Pictured clockwise, from left to right: Dustin Nguyen, Phi Vũ, Dali Benssalah and Hiệp Trần Nghĩa in “The Accidental Getaway Driver” (Photo by Ron Batzdorff/Utopia)
Culture Representation: Taking place in Orange County, California, the dramatic film “The Accidental Getaway Driver” (based on real events) features a predominantly Asian group of people (with some white people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A taxi driver is taken hostage by three escaped prison inmates, who force him to drive them to their intended destination.
Culture Audience: “The Accidental Getaway Driver” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching crime dramas that have deeper meanings about human connections during a crisis.
Dustin Nguyen and Hiệp Trần Nghĩa in “The Accidental Getaway Driver” (Photo by Ron Batzdorff/Utopia)
“The Accidental Getaway Driver” sometimes suffers from tedious pacing. However, the movie still delivers effective performances and enough suspense in this drama about a taxi driver forced to transport three escaped prisoners. “The Accidental Getaway Driver” is based on a true story that happened in 2016, when three inmates broke out of Orange County Men’s Central Jail in Santa Ana, California. The real name of the taxi driver remains the same in the movie, but the names of the real inmate escapees have been changed for the movie.
Directed by Sing J. Lee, “The Accidental Getaway Driver” was co-written by Lee and Christopher Chen. “The Accidental Getaway Driver” (which is Lee’s feature-film diectorial debut) had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Directing prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. The movie takes place in Orange County, California, where “The Accidental Getaway Driver” was filmed on location.
As already revealed in the movie’s synopsis and trailer, it’s no accident that taxi driver Long Mâ (played by Hiệp Trần Nghĩa) has been forced to be the getaway driver for these fugitives. The movie doesn’t waste any time because this abduction is shown near the beginning of the film. “The Accidental Getaway Driver” is told from Long’s point of view.
Long is a divorced father who lives alone. He is at an age (his 70s) when most people are retired, but he can’t afford to retire. It’s mentioned later that Long and his ex-wife have two adult children. Long is self-employed and has his own small private taxi service, which is why there is no agency or no company that gets the unusual call that he gets on a fateful night. The only car for Long’s taxi service is his Toyota Camry.
Long gets a call for a passenger pickup to go to convenience store called ABC Market in Orange County’s Little Saigon neighborhood. At first, Long says no because he says he’s off duty and it’s too late at night. However, Long changes his mind when the caller offers to pay double the rate of what Long would normally charge. This offer turns out to be a trap.
There are three adult male passengers in this ride. Long will soon find out that these men have escaped from an Orange County jail, where they were incarcerated for various violent crimes. The fugitives have a gun, and they are going to force Long to help with their escape. It becomes apparent that Long was chosen because two out of the three fugitives are Vietnamese, and the plan is to hide out in areas that have a large Vietnamese population.
Tây Duong (played by Dustin Nguyen) is 43 years old and was incarcerated for attempted murder and firearm possession. Tây says that he has an older sister named Linda (played by Tiffany Rothman), who lives in the local area with her husband Minh (played by Vu Tran). The character of Tây is based on the real-life Bac Duong.
Edward “Eddie” Ly (played by Phi Vũ) is 20 years old and was incarcerated for attempted murder and murder. Eddie is also an alleged gang member. The character of Eddie is based on the real-life Jonathan Tieu.
As soon as Long picks up these three passengers, he notices that they are acting suspiciously when they go to ABC Market. Long sees that there are drops of blood in the back seat, where Aden and Eddie have been sitting. Tây is sitting in the front passenger seat.
When the three strangers finish their shopping and get back in the car, they are carrying shopping bags that contain items that they need while hiding as fugitives. Tây then pulls out a gun, points it at Long, and says, “You’re going to help us, okay?” Long finds out that these passengers have escaped from jail and there’s a $2,000 reward for information leading to their capture. The kidnappers refuse Long’s request to be let go.
However, there’s a glimmer of hope for Long when Tây says that they will let Long go after the kidnappers achieve their goal to drive north to go to a place where they can get fake passports. It’s explained that the kidnappers had pre-paid for fake passports from another place but got ripped off because they never got those passports. Will the kidnappers keep their promise to let Long go after the kidnappers get the passports they want?
The rest of “The Accidental Getaway Driver” shows Long’s ordeal as he is forced to stay with these kidnappers over multiple days. During this kidnapping, Long has flashback memories of different parts of his life. And an unexpected father/son type of bond forms between Long and one of the kidnappers.
Much of “The Accidental Getaway Driver” is about the pitfalls and regrets of loneliness. At one point, Long dejectedly admits to his kidnappers that no one in his life will notice if he’s missing for several days. This sobering thought makes Long re-evaluate the isolated life that he had been living when he got kidnapped.
And these kidnappers aren’t exactly friends with complete trust in each other. They just happened to be in the same jail and saw an opportunity to plan this escape together. As trust among the kidnappers begins to unravel, it becomes a question of whether or not they will stick together or have an “every man for himself” attitude.
The principal cast members of “The Accidental Getaway Driver” deliver very good performances, with Hiệp Trần Nghĩa being the obvious standout. Long knows that he’s no physical match for these younger kidnappers, so he doesn’t put up much of a fight and remains calm through most of this abduction. That doesn’t mean that Long has given up hope that he will survive this kidnapping. “The Accidental Getaway Driver” is a memorable depiction of what can happen when a surprising friendship forms among people who are supposed to be opponents in horrible circumstances.
Utopia released “The Accidental Getaway Driver” in select U.S. cinemas on February 28, 2025.
Culture Representation: The three-episode documentary series “Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few Asians and Latin people) talking about the case of the 2012 kidnapping and brutal assault of Mary Barnes and her male roommate from their home in Newport Beach, California.
Culture Clash: The three kidnappers (led by Hossein Nayeri) beat, tortured and cut off the penis of the male roommate (whose identity is not revealed in the documentary) because the kidnappers mistakenly thought that he had about $1 million in cash hidden in California’s Mohave Desert.
Culture Audience: “Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in true crime documentaries about well-known criminal cases, but this docuseries just re-uses a lot of footage that was previously filmed for a March 2020 episode of the ABC newsmagazine series “20/20.”
A 2013 photo of Hossein Nayeri (center) in “Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” (Photo courtesy of ABC News Studios/Hulu)
“Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” is just a repackaged “20/20” episode that originally aired in March 2020, with expanded and updated commentary from law enforcement officials and attorneys. This is a very lazy documentary. ABC News Studios produces “20/20” and several other news programs and documentaries. Many of the documentaries from ABC News Studios are labeled as original Hulu documentaries because they premiere first on Hulu in the United States. (Outside the U.S., many Hulu programs premiere first on the Disney+ streaming service.) ABC, Hulu and Disney+ are all owned by Disney.
There is no credited director for “Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert,” but David Sloan is listed as the documentary’s senior executive producer. On the surface, “Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” might seem to be a Hulu original documentary, but the majority of the documentary’s content actually isn’t original because so much it previously aired on or was originally filmed for “20/20” in the show’s Season 42, Episode 21, titled “Catch Me If You Can,” which premiered on March 13, 2020. The previously filmed interviews were conducted in 2019, and are labeled as such in this repackaged documentary that was released in 2025.
The only “new” content includes interviews with two former district attorneys who were involved with the case; the former police detective who was the lead investigator of the case; two defense attorneys; and the “20/20” correspondent who originally reported on the case. All of them give hindsight comments that don’t add anything noteworthy. It’s not a complete “bait and switch” documentary, but there needed to be more transparency that “Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” is really an expanded version of a previously aired “20/20” episode. For example, there could have been caption for the 2019 footage that says, “Previously filmed for ’20/20,’ in 2019,” instead of just putting the year that the footage was filmed.
“Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” has three episodes that tell the story in mostly chronological order. Episode 1, titled “Treasure Hunt,” describes the home invasion and kidnapping. Episode 2, titled “Cat-and-Mouse Trap,” is about the police investigation that included a sting operation where the wife of the kidnapping ringleader cooperated with law enforcement to gather evidence and get him arrested. Episode 3, titled “Weed and Bananas,” has details of the arrest, escape from jail and eventual trial of the mastermind kidnapper.
“Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” begins by showing Matt Murphy surfing in Orange County, California. Murphy is a former senior district attorney for Orange County and is a familiar face to people who watch a lot of true crime TV shows because he’s been interviewed on many of these shows. Murphy says in a voiceover that the Orange County city of Newport Beach is “like a Beverly Hills by the sea. But it’s also the type of place where people go to steal and sometimes hurt people to get money.” Murphy adds, “When it comes to wanton cruelty, I’ve seen some really bad things, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”
The cruelty that Murphy is talking about is a home invasion/brutal kidnapping that took place on the night of October 2, 2012. Mary Barnes, originally from New York, had moved to Newport Beach from Florida just a few days earlier to live with William “Bill” Bannon, who was her boyfriend at the time. Bannon shared the four-bedroom Newport Beach house with a roommate, who is only identified in the documentary as Michael S., who worked as a legal marijuana dispensary owner. In 2012, marijuana in California was only legal for medicinal purposes.
Bannon was away on a business trip when the home invasion happened, but Barnes and Michael were at the house. Michael, who was 28 years old at the time and described as a friendly guy, was the real target of the masked kidnappers. Michael and Barnes were tied up with zip ties, blindfolded, and held by gunpoint by three male kidnappers, who hauled them in a white truck and drove about 140 miles east to the Mohave Desert. The documentary has a brief audio interview with Michael S., but he doesn’t reveal anything new, and it’s not clear when this interview took place.
In a 2019 interview originally filmed for “20/20,” Barnes says that the kidnappers kept demanding that Michael give kidnappers the $1 million in cash that the kidnappers said he was hiding. She said one of the kidnappers tried to disguise his identity by pretending to be a Mexican gangster. Cash and jewelry were in the house, but the kidnappers left some of it behind because they were sure that Michael had even more money stashed away in the Mohave Desert.
Michael repeatedly told the kidnappers that he didn’t have $1 million but he had about $100,000 that he could give to them in cash by the next day. He was telling the truth, but the kidnappers didn’t believe him. The kidnappers beat up Michael, kicked him, and used a blowtorch to burn him to try to force him to tell them where the money was buried. Barnes was tied up nearby, and although she couldn’t see what was happening, she could hear this vicious assault.
In the 2019 interview, Barnes remembers hearing the sound of something being cut in a back-and-forth saw direction, while a bound-and-gagged Michael yelled in pain. Barnes found out from the kidnappers had cut off Michael’s penis and had taken the penis with them. The kidnappers also covered Michael with bleach and left him bloodied and unconscious.
It’s unknown if the kidnappers thought that Michael was going to die, but they didn’t inflict this type of violence on Barnes. One of the kidnappers threw the knife and told Barnes that it was her lucky day because they weren’t going to kill her, and if she could find the knife, she could probably cut the zip ties and free herself. The kidnappers then drove off without Barnes being able to see anything about the vehicle except knowing it was a white truck.
Barnes was able to find the knife and cut the zip ties around her leg. And when she ran for help, the first person she saw in this remote area happened to be a Kern County sheriff senior deputy on patrol named Steve Williams, who is interviewed in the documentary. Michael was found bound and gagged and severely injured but still alive when other law enforcement officers and medical help arrived. Michael had no known enemies. And without a good description of the kidnappers or their vehicle, the case was at a standstill.
But then, an observant neighbor who lived near the house where the home invasion took place reported to police that she saw suspicious activity at the house on the day that the home invasion took place. The neighbor, whose name is not revealed in the documentary, said that she saw three men, wearing construction gear in a white truck, go behind the house. The men took a ladder to go into the house, but she didn’t see the men come out of the house, and she didn’t see any construction work being done. The neighbor wrote down the truck’s license plate number and gave it to police.
This clue was an extremely lucky break that investgators needed. The license plate was for a truck registered to Kyle Handley, a marijuana dealer who casually knew Michael. Handley and Michael had gone on a high-roller trip to Las Vegas in the past but had lost touch with each other. Handley saw the large amounts of cash that Michael was spending on this Las Vegas trip and assumed that Michael was a millionaire.
Handley told his longtime friend Hossein Nayeri, another low-level marijuana dealer, about Michael’s supposed wealth. Handler, Nayeri and another friend named Ryan Kevorkian then plotted to kidnap Michael to rob him of at least $1 million in cash. Keep in mind that these criminals never actually had proof that Michael had that amount of cash. They just made that assumption.
Unbeknownst to Michael, these kidnappers had Michael under secret surveillance for several weeks, by using GPS tracking on Michael’s car and by installing hidden cameras on the street outside Michael’s house. The GPS tracked Michael driving to the Mohave Desert on multiple occasions, but these trips to the desert were actually to look at land for a potential real-estate deal—not to bury cash, like the kidnappers wrongly assumed. After Handley’s house was searched with a warrant, investigators found out about this surveillance and so much more, including the fact that Nayeri was the mastermind and chief planner for this home invasion, kidnapping and botched robbery.
This review won’t rehash all the details of this case, but it’s enough to say that there were plenty of twists and turns. Nayeri fled to his native Iran after he found out there was a warrant for his arrest. Iran does not extradite people who are wanted for U.S. criminal charges. With the help of Nayeri’s then-wife Cortney Shegerian, police lured him to the Czech Republic, where he was extradited back to the United States on charges of kidnapping, torture and aggravated mayhem. Nayeri was arrested on November 7, 2013.
Shegerian admitted that she knew about the robbery plans in advance but she claims that she didn’t know that anyone was going to be harmed. In exchange for not being arrested as an accomplice, Shegerian agreed to cooperate with investigators in providing evidence and getting Nayeri arrested. At the time all of this was going on, Shegerian had graduated from law school and had plans to be an attorney.
In a 2019 interview with “20/20” that is shown in this documentary, Shegerian claims that she was an abused wife who was brainwashed, manipulated and threatened by Nayeri, who is seven years older than she is. The former couple began dating when she was 16, and they got married in 2010, when she was 24. Her parents did not approve of Nayeri. Shegerian says that Nayeri kept her estranged and isolated from her family.
“I thought I loved him,” Shegerian says in the interview about Nayeri, whom she describes as cruel and sadistic but also very charismatic and persuasive. She currently works as an employment attorney and is a partner in a law firm in Los Angeles County. After her divorce from Nayeri, she married another man in 2018.
Even while in jail awaiting his trial, Nayeri wanted to evade the charges. On January 22, 2016, 37-year-old Nayeri and two other inmates—20-year-old Jonathan Tieu and 43-year-old Bac Duong—escaped from Orange County Men’s Central Jail in Santa Ana, California. The jailbreak inmates filmed themselves escaping. Some of this footage is in the documentary. The three prison escapees were all apprehended a week later in California.
Nayeri was convicted and sentenced in 2019. His accomplices Handley and Kevorkian also received prison sentences. Kevorkian’s ex-wife Naomi Rhodus was charged as an accessory after the fact. All of their courtroom sentences won’t be revealed in this review, in case people want to find out by watching this documentary or by looking at other news reports about this case. “Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” doesn’t mention that in March 2023, Nayeri received an additional two years and eight months to his prison sentence because of his 2016 escape from jail.
What these four criminals have in common (besides this notorious case) is that they all knew each other from when they were students at Clovis West High School in Clovis, California, which is in Fresno County, about 275 miles north of Newport Beach. “Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” interviews two people who knew Nayeri in high school, where he was on the wrestling team: his former wrestling teammate Paris Ruiz and former Clovis West High School head wrestling coach Brad Zimmer. They both describe Nayeri as being nice, intelligent and well-spoken in high school.
Ruiz and Zimmer say that Nayeri was an Iranian immigrant who was somewhat fanatical about wrestling because Nayeri said wrestling was a massive sport in Iran. They both say that Nayeri told people that his father was a doctor who lived for a while with his wife and children in the United States, but then the father moved back to Iran for reasons that Nayeri did not disclose to many people. Ruiz and Zimmer say that they rarely saw Nayeri’s mother.
“Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” also delves a little into Nayeri’s past as a U.S. Marine who was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California’s San Diego County. He had problems with authority, so his miltary career was short-lived. The documentary interviews his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Tindal, who dated Nayeri in the 2000s. She says that Nayeri went on a “downward spiral” after he caused the death of his best friend in a 2005 car accident where Nayeri was driving under the influence. Nayeri received a suspended sentence and a five-year probation for this crime.
Other people interviewed in the documentary are Heather Brown, former senior district attorney of Orange County, California; Ryan Peters, the former Newport Police Department detective who was part of the investigaton of the case; Lewis Rosenblum, who is Shegerian’s former attorney; Nayeri’s former defense attorneys Salvatore Ciulla and Martina Teinert; Los Angeles Times reporter Anh Do; and ABC News correspondent Matt Gutman. In 2019, Gutman’s interviewed Nayeri (before he went on trial) in the “20/20” episode about this case. Excerpts from that inteview are in the documentary.
Murphy describes Nayeri as a “psychopath” and is very open about his disgust for this convicted criminal. Gutman looks back on his interview with Nayeri and says he knew that Nayeri was trying to manipulate him the entire time. As an example of how charming Nayeri could be, his former defense attorney Teinert says she never saw the cruel side to him that many other people described. However, she tells a story about how after Nayeri complained about the lunch food in jail, she made a sandwich at home that she was going to give to him, and her husband pointed out that Nayeri was manipulating her.
“Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” has the usual true crime documentary use of dramatic music and heightened editing to create suspense in telling the story. But even over three episodes and using a lot of previously filmed footage, this docuseries still comes across as incomplete. There is so much emphasis put on Nayeri, the documentary gives almost no information about his accomplices. For example, there’s no mention of background information for Nayeri’s accomplices, what led these accomplices to a life of crime, and what their arrests were like.
It’s made very clear that Nayeri was the mastermind. However, he didn’t commit these crimes by himself. It’s an absolute failure of this documentary not to look at the entire story and not fully acknowledge that accomplices and enablers were a big part of this case too. After a while, “Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” looks like “The Hossein Nayeri Show,” and that emphasis is just too tacky to take.
Hulu premiered “Wicked Game: Devil in the Desert” on February 4, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in California, the dramatic film “Lake George” features an all-white group of people representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A recently paroled fraudster gets pressured to kill a woman in a murder-for-hire plot, but she convinces him let her live so that they can steal from the person who ordered the murder.
Culture Audience: “Lake George” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and are interested in watching a crime thriller that is darkly comedic.
Carrie Coon and Shea Whigham in “Lake George” (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)
“Lake George” is a topsy-turvy crime thriller that has touches of dark comedy and is mostly watchable because of compelling lead performances from Shea Whigham and Carrie Coon. Some of the movie’s dialogue is a little forced but the story is engaging. “Lake George” has a familiar concept of two people with opposite personalities who go on a road trip and have conflicts with each other but find a way to work together toward a shared goal.
Written and directed by Jeffrey Reiner, “Lake George” had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Festival. “Lake George” has a total running time of nearly two hours, which seems a little long for a compact story where the ending can easily be predicted. The same story could’ve essentially been told in 90 minutes or less because a few of the scenes in “Lake George” tend to wander a little bit. The movie takes place in California (mostly in the Los Angeles area), where “Lake George” was filmed on location.
Despite certain predictable plot developments, “Lake George” can still maintain viewer interest because of the movie’s characters, who aren’t exactly upstanding people, but nevertheless might get viewers intrigued about what will happen to these characters. “Lake George” begins by showing protagonist Don (played by Whigham) waking up in his motel room and having a mild panic attack. Don is a recovering gambling addict who has recently been paroled for insurance fraud and is trying to find a legitimate job.
A montage shows that Don hasn’t been having much luck with his job search. In phone call after phone call, Don gets bad news. People who promised him a job after he got out of prison no longer have the job available. In one case, the person who promised the job is now deceased.
It’s later revealed that Don is divorced and on his own. Don’s wife divorced him because of his criminal activities, and he is estranged from his children. The reason why Don spent time in prison is also revealed much later in the movie. Don is the most realistic character in this movie, which has a tendency to make other characters a little bit on the cartoonish side.
One day, when Don is in his motel room and trying to figure out what to do next, he gets an unannounced visitor: a thug named Harout (played by Max Casella), who forces himself into the room, points a gun at Don, and says, “Armen wants to see you.” Harout works for a wealthy criminal named Armen (played by Glen Fleshler), who has a nefarious job offer that Don is forced to take.
When Don arrives at Armen’s mansion, Armen says that he and Don owe each other a favor. “You pay me for your fuckup, and I’ll pay you what I owe you.” It’s later revealed that Don used to be an insurance agent, and he got pulled into Armen’s criminal activities when Armen paid Don to create false insurance claims. Don took the money to support Don’s gambling habit.
Eventually, Don and Armen got arrested for their insurance fraud. Armen was acquitted because he could afford better legal representation, while Don was the one who was sent to prison for their insurance fraud crimes. Armen is still bitter about the arrest and blames Don for both of them getting caught.
And now that Don is out of prison, Armen tells Don that he wants Don to kill Armen’s ex-girlfriend Phyllis (played by Coon) because, as Armen says: “She’s a dirty cunt. She knows too much.” Armen explains that he met Phyllis when they were in rehab together for cocaine addiction.
After they both got of of rehab, Armen made Phyllis his assistant, and she found out about all of his dirty dealings but stayed with him. Phyllis is no angel: It’s revealed later in the movie that she’s spent time in prison for cocaine trafficking. Now that Armen and Phyllis have had a bad breakup, Armen wants her dead because Phyllis knows a lot of his secrets.
Don immediately refuses to become an assassin because he says he’s not a murderer. Armen insists that’s exactly why Armen wants Don for this murder-for-hire job—because Don would be an unlkely suspect. After some arguing back and forth, Armen gets impatient and tells Don that Don will be murdered if Don doesn’t kill Phyllis.
Armen supplies Don with the .45 caliber gun and a 1983 Mercedes-Benz diesel station wagon that Don is supposed to use to commit this murder. Don is also given a photo of Phyllis and is tasked with stalking her and killing her wherever Don thinks is best, within a 72-hour period. It’s a crucial mistake for Armen to let a nervous and reluctant amateur do this type of planning on his own because too many things could go wrong. No one ever said that all criminals are smart.
Don carries out the stalking part of this plan and eventually kidnaps Phyllis in a parking garage where there are no other witnesses. Phyllis is talkative and sarcastic. As already revealed in the “Lake George” trailer, Phyllis convinces Don not to kill her when she tells Don that she knows where Armen keeps a fortune worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, locked in safes in his various homes (which she calls “stash houses”) in California. Phyllis says she knows how to open each safe, so she persuades Don that they should steal this fortune, split the money, and then go their separate ways.
Don agrees to this idea because he never wanted to kill Phyllis. The rest of “Lake George” is a “race against time” for Phyllis and Don to steal this fortune without getting caught. Don has been dreaming of retiring and living in a remote house near Lake George in Mammoth Lakes, California, which is about 311 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Getting an instant fortune would allow Don to live out that dream.
“Lake George” is more than a crime caper. Much of the movie is about the tension-filled relationship between “sad sack” Don and “firecracker” Phyllis. In order to pull off this audacious robbery spree, they both need to have some trust in each other, but it’s easier said than done. Even though Phyllis and Don take fake death photos of Phyllis to send to Armen, other things don’t go quite like how Don and Phyllis thought they would.
The prickly banter between Phyllis and Don keeps “Lake George” rolling along at a fairly even pace, although some parts of the dialogue tend to drag. The best parts of the movie are seeing how Don and Phyllis handle unexpected occurrences. It should come as no surprise that Phyllis is much more trigger-happy than Don. “Lake George” won’t be considered a classic movie, but it’s better than the average film of this type because the talented principal cast members keep this somewhat formulaic story afloat.
Magnet Releasing released “Lake George” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on December 6, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in California, the dramatic film “Wayward” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An 11-year-old girl gets kidnapped during a road trip with her single mother, and the girl ends up emotionally bonding with her young female kidnapper.
Culture Audience: “Wayward” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in seeing a well-acted kidnapping drama that has some predictability but is overall appealing.
Chloe Guidry and Will Brittain in “Wayward” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)
“Wayward” has moments that will frustrate some viewers because of how certain adults make stupid or unrealistic decisions in the story. However, this drama about a kidnapped 11-year-old girl is at its best when it’s about healing from family turmoil. The movie’s quality and tone fall somewhere in between the types of movies on Independent Film Channel and Lifetime.
“Wayward” is the feature-film directorial debut of writer/director Jacquelyn Frohlich. The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 Deauville Film Festival in France. Much of the movie is about a road trip where an 11-year-old girl is kidnapped but would rather spend time with her kidnapper than with her single mother. In fact, the movie’s very first scene shows the 11-year-old girl, whose name is Cleo (played by Chloe Guidry), trying to run away from her mother Arlene (played by Jess Weixler) on this road trip.
Arlene catches up to Cleo and makes her get her back in the car. Why is Cleo so unhappy? Arlene and Cleo are moving from Boise, Idaho, to Sherman Oaks, California, because Arlene is getting married to a rich guy named Larry Gilbert (played by Rob Morrow), whom Arlene has known for only one month. (Larry and Arlene met online.) Later in the movie, Cleo mentions that she and Arlene have moved eight times so far in Cleo’s life.
At a convenience store parking lot, Arlene and Cleo encounter aspiring singer Orbison Miley Marks (played by Jessica Sula), who is in her 20s and down on her luck. Orbison says she needs a ride to San Francisco. Orbison seems very friendly and immediately establishes a rapport with Cleo, who is intrigued by this charming stranger with an acoustic guitar.
Arlene seems grateful to have someone on this road trip who can cheer up mopey Cleo, so Arlene accepts Orbison’s request for a ride to San Francisco. But during another stop on the trip, Arlene catches Orbison teaching Cleo how to smoke a cigarette. Arlene is enraged and tells Orbison that Orbison can no longer travel with them.
However, when Arlene sees how sadly Cleo hugs Orbison goodbye, Arlene changes her mind and reluctantly lets Orbison continue on the trip with them. Arlene allows Orbison to share the motel room that Arlene is staying at with Cleo. Arlene (who is obviously impulsive, flaky and less-than-smart) also shows Orbison the wad of $10,000 cash that Arlene has for this road trip.
It doesn’t take long for Arlene to tell Orbison about why Arlene and Cleo are on this road trip. Cleo chimes in by saying this about Arlene and Larry: “She only likes him because he’s rich.” And faster than you can saying “scheming opportunist in a kidnapping movie,” Orbison convinces Arlene to let Orbison take care of Cleo for a few hours while Arlene can have some time to herself.
The trailer for “Wayward” already reveals that while Orbison and Cleo are outside of the hotel room, Orbison takes Cleo for a kidnapping scheme. Orbison’s accomplice is her sleazy boyfriend Frank (played by Will Brittain), who has obviously committed crimes before with Orbison. However, Orbison and Frank are inexperienced kidnappers. This kidnapping was not something they planned in advance.
The kidnappers order Arlene not to notify law enforcement, or else Cleo will be killed. Arlene tells her fiancé Larry, who advises her not to report this kidnapping. At first, the kidnappers ask for $10,000, because they know Arlene has this cash on hand. But then, when the kidnappers figure out that Larry knows about the kidnapping, they increase the ransom demand to $150,000. (This information is also revealed in the movie’s trailer.)
“Wayward” is not a suspense thriller because the movie’s unusual concept is that Cleo is a kidnapping victim who is not only unafraid of her kidnapper, Cleo would also rather spend time with Orbison than with Arlene. Orbison (who treats Cleo like a younger sister) isn’t exactly doing much to hide Cleo while Orbison and Frank are “on the run” with Cleo in Frank’s car. The most that Orbison does to disguise Cleo is have her wear a very cheap-looking long blonde wig.
Cleo doesn’t seem to think about what this kidnapping is doing to Arlene. As Cleo admits to Orbison: “I just want her to miss me.” Cleo estimates it would be about three or four days before Arlene will miss Cleo. Viewers see that Cleo is wrong about that because Arlene is immediately frantic about finding Cleo, even if Arlene makes some incredibly moronic decisions.
And what is Orbison’s story? This review won’t give away too many details. But it’s enough to say that Cleo finds out that Orbison has had her own troubled relationship with her own single mother, including running away from home. Does this make Orbison more sympathetic? Not really, but it’s a psychological insight into why Orbison and Cleo bonded so quickly after they first met because they are both restless kindred spirits with complicated feelings about their respective mothers.
The movie has a subplot about Orbison and Frank visiting Frank’s religious older sister Bertie (played by Jamie Anne Allman) to ask her for a favor. Cleo is with the couple during this visit, which is the first time that Bertie meets Orbison. Orbison pretends that Cleo is her daughter and then tells another lie to Bertie by saying that she took Cleo in a custody battle with Cleo’s father.
“Wayward” doesn’t try to make this kidnapping look cute, but the movie does have a tendency to gloss over the seriousness of this crime with “cutesy” moments between Cleo and Orbison. From Cleo’s perspective, she doesn’t feel like Orbison is a dangerous threat. However, Frank is much more volatile and unpredictable. He is the “wild card” in a story that is otherwise a little formulaic.
All of the cast members capably handle their roles. However, the appeal of the movie rests almost entirely on how believable Cleo’s feelings are about Arlene and Orbison. Guidry has compelling talent in her performance as troubled Cleo, while Sula is able to convincingly portray someone who is both deceptive and candid. Weixler and Brittain portray their characters in expected ways.
“Wayward” has some predictability in what you might expect Orbison to do while on ths road trip with Cleo. (For example, there are scenes of Cleo and Orbison shopping for clothes together and Orbison putting makeup on Cleo.) Although some of the storytelling in “Wayward” falters with pointless scenes, viewers with enough life experience will appreciate how “Wayward” shows that Cleo’s kidnapping isn’t just about how much Cleo’s mother misses her but also about how Cleo is surprised by how much she misses her mother.
Abramorama released “Wayward” in Los Angeles on November 15, 2024, and in New York City on November 22, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1918 in California, the comedy/drama “Coup!” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one African American and one person of Arab heritage) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A mysterious con man assumes the identify of a dead chef to infiltrate and cause havoc in the household of a wealthy, politically progressive journalist.
Culture Audience: “Coup!” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and comedies/dramas that poke fun at social class snobbery.
Sarah Gadon and Billy Magnussen in “Coup!” (Photo courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment)
As a satire about social class biases, “Coup!” loses its edge in the last 15 minutes. However, this comedy/drama (about a con artist who works as a chef for a wealthy family in 1918) has enough entertaining performances to keep it mostly afloat. “Coup!” had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival.
Written and directed by Joseph Schuman and Austin Stark, “Coup!” has a concept that’s familiar in stories about con artists who set out to fool and possibly steal from rich people: The fraudster usually targets wealthy people not just for monetary reasons but also to prove that these wealthy targets aren’t as smart as they think they are. Money can’t buy class, but the con artists also want to show that money can’t buy intelligence.
“Coup!” never reveals the real name or personal history of the middle-aged con artist who’s at the center of the story. In the beginning of the movie, the con artist (played by Peter Sarsgaard) is seen in a residential room where a professional chef named Floyd Monk is seated at a table. Floyd (who’s about the same age as the con artist and slightly resembles him) is dead, with a bullet wound on the left side of his head. There’s a gun on the table.
The con artist mutters some comments in a tone that sounds as if he knows Floyd and thinks it’s a shame that Floyd had to die this way. The con artist then takes Floyd’s photo identification and other personal items, with the intent to assume Floyd’s identity. For the rest of the movie, this fraudster is only known as Floyd Monk. Was the real Floyd Monk’s death a suicide, accident, or murder? The answer is revealed toward the end of the movie.
The fake Floyd Monk is then seen going to a mansion in a remote wooded area on a small fictional island called Egg Island, which is located somewhere in California. (“Coup!” was actually filmed in New Jersey.) The fake Floyd goes to this mansion because he knows the real Floyd was supposed to start a new job as chef for the family who lives at the mansion.
The mansion is owned by a politically liberal, muckraking journalist named Jay Horton (played by Billy Magnussen), a wealthy heir who lives in the mansion with his socially tolerant wife Julie Horton (played by Sarah Gadon) and their two somewhat spoiled children: Molly (played by Willa Dunn) and Tom (played by Callum Vinson), who are very close in age to each other. Molly is about 5 years old, while Tom is about 4 years old.
Also living on the property are three servants, who have their own living quarters, separate from the mansion. Catherine McMurray (played by Kristine Nielsen) is an authoritative governess, who sees herself as the enforcer of the household’s strict rules. Ruth Tidwell (played by Skye P. Marshall) is an obedient maid. Kaan (played by Faran Tahir) is a loyal chauffeur.
During this period of time in 1918, World War I is still happening (but would end in November of that year), and the world was affected by a pandemic of influenza, also known the Spanish flu. In scenes that will remind people of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns of 2020, there is paranoia about getting infected, as people wear masks and are under strict quarantine. In the beginning of the story, isolated Egg Island hasn’t been affected by the influenza outbreak, but that situation will eventually change.
Jay expects Julie to share the same political beliefs as he does. Jay wants his family to be known as vegetarians, pacificists and “conscientious objectors” to World War I. In multiple scenes in the movie (including early on in the story), Jay is seen typing angry letters to the editor of a newspaper called the Progressive Tribune. In one of the letters, Jay rants that the president of the United States is focused on the war in Europe, when the “true killer” is “the flu from Spain.”
Jay believes that America’s employers aren’t giving the average employees enough protection from influenza. “The real victims are the workers,” Jay says in one of his letter rants. Much of the comedy in “Coup!” derives from how Jay seems to always want to portray himself as an advocate for working-class people, yet he doesn’t necessarily apply those same preachy ideals in his own household when it comes to his own employees.
It’s eventually revealed that Jay has ambitions to run for governor of California. Jay admires and is envious of progressive liberal Upton Sinclair (played by Fisher Stevens), who is mentioned several times in the movie. People who know about California’s history will know probably know about Upton Sinclair’s involvement in California politics and Sinclair’s candidacy for governor of California.
When the fake Floyd meets Jay for the first time, there’s immediately a rivalry to see which one can outwit the other. Jay is somewhat suspicious that Floyd has arrived a day later than expected. Floyd makes an excuse that there was a mixup with his travel paperwork. When the fake Floyd shows the real Floyd’s photo ID, the real Floyd’s photo is blurry enough for the fake Floyd to convince anyone who sees the ID that he’s the one in the photo.
Jay desperately needs a chef for the household, so he puts his suspicions on hold for a while. Floyd immediately charms Julie. However, Catherine is a lot less impressed and notices that this new chef doesn’t like to follow rules and seems unfamiliar with cooking in a kitchen. The con artist is able to talk his way out of people questioning his qualifications and experience.
It doesn’t take long for Floyd to start to erode the authority that Jay wants to impose in his household. First, Floyd befriends Ruth and Kaan by planting ideas in their heads that they should demand raises and better living conditions. When it’s reported that influenza has spread to Egg Island, the household goes under quarantine, thereby making grocery trips or any trips outside the house more of a hazard. Through manipulations and some sabotage, the fake Floyd uses this quarantine to his advantage.
Publicly, Jay has political views that could be considered socialist. Privately, Jay has an attitude that’s very similar to the elitist capitalism that he likes to rant against in his writing. The mansion’s swimming pool is symbolic of the social class divides. Jay has a rule that the servants cannot use the swimming pool, but Floyd breaks that rule anyway by swimming in the pool in front of Jay.
The quarantine causes tensions to rise in the household and the power struggles to escalate between Jay and Floyd. Without giving away too many details, it’s enough to say that at one point, the household experiences a food shortage. And that’s a problem when Floyd thinks the family should start eating meat that can be obtained by hunting wildlife in the woods, while Jay wants the family to stick to their vegetarian principles.
Adding to the growing discord in the household, Julie seems to be attracted to Floyd’s rebellious spirit. Late one night, Julie sees Floyd, Ruth and Kaan having small party in the mansion, where they’re playing cards and drinking alcohol, which is against Jay’s rules. Instead of scolding these employees, Julie asks to join them instead.
“Coup!” has a tendency to get repetitive in making its point about how politically liberal rich people who think they’re enlightened and progressive can actually be extremely hypocritical. The biggest flaw in the movie is not enough is known about the con artist to really understand his motivations for this elaborate fraud. At a certain point in the story, it’s obvious he’s not playing these con games for the money. Why is he putting himself at risk for this fraud? What are his personal stakes? Don’t expect “Coup!” to answer to those questions.
The performances in “Coup!” are commendable but not particularly outstanding. Making the protagonist (the con artist) such an enigma is a big risk that doesn’t quite pay off in the movie and at times becomes frustrating if viewers want a substantial reason to care about the protagonist. Some viewers will also have a problem with how a certain showdown ends and is dealt with in the story. In addition to watchable performances, “Coup!” has very good cinematography, production design and costume design. It’s the type of film that is perfectly fine to watch to pass some time, but it isn’t an award-worthy movie that’s destined to be a classic.
Greenwich Entertainment released “Coup!” in select U.S. cinemas on August 2, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on September 3, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in California, the comedy/drama film “Sacramento” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two estranged best friends have a tension-filled and sometimes wacky reunion when they go on a road trip together from Los Angeles to Sacramento.
Culture Audience: “Sacramento” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and road trip “buddy” movies with good acting.
Michael Cera and Michael Angarano in “Sacramento” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)
The comedy/drama “Sacramento” has an over-used formula of two people with opposite personalities who go on a trip together. However, the cast members’ believable performances capably balance the movie’s shifting tones of whimsical and weighty. “Sacramento” had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Festival.
Directed by Michael Angarano, “Sacramento” (which was filmed on location in California, mostly in the cities of Los Angeles and Sacramento) is about life’s growing pains and the crossroads of decisions about maturity and lifestyles that are often experienced by people in their 30s. Christopher Nicholas Smith and Angarano co-wrote the screenplay for “Sacramento,” which begins by showing protagonist Rickey (played by Angarano) by himself in a wooded area near a creek. Standing on the opposite side of the creek is a stranger named Tallie (played by Maya Erskine), who shouts out this sexual flirtation to Rickey: “Nice dick!”
Rickey (a never-married bachelor with no children) is intrigued by this stranger and is immediately attracted to Tallie. He suggests that they spontaneously get in the creek and swim to each other. She agrees. He strips down to his underwear, but Tallie suddenly changes her mind and doesn’t go in the water.
It sets the tone of what types of personalities they have: Rickey is very impulsive, and many people in his life think he’s irresponsible. Tallie is less likely to be a risk taker and is more of a realist. Rickey decides to swim to Tallie. Over the rest of the trip, they flirt with each other and eventually hook up sexually. What happens to their relationship is eventually revealed in the movie.
One year later, in Los Angeles, Rickey’s on-again/off-again best friend Glenn Mullen (played by Michael Cera) is assembling a crib for his soon-to-be-born first child. Glenn gets frustrated because he can’t put together the crib in the way he thinks it’s supposed to be. Glenn becomes so angry, he shakes off one side of the crib in frustration. It soon becomes obvious in other scenes that Glenn is a neurotic control freak with an obsessive-compulsive attitude about cleanliness and sticking to routines.
Glenn’s supportive wife Rosie (played by Kristen Stewart) is laid-back and very understanding about Glenn’s quirks. Adding to Glenn’s overall frustration, he has recently been laid off from an unnamed job. Rosie, who works from home in an unnamed job, has offered to be the household breadwinner until Glenn finds another job. She suggests that Glenn can be a stay-at-home father for a year while she financially supports the family. Glenn somewhat reluctantly agrees.
Based on conversations in the movie, Rickey and Glenn have known each other since they were children. But as adults, Rickey has been in and out of Glenn’s life. Even though they both live in the Los Angeles area, it’s not unusual for Rickey to cut off contact with Glenn for several months and then make contact and expect them to resume ther friendship right where it left off. This flakiness has made Glenn feel very estranged from Rickey.
But there would be no “Sacramento” movie if Rickey and Glenn didn’t have a reunion. Rickey, who is chronically unemployed, is seen trying to lead a grief support group that used to be led by his deceased father. Rickey’s style of counseling is considered too aggressively judgmental, so he’s asked to leave the group.
Feeling lonely, Rickey suddenly shows up unannounced at the home of Glenn and Rosie. Glenn isn’t happy to see Rickey, but he’s polite enough to make time to talk to Rickey. Through a series of events, Rickey convinces Glenn to go on a road trip to Sacramento (which is about 386 miles northeast of Los Angeles) because Rickey says his father recently died, and his father’s dying wish was to have his ashes spread in Sacramento. This “dying wish” is a lie. Early on in the trip, when Glenn isn’t looking, Rickey spontaneously fills a tennis ball container with dirt and pretends that the container has the ashes of his dead father.
The rest of “Sacramento” has some clichés from many other road trip movies of this ilk: The two travelers frequently bicker with each other. They meet unusual characters along the way. Something goes wrong with the vehicle being used for the trip, such as running out of gas, a mechanical malfunction, or the vehicle gets stolen or towed. And as defenses come down, the two quarrelling people on the road trip show vulnerability to each other and reveal personal secrets.
What saves “Sacramento” from watered-down mediocrity is the fact that the main characters are written in such a specific way, they can’t be described as shallow or generic. Angarano and Cera have genuine chemistry with each other that makes it easy for viewers to believe and feel invested in this volatile friendship, which is at the heart of the film. “Sacramento” doesn’t do anything that’s really inventive (and some of the scenarios are a bit too much like a sitcom), but it’s a solid option for people who want to see an entertaining film that will make viewers laugh, cringe and possibly feel some sentimentality.
UPDATE: Vertical will release “Sacramento” in select U.S. cinemas on April 11, 2025.
Thaddeus J. Mixson, Genneya Walton, Madison Thomas, Tracee Ellis Ross and Eddie Murphy in “Candy Cane Lane” (Photo by Claudette Barius/Amazon Content Services)
Culture Representation: Taking place in El Segundo, California, the fantasy/comedy film “Candy Cane Lane” features a racially diverse (African American and white) cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A married father, who’s desperate to win a local Christmas decorating contest, makes a misguided deal with a corrupt elf, who forces him to gather items that are mentioned in the carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
Culture Audience: “Candy Cane Lane” will appeal primarily to fans of star Eddie Murphy and anyone who will tolerate badly made Christmas movies.
Eddie Murphy, Jillian Bell and Madison Thomas in “Candy Cane Lane” (Photo by Claudette Barius/Amazon Content Services)
“Candy Cane Lane” is a rotten, weird, and unfunny mess. Add this junk to the list of Eddie Murphy misfires meant to be crowd pleasers but just turn off many people. There’s also a semi-accidental animal cruelty scene that’s played for laughs. Horrendous.
Directed by Reginald Hudlin and terribly written by Kelly Younger, “Candy Cane Lane” is the type of outdated and tacky movie that could’ve been released direct-to-video in the 1990s. But the fact that some big names were involved in making this movie (Murphy and Oscar-winning “A Beautiful Mind” producer Brian Grazer are two of the “Candy Cane Lane” producers), and because there was a large-enough budget for the movie’s over-reliance on visual effects, “Candy Cane Lane” looks misleadingly like a cute and glossy comedy.
About 15 minutes into the movie, viewers will find out there’s nothing cute about the onslaught of bad jokes, dull scenarios, annoying characters, and a tangled story that just seems to be making up things as it goes along. “Candy Cane Lane” goes off on so many different tangents, it’s like a bunch of half-baked ideas thrown into a trash heap that’s left to fester and then gets covered up with some shiny Christmas embellishments to attract viewers. There are some very talented comedic actors in “Candy Cane Lane,” but they often look somewhat embarrassed by the utter garbage that they have to say as their lines of dialogue.
“Candy Cane Lane” is the first feature film for screenwriter Younger, whose two previous screenwriting credits are for Disney+ shows: the 2021 TV special “Muppets Haunted Mansion” and the 2020 limited series “Muppets Now.” It just goes to show that hack screenwriters can get awful screenplays made into a movie if they know the right people who are willing to waste their money in making this type of humiliating dreck. “Candy Cane Lane” star Murphy is considered to be a great stand-up comedian, and he can excel in sketch comedy, but he has very questionable taste in choosing his family-oriented projects, which are usually low-quality (even with large budgets) and way beneath his talent.
“Candy Cane Lane” (which takes place in El Segundo, California, and was filmed in nearby Los Angeles) begins by telling audiences about a big annual Candy Cane Lane contest that takes place in El Segundo. It’s a Christmas decorating contest for the exteriors of people’s homes. The household that’s chosen as the one with the best decorations is the winner of the contest. A local cable TV station called Prism Cable gives coverage to the contest, which also has a Candy Cane Lane parade. Expect to see a lot of garish and ugly Christmas decorations in this movie that is supposedly “award-worthy” by Candy Cane Lane contest standards.
Chris Carver (played by Murphy) and his neighbor Bruce (played by Ken Marino) have been extremely competitive with each other because of this contest, which Bruce has won for the past four years. Bruce and Chris put up a front of being friendly with each other in public, but in reality, they see each other as fierce and bitter rivals. Winning this contest becomes an obsession for Chris, but then other things happen in the movie where the contest becomes almost like an afterthought, and “Candy Cane Lane” really goes off the rails into irredeemable stupidity. The character of Bruce is barely in the movie; his screen time is less than 10 minutes.
Chris and his wife Carol Carver (played by Tracee Ellis Ross) have three children. Their eldest child Joy Carver (played by Genneya Walton), who’s about 17 or 18 years old, is a star on her high school’s track team and is in the process of applying to universities. Middle child Nick (played by Thaddeus J. Mixson), who’s about 16 or 17 years old, is an aspiring musician who is in the school’s marching band. Youngest child Holly (played by Madison Thomas), who’s about 9 or 10 years old, doesn’t seem to have any interests. Holly is written as a walking cliché of what bad comedies do when the youngest kid in the family is a girl: She is only there to look cute, make some wisecracks, and help the adults when they need help.
Observant viewers will notice even before it’s pointed out later in the movie that all of the Carver kids have Christmas-themed names. Nick is obviously named after St. Nicholas. Even the name Carol has a Christmas association to it. These names are supposed to be an example of how Chris has a fixation on Christmas. Chris Carver’s name is somewhat similar to Kris Kringle (also known as Santa Claus), but the frequently whiny and petulant “Candy Cane Lane” protagonist Chris Carver has none of the appeal and charm of Kris Kringle.
Christmas isn’t the only thing that’s a fixation for Chris, who is somewhat fanatical about his loyalty to his college alma mater: the University of Southern California (USC). Chris (who is a sales executive) and Carol (who’s a manager at a peanut factory) met when they were students at USC. Chris expects all of his children to also go to USC.
However, Joy announces to her parents near the beginning of the movie that she doesn’t want to go to USC and would rather go to the University of Notre Dame, which is more than 2,100 miles away in South Bend, Indiana. Chris does not take this announcement very well and thinks that Joy will change her mind about going to USC. This conflict over Joy’s choice of universities is awkwardly brought up later in one of the movie’s many poorly written and sloppily staged scenes that fall flat with unamusing jokes.
Chris will soon have more to worry about than which university Joy chooses to attend. He’s laid off from his job at a company called Sydel Twain Industrial Plastics, where he was a longtime employee, but the company’s new owner is making staff cuts. Trevante Rhodes has a useless cameo as an executive named Tre, who coldly tells Chris in a conference room that Chris is no longer working at the company.
Chris gets a wrapped bathrobe package as a parting gift from the company. “I don’t want your fleece!” Chris says angrily. He quickly changes his mind and says maybe he does want the fleece after all. If you think this is hilarious, then feel free to waste time watching “Candy Cane Lane,” because this is what the movie is trying to pass off as “comedy.”
Chris eventually tells Carol that he lost his job, but he asks her not to tell their children because he doesn’t want the kids to worry, especially during the Christmas holiday season. Carol has her own job concerns: She really wants a promotion, which could happen soon if she impresses the right people.
It just so happens that the Candy Cane Lane contest has announced that this year’s grand prize is $100,000, which makes Chris even more determined to win, considering he doesn’t know when he will find his next job. With the contest approaching, Chris forces his kids to help him get new Christmas decorations. Chris and Holly find a “pop-up store,” which sells elaborate Christmas decorations. Chris and Holly go to this store multiple times in the movie and don’t seem to think it’s strange that they are always the only customers in the store and there’s only one person working there.
The first time they visit the store, Chris and Holly are in awe of all the unique decorations. They are greeted by a seemingly helpful employee named Pepper Mint (played by Jillian Bell), who convinces Chris to buy a massive artificial Christmas tree that is packaged in a container shaped like a giant sardine can. While ringing up the sale at the cash register, Pepper tells Chris that he doesn’t have to read the fine print on the long receipt before he signs the receipt. “Honestly, it’s like signing your life away,” she says with obvious sarcasm.
It turns out that Pepper is really a corrupt elf, who tricked Chris into signing his life away. Chris gets the spectacular tree that he wants: It magically unfolds into a giant 12-tier tree that can best be described as looking like stacks of Christmas cookie circular tin containers that are glued together. The tree is such a sensation, it makes the news on Prism Cable.
Prism Cable has two irritating news anchors: perpetually perky Kit (played by Danielle Pinnock) and constantly jaded Emerson (played Timothy Simons), who are an excruciatingly ridiculous on-air duo providing commentary throughout the story. Kit has decided that her irksome nephew Josh (played by D.C. Young Fly), who has an alter ego as a social media influencer named Sunny Roberts, deserves to be on TV, so she lets this dolt become an “on the scene” correspondent.
The Carver family tree’s lights are so far-reaching, the lights can be seen by an airplane in the sky. The problem is that by opening up this tree, Chris has triggered the unwitting “bargain” that he made with Pepper. Suddenly, things mentioned in the Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” start appearing randomly in the Carver family’s lives. “The Twelve Days of Christmas” famously mentions a partridge in a pear tree, two turtle doves, three French hens, four calling birds, five golden rings, six geese that lay eggs, seven swimming swans, eight milk maids, nine dancing ladies, 10 leaping lords, 11 pipers and 12 drummers.
They don’t appear in the order that they are mentioned in the song. Everything is haphazard, just like this entire movie. The seven swans are the first to appear, as they end up in the Carver family’s backyard swimming pool. Somehow in this very disjointed story, Chris finds out that in order to get out of this deal with Pepper, he must give her the golden rings. And so, there’s a “hunt” to track down these rings.
But that’s not where “Candy Cane Lane” gets really mindless. There’s a huge swath of the movie about Chris discovering that there are talking miniature figurines in Pepper’s shop. The figurines (which are all dressed as Christmas people from the 19th century) look, act and move like human beings. Pepper is keeping these figurines captive against their will.
Three of the figurines get the most dialogue out of all the other figurines. Pip (played by Nick Offerman) is a top-hat-wearing Brit who is the leader of the trio. Pip’s American sidekicks are sassy maiden Cordelia (played by Robin Thede) and goofy lamplighter Gary (played by Chris Redd), who occasionally bicker with each other. The other figurines that appear briefly in the movie to sing are a group of five carolers, played by the real-life singing group Pentatonix. The members of Pentatonix are Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Kirstin Maldonado, Matt Sallee and Kevin Olusola.
Pip, Cordelia and Gary are desperate to be “free from the torment of eternal Christmas” under Pepper’s captivity, according to Pip. This all leads to an “escape and chase” part of the story that further jumbles the already idiotic plot. It’s as if the filmmakers knew they didn’t have enough ideas for the part of the story about the Candy Cane Lane contest and decided to come up with some bad ideas as filler.
Although there’s a disclaimer at the end of “Candy Cane Lane” that says no animals were harmed during the making of the movie, there’s some obvious contempt for winged animals in this film, because depicting and seeing these animals get hurt are used as wretched jokes in the movie. For example, in a scene where Carol is giving some powerful executives a tour of her factory, she sees one of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” chickens hiding in a packing box. In a panic, while the executives aren’t looking, Carol takes the bird out of the box and cruelly throws it at some operating assembly line equipment, where she knows the bird will be immediately decapitated. This decapitation is not explicitly shown on screen, but the movie makes it clear that the bird has died because of Carol’s reckless actions, and the “Candy Cane Lane” filmmakers want viewers to laugh about it.
The acting performances in “Candy Cane Lane” range from mediocre to stiffly awful. Murphy is just going through the motions playing the “stressed-out dad” character that he has played in several other terrible comedies where he’s the family patriarch who gets involved in some problems. Bell’s depiction of the Pepper character is a weak parody of Christmas villains. Apparently, Bell thinks bugging out her eyes makes her look menacing. Pip, Cordelia and Gary can best be described as irritating as pesky flies.
David Alan Grier shows up as Santa Claus, in a cameo role that is written in a racially problematic way, considering that people call him “Black Santa” in the movie, and he speaks like a lower-class person. (“Candy Cane Lane” screenwriter Younger is white.) When a white Santa Claus is in a movie, no one in the movie says, “Oh, look, there’s White Santa.” A black man with the name Santa Claus in a movie doesn’t have to be identified as “Black Santa” by the movie’s characters, and he doesn’t have to get reduced to speaking like an angry black man from the ghetto. It’s very passive-aggressive racism from the “Candy Cane Lane” filmmakers.
And for the love of cinema, the filmmakers of these horrible “comedies” about African American families need to stop making every African American teenage boy in the family have integrity problems and/or portrayed as not being a good student in school. “Candy Cane Lane” has an unnecessary plot development about Nick being deceitful by hiding a secret from his family: He’s close to flunking in his math class, and his parents find out about this lie.
“Candy Cane Lane” is not the type of atrocious film with moments that overcome the lousy parts of the movie. “Candy Cane Lane” just gets worse and worse, until there’s no hope the story will ever recover. And just like many obnoxiously terrible movies, “Candy Cane Lane ” has end credits with a blooper reel that shows the cast members enjoyed making this trash. It’s probably more enjoyment than most viewers will get if they have the endurance to watch “Candy Cane Lane” until the very end.
Amazon MGM Studios released “Candy Cane Lane” in select U.S. cinemas on November 24, 2023. Prime Video will premiere the movie on December 1, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Southern California, the horror film “The Bell Keeper” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one African American and one Latina) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Several young people travel to a remote camping area that is believed to be the hunting ground for a serial killer who appears after a mysterious bell is rung in the woods.
Culture Audience: “The Bell Keeper” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching terrible horror films.
Randy Couture in “The Bell Keeper” (Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films)
“The Bell Keeper” is about terror that is unleashed after anyone rings a mysterious bell that’s in a remote wooded area. A serial killer keeps vigil over the bell. Someone needs to sound the alarm that “The Bell Keeper” is pure dreck in horror filmmaking.
Directed by Colton Tran, “The Bell Keeper” tries very hard to be the type of horror film that drops in sarcastic jokes to lighten the mood. The problem is that this comedy in “The Bell Keeper” is cringeworthy, outdated, and just not funny at all. Joe Davison and Luke Genton co-wrote the awful screenplay for “The Bell Keeper.”
As bad as the movie’s screenplay is, the acting in “The Bell Keeper” is worse and makes everything much harder to watch until the movie’s idiotic ending. There are some tacky horror movies that are entertaining to watch because they are very self-aware of their low-quality filmmaking and have fun with it. “The Bell Keeper” is not that type of tacky horror movie.
“The Bell Keeper” takes place in an unnamed city in Southern California. The movie was filmed on location in Los Angeles, Santa Clarita, and Ventura County. The opening scene takes place at night and shows two gory murders in a (cliché alert) secluded wooded area that has the fictional name Bell Lake in the movie.
The first person murdered in the movie is a man in his late 20s named Gary Beaumont (played by Nick Theurer), who is beheaded by a muscular man carrying an ax. After killing Gary, the murderer takes Gary’s driver’s license because the killer collects the driver’s licenses of his victims and hangs these licenses on a wall in his home. Gary’s girlfriend Nadine (played by Bailey Castle) is tied to a chair in a shed-like building. The murderer then kills Nadine in the same way that he killed Gary.
Viewers soon find out that this killer’s name is Hank (played by Randy Couture), who has become a local legend (not in a good way), because he’s suspected of being a serial killer but has remained elusive. Hank is believed to be a recluse who lives somewhere in the woods, where there is a mysterious bell located outdoors. According to stories in the area, every time someone rings the bell, Hank appears to hunt down and kill whoever rang the bell and any willing accomplices.
After Gary and Nadine are murdered, a group of five young people take a trip to Bell Lake to make a documentary about urban legends. They arrive by a recreational vehicle camper that’s co-owned by the two brothers who are on the trip. Younger brother Liam (played by Reid Miller), who’s in his late teens, has been living in the camper after secretly dropping out of college. Liam, who loves smoking marijuana, has been making money by selling marijuana that he is growing in the camper.
Older brother Matthew, nicknamed Matt (played by Mike Manning), is in his mid-20s and is the opposite of Liam in many ways. Matt is arrogant, vain, and knows what he wants to do with his life. Liam and Matt have had a tense relationship because Matt has a long history of bullying and insulting Liam.
Although Matt and Liam both own the camper, Matt has to ask Liam’s permission to use the camper for the trip because Liam is the one who’s been paying for the upkeep of the camper, which is actually a grungy mess. Liam is tasked with being the driver for this trip. Matt is the cinematographer for this documentary crew.
Also on this trip is Matt’s confident and friendly girlfriend Holly (played by Cathy Marks), who is directing this amateur documentary. Holly has been trying to mend the fractured relationship between Matt and Liam. She’s hoping that this documentary will be the definitive documentary that will solve the mystery of Bell Lake. (In other words, you just know if Holly finds the notorious bell, she’ll want to ring it on camera and film what happens next.)
The other two people on the trip are sound technician Gabriel (played by Capri-Antoine Vaillancourt) and documentary host Megan (played by Alexis B. Santiago), who are hooking up with each other in a “friends with benefits” situation. Gabriel and Megan are both dimwitted and shallow. Megan is a diva who has some of the worst jokes in the movie.
On their way to Bell Lake, the five travel companions stop at a gas station in this remote area. Matt and Gabriel go in the gas station’s convenience store and meet a buffoonish park ranger named Eugene Carlson (played by Chaz Bono) and a menacing-looking cashier named Jodie (played by Bonnie Aarons), who both warn Matt and Gabriel not to go to Deer Lake when they find out that’s where these travelers are going.
Jodie shouts, “It’s not a joke!” She grabs Gabriel and yells at him: “Hank is ruthless!” Aarons gives a very over-the-top performance in “The Bell Keeper.” Even though Aarons shares top billing for “The Bell Keeper,” she’s only in this one scene in the movie. Her screen time is less than five minutes, but her performance is so extreme, it will probably make viewers laugh instead of feel terrified.
Meanwhile, outside the gas station, a woman in her early 20s is handing out copies of a missing person flyer. Her name is Brittany (played by Kathleen Kenny), and she’s the younger sister of Gary, the man who was slaughtered in the beginning of the movie. At this point in the story, no one except for the killer knows that Gary is dead. Brittany hands a flyer to Liam, who says he hasn’t seen Gary.
Liam is instantly smitten with Brittany, who says she’s headed to Bell Lake too, because that was the last-known place where Gary was seen with Nadine. Liam nervously tries to flirt with Brittany to let her know that he might want to date her. However, Brittany tells Liam that he has no chance with her because she’s a lesbian. Liam still wants to get to know Brittany better, so he invites her to set up her tent close to where the RV camper will be parked at Bell Lake.
The rest of “The Bell Keeper” alternates between boring scenes of people talking and poorly staged action scenes. Of course, the bell is found and rung. Hank comes out of the shadows and goes on a killing spree. The chase scenes are sloppily edited and don’t look believable at all.
As shown in the movie’s trailer, ringing the bell also causes those responsible to turn into demon-possessed creatures. It’s supposed to make “The Bell Keeper” viewers wonder: “Who’s the real menace here?” But it just makes it easier to predict who will live and who will die.
There’s also a part of the movie involving a devil worshipper named Jackson (played by Daniel Dasent), in a terribly conceived part of the story that just makes the plot more of a jumbled mess. “The Bell Keeper” filmmakers made an effort to not have the answers to the movie’s mystery be too obvious. But in doing so, there’s a revelation that just creates more plot holes.
“The Bell Keeper” has some watchable moments when it comes to the friendship that develops between Liam and Brittany. But the acting in this movie is so relentlessly terrible, it takes you out of the intended horror, and it ruins the movie. The worst acting in “The Bell Keeper” is from Couture, who recites his lines as if he’s reading a dictionary that he has a hard time understanding. “The Bell Keeper” is simply one in a seemingly endless stream of trashy horror movies that aren’t very fun to watch and are quickly forgetton.
Screen Media Films released “The Bell Keeper” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on October 13, 2023. The movie will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on December 5, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Colberg, California, the dramatic film “On Fire” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: During a forest fire that rages through more than one city, a building construction worker disregards warnings not to go into the fire, so that he can rescue his family members who are trapped.
Culture Audience: “On Fire” will appeal primarily to people who like suspsenseful movies about forest fires.
Lance Henriksen and Peter Facinelli in “On Fire” (Photo courtesy of Cineverse)
“On Fire” is a mostly credible depiction of a family trapped in a forest fire. This adrenaline-packed drama, which has solid acting and serviceable visual effects, is a blend of predictable and unpredictable. Along with the family crisis are various attitudes about the correlation between climate change and forest fires.
Written and directed by Peter Facinelli and Nick Lyon, “On Fire” has a simple concept but it does fairly well in stretching out the concept into a briskly paced 80-minute movie. Lyon and Ron Peer co-wrote the “On Fire” screenplay. It’s the type of movie that will never be considered for any major awards, but it’s not a bad way to pass the time for viewers who are looking for a movie that does a good job of balancing the natural disaster aspects of the story with the human relationship aspects of the story.
“On Fire” starts off by letting viewers get to know the family at the center of the story, which takes place mostly within a 24-hour period. In the fictional city of Colberg, California, the Laughlin family lives in a fairly isolated wooded area. (“On Fire” was filmed on location in Northern California.) The family members are tight-knit but have their share of conflicts and squabbles.
Married couple Dave Laughlin (played by Facinelli) and Sarah Laughlin (played by Fiona Dourif) have a loving marriage. Dave has recently started his own building construction business, which hasn’t been profitable yet. It’s caused some tension in his otherwise happy marriage. Sarah thinks Dave should consider doing a job where he can make money, but Dave doesn’t want to give up his struggling construction business.
Sarah, who is eight months pregnant, is working during her pregnancy in some sort of customer-related job where she has to wear a name tag and be on her feet for hours. Whevever she works, either the place does not offer paid maternity leave to full-time employees, or Sarah works there part-time and doesn’t qualify for maternity leave. Sarah has to work because she and Dave are heavily in debt, mainly because of the costs of starting his business.
Dave and Sarah live with their teenage son Clay Laughlin (played by Asher Angel), who is in his last year of his high school. Clay, who is good guy, is a talented athlete on his school’s track team. Also living in the household is Dave’s 80-year-old widower father George Laughlin (played by Lance Henriksen), who uses an oxygen tank. George has respiratory problems because he’s been a heavy smoker for years.
George is cranky and rude, usually to Sarah, because he resents the fact that she won’t let George smoke cigarettes, and she monitors other things about his health. During an argument between Sarah and George, he calls her a “bitch.” Sarah gets upset, while Dave comforts her. Dave tells Sarah that George is difficult with Sarah because Sarah reminds George of George’s late wife Rosemary, who was also strong-willed and outspoken.
In the few hours leading up to the forest fire that reaches Colberg, the family smells smoke from a forest fire going on in the nearby city of Parker. All the news reports are saying that Colberg is not in any immediate danger, because a ravine separates Parker and Colberg. There also hasn’t been a forest fire in Colberg for at least 40 years.
However, members of the Laughlin family notice some other warning signs (besides the overwhelming smell of fire smoke) that Colberg will soon be in danger from the forest fire. A huge flock of birds are seen fleeing in the opposite direction of Colberg. The sky also starts to get darker from smoke, even though it’s still in the afternoon.
Dave doesn’t want to take any chances, so he goes to the nearest hardware store to stock up on fire safety supplies. The store’s owner Marv (played by Glenn Morshower) is one of the people who says he’s not worried about the fire reaching Colberg. Dave, who already owes the hardware store some money, tells Marv to put all the supplies that Dave gets on Dave’s running tab of debt.
Of course, it’s no secret that the fire does reach Colberg. It happens so quickly, residents barely have time to evacuate when the emergency alert is sent. The fire in Colberg is later identified as a spot fire, which is ignited by embers that float from the perimeter of the main fire.
After leaving the hardware store, Dave frantically drives toward his home to help his family evacuate, but there’s a police roadblock in the way, because it’s unsafe to go back into that part of the woods. Dave desperately tells the police officers at the roadblock that his family needs help evacuating. Dave is told a rescue team can go to Dave’s family, but Dave gets impatient and drives through the roadblock.
The rest of “On Fire” shows many obstacles that the Laughlin family members experience in their attempts to go to a safe area. There are car-related mishaps, cell phones that can’t work because the fire is affecting cell phone towers, and more than a few injuries. In addition, as the fire rages around them, there’s the danger of smoke inhalation. Sarah’s pregnancy is also a major concern.
Interspersed with scenes of the Laughlin family’s ordeal are scenes of a 911 operator named Kayla (played by Ashlei Foushee) taking phone calls from scared and confused people who are trapped in the fire. It’s Kayla’s second week on the job. Although she keeps calm while he’s on the phone with callers, the movie shows how the stress starts to get to Kayla when she’s not on the phone.
“On Fire” doesn’t get preachy about climate change, but the movie does show how people have different views about how climate change can be connected to an increase in forest fires. Current scientific research shows that global warming creates an environment that makes it easier for forest fires to start and spread. Marv is the type of person who is basing his opinions on how things were in the past, instead of acknowledging current science. Dave is the type of person is more open to looking at the current science of the environment, because his work in building construction depends a lot on environmental issues.
“On Fire” makes good use of its low budget and a relatively small number of cast members to make the movie an engrossing experience if viewers don’t have high expectations. Not everything in the movie looks completely realistic. The smoke inhalation issue would be a lot more serious in real life, compared to how it looks in the movie. And some of the dialogue and scenes are a little corny, especially toward the end. However, “On Fire” delivers an engaging and memorable story about a family who have to fight for their lives during a natural disaster.
Cineverse released “On Fire” in U.S. cinemas on September 29, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in California, the comedy/drama film “Pretty Problems” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with one African American) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A middle-class married couple looking to spice up ther lives are invited to a party retreat at a vineyard by a flaky rich woman, who introduces the couple to the equally flaky people in her inner circle, including her husband and another couple of shallow partiers.
Culture Audience: “Pretty Problems” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching repetitive movies about people who get drunk at upscale retreats.
Britt Rentschler and J.J. Nolan in “Pretty Problems” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)
A satire such as “Pretty Problems” could have been a clever parody of shallow and materialistic people, but this tiresome movie ends up being as vapid and annoying as the characters it is trying to mock. Watching this movie is like being stuck somewhere for 103 minutes and watching nothing but people acting stupidly drunk and thinking that they’re hilarious. It’s an endurance test, because there’s almost nothing in this movie that is truly unique, while the characters just aren’t interesting. The one-note jokes quickly run out of steam very early in the film. “Pretty Problems” had its world premiere at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival.
Directed by Kestrin Pantera and written by Michael Tennant, “Pretty Problems” strains to keep the comedy momentum that it seemed to have started in the film’s first 15 minutes. In the beginning of the movie, viewers see that married couple Lindsay Simpson (played by Britt Rentschler) and Jack Brown (played by Tennant) are stuck in a rut in their relationship. They aren’t breaking up, but they’ve become a little bored with each other. The movie begins with a sex scene of Lindsay and Jack in bed together and being “out of sync” and not connecting the way in the way they did when they were happier in their relationship. And then, Lindsay and Jack are shown masturbating separately in the shower.
Lindsay works as a sales clerk at a trendy women’s clothing boutique. Jack works as a probation officer. They don’t have children. One day, when Lindsay is at work, a wealthy homemaker named Catherine “Cat” Flax (played by J.J. Nolan) is in the store and strikes up a friendly conversation with Lindsay. The next thing Lindsay knows, Cat has convinced Lindsay to go on her lunch break with Cat. In the back patio, Lindsay and Cat have some wine (one of the many “Pretty Problems” scenes where the characters are drinking alcohol), and they talk about their lives.
Cat is married to a self-made billionaire businessman. They have twin children, who are never seen in the movie. Cat tells Lindsay that Lindsay looks too smart to be a retail sales clerk. Lindsay admits that her dream is to have her own fashion business, with either her own brand of designer clothing or a high-end retail store. Even though they’ve just met, Cat offers to invest in Lindsay’s dream. And that’s how Lindsay finds out that Cat is rich.
But is Cat’s generous offer for real, or is it just drunken rambling from a bored woman with a lot of money? When Cat goes back into the store, she spends a long time lingering and being somewhat of distraction to the store employees. Finally, Lindsay’s supervisor Georgia tells Lindsay: “If your friend isn’t going to buy anything, I’m going to ask you to leave.” Cat then proceeds to buy a massive number of clothing in the store, so that Lindsay can get the credit for selling the merchandise.
When Lindsay is at home with Jack, she enthusiastically tells him about Cat and how they became “fast friends,” as well as the large purchase that Cat made to help Lindsay look like a great salesperson. Lindsay says to Jack: “I sold more in that boutique in six minutes than I sold in six months.” Lindsay also tells Jack that Cat has invited them to an adults-only party retreat at a vineyard in Sonoma, where Cat and her husband have one of their homes.
Jack is skeptical because he thinks that he and Lindsay won’t fit in at this retreat. He’s not just skeptical. He’s also paranoid that they might be targeted to join a weird sex cult. Lindsay is excited and intrigued and says she wants to go to this retreat, with or without Jack. After much whining and hesitation, Jack agrees to go with Lindsay to the retreat. They take their car for the road trip to the vineyard.
When they get to the vineyard, Cat is drunk (as usual) and introduces Jack and Lindsay to her husband Matt Flax (played by Graham Outerbridge), who proceeds to tell Jack that Matt recently bought Jack’s favorite beer distributor. Jack and Lindsay are then introduced to the other couple who are part of this group retreat. Carrie (played by Charlotte Ubben) is a ditzy model/actress, who is the latest fling for Kerry (played by Alex Klein), who is living of off his family’s trust fund. Kerry’s grandfather invented Tater Tots. One of the first things that Carrie and Kerry do after they meet Lindsay and Jack is brag about spending $65,000 on champagne and cocaine.
The rest of “Pretty Problems” is just a series of scenes showing these six partiers getting intoxicated, having mindless conversations (where there’s more boasting and flaunting of wealth and possessions), and making fools out of themselves in various ways. There are some very unoriginal scenes where the group has a “murder mystery game” and then do some karaoke. Lindsay is eager to fit in with this group, but Matt starts out as very uptight and acting like he’s above all the drunken antics. And then, someone puts Ecstasy in Matt’s drink without his knowledge or consent, and he starts acting like an idiot too.
Meanwhile, the employees of Cat and Max have to deal with serving these partiers and staying calm and rational as things get more chaotic. Dan (played by Clayton Froning), who works for the Flax couple as a majordomo, is a former Sea World trainer. He also happens to know Lindsay from when they were in high school together, and he had the name Big Dick Dan. It’s so predictable what kind of history Lindsay has with Dan and what Matt’s reaction will be when he finds out.
Other employees include party planner Becca (played by Katarina Hughes) who is a Rhodes Scholar playwright; master sommelier Georges (played Tom Detrinis); and shaman Gigi (played by Vanessa Chester), who leads a meditation session like a teacher has to lead a classroom of unruly kids. There is nothing special about any of the performances in “Pretty Problems.” In fact, some of the cast members over-act and therefore ruin what could have been hilarious satire.
It doesn’t take long for “Pretty Problems” to run out of ideas after making its point over and over that rich jerks who are drunk or high on drugs are still jerks, but the drinking and drugging just amplify their awful personalities. “Pretty Problems” might have been better off it were filmed like a mockumentary short film, but it still wouldn’t erase the movie’s unremarkable acting and dull dialogue. If people want to see a witty and dark satire of wealthy people behaving badly in gorgeous settings, then viewers are better off watching HBO’s “The White Lotus.”
IFC Films released “Pretty Problems” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on October 7, 2022.
