must-see attractions to coveted dining destinations and everything in between. All guest room furnishings have been custom designed and produced to meet all of the needs of Revere Hotel Boston Common’s modern leisure and business guests, and fit the design vision of the property perfectly.

New Private Event & Meeting Spaces

Private event & meeting spaces throughout the property have been redefined, including a fully renovated spectacular Grand Master Ballroom and the addition of the luxurious Silver Ballroom, combining thematic design elements and the latest technology for the ultimate blend of classic and modern elegance. Revere Hotel Boston Common boasts over 42,000 square feet of versatile and unique event spaces, including the expansive Liberty Hall, which offers an unprecedented fully customizable space accommodating up to 800 guests, and state-of-the-art meeting spaces in the dynamic Tea Gallery, designed to adapt to meet the needs for groups of all sizes from intimate business meetings to large conferences.

Revere Club Membership Program

The Revere Hotel Boston Common has introduced a new membership program, Revere Club, designed for the modern business traveler. Revere Club members will receive exclusive benefits including access to the new Revere Club Lounge, weekly cocktail receptions, exclusive rates for meeting room rentals, and much more.