Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the dramatic film “Flashback” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the middle-class.
Culture Clash: A man in his early 30s tries to figure out why he’s having confusing nightmarish visions and memories of when he was in high school.
Culture Audience: “Flashback” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching incoherent movies that are boring.
Maika Monroe in “Flashback” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
The generically titled “Flashback” was originally titled “The Education of Frederick Fitzell.” There are at least three other feature films titled “Flashback,” and this one certainly won’t be considered the best. “Flashback” is an ironic title for this movie because it’s so forgettable. In addition to having an incoherent and nonsensical plot, “Flashback” is exceedingly monotonous and a waste of the film’s talented cast members, who have all been in much better movies.
“Flashback” is supposed to be a psychological thriller, but the only thrill anyone might feel is when this slow train wreck of a movie finally ends. It’s one of those movies that people might keep watching with the hope that it might get better or that the story’s big mystery might reveal interesting answers. But “Flashback” fails to deliver anything intriguing on almost every level.
Written and directed by Christopher MacBride, “Flashback” takes place in an unnamed U.S. city but was actually filmed in Canada. The movie begins with Frederick “Fred” Fitzell (played by Dylan O’Brien) and his wife Karen (played by Hannah Gross) getting some bad news about Fred’s terminally ill, widowed mother (played by Liisa Repo-Martell), who doesn’t have a first name in the movie. Mrs. Fitzell’s physician Dr. Phillips (played by Donald Burda) informs Fred and Karen that Mrs. Fitzell has no more than two days to live.
The news is devastating, of course, but this movie then goes on a long and confused ramble about Fred’s hallucinations and flashback memories. Fred, who in his early 30s, has just started a new job as an information analyst at a company that does data analysis. Fred and Karen, who are happily married, have recently moved to a new apartment. They don’t have children but want to start a family.
Fred’s new job is the type where he has to wear a suit, and he works in a generically bland office in a generically bland cubicle. His boss Evelyn (played by Amanda Brugel) wants Fred to succeed, but recently he’s been slacking off by showing up late. And there’s a big upcoming presentation that he’s in charge of that Evelyn doubts that Fred will be able to handle. Fred assures her that he’s got everything under control.
What’s the reason for Fred being so distracted? He’s been having nightmarish hallucinations that involve memories of people he knew in high school. And some of the people in his hallucinations (which happen at various hours of the day or night) are people who are strangers to him.
One day, while Fred is in his car in an alley, he sees one of the strangers from his hallucinations—a scarred man (played by Connor Smith), who aggressively approaches the car. Fred is able to drive off before anything bad happens. The other strangers who regularly appear in his hallucinations are a tattooed woman (played by Maika Harper), a horned man (played by Ian Matthews), a pierced man (played by Aaron Poole) and a 12-year-old boy (played by Andrew Latter), who likes to wear hoodies.
The boy talks to Fred by saying one word with each sighting, like a message that Fred needs to put together. In one of the boy’s messages, he says, “I’m in your lobby.” When Fred goes to his apartment building’s lobby, he’s led on the type of wild goose chase that this movie is filled with, as time-wasting gimmicks.
One of the people Fred knew from high school was a former love interest named Cindy (played by Maika Monroe), whom Fred hasn’t seen or spoken to in the 13 years since he was in high school. Cindy keeps appearing in his dreams in a scenario where she seems to be in distress and says, “Fred, don’t let me go.” Fred can’t shake the feeling that Cindy is in danger.
He goes home to look at his high school yearbooks and notices that one of the yearbooks has Cindy’s class photo marked over with a dark pen, so that her face isn’t showing. What does it all mean? Don’t expect “Flashback” to give any clear answers.
The rest of the movie is a combination of Fred’s flashback memories, more hallucinations and scenes of Fred struggling with his mental health when these visions become too much for him. Fred goes back to his alma mater Fairgate High School and talks to an elderly schoolteacher named Mrs. Shouldice (played by Jill Frappier), who knew Fred and Cindy when they went to the school. The teacher says that Cindy never graduated because she just disappeared with no forwarding address.
Mrs. Shouldice also mentions the fictional psychedelic pill drug Mercury, and that student use of the drug was like a rampant plague in the school back then. Somehow, this triggers Fred’s memories of his experiences taking Mercury (also known as Merc) with Cindy and two other students he used to hang out with in high school: sleazy drug dealer Sebastian Bellamy (played by Emory Cohen) and eccentric misfit Andre (played by Keir Gilchrist). Does Fred try to find these former classmates? Of course he does.
This movie wastes a lot of time with psychedelic hallucinations that don’t go anywhere. There are also flashback memories to Fred’s childhood when he was a baby (played by Parker Antal and Emmett Antal) and when he was 6 years old (played by Myles Isen), which don’t give much insight into his family background, except to show that his mother sometimes got impatient with him.
Fred’s present-day life is also shoddily written. In several scenes, it’s shown that he likes to draw sketches of people. He even sketches people during boring business meetings. Is Fred’s interest in art explained in the movie? No. It’s one of many examples of how “Flashback” has a frustrating tendency to introduce things that look like it might add depth to the characters or might bring some substance to the story, but it’s just another unnecessary distraction.
The actors’ performances in the movie aren’t terrible, but they look like they’re going through the motions and don’t really have any deep emotional connections to the characters they’re portraying. That’s because the dialogue is just so bland and often terribly written. The movie’s cinematography is frequently cheap-looking and ugly.
And no amount of editing tricks can cover up that this movie is just an insipid, muddled mess. “Flashback” isn’t completely useless though. The movie is so dull that it can actually be used as an effective way to fall asleep.
Lionsgate released “Flashback” in select U.S. cinemas and VOD on June 4, 2021, and on digital, Blu-ray and DVD on June 8, 2021.
Jessica Marias, Quim Gutiérrez, Paz Vega, Antonio De La Torre, Michael Crisafulli, Edward James Olmos and Carmen Maura in “Chasing Wonders” (Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures)
Culture Representation: Taking place over an eight-year period in Spain and Australia, the dramatic film “Chasing Wonders” features a predominantly Hispanic cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: The story’s male protagonist, shown at ages 12 and 20, has a tension-filled relationship with hs father, who is haunted by a tragedy from his past.
Culture Audience: “Chasing Wonders” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in immigrant stories and stories about people with family secrets.
Antonio De La Torre, Michael Crisafulli, Carmen Maura and Edward James Olmos in “Chasing Wonders” (Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures)
The dramatic film “Chasing Wonders” blatantly pulls at people’s heartstrings. However, the acting and story are realistic enough that viewers should find something to like about this movie about a Spanish immigrant family trying to overcome emotional dysfunction while living in Australia. Yes, it’s unabashadly sentimental and at times a little melodramatic, but the movie’s overall message is hopeful and uplifting. “Chasing Wonders” can also be relatable to anyone who understands how events from a family’s past can affect the emotional well-being of the family, possibly for generations.
Directed by Paul Meins and written by Judy Morris, “Chasing Wonders” is a movie that flashes back and forth between two time periods for the story’s Spanish Australian protagonist: Savino Farias (played by Michael Crisafulli) at age 12 and at age 20. Although the story is told from Savino’s perspective, the movie’s narrator is Savino’s maternal grandfather Luis (played by Edward James Olmos), who adores Savino and is Savino’s greatest teacher and mentor.
The back-and-forth time shifts and having two different characters as the narrator and protagonist could result in a very messy film. But fortunately, the movie’s constant jumping over time periods is easy to follow, thanks to the consistently clear screenwriting from Morris, skilled editing from Nicolas Gaster, and solid direction from Meins.
“Chasing Wonders” was also filmed over a five-year period, so the movie did not need two different actors to play Savino as a 12-year-old and a 20-year-old. Keeping the same actor as a child and as an adult just adds to the realistic nature of this dramatic story. It also helps to distinguish between the time periods, because Savino looks his age at these two different periods in his life.
As grandfather Luis explains in voiceover narration in the beginning of the film: “We are all here to dream. It is the very purpose of our mind. And when we are young, our dreams are vivid, crystal-clear. My grandson, he was a dreamer.”
And who is Savino Farias? He is an only child who was born in Spain into a tight-knight but frequently emotionally repressed family. His stern father Felipe (played by Antonio De La Torre) owns a vineyard, while his homemaker mother Adrianna (played by Paz Vega) is the more nurturing parent. Felipe is emotionally troubled: At times he can be cold and distant, while at other times he can fly into a rage over petty things.
Also living in the household are Adrianna’s father Luis and his wife Maribel (played by Carmen Maura), who both adore Savino, who is their only grandchild. Felipe has a handsome and more impulsive younger brother named Goyo (played Quim Gutiérrez), who also lives in the household. Goyo works with Felipe at the vineyard. It’s a family-owned vineyard, but Felipe is in charge, and he never lets people forget it.
Savino spent the first six years of his life living in Spain, until his father decided that the family needed to move to Australia, even though they didn’t know anyone there. Felipe’s parents were deceased by the time the family moved to Australia. Just like in Spain, Felipe owns a vineyard in Australia that is operated with Goyo’s help. The Farias family vineyard and house in Australia are much smaller than the ones that they had in Spain. The vineyard is so small that Felipe and Goyo are the vineyard’s only two employees shown in the movie.
Because Savino’s boyhood scenes show him at 12 years old, it’s during a time when the family has been living in Australia for six years. At some point when they were living in Australia, there was a new addition to the family household: Goyo now has an Australian live-in girlfriend named Janine (played by Jessica Marias), who does some help around the house and the vineyard, but Felipe and Goyo do most of the hard labor outside.
It’s never made clear how long Goyo and Janine have been together by the time that Savino’s childhood is shown when Savino is 12 years old. But based on conversations, it seems like Goyo and Janine have been together for less than two years. There’s a scene of the entire family having dinner together. Savino is asking for family blessings during the dinner prayer, and he doesn’t seem to know how to describe Janine’s relationship to the family in the prayers, since Janine and Goyo are an unmarried couple. Luis tactfully tells Savino that he can describe Janine as “Goyo’s girlfriend.”
Although “Chasing Wonders” might seem to be a family-friendly film that’s appropriate for all ages to watch, it’s not. There’s some cursing (much of it from children) and a graphic scene of Savino killing a hissing snake in self-defense. There’s also a sex scene with Goyo and Janine that briefly shows partial female nudity. Viewers should know this information up front so they can use their own discretion on whether or not to watch “Chasing Wonders,” especially if very young or very easily offended people could be watching.
The scenes with Savino at 20 years old show him going back to visit his original family home in Spain. He is greeted by the property’s live-in caretaker Cosme (played by Francesc Orella), who tells Savino that the family that currently owns the property is from Barcelona, but it’s not the family’s main home. Therefore, the homeowners are not there when Savino comes to visit.
Cosme lives in the property’s guest home. And just like Savino’s beloved grandfather Luis, Cosme lives with several members of his family: Cosme’s wife (played by Imma Vallmitjana); Cosme’s mother-in-law (played by Mariona Perrier); Cosme’s son (played by Marc Guzman); Comse’s daughter-in-law (played by Inés Abad); Cosme’s granddaughter (played by Claudina López); and Cosme’s grandson (played by Eric García).
There’s a brief scene of Savino having dinner with Cosme and his family, and then these family members are not seen again. Cosme is Savino’s main tour guide around the property, so Savino can see how the place might have changed since Savino lived there. Cosme also takes Savino to a few other places that are part of the Farias family’s past.
Most of the story is centered on Savino as a 12-year-old. At school, he’s somewhat of a loner. On the school bus, there are hints that most of his classmates treat Savino as an outsider because he comes from an immigrant family whose first language is Spanish. Savino is fluent in Spanish and English, and he has an Australian accent. He mostly keeps to himself, and there doesn’t seem to be anything outstanding about him at school.
Savino isn’t a complete outcast. His closest and only friend at school is Skeet (played by Jarin Towney), a rebellious kid who comes from a home where his parents have split up and his father rarely keeps in touch with him. When they’re not around adults, Savino and Skeet curse quite a bit. It’s adult language that Savino would never use in the presence of his strict father.
During conversations that Savino and Skeet have, there’s a “grass is always greener” tone to how they view each other’s family situation. Savino seems to think it’s better to have an absentee father than to have a father who is in the household but always seems to be disapproving and ill-tempered. In one scene, Savino says mournfully to Skeet about how Felipe treats him: “I just disappoint him. I don’t know what he wants. I’m not the kid he wants.”
Meanwhile, Skeet (who is emotionally wounded by a father who ignores him) tries to cheer up Savino by saying that having a disapproving father is at least an indication that the father cares. Skeet thinks that’s better than having a father who doesn’t seem to care at all. Savino tries to make Skeet feel better by encouraging Skeet to reach out to Skeet’s father. Although Skeet and Savino have very different views of each other’s family situation, one big thing that they have in common is that they both feel stifled and somewhat unhappy in their families, and the boys like spending time with each other outside of their respective homes.
Savino has a telescope that he got as a gift from his grandfather Luis. Savino loves looking at the stars with the telescope. And he sometimes does some harmless spying on Goyo and Janine, whose bedroom window is directly across from Savino’s. It’s why Savino accidentally sees the couple having sex in their room while their room’s window is exposed. Savino is curious, but he doesn’t fixate too long on watching them have sex. He’s not a perverted Peeping Tom, after all.
One evening while using his telescope, Savino sees a shadow of a big bird and a smaller golden bird that flew over a big rock formation that Savino wants to eventually see up-close in person. Savino excitedly tells his grandparents about what he saw and asks how to get to the rock. Luis mysteriously replies, “You know how. Follow the stars.”
This advice prompts Savino to secretly go exploring at night, knowing that his father Felipe would disapprove and possibly punish him. “Chasing Wonders” has some striking and beautiful cinematography from Denson Baker, especially in the outdoor scenes with wide open spaces. (However, some of the sky backdrops look like visual effects that could have been improved.) The movie was filmed on location in the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Penedés, and in Australia in Barossa Valley, Flinders Ranges and Adelaide Studios.
Savino is fascinated by the Milky Way. And he wants to find the rock formation that he spotted in that telescope sighting. Savino sneaks out of the home to do these walks, but he comes back in time before his parents notice that he ever left. Eventually, Skeet comes along for the journey one night.
There are scenes of Skeet and Savino walking in the outdoors, sometimes on or near a tube-like tunnel, while they talk about their lives. It’s very reminiscent of the 1986 classic film “Stand by Me,” but with two boys instead of four. During their conversations, Savino seems to fear his father but also want his father’s respect and approval.
Felipe is trying to prepare Savino to eventually take over the family vineyard when Savino is old enough to do so. At this point, Savino doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life, but it seems that his father has already decided for him. What bothers Savino is that he doesn’t know why his father is quick to get angry at him.
Savino knows that something happened to Felipe when Felipe was young, but the family doesn’t want to talk about it. Felipe and Luis sometimes clash because Felipe thinks that Luis gives too much encouragement to Savino to be a dreamer. Observant viewers will also notice that Felipe is probably jealous that Savino is closer to Luis than Savino is to Felipe.
Considering the gruff way that Felipe sometimes treats Savino, it should come as no surprise that Savino has more love for Luis than he does for Felipe. Everyone in the household seems to be a little bit afraid of Felipe because of his unpredictable temper. Felipe also seems to hate the possibility that Savino might not be interested in taking over the family business, because it’s a rejection that Felipe would take very personally.
In one scene, Felipe shows Savino the art of wine tasting and how to be able to tell what year that the wine was made. Felipe gets irritated when Savino starts to giggle during this instructional demonstration. And then, Felipe becomes enraged when he figures out that Savino is tipsy from too much wine that Goyo allowed Savino to drink when Felipe wasn’t there. Goyo is apologetic, but he also thinks Felipe is overreacting.
Felipe verbally rips into Goyo (it won’t be the last time) and yells at him that they’re not in Spain anymore, where letting underage children drink alcohol is more acceptable than it is in many other countries such as Australia. Although it’s highly unlikely that any authorities would find out that Savino had too much wine to drink in this situation, Felipe’s anger has as much to do with wanting to be in control as it has to do with being a protective parent. Felipe thinks Goyo has a tendency to be irresponsible, and Felipe doesn’t want Goyo to be Savino’s role model.
Later in the movie, because of a misadventure that happens while Savino and Skeet snuck out of their homes to explore, Felipe takes away Savino’s telescope and hides it as punishment. It’s not enough to deter Savino from wanting to use the telescope. While Felipe is out in the vineyard, Savino snoops around to try to find the telescope.
Underneath Goyo’s bed, Savino finds a hand-drawn illustration of a family portrait. This illustration is the key to unlocking the mystery of Felipe’s emotional problems. The mystery is eventually revealed in a series of flashbacks.
“Chasing Wonders” is a poignant story about the ripple effects of a family tragedy and the realities of losing loved ones, but the movie also has several moments of inspiration in showing how family members can help each other in depressing times. Savino has a troubled relationship with his father. However, Savino gets a lot of love and respect from his mother and her parents, who all accept Savino for the way he is. It’s why Savino doesn’t feel completely unwanted in life.
Felipe could easily be the movie’s villain, but there are no real villains in this story—just a father who is emotionally damaged. Felipe loves his family, but he has personal demons that affect the way he expresses (or represses) his emotions. All of the cast members give admirable performances, but Crisafulli is particularly noteworthy as Savino, the anchor of this story. There’s a maturity of adulthood in someone’s eyes that can’t be faked or replicated when the same actor portrays the same character as a child and as an adult.
De La Torre as Felipe and Olmos as Luis are also very effective as two very different father figures. Savino learns life lessons from both of them. Savino might not have realized it when he was a child, but his emotionally painful experiences with his father probably prepared him to deal with difficult people in the real world, compared to someone who grows up in a very sheltered environment. The takeaway from the movie is that although people can’t control the families they were born into and other things that happen in life, one of the greatest gifts that someone can give besides love is honest and open communication.
Gravitas Ventures released “Chasing Wonders” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on June 4, 2021.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed state in the U.S. South, the dramatic film “Beast Beast” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians, African Americans and Latinos) representing the middle-class and working-class.
Culture Clash: Three young people’s lives are forever changed by an act of gun violence.
Culture Audience: “Beast Beast” will appeal primarily to people interested in watching “slow burn” movies where the movie’s biggest impact doesn’t happen until the last 20 minutes of the film.
Will Madden and Jonathan Silva in “Beast Beast” (Photo courtesy of Vanishing Angle)
The lives of three young people collide in “Beast Beast,” a patchwork-like, dramatic observation of the devastating effects of gun violence. If viewers have the patience to sit through the meandering tone of the first two-thirds of the movie, then they’ll find that the last third of the film is where the heart of the story is.
Written and directed by Danny Madden, “Beast Beast” takes its time to let viewers get to know the story’s three main characters, who live in an unnamed city somewhere in the Southern part of the United States. All three of the young people who are at center of the story are very different from each other, but by the end of the movie, they will all have something in common.
Krista Zhang (played by Shirley Chen) is a pretty, smart and popular student in her last year of high school. She comes from a stable, middle-class household where her parents (played by Kurt Yue and Grace Rowe) seem to be very loving and supportive of her. Krista is an aspiring actress and is very involved in the school’s drama department. She is kind, generous and open-minded. Although she hangs out mostly with a racially diverse clique of other artistic/creative students, Krista isn’t afraid to make friends with other students outside of this clique.
Nito (played by Jose Angeles) is new to the high school, and he’s in the same graduating class as Krista. Nito is a quiet misfit who has recently moved to a working-class area of the city with his scruffy single father (played by Matt Skollar), who has an emotionally distant relationship with Nito. Money is so tight in their household that Nito doesn’t have his own phone, so he has to use his father’s phone. One of Nito’s biggest passions in life is skateboarding. He has videos of himself doing some skateboard tricks that he’s uploaded on the Internet.
Adam Manigan (played by Will Madden), who lives next door to Krista, is a 24-year-old aspiring YouTube star who’s still living with his parents. (Will Madden is “Beast Beast” writer/director Danny Madden’s younger brother.) Adam is a gun enthusiast whose YouTube channel (called Prime Shooter) does tutorials on how to use guns.
Adam’s parents Lance (played by Chip Carriere) and Mabel (played Cynthia Barrett) are skeptical that the YouTube channel will be a viable way for Adam to make a living. However, they don’t discourage Adam from working on his YouTube channel. The family members even discuss the YouTube channel when they have guests over for dinner.
Most of “Beast Beast” shows snippets of Krista’s, Nito’s and Adam’s lives until it becomes clear how they will be forever connected in a way that they did not plan or expect. Krista is an ideal student who excels in school. But she’s not completely uptight, because she likes to party too. Her partying is considered tame by many of her peers’ standards, because she’ll have only a few alcoholic drinks, she doesn’t do drugs, and isn’t the type of person to get highly intoxicated.
Soon after Nito and his father move into their apartment, Nito meets a troublemaker named Yoni (played by Daniel Rashid), who graduated from the high school a few years earlier. Yoni is a neighbor of Nito’s, and one of the first things that Yoni does when they meet is offer Nito a cigarette and invite Nito to a party. Nito gets arrested at the party when the cops arrive to break up the loud and rowdy bash, and Nito is caught getting into a fight that he didn’t start. The arrest gives Nito a “bad boy” reputation at the school.
Yoni hangs out with two other people who are around his early 20s age: Lena (played by Anissa Matlock) and Jarrett (played by Stephen Ruffin), who are literally Yoni’s partners in crime. The three troublemakers entice Nito to become part of their thieving activities, such as shoplifting food from grocery stores or breaking into stores and houses and stealing what they can. Yoni and Jarrett don’t seem to have jobs, while during the course of the movie, Lena gets fired from her retail store job. Later, as an act of revenge, the four of them go to the store at night when it’s closed to break in and steal things.
Nito is so desperate for approval and to fit in with a group of people, he doesn’t comprehend that Yoni, Lena and Jarrett don’t really care about Nito. They’re just using Nito because his skateboarding skills have given him more agility than the other three to do things like jump on roofs or slide into cramped spaces. Nito does whatever Yoni, Lena and Jarrett tell him to do, such as being the one to put himself at the most risk in these break-ins.
Meanwhile, “good girl” Krista and “bad boy” Nito start to get to know each other better, but Nito doesn’t tell her about his criminal activities. Nito has an immediate crush on Krista, but it takes her longer to warm up to him. Eventually, Krista starts feeling attracted to Nito too.
Nito and Krista bring out the sensitive and goofy sides of each other. He also shows an interest in artistic activities and she’s impressed by his skateboarding skills. At one point in the movie, Krista (who likes to do acting improv exercises) acts out a sketch in a rehearsal room with Nito, while he improvs a drum solo on a drum kit in the room.
Adam has been frustrated with the slow growth of his YouTube channel, which only gets less than 100 views per video. He spends a lot of time trying to make his videos more enticing. But he gets a lot of negative comments on his videos. Adding to his frustration and anger, Adam’s father informs Adam that it’s time for him to move out of the house and be on his own financially.
It should come as no surprise that Adam is a loner. The only person he’s seen hanging out with is an acquaintance named Nick (played by Jonathan Silva), who helps him with camerawork on Adam’s YouTube videos. Because “Beast Beast” telegraphs so early that Adam fits the profile of someone who’s prone to commit gun violence, it’s not hard to figure out who’s the ticking time bomb in the story. The only question is, “What’s going to happen?”
The overall tone, pacing and acting performances of “Beast Beast” serve the story well, but they’re not particularly outstanding, compared to other movies that tackle a similar subject matter. The title of the movie comes from the opening scene of Krista and other members of her drama group chanting, “Beast beast! Ready to act!” as a warm-up to their acting routines. Krista’s circle of friends from these drama classes include Cody (played by Marvin Leon), Johanna (played by Courtney Dietz), Jazmine (played by Airaka Nicole) and Silva (played by William J. Harrison), but these friends’ personalities aren’t given enough screen time for them to be particularly memorable or impactful in this story.
The last 20 minutes of the film cram in some events that seem a little bit rushed, but it can also be interpreted as how quickly lives can be permanently altered by a split-second, irreversible decision. “Beast Beast” doesn’t seem to do any moralistic preaching about gun culture, but the movie does take a look at various opinions on when and how guns should be used. The melodrama in the last third of the movie is a mostly effective counterpoint to the movie’s earlier scenes that show the mundane activities of people who are unaware of how drastically their lives are going to change.
Vanishing Angle released “Beast Beast” in select U.S. cinemas on April 16, 2021, and on digital and VOD on May 4, 2021.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in Mexico, the dramatic film “New Order” features an all-Latino cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A wedding celebration at a wealthy family’s estate is invaded by rioters protesting against the elites of society.
Culture Audience: “New Order” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in stories about conflicts between social classes, but some of the brutal violence in the movie might be too much for some viewers to take.
Diego Boneta and Fernando Cuautle in “New Order” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
“New Order” raises provocative questions in this raw and disturbing depiction of clashes between the “haves” and the “have nots.” One of the biggest questions has to do with blurred lines of morality when people who think they are oppressed become the oppressors. And the movie brings forth the ongoing debate over social protests, when some people think violence isn’t the answer, while others have a “by any means necessary” set of beliefs.
Written and directed by Michel Franco, “New Order” is also a blistering commentary on political violence in Mexico, although the movie’s themes can apply to any country that has been divided over official or unofficial civil wars. The movie is told mainly from the point of view of the well-to-do protagonists who start off thinking that they’re going to an elegant wedding but end up experiencing horrors beyond their worst nightmares.
Much of the first half of the movie takes place on a wealthy family’s estate, where the wedding is scheduled for that day. Outside the estate, there are hints that angry protests have caused a lot of upheaval in the surrounding area. Roads have been blocked off by police. And the protesters have been splattering green paint on people and property.
What they are protesting is never explicitly stated, but it doesn’t really have to be, because it’s clear that it’s an uprising against a society that the protestors think needs to be radically dismantled. Meanwhile, the people at the mansion are doing their best to ignore what’s happening around them because they think whatever is happening outside in the streets doesn’t really apply to them.
Franco’s message in “New Order” isn’t exactly subtle. It seems like he made this movie to say that it isn’t just wealthy people who have a sense of complacency, but it could be anyone who wants to ignore the reasons behind civil unrest. Letting this discontent fester without properly addressing it can have disastrous and tragic results.
The first half of the movie takes viewers into the world of the bride’s upper-crust family who is hosting the wedding. These scenes give a sense of how privileged and fortunate the family and their guests seemed to be before the chaos of the street protests changed their lives forever. The family members and the wedding guests have lulled themselves into a sense of security. It’s not necessarily pure arrogance in thinking that they’re “untouchable,” but it’s more out of ignorance of not knowing or not being able to relate to what’s making the protestors so filled with rage.
The movie’s main protagonist is Marianne Novello (played by Naian González Norvind), the 25-year-old bride-to-be, who is in a blissful romance with her handsome architect fiancé Alan (played by Dario Yazbek Bernal), who has an easygoing personality. They are so happy and in love that they can barely keep their hands off of each other at a pre-wedding party, hours before they are scheduled to exchange marriage vows. Alan is very supportive of Marianne and sees her as an equal partner.
Also at the wedding are:
Marianne’s older brother Daniel (played by Diego Boneta), who is a somehat cocky architect colleague of Alan’s.
Daniel’s pregnant wife Blanca (played by Ximena García), who is more introverted than Daniel.
Alan’s mother Pilar (played by Patricia Bernal), who is happy about his upcoming marriage.
Marianne and Daniel’s parents Ivan (played by Roberto Medina) and Rebecca (played by Lisa Owen), who also approve of the marriage.
The Novelo family has several servants, but the ones who get the most screen time are housekeeper Marta (played by Mónica Del Carmen) and her son Cristian (played by Fernando Cuautle), who’s a driver and occasional handyman. There are some security personnel at the wedding too. But viewers will eventually see that these security staffers will be outnumbered and not all of the Novelo family employees are loyal.
As the party guests celebrate inside the gated walls of the estate, there are signs that the effects of the street protests have been seeping into the festive atmosphere. When Rebecca goes into a bathroom and turns on a faucet, she sees that the water has turned green. It’s the same green shade of the paint being used by the protesters. An alarmed Rebecca tells Ivan about this strange and possibly dangerous alteration to their plumbing.
But when they both go in the bathroom to test the water faucet, the water has gone back to normal. Meanwhile, some of the guests arriving have splotches of the green paint on their cars, while a few of the guests have the paint on their clothing and faces, as if they couldn’t avoid getting splattered with the paint. There’s also talk at the party about how hard it was to drive from the airport to the wedding site because of all the police and protesters in the streets.
Before the home invasion, members of the Novelo family are faced with a decision on whether or not to help a former employee. An elderly man named Rolando (played by Eligio Meléndez) shows up at the front gate of the mansion, just a few hours before Marianne is supposed to be getting prepared for the wedding ceremony. Rolando, who hasn’t worked for the Novelo family in eight years, has not been invited to the ceremony, but he’s there to make a desperate request.
Rolando asks to see Rebecca and tells her that his wife Elise needs emergency surgery for a heart valve replacement. Because the protestors have raided the hospitals, Rolando had to take Elise to a private clinic. And the medical expenses will cost 200,000 pesos. With an embarrassed tone of voice, Rolando says that doesn’t have a credit card, so he asks Rebecca to lend him the money.
Rebecca is polite but somewhat dismissive when she tells Rolando that it’s bad timing for him to ask her for money. She tells him to come back the next day. But when Rebecca sees the expression of despair on Rolando’s face, she changes her mind and tells him that she can only give him 35,000 pesos in cash that day and that he can come back for the rest later.
Meanwhile, Daniel and Marianne both find out that Rolando has shown up to ask to borrow money for his wife’s heart surgery. Rolando and his wife Elise were beloved employees who left the employment of the Novelo family on good terms. However, Rolando’s sudden and unannounced appearance at the Novelo family home is awkward because he didn’t keep in touch, and the family hasn’t seen him in several years.
Daniel and Marianne have very different reactions to Rolando’s request to borrow the money. Daniel gets irritated and thinks that Rolando is being too much of a distraction. He goes outside to the gate, gives Rolando the rest of the money, and angrily tells Rolando never to come back. Rolando is grateful but also seems ashamed about alienating Daniel.
Marianne doesn’t know that Daniel had this interaction with Rolando, so she decides she’s going to give Rolando the cash that he needs. When she finds out that Rolando has left the property, she impulsively asks Cristian to go with her by car to Rolando’s home address, which isn’t too far away, so that she can give Rolando the cash herself. Although some viewers might think it’s far-fetched that someone would go to this type of trouble on that person’s wedding day, there are a lot stranger things that have happened in real life.
It can be assumed that Marianne is a very kind-hearted and generous person, so it’s not hard to believe that someone with this type of personality would make this decision. Marianne’s biggest lapse in judgment is not being aware or underestimating how bad the violence was out on the streets. She and Cristian are about to find out the hard way.
Marianne’s decision to leave the mansion just a few hours before her wedding causes some panic with her loved ones. But they don’t think it’s a good idea for any of them to go out and try to find her. They hope she’ll come back in time for the wedding. But then, all hell breaks loose and there’s a massive home invasion.
The rest of “New Order” takes a very dark turn with mayhem that includes kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery, torture and murder. Some of the violence is gratuitous when it focuses a little too long on random characters who are never seen in the movie again. And viewers might be divided over a plot development involving ransom money, bounty hunters and how the government handles the chaos.
As believable as the acting is in the movie, one of the flaws of “New Order” is that not enough time is given to get to know any of the characters and their backstories. Marianne seems like a nice person, but her fateful decision to help Rolando and her determination to make it happen (she won’t give up when she and Cristian encounter obstacles on the road) are about all that viewers see of what type of personality she has.
Despite the unrelenting grimness in the last half of the movie, “New Order” isn’t really a rallying cry for one side or the other. It’s more like a wake-up call or a warning. It’s as if writer/director Franco, with all of the movie’s in-your-face and unsettling violence, seems to be saying, “If you think this can’t happen to you, think again.” As troubling as it is to see all the horrific crimes against humanity that are depicted in the movie, it’s a somber reminder that these acts are not an exaggeration of ongoing atrocities and there are worse things in real life that weren’t in this movie.
Neon released “New Order” in select U.S. cinemas on May 21, 2021.
Culture Representation: Taking place from 2006 to 2021, the comedy/drama film “My Love” features an all-Asian cast representing the middle-class.
Culture Clash: A teenage boy in high school falls in love with a fellow student, and for the next 15 years he tries to have a romance with her.
Culture Audience: “My Love” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in romantic stories that are sweet, sometimes whimsical and very sentimental.
Zhang Ruonan and Greg Hsu in “My Love” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)
The romantic comedy/drama “My Love” takes viewers on a 15-year saga of a young man pining for a young woman whom he thinks is the love of his life. It’s a series of ups and downs in a love story that sometimes pours on the schmaltz and cutesiness too much, but the ending leaves no doubt that “My Love” is not a completely stereotypical romantic movie. The performances by the lead actors are charming enough to sustain interest when parts of the movie get a little too repetitive.
Directed by Han Tian (who co-wrote the “My Love” screenplay with Zhang Ying Jiao Tingting), “My Love” is based on director Lee Seok-Geun’s 2018 South Korean film “On Your Wedding Day.” In “My Love,” socially awkward Zhou Xiaoqi (played by Greg Hsu) and coolly confident You Yongci (played by Zhang Ruonan) first meet in 2006, when they were both about 17 years old in high school. The movie takes place in unnamed cities in China, and was filmed in the cities of Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Xiamen and Zhangzhou.
The story is told as a narrative flashback from Zhou Xiaoq’s perspective. It’s shown at the beginning of the film that as a man in his early 30s in the year 2021, he is now a swimming coach at a local high school. And the flashbacks begin in 2006 and are shown in increments by year.
It’s love at first sight for Zhou Xiaoqi the first time that he sees You Yongci at their high school. But the first time they make eye contact, it’s under humiliating circumstances for Zhou Xiaoqi: He’s getting beat up by some of the school bullies outside. Zhou Xiaoqi makes brief eye contact with You Yongci, and he’s instantly smitten. She barely seems to remember him when they talk for the first time.
You Yongci, who is an aspiring fashion designer, has recently transferred to the school and she’s able to make friends. Zhou Xiaoqi is somewhat of a nerd, but he does have something going for him which doesn’t make him a complete social outcast at school: He’s one of the better athletes on the school’s swimming team. And he hopes to impress You Yongci by winning swimming competitions.
Zhou Xiaoqi doesn’t get very far with You Yongci during the high school years of his courtship of her. He makes it clear from the beginning that he wants them to date each other, but she puts him in the “friend zone.” He respects those wishes but lets her know that he’s ready to romance her if she changes her mind.
Predictably, there are a few arrogant bullies on the school swim team who want to upstage and embarrass Zhou Xiaoqi. His biggest rival is a guy named Shark. And they think that You Yongci is out of Zhou Xiaoqi’s league.
There are some scenes of swim meets where You Yongci is there to cheer on Zhou Xiaoqi. At one of the swimming competitions, Zhou Xiaoqi is bullied and taunted again, but You Yongci races to his side wth a popsicle and briefly pretends that she’s his girlfriend to boost his confidence and to make his bullying teammates jealous.
As the two teens get to know each other better, Zhou Xiaoqi finds out that You Yongci has a shameful family secret: Her father physically and emotionally abuses her mother. And because of that, You Yongci and her mother constantly move to get away from You Yongci’s father. He usually finds them and the abuse starts again.
Zhou Xiaoqi offers to be there are a protective friend for You Yongci, but she refuses his help, mostly because she’s embarrassed about the domestic abuse in her family. And one day, Zhou Xiaoqi finds out that You Yongci has abruptly moved away with her mother again and hasn’t left a forwarding address. And none of the people at the school know where You Yongci went.
It’s now 2008, and Zhou Xiaoqi has been living an aimless life while still living home with his parents. He still thinks about You Yongci a lot. It’s implied that Zhou Xiaoqi doesn’t date very much or doesn’t date at all because he still thinks that You Yongci is “the one that got away.”
But one day, Zhou Xiaoqi is elated to find out, through a photo posted on social media, that You Yongci is enrolled at a university. Finding a purpose in life, Zhou Xiaoqi announces to his parents that he’s enrolling in the university. They’re thrilled that he seems to have found some goal in his life.
When he gets to the university, Zhou Xiaoqi comes across another obstacle in his attempt to court You Yongci. She has a boyfriend named Chen Chen (played by Guo Cheng), and he’s the star of the university’s soccer team. You Yongci is on the university cheerleading squad.
In order to be close to You Yongci, Zhou Xiaoq joins the cheerleading squad too. He’s the only man on the squad. And so, many of his male peers tease him about it. And it leads to more embarrassing situations where his masculinity is questioned.
Zhou Xiaoq’s actions seem stalker-ish, but he has such a harmless personality that viewers will probably be rooting for him, even though he puts himself in situations that make him look pathetic. You Yongci appreciates the attention that she gets from Zhou Xiaoq, but even she gets irritated occasionally with his lovesick behavior. And there’s tension and jealousy over You Yongci’s relationship with Chen Chen.
What will it take for You Yongci and Zhou Xiaoq to get together? And will it ever happen? And if it does, how long will it last? Those questions are answered in the movie. But it’s enough to say that the entire time that Zhou Xiaoq and You Yongci know each other, he’s constantly insecure that he isn’t good enough for her.
A lot of the antics that Zhou Xiaoq resorts to fall into slapstick comedy territory. Others are straight out of romantic drama stereotypes. Yes, there’s a frantic race to catch up to someone in the rain to tell that person something before it’s too late. Yes, there’s a medical crisis when Zhou Xiaoq gets a serious injury. And yes, there’s a big wedding in the movie. (None of this is spoiler information. It’s all in the movie’s trailer.)
These over-used tropes would be insufferable, but the last third of the film is really the best. And the wedding scene might not be what a lot of people think it will turn out to be. Even though the movie takes place over 15 years, there is barely any attempt to age the actors portraying Zhou Xiaoq and You Yongci. It’s a little bit of a distraction that the characters look the same at 17 as they do at age 32. But the gradual emotional maturity of the characters, not what they look like on the outside, is what counts the most in how these actors play their roles.
“My Love” is not the type of film that will be considered one of the greatest romantic movies of all time. But it’s exactly what it appears to be: an entertaining and mostly lightweight diversion. The movie’s greatest message is that it will make people think about how long it’s worth pursuing a dream and if that dream is really the best thing for the person who’s holding on to it.
CMC Pictures released “My Love” in select U.S. cinemas on May 7, 2021. The movie was released in China on April 30, 2021.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Kiewarra, Australia, and briefly in Melbourne, the dramatic film “The Dry” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with one Aborigine and one Asian) representing the middle-class and working-class.
Culture Clash: A federal law-enforcement agent goes back to his hometown to investigate what happened in a murder case, and his investigation dredges up a tragedy from his past.
Culture Audience: “The Dry” will appeal primarily to people interested in watching suspenseful crime dramas that address issues of economic stress and social conflicts.
BeBe Bettencourt, Claude Scott-Mitchell, Sam Corlett and Joe Klocek in “The Dry” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)
When most people who’ve moved away from their hometowns go back to visit, they usually don’t have to go back to a community where they were under suspicion for murder. But those are the circumstances faced by Australian federal law-enforcement agent Aaron Falk (played by Eric Bana) in the gripping crime drama “The Dry,” which is based on Jane Harper’s 2016 novel of the same name. More than being a murder mystery, “The Dry” adeptly depicts emotional baggage that people carry and how a hometown visit can be fraught with secrets, lies and resentment in a community teetering on economic ruin.
Directed by Robert Connolly (who co-wrote “The Dry” screenplay with Harry Cripps), “The Dry” begins with the aftermath of a grisly murder scene that’s the catalyst for one of the story’s two mysteries. The other mystery took place 20 years earlier, and it involved the drowning death of a teenage girl. The movie keeps viewers guessing until the last 15 minutes of this nearly two-hour film over whether or not these two mysteries are connected.
Aaron (who is a never-married bachelor with no kids) has a career in Melbourne as a respected investigator in federal law enforcement. He returns to his hometown of Kiewarra, which has been experiencing a drought for nearly a year and has recently been rocked by a scandalous crime that has been ruled a murder-suicide by local law enforcement. Luke Hadler (played by Martin Dingle Wall) apparently shot to death his wife Karen Hadler (played by Rosanna Lockhart) and their son Billy (played by Jarvis Mitchell), who was about 7 or 8 years old, before Luke apparently shot himself.
Through photos and flashbacks, the movie shows glimpses of what the family was like when they were alive. Luke and Karen had a baby daughter named Charlotte (played by Audrey Moore), who was spared from the massacre. Charlotte now lives with Luke’s parents Gerry Hadler (played by Bruce Spence) and Barb Hadler (played by Julia Blake), who are certain that Luke did not commit this heinous crime.
Luke was a childhood friend of Aaron, who only plans to be in Kiewarra for the funeral of Luke, Karen and Billy. Aaron never knew Karen and Billy, and he’s still in shock over the idea that Luke would commit a murder-suicide. In the beginning of the movie, it’s shown that Aaron was somewhat reluctant to go back to Kiewarra. However, Gerry called Aaron to be at the funeral. And not long after that, Aaron got a mysterious card in the mail with this ominous message: “Luke lied. You lied. Be at the funeral.”
There’s a reason why Aaron doesn’t want to be reminded of his past life in Kiewarra: When he was in his late teens, he and Luke were suspected of causing the drowning death of their teenage friend Ellie Deacon. Aaron and Luke, who both denied having anything do with the drowning, were questioned by police but never arrested because there was no proof against them. And now, the community thinks that Luke murdered Luke’s wife and son before killing himself.
The minister’s sermon at the funeral gets some quietly uncomfortable reactions when he mentions Luke (along with Karen and Billy) in the thoughts and prayers that should go to everyone who died in the tragedy. At a wake in Gerry and Barb’s home, many members of the community are there to pay their respects to Karen and Billy, but not to Luke. The atmosphere is filled with more than the usual tension and anxiety at a wake, because no one really knows how to talk about Luke when he’s the one who’s been blamed for causing this tragedy.
Some people seem to feel sympathy for Luke, because they think he might have had some mental illness that caused him to murder. But most people at the funeral and at the wake don’t feel sorry for Luke and only feel sympathy for Karen, Billy and orphaned Charlotte. Luke’s parents seem to be the only ones in town who openly state that Luke was innocent of the crime.
One person at the wake who doesn’t hesitate to badmouth Luke is Grant Dow (played by Matt Nable), a cousin of Ellie Deacon, the teenager who drowned 20 years earlier. Grant has an outburst at the wake, where he calls Luke a “murderer.” Luke’s parents Gerry and Barb are deeply offended. And shortly after the wake, Gerry and Barb implore Aaron to stay in Kiewarra to investigate this murder case and clear Luke’s name.
Aaron is hesitant to take the case because he’s feeling uncomfortable being back in Kiewarra. But he agrees to it because he also finds it hard to believe that Luke committed the crime, and he knows what it’s like to be suspected of a crime despite proclaiming innocence. During this investigation, Kiewarra (which is a primarily agricultural community) has been simmering with tension because the drought has had a devastating impact on the local economy. It’s mentioned in the beginning of the story that it’s been 324 days since it last rained.
In a story about someone going back to a hometown, there’s usually a subplot of that person seeing a former love interest. “The Dry” is no exception. When Aaron and Luke were teenagers, Luke had a girlfriend named Gretchen, but there are hints in the story that Aaron was secretly attracted to Gretchen. After Aaron and Luke fell under suspicion for Ellie’s death, Aaron and his widower father Erik Falk (played by Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, in a flashback) abruptly moved away from Kiewarra.
And as what often happens with people who knew each other in high school, Gretchen and Aaron just never stayed in touch with each other. The movie has several flashbacks of teenage Aaron (played by Joe Klocek), Gretchen (played by Claude Scott-Mitchell), Luke (played by Sam Corlett) and Ellie (played by played by BeBe Bettencourt) on double dates with each other, including the fateful day that Ellie drowned. In these flashbacks, it’s shown that Ellie was attracted to Aaron, and he had feelings for her too, but perhaps not as strong as the feelings that Aaron had for Gretchen.
Luke is portrayed as the extroverted “alpha male” of the group, while Aaron was the more introverted “beta male.” Gretchen seems to share Luke’s adventurous spirit, while Ellie is more of the bookish type, similar to Aaron’s personality. During the flashback scenes, Ellie sings what appears to be one of her favorite songs: The Church’s 1988 international hit “Under the Milky Way.” This song is used as a mood piece during various parts of the film.
Gretchen (played by Genevieve O’Reilly) is now a farmer and a single mother to two underage sons. (Gretchen is reluctant to talk about her children’s father.) And when Gretchen and Aaron see each other for the first time in more than 20 years, romantic sparks fly between them. Aaron tries to keep a professional distance from Gretchen during his investigation, but adult viewers can easily predict that Aaron and Gretchen are eventually going to do something about the sexual tension between them.
Several people cross paths with Aaron during this investigation. Viewers will be intrigued to try and figure out which one might or might not be crucial in solving either or both mysteries. And the movie also keeps viewers guessing over whether or not Aaron really did have something to with Ellie’s death.
The other characters in the story include:
Greg Raco (played by Keir O’Donnell), the local police sergeant in Kiewarra who is the chief investigator in the deaths of Luke, Karen and Billy.
Rita Raco (played by Miranda Tapsell), Greg’s pregnant wife who is worried about the hazards of her husband’s job.
Jamie Sullivan (played by James Frecheville), a local property manager who was with Luke on the afternoon that the murders took place later that day.
Scott Whitlam (played by John Polson), the headmaster of Kiewarra Primary School, where murder victim Karen was an administrator who handled accounting.
Sandra Whitlam (played by Renee Lim), Scott’s wife whose daughter (played by Angela Rosewarne) was a friend of Luke and Karen’s son Billy.
Mal Deacon (played by William Zappa), Ellie’s father who is very angry and bitter over Ellie’s death.
Jamie has a solid alibi for the time period that the murders happened, so he is not a viable suspect. Police segreant Greg is helpful to Aaron during the investigation, and he seems determined to prove that he’s not a country bumpkin cop. Meanwhile, Aaron has a few unpleasant run-ins with Ellie’s father Mal and Ellie’s cousin Grant, who taunt and insult Aaron for daring to being in Kiewarra again.
Mal and Grant are very vocal in telling other people that Aaron and/or Luke killed Ellie and that both of them covered up the crime. These suspicions have been fueled because Aaron and Luke were the last known people to see Ellie alive. Aaron and Luke were each other’s alibi during the time that Ellie is believed to have drowned, but certain people think that the alibi was fabricated.
As a trained investigator of crime, Aaron thinks that in all likelihood, the killings that took place in Luke and Karen’s home were committed by someone who knew the family and someone who’s still in the community. He doesn’t think that a random stranger came to town to commit these murders. And so, the list of likely suspects isn’t that large in this story.
“The Dry” isn’t a typical police procedural, because Aaron is in an awkward position of being a both a native and an outsider in Kiewarra. His visit has brought back painful memories for him that might or might not cloud his judgment in the investigation. And there’s also a question that any reasonable person might ask: Can Aaron really be objective in investigating a murder case involving his former best friend, especially when he and that best friend were suspected of causing someone else’s death?
It’s a lot of personal history and past trauma to unpack, but fortunately “The Dry” doesn’t get too heavy-handed with its approach. A lot of the film’s nuance has to do with Bana’s quietly effective performance as someone who has run from his past but is now forced to confront it. The other cast members also give credible performances, but the movie’s emotional core is with Bana’s depiction of Aaron. Bana delivers a very good balancing act of someone who wants to remain stoic on the outside but who can’t ignore the turmoil that he has on the inside.
The crime-solving aspects of the story are also done well, although after a while, it’s fairly easy to figure things out in the Hadler family murder mystery, based on how certain likely suspects act. The mystery of the Hadler family murders is much easier to deduct than the mystery of Ellie’s drowning. Both of these mysteries’ revelations at the end of the movie are not entirely shocking, but they’re definitely realistic. In “The Dry,” the drought isn’t the only thing plaguing the community, which has been caught in a stagnation of gossip and stereotypes over who should and shouldn’t be trusted.
IFC Films released “The Dry” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on May 21, 2021. The movie was released in Australia on January 1, 2021.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the horror flick “Killer Among Us” features a racially diverse cast of characters (white, African American and Hispanic) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.
Culture Clash: A rookie cop joins forces with her detective boss to catch a serial killer who has been targeting African American prostitutes.
Culture Audience: “Killer Among Us” will appeal mostly to people who don’t mind watching low-budget and derivative horror flicks and crime dramas that exploit racial tensions for an extremely unimaginative story.
Bruce MacVittie in “Killer Among Us” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)
“Killer Among Us” is one of those movies where it’s obvious that the filmmakers took the same ideas from the type of low-budget blaxploitation movies that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s and just updated the story to have the serial killer as a white supremacist fanatic who listens to an Alex Jones-type of podcast filled with ranting conspiracy theories. There is nothing creative or unpredictable about this very amateurish film, which tries to look more suspenseful than it really is. The movie is almost unwatchable because the characters are just lines of dialogue with no real personalities, and the cast members’ performances range from mediocre to just plain awful.
“Killer Among Us” is the feature-film directorial debut of Charles Scharfman, who co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with Daniel Lichtenberg. Even though the protagonist/hero of the story is a African American female police officer, it doesn’t erase the filmmakers’ problematic and borderline racist decision to make it look like only non-white women are drug-addicted prostitutes in this unnamed city. It’s just lazy and negative stereotyping that further lowers the quality of this already tacky movie, which tries to pretend it’s not a racial exploitation film, even though it really is.
The first scene in the movie shows the white racist serial killer (played by Andrew Richardson) disguising himself with false teeth and a prosthetic nose. He drives in his car and picks up an African American woman in a deserted area somewhere at night. As soon as she gets in the car, he gives her an injection of an unnamed drug that renders her unconscious. He then slits her throat and sets her body on fire. It turns out that this woman was a prostitute and this serial killer has been specifically targeting African American prostitutes.
Three months later, the killer does almost the same thing again: He disguises himself, picks up an African American prostitute, drugs her and kidnaps her. This victim’s name is Ricki Fennel (played by Imani Lewis), and it’s later revealed that she’s a 16-year-old runaway who’s addicted to heroin. Instead of the killer murdering her right away, he takes Ricki to his remote house in the woods.
Before that happens, Ricki almost gets away from him by escaping from the car while it’s driving on a busy street. Ricki has been drugged by whatever was in the needle that the killer injected into her, so she stumbles out of the car when it happens to be in front of a convenience store. The killer immediately gets out of the car to grab Ricki and force her back inside, while an incapacitated Ricki tries to resist.
A rookie cop named Alicia Parks (played by Yasha Jackson) happens to be in the convenience store and sees this altercation, so she goes outside and asks if everything is okay. The killer lies and says that he’s helping a drunk person get home. And then he puts Ricki in the car and speeds off.
Everything happens so quickly that Alicia doesn’t have time to get his license plate number. But one big clue was left behind: the hypodermic needle that was used to drug Ricki. Alicia suspects that she witnessed a kidnapping, but there’s no proof. No one fitting Ricki’s description has been reported kidnapped or missing for that night. And the police don’t know yet that the killer disguised himself, so it will be harder to identify him.
Alicia takes her suspicions about the kidnapping to her boss Sergeant Corbucci (played by Bruce MacVittie), who suggests that she investigate on her own time. And that’s exactly what she does, but Sergeant Corbucci eventually ends up helping when he starts to believe Alicia’s theory that the man whom Alicia saw outside the convenience store is the same man who’s been killing African American hookers in the city. Alicia is portrayed as methodical and “by the book,” but she doesn’t think about a certain crucial thing about that hypodermic needle until much later in the story, in an “a-ha” moment that a seasoned investigator would’ve thought of much earlier.
About halfway through the movie, the killer’s undisguised face is shown, and later it’s revealed that his name is Vince. It’s also somewhat explained why he doesn’t murder Ricki but decides to keep her captive instead. It has to do with the fact that after he kidnapped her, he realized that he’s met Ricki before, whereas his other victims were total strangers. Because he’s met Ricki before, it throws him off of his routine of murdering strangers, so he doesn’t quite know how to handle it. It’s really just an excuse for the movie to have scenes of Ricki being tied up and tortured.
The investigation plods along at a very predictable pace with very inaccurate portrayals of what a rookie cop would and would not be allowed to do on a case like this one. It’s not stated how big this city is (the movie was filmed in the New York towns of Harris and Mount Kisco), but the police force that’s working on this serial killer case is very small. It’s a low-budget film, so there doesn’t have to be a lot of actors cast as cops.
The bigger problem this film has is that the two cops who are the focus of the story have very generic and bland personalities. Viewers will learn almost nothing about Alicia’s background or personal life, even though she’s supposed to be the protagonist. There’s an unnecessary scene of her near the beginning of the movie that shows her giving boxing tips to another woman at a boxing gym, but this scene has no bearing on the rest of the story. Alicia’s personality is a blank void that’s never filled in this movie.
However, the movie has a lot of cliché filler that lazily recycles stereotypes and tropes of crime dramas that involve junkie hookers and serial killers. Before Ricki gets kidnapped, she’s shown hanging out with another heroin addict/prostitute named Evelyn Esperanza (played by Angelic Zambrana), who uses the alias Molly. There’s the inevitable scene of Ricki and Molly talking about how much they want to get a fix and then cooking up heroin to get high.
And it should come as no surprise in an exploitation flick like “Killer Among Us” that there’s a sex scene with Ricki (before she was abducted) and a prostitution customer, who’s a middle-aged white man. The filmmakers don’t just have Ricki as a hooker and a drug addict. They make her a thief too, because she tries to steal cash from this customer’s wallet. He catches her in the act and gets angry, so he pays her less than what he normally would pay.
The serial killer Vince is a bachelor loner who doesn’t talk much, but when he does, it’s in a stereotypical voice of a nerdy psychotic creep. He’s shown going to a strip club, where he fixates on a dancer named Destiny (played by Kate Rogal), who doesn’t become his murder victim because Destiny is white and she knows him as a frequent customer. This serial killer targets African American prostitutes whom he kills the first time that he meets them.
One of the things that this serial killer likes to do to his victims is take Polaroid photos of them while he tortures them. But just like there’s no background information on Alicia, there is no backstory for this murderer character to explain why he turned out the way that he did. It’s eventually revealed what he does for a living, but it still doesn’t give a reason for what caused him to turn into a murderer.
The big inevitable showdown toward the end of the movie is supposed to take place on the Fourth of July. And you know what that means in a predictable movie like this one: The climactic scene will have fireworks. “Killer Among Us” isn’t the worst movie ever, but it’s so simple-minded, hackneyed and filled with such poorly written characters, that it’s ultimately the type of junk that’s forgettable.
Vertical Entertainment released “Killer Among Us” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on April 16, 2021.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Dublin from June to August 2003, the dramatic film “Here Are the Young Men” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Three teenage hoodlum friends spend their first summer out of high school by making mischief and partying, but they are haunted by witnessing a car accident that killed a young girl, and their friendship will be tested by other issues.
Culture Audience: “Here Are the Young Men” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching a coming-of-age film about rebellious youth, but the movie is ultimately a shallow exercise in glorifying criminal activities.
Finn Cole, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Dean-Charles Chapman and Anya Taylor-Joy in “Here Are the Young Men” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)
Rebellious teens have been the subjects of countless movies, so audiences need to have a reason to care when yet another one of these stories is made into a movie. Unfortunately, “Here Are the Young Men” should have been titled “Here Are the Young Men Being Glorified for Getting Away With Serious Crimes.” The movie tries to be artsy with some psychedelic-like hallucinations throughout the film, and the cast members do the best that they can with the weak material that they’ve been given. But it’s not enough to save this very hollow film that tries to justify atrocious and violent crimes with the excuse that angry young men just need to let off some steam.
“Here Are the Young Men” was written and directed by Eoin Macken, who adapted the movie from Rob Doyle’s 2014 novel of the same name. And this movie, which attempts to be a gritty portrayal of working-class life in Dublin in 2003, actually comes across as a fantasy of what it would be like to be a teenage male hoodlum who gets away with everything. The movie gives very little thought to the victims who have been hurt by the increasingly despicable actions of one of the main characters. Instead, the movie puts all the sympathy on the trio of hooligans who are the cause of all the mayhem in the story.
The movie takes place from June to August 2003, the first summer after pals Matthew Connolly (played by Dean-Charles Chapman), Joseph Kearney (played by Finn Cole) and Rez (played by Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) have left high school. Matthew and Rez have graduated, while Joseph (the most problematic one in the trio) was expelled. Viewers can assume these alcohol-guzzling pub-hoppers are all 18 years old, the minimum legal age to drink alcohol in Ireland. It’s one of the few legal things that these hoodlums do when they party.
The movie’s opening scene takes place at a funeral attended by Matthew. He says in a voiceover: “They say that the summer you finish school is the best time of your life because it’s your final summer of freedom and you become men. It’s important. I just didn’t realize how important it would be. This is a real story … I’m sorry for some of the choices we made.”
The funeral is shown again at the end of the film. But in between, the majority of the story is a flashback, told from Matthew’s perspective, of what happened during that fateful summer. Opening with the funeral scene was artistically a big mistake, because viewers will immediately know that a major character is going to die in this story. And it’s not going to be Matthew.
And so, there’s no real suspense or surprise when that death happens, because the tension builds to such a predictable point that it’s fairly easy to guess who’s going to die. The only real question is how will that person die? The cause of death is also easily predicted during a pivotal moment in the last third of the film.
The flashback begins with Matthew in a meeting with his school headmaster Mr. Landerton (played by Ralph Ineson), who is conducting an exit interview, as is the school’s custom with all graduating students. Matthew seems bored and reluctant to tell Mr. Landerton what Matthew’s plans are after high school, probably because Matthew doesn’t have any plans.
Matthew says, “If it makes you happy for your report, just write that I’ve improved as an individual, grown into a respectable young scholar—and it’s all because of you.” Mr. Landerton shakes Matthew hand and says that he knows that things have been difficult for Matthew. Mr. Landerton adds, “Be careful with your choices.”
What has been difficult for Matthew? It’s not fully explained in the movie, but Matthew’s father is no longer in the home. Based on the way that this absentee father is not discussed in Matthew’s household, it’s implied that his father isn’t dead but has abandoned the family. Matthew is an only child and he lives with mother Lynn Connolly (played by Susan Lynch), who seems to have a drinking problem because in the few times she’s seen, she’s holding an alcoholic drink and/or appears to be drunk.
Joseph also lives in a single-parent household, but with his father Mark Kearney (played by Conleth Hill), who pays more attention to what’s on television than he pays attention to Joseph. The movie doesn’t explain what happened to Joseph’s mother. Joseph has an older brother named Dwayne Kearney (played by Chris Newman), who lives in another household and appears in one of Joseph’s many hallucinations. Joseph is the angriest and most mentally disturbed of the three pals, as it becomes very clear later on in the story.
Rez is the friend who is the most mysterious. In other words, he’s the most underwritten of the three friends. He doesn’t even have a last name in the movie. Nothing is shown of Rez’s home life. All viewers know about Rez is that he likes to dress all in black, he does a lot of drugs, and he makes money by selling drugs. Rez is also a lot more sensitive than he’s willing to show most people. One of the few people he opens up to is another teenager named Julie (played by Lola Petticrew), who has a sexual relationship with Rez that can best be described as “friends with benefits.”
The graduation ceremony at the school is never shown. However, it isn’t long after Matthew and Rez get their “freedom” that Matthew, Rez and Joseph decide to go back to their school to vandalize it during the daytime when the school is on a summer break. They start by going to a local church, popping some pills and mocking the communion ritual, with Rez saying “Body of Christ,” before he swallows a pill.
Then, they head to the school and spraypaint graffiti on an instruction board. The graffiti they put on the board shows a penis and a stick figure with the words, “Luke, I am your father, but you are my god.” And because Joseph is the group’s biggest troublemaker, he throws a desk through a closed window, thereby shattering the window with no regard that someone could be hit by the desk or the broken glass on the street below. (Fortunately, no one gets injured.)
The mayhem continues when they go to the school’s parking garage. Joseph sees Mr. Landerton’s car and starts destroying it with a crowbar. During this vandalism, he has a rage-filled rant, as if he’s taking out all of his anger on Mr. Landerton, who expelled him from the school. After a while, Rez joins in on the destruction too.
Matthew shows some restraint and seems reluctant to participate in this senseless act of violence. Just then, Mr. Landerton shows up with some police officers. And this is where the movie starts to go downhill with a very unrealistic scene. Instead of the cops immediately arresting these young punks, Mr. Landerton just stands there and tries to reason with these vandals.
First, the headmaster asks Matthew if he really wants to be a part of this criminal activity. In defiance, Matthew chooses to side with his pals, so he bashes one of the car’s outside mirrors. Matthew, Joseph and Rez then climb out a nearby window and run away, with two or three cops in pursuit.
The chase continues through some streets and an alley, but the cops are out of shape and can’t keep with these teenagers. The last cop to keep the chase going eventually gives up in frustration. But here’s the thing that’s so ridiculous about this movie: Matthew, Joseph and Rez don’t face any consequences.
They are never arrested for the vandalism, even though Mr. Landerton knows where they live and could easily send the cops to the teens’ homes to arrest them. But that never happens. Viewers have to assume that Mr. Landerton might have decided not to press charges, but what kind of school headmaster would let anyone get away with all that damage on the school property when the perpetrators were caught in the act?
It’s just one of many plot holes of stupidity that plague this movie, which is really just a showcase to make it look like just because someone is a working-class teen, it’s enough to feel angst and justify committing crimes. We won’t even get into the racial inequalities of what kinds of punishments these teens would experience if they weren’t white. It’s a privileged blind spot that this movie has because its only concern is making it look like these lazy cretins are just going through a rebellious rite of passage.
The reality is that these teens are not “oppressed” in any way and have no good reason for committing any crimes. They might not come from rich families, but they’re not homeless and not scrounging for food. They don’t experience racism, sexism or other forms of discrimination. They have other people (their parents) paying their bills and providing them with a place to live. Rez’s home life isn’t shown, but it’s implied that he doesn’t have to worry about paying rent.
And apparently, even their school headmaster is willing to look the other way and not hold them accountable for their crimes. There’s no logical reason for why this headmaster would be an enabler, when his job would be at stake for letting these destructive teens get away with the vandalism they committed on school property. These are not wealthy kids who can buy their way out of trouble, but there’s an air of bratty entitlement that this movie has that’s just so annoying.
Later in the movie, Matthew gets a job at an auto tire shop. It’s one of the few mature and responsible things that he does in the story. But then, there’s a scene where Matthew deliberately sets the shop on fire. And yet, the movie never shows him facing any consequences and never mentions what happened as a result of the fire. In fact, the rest of the movie acts like the fire never even happened. It’s all just sloppy screenwriting.
One thing that the movie constantly brings up is how a certain car accident affected these three troublemaking friends. Shortly after they get away with the vandalism at their school, Matthew, Joseph and Rez are on a busy commercial street when they witness a fatal car accident. The driver hit and killed a girl who was about 7 or 8 years because she suddenly ran out on the street. The girl’s mother rushed to her side and wailed for help.
On the surface, the three buddies all try to get on with their lives and continue their partying and mischief making. But seeing someone die right before their eyes is something that has a psychological effect on them. Matthew tries to “clean up” his life a little bit by getting a job at the tire shop. (It’s all for nothing though, because Matthew ends up setting the shop on fire.) Rez falls into a deep depression. Joseph develops a macabre obsession to see someone else die in front of him.
Joseph drops many hints that after seeing someone die, he now has a desire to become a murderer. When he tries to talk about it with his friends, they give him strange looks and he says he’s just joking. Joseph’s increasingly twisted mindset is manifested in a series of hallucinations centered on a TV talk show that Joseph’s father Mark likes to watch.
The program is called “Big Show,” and it’s hosted by a black-haired unnamed man (played by Travis Fimmel) who is styled to look like a menacing satanic figure, but without devil horns. His has a pointy beard and long sideburns and a constant sinister smirk. In the hallucinations about “Big Show,” this TV host brings on certain guests to taunt them, humiliate them and test their endurance.
At various points in the movie, Joseph and Matthew imagine themselves as guests on “Big Show.” Much of the program revolves around the TV presenter talking about masculinity and what it means to be a real man. In one “episode,” the presenter has a woman called Angel Dust (played by Noomi Rapace, in a cameo) on stage and ends up sexually groping her without consent, as the all-male audience cheers.
Sometimes, in Joseph’s “Big Show” hallucinations, his brother Dwayne is in the audience too. It’s supposed to represent Joseph’s conscious or subconscious desire to get his brother Dwayne’s approval. The more violent crimes that Joseph commits, the more he seems to get approval from the “Big Show” host, until it reaches the point where Joseph struts around as if he’s the star of the show.
Matthew’s “Big Show” hallucinations show him as a more hesitant guest, since in real life, he’s the only one out of the three friends who seems to be a little uncomfortable with violent crimes, and he tries to make an honest living. Joseph is never seen doing any work (legal or illegal) in this story, but early on in the movie he mentions that he wants to be a video game developer. Joseph says he has an idea for an Irish Republican Army video game that he wants to call “The Provos.”
Someone who occasionally hangs out with these troublemakers is a fellow teen named Jen (played by Anya Taylor-Joy), who was in the same graduating class as Matthew and Rez. Jen is smart and level-headed. Matthew has a big crush on her, and the feeling might be mutual. They have typical flirty banter where they try to pretend that they aren’t as attracted to each other as they really are.
Jen wants to leave Dublin as soon as she can. Her dream is to live in the United States and become an entertainer or a fashion designer. In the meantime, she sings at a local nightclub. (In one of these nightclub scenes, she performs a cover version of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control.”) Taylor-Joy is a good singer, but the scenes of her on stage don’t add much to the story, except to show Matthew ogling Jen. The movie’s soundtrack, which has several songs by Magnets & Ghosts, is mostly alternative rock and some electronica.
Joseph also wants to go to America, and he gets a chance to take a trip to visit the U.S. at one point in the movie. (“Here Are the Young Men” director Macken has a quick cameo as an unnamed homeless man who has an unfortunate encounter with Joseph.) Joseph is never actually seen in America, but he’s made videos of his trip. Some of those videos are shown in the movie.
When Joseph comes back to Dublin, he reveals certain things about himself that show he’s gone beyond vandalism to committing crimes that are even more violent and disturbing. Matthew, Rez and Jen are all affected by Joseph’s increasingly unhinged, out-of-control behavior. And in a predictable teen movie like this one, that means it’s all going to culiminate with some heavy melodrama.
“Here Are the Young Men” takes a very disappointing approach of having mayhem for mayhem’s sake. The hallucinatory “Big Show” scenes aren’t very clever. And the movie’s best and most authentic-looking scene isn’t even about the boys’ friendship but it’s a scene where Matthew and Jen have a big argument over something that happened at a party.
It’s a scene that affects Matthew and Jen’s relationship and brings up very realistic issues about how perceptions are affected by intoxication from alcohol and drugs, which can impair the ability to give consent in sexual situations. The scene also candidly addresses gender roles and expectations in dating relationships. And it’s where Matthew gets some awareness of how the toxic masculinity that he participates in and enables can hit closer to home than he expected.
Unfortunately, this awareness comes so late in the story that it’s questionable how much Matthew might have really learned to become a better person when he makes a certain decision in reaction to something that upset him. Ironically, for a movie called “Here Are the Young Men,” the character of Jen is the most fascinating and has the most interesting things to say. However, she is written as a secondary character.
The scenes with Jen and Matthew have a familiar “will they or won’t they get together” arc that’s often seen in teen dramas. However, Taylor-Joy (who’s an award-winning actress on the rise) and Chapman (who was quite memorable in his role as a young British soldier in the World War I movie “1917”) are good-enough in their roles to bring believable emotions to characters that wouldn’t be as watchable if portrayed by less-talented actors. Jen is about the same age as Matthew, Rez and Joseph, but she’s much more emotionally mature than they are.
The characters of Joseph and Rez both struggle with personal demons more than Matthew does. Joseph’s anger is explosive and mostly directed at other people, while Rez tends to be more introverted and self-destructive. Cole and Ferdia-Peelo give convincing but not particularly outstanding performances of how Joseph and Rez mentally unravel in their own ways. All the parental/authority figures are essentially just background characters who don’t have much influence in what these teens say or do.
The main problem with “Here Are the Young Men” isn’t the cast members’ performances but in the way that writer/director Macken seems more concerned with showing how much worse the criminal chaos can get for these teen delinquents, rather than any true character development. There’s a tone throughout the movie that’s seems to say, “You thought what so-and-so did was bad, just wait until you see what this person does next.” After a while, it feels very hollow and lacking in suspense, since apparently the movie is intent on making it look like Dublin law enforcement is incompetent and that these three law-breaking jerks are untouchable.
This movie starts to look very unrealistic when these known hoodlums, who commit their crimes out in the open, never seem to be at any real risk of beng arrested. The movie becomes a repetitive series of crimes and drug-induced hallucinations that ultimately serve no purpose except to show these characters getting away with these crimes. The movie didn’t need to have any moralistic preaching to be improved. By the end of the film, viewers just won’t care about these self-absorbed troublemakers who are so bored with their lives that they create damaging problems for themselves and other people.
Well Go USA released “Here Are the Young Men” on digital and VOD on April 27, 2021.
Culture Representation: Taking place in unnamed cities in Denmark, the dramatic film “Riders of Justice” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with a few characters of Egyptian heritage) representing the middle-class and the criminal underground.
Culture Clash: A grieving widower, whose wife died in a train crash, teams up with three strangers to get revenge on the gang that they believe is responsible for the explosion.
Culture Audience: “Riders of Justice” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in well-acted and slightly quirky revenge stories that have unpredictable twists and turns.
Pictured clockwise, from bottom left: Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt, Gustav Lindh, Lars Brygmann, Andrea Heick Gadeberg and Nikolaj Lie Kaas in “Riders of Justice” (Photo by Rolf Konow/Magnet Releasing)
The usual clichés of vigilante dramas get a sly and occasionally far-fetched treatment in “Riders of Justice,” which is about coping with grief as much as it is about getting revenge. Written and directed by Anders Thomas Jensen, the movie sometimes veers into being a satire. But at its core, “Riders of Justice” is a mostly somber meditation on what can happen when trauma is left untreated.
The movie opens in Tallinn, Estonia, where an elderly man and his niece (played by Marta Riisalu) are looking at a red bicycle to buy as a possible Christmas gift. The niece says that she would prefer a blue bicycle, so the niece and uncle leave without buying the bike. Wanting to make an eventual sale to these potential customers, in case they come back, the bicycle shop owner (played by Kaspar Velberg) makes a call to an unknown person.
The next scene is somewhere in Denmark, where two men wearing hoodies step out of a white van. There’s a blue bicycle chained at a train station. The men break the chain and steal the bicycle, which they put in the van and drive off. It’s soon revealed that this blue bicycle belongs to a girl named Mathilde Hansen (played by Andrea Heick Gadeberg), who’s about 15 or 16 years old.
Mathilde lives with her mother Emma Hansen (played by Anne Birgitte Lind), while Emma’s husband/Mathilde’s father Markus Hansen (played by Mads Mikkelsen) is serving in the Danish military in the Afghanistan War. (This movie takes place before 2014, when Denmark withdrew from the war.) One day, Markus calls his family to tell them that the military has ordered him to stay in Afghanistan for three more months. Emma tells Markus that Mathilde’s bike has been stolen.
Mathilde has this reaction when she hears that her father Markus will be staying in Afghanistan longer than expected: “At least he won’t be sitting in the barn, staring into space like a vegetable.” It’s the first indication that Markus might have some issues with his mental health and that there’s tension in his relationship with Mathilde. Not much is shown about Markus and Emma’s marriage, but it appears to be a solid relationship.
The next day, when Emma is about to go to work and take Mathilde to school, the car won’t start. And so, Mathilde and Emma decide to take the train instead. In the mid-afternoon, when Mathilde and Emma are about to go home together, the train is fairly crowded, and a man politely offers Emma his seat. His name is Otto Hoffman (played by Nikolaj Lie Kaas), and he is a nerdy statistician who has recently given an ill-received presentation to an automobile manufacturing company about which demographics are most likely to buy certain car brands.
On the train, a major tragedy happens when the train derails and crashes into a parked freight train. In total, 11 people die in the crash. Emma is one of the deceased. Markus gets the news and rushes home from Afghanistan. Based on what happens later in the movie, it’s implied that a grieving Markus requested an honorable discharge from the military because he has to take care of Mathilde as a widower with no one else who can help him with childcare.
Emma’s death has devastated Markus and Mathilde, but they have very different ways of coping. Mathilde wants to talk about her grief and possibly get therapy, but Markus has the opposite reaction. Mathilde is open to finding some religious and spiritual comfort for her sadness, while Markus is a staunch athiest. Markus and Mathilde don’t even agree on when she should go back to school, because when she’s ready to go back, Markus thinks she should stay at home.
Adding to the tension, Markus doesn’t really approve of Mathilde’s teenage boyfriend Sirius (played by Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt), because he thinks Sirius is too emotionally sensitive and wimpy. Markus and Mathilde’s relationship, which was already troubled before Emma’s death, starts to get worse. They argue and can’t seem to agree on much because they are both stubborn in their beliefs. When Mathilde tells Markus that she misses her mother, Markus’ idea of comforting his daughter is to tell Mathilde: “You might as well learn now that unless you die at a young age, you will end up burying most of the people you love.”
During all of this family angst, it’s been reported on the news that two of the people who died in the train crash were former gang member John “Eagle” Ulrichsen and his attorney. Eagle had been scheduled to testify in court against his former gang called Riders of Justice, in a Kaalund Street murder case that killed four Turkish men. The leader of Riders of Justice is Kurt “Tandem” Olesen (played by Roland Møller), who is facing the most serious charges in the murder case because he is accused of being the mastermind of these killings.
Authorities have determined that the train crash was an accident. However, statistician Otto has calculated that the odds are next to impossible that it was an accident. He remembers seeing a suspicious-looking male passenger on the train. The man exited the train at the station that the train went to before the train derailed.
Otto doesn’t think it’s a coincidence. He begins to suspect that the train was tampered with, in order to kill Eagle, who was the star witness in the Kaalund Street Murder case. Otto takes his suspicions to the police, but two officers who listen to Otto’s theory don’t take him seriously at all. The cops are not impressed with Otto’s statistic that there was a 1 in 234, 287, 121 chance that the train crash was an accident.
Because he’s not willing to let go of his suspicions, Otto finds out more about Eagle and discovers that the former gang member was a creature of habit who always sat in the same train seat and he frequented a gym called Fitness World. Otto asks an eccentric colleague of his named Lennart Nielsen to hack into the Fitness World surveillance video system to prove that Eagle was obsessive compulsive with his routines. Otto and Lennart also get video surveillance footage from the train station to get a closer look at the man whom Otto suspects was involved in planning the train crash.
It isn’t long before Lennart gets caught up in this conspiracy theory too. Because the authorities have officially ruled the train crash an accident and the police don’t think it’s worth any further investigations, Otto and Lennart decide to visit Markus to tell him their theory. They’ve never met Markus before, but Emma’s name was reported in the news media as one of the train crash victims. Otto and Lennart were able to find out her address through computer database searches.
Otto also wants to visit Markus because Otto feels “survivor’s guilt” that Emma was in the seat that he offered to her on the train. And because Otto thinks the train crash was intentionally rigged, Otto also wants to see if Markus wants to help in this investigation over who might be responsible. When Otto and Lennart show up at Markus’ place, Markus’ reaction to the conspiracy theory is skeptical, to say the least. Markus somewhat gruffly sends Otto and Lennart away.
Undeterred in their mission, Otto and Lennart enlist the help of their former colleague Ulf Emmenthaler (played by Nicolas Bro), who’s an expert computer hacker, to use still images from the train video surveillance to get a photo of the “suspect.” Emmenthaler (who doesn’t like to be called Ulf) has facial recognition software that Otto and Lennart want Emmenthaler to use to find out who this mystery man is. At first, hot-tempered Emmenthaler thinks it’s a waste of time. But Otto and Lennart persist in asking Emmenthaler to help them, and he eventually does.
The only result for the facial recognition match, with a 99% certainty, is for a 38-year-old clinical dental technician named Aharon Nahas Shadid, who lives in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. Otto can’t believe that the person they’re looking for lives in Cairo. He asks Emmenthaler to lower the probability match to 95% certainty to see if there will be a match to anyone who lives in Denmark.
Sure enough, the match also comes back to a man named Palle Olesen (played by Omar Shargawi), who happens to be the brother of Riders of Justice gang leader Kurt “Tandem” Olesen. And when the three amateur sleuths find out that Palle has an electrical engineering background, it’s further information that they think points to Palle as being the one to rig the train so that it would derail. Otto takes this information to Markus, who is now convinced of this conspiracy theory too.
It isn’t long before Markus, Otto, Lennart and Emmenthalar show up unannounced at Palle Olesen’s house to confront him. They arrive together in Markus’ car. An argument breaks out, Palle pulls a gun on the four men, and Markus kills Palle by breaking his neck. (This isn’t spoiler information, since it’s in the “Riders of Justice” trailer.)
Palle’s murder was not planned in advance, so when it happens, there’s some panic among the four men. Lennart is the most paranoid about leaving behind any DNA or other evidence, so he insists on cleaning up before they leave. The other three men wait in the car. They’re all in various levels of shock over what just happened.
While cleaning up inside the house, Lennart sees a naked young man, who is bound, gagged and bent over on the arm of a couch. It’s clear that this man, who is in his 20s, witnessed the murder and was being held captive by Palle for some kind of sexual activity. Lennart and this mystery man make eye contact, and the expressions on their faces indicate that they both know exactly what this witness saw.
Lennart decides not to do anything about this witness and leaves him still bound and gagged in the house. But it won’t be the last time that this vigilante quartet will see this witness. His name is Bodashka Lytvynenko (played by Gustav Lindh), he’s a Ukrainian immigrant, and his story is eventually revealed in the movie.
The rest of “Riders of Justice” is about how the four men react to the murder by deciding they’re going to kill the rest of the Riders of Justice gang. Markus is the one who comes up with this idea, and he convinces the others to help him. What would drive these four previous law-abiding citizens to go on this vigilante rampage? It’s shown in various parts of the movie that all four men are emotionally damaged in some way.
Markus has the most obvious motive to go on this revenge killing spree, but there were hints that he was becoming mentally unhinged before Emma died. Mathilde (who does not know about Palle’s murder and this vigilante plan) senses that something is very wrong with her father, and she thinks that Markus needs therapy, but he refuses. And it turns out that Otto, Lennart and Emmenthaler (who are all bachelors) used to work at the same company and all got fired around the same time.
Otto has a tragedy from his past that left him unable to use his right arm. Lennart is still dealing with trauma from his childhood, when he was abused by his father. Emmenthaler has a lot of pent-up rage against people he perceives as bullies, because he has been bullied and mistreated for much of his life.
Markus and his three cronies use the barn on his property as the headquarters for their planning. It isn’t long before computer whiz Emmenthaler has the barn decked out with all kinds of computer hacking equipment. The four men also use Markus’ property for target practice with their guns.
Otto, Lennart and Emmenthaler spend so much time with Markus on his property that Mathilde gets suspicious. Emmenthaler and Lennart spontaneously lie to Mathilde and say that they are therapists and they have been meeting with Markus for grief counseling. Mathilde is thrilled that Markus is getting therapy, so she asks Emmenthaler and Lennart if they can give her counseling her too. Emmenthaler says that he only treats adults, but Lennart says that he can help Mathilde.
In reality, Lennart has no training as a psychiatrist. But privately, it’s mentioned that he’s been to so many psychiatrists in his life, he feels like he knows all the right lingo to say in a therapy session. Lennart’s lie to Mathilde leads to a comedic subplot where he starts giving her psychiatric “therapy.” Mathilde and Lennart become so attached to each other, Lennart practically acts like her uncle. Mathilde prefers to spend time with Lennart more than her father Markus.
The dark comedy of “Riders of Justice” is most prominent when it shows the unexpected and odd surrogate family that forms as a result of these four men’s vigilante goals. Markus appears to be the most cold and calculating of the four, but he’s like a ticking time bomb. As for the murder trial that star witness Eagle was going to testify in against his former gang cronies, the outcome of that trial is mentioned in the movie. This outcome is also a catalyst for much of the action in the story.
Some elements of “Riders of Justice” are very predictable, while others are not. Viewers will have to suspend disbelief at some of the shootout scenes, where police don’t show up when they would in real life. Markus, Otto, Lennart and Emmenthaler also don’t make any effort to hide or disguise their faces when they start killing people—and that carelessness doesn’t make sense when they spend so much time meticulously planning other aspects of their crimes.
These plot holes can be excused because the movie’s main attraction is to see how these three men came into Markus’ life and awakened something in him that makes him feel alive and purposeful again, for better or worse. All of the cast members do well in their roles, but Mikkelsen is the most riveting to watch because his Markus character doesn’t express his emotions easily, so his character is at times the most unpredictable.
“Riders of Justice” doesn’t glorify violence, nor does it make vigilantism look glamorous. Nielsen’s directing and screenwriting achieves a hard-to-balance dichotomy of juxtaposing Markus’ double life, with gritty assassination scenes followed by “wholesome” family scenes. The real story in “Riders of Justice” isn’t how many of the gang members are killed but what kind of emotional toll this revenge mission takes on the vigilantes who decided the only way to get justice is through murder.
Magnolia Pictures’ Magnet Releasing released “Riders of Justice” in New York City and Los Angeles on May 14, 2021. The movie’s release expanded to more U.S. cities and on digital and VOD on May 21, 2021. The movie was released in Denmark and Mexico in 2020.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Kentucky from 1988 to 1989, the crime drama “Above Suspicion” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.
Culture Clash: A drug-addicted woman becomes a confidential informant to the FBI, and complications ensue when she gets emotionally involved with the FBI agent who is her contact.
Culture Audience: “Above Suspicion” will appeal mostly to people who don’t mind watching predictable and pulpy crime movies that put more emphasis on being tacky than being suspenseful.
Johnny Knoxville and Emilia Clarke in “Above Suspicion” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
The cheap-looking and tawdry drama “Above Suspicion” is based on a true crime story, but the movie foolishly gives away the ending at the very beginning of the film. In other words, if viewers don’t know what happened in this case in real life, they’ll know exactly what the outcome is in the movie’s opening scene, which has a morbid “voice from the dead” narration from the movie’s main character. “Above Suspicion” just goes downhill from there.
Directed by Phillip Noyce, “Above Suspicion” is one of those “flashback” movies where the narrator is telling what happened in the past. And in this movie (which takes place in 1988 and 1989), the narrator tells viewers that she’s already dead. Her name is Susan Smith (played by Emilia Clarke), a divorced mother of two children. She was in her late 20s when she died.
In these flashbacks of her life, Susan is a cocaine-snorting, pill-popping, marijuana-smoking ne’er do well who makes money by committing fraud. She’s been collecting government welfare checks from the state of West Virginia, which she’s not entitled to have because she actually lives in Kentucky, where she gets welfare checks too. And occasionally, Susan sells drugs to make money.
In the movie’s opening scene, Susan says in a voiceover: “You know what’s the worst thing about being dead? You get too much time to think. Thinking is painful. Knowing things is painful.”
To serve as a warning to viewers, a better way to open this movie would have been: “You know what’s the worst thing about a brain-dead movie? It wastes too much time. Watching it is painful. Knowing this movie could be so much better is painful.”
And sitting through all the cringeworthy lines that stink up this movie is painful. Chris Gerolmo wrote the “Above Suspicion” screenplay, which is based on journalist Joe Sharkey’s 1993 non-fiction book of the same name. People who’ve read that book will probably find this movie difficult to watch because it takes what was fascinating about this true crime book and turns it into a trashy melodrama.
Clarke, who is British in real life, attempts to give a believable and edgy performance as a Kentucky mother who’s lost her way in life and ends up falling for and clinging to a seemingly straight-laced married FBI agent. But there are moments when Clarke’s true British mannerisms come through, such as when she slips up and says the word “whilst” instead of “while” during one of the many scenes where her Susan character is yelling at someone. “Whilst” is not the kind of word that would be in the vocabulary of a Kentucky hillbilly like Susan.
Because “Above Suspicion” reveals in the opening scene that Susan is dead, the rest of this 104-minute movie is really just a countdown to Susan’s death. Given the lifestyle that she leads and what’s at stake when Susan gets involved with a married FBI agent with a squeaky-clean reputation, it’s not hard to figure out how she’ll die. And it won’t be from a drug overdose. If viewers don’t know what happened to the real Susan Smith in this case before they see “Above Suspicion,” it’ll become pretty obvious what her fate will be soon after this movie begins.
Susan lives in a dirty and disheveled house in Pikeville, Kentucky, with her sleazy ex-husband Cash (played by Johnny Knoxville), who’s a small-time drug dealer. They’re still living together because they can’t afford to get their own separate places. (In real life, the name of Susan’s ex-husband was Kenneth, but he really was a drug dealer.) Susan and Cash’s two children—an unnamed daughter who’s 7 or 8 years old (played by Lex Kelli) and a son named Isom who’s 5 or 6 years old (played by Landon Durrance)—don’t say much, probably because they’re shell-shocked by living in such a dysfunctional home.
Someone who does talk a lot is Susan. She and Cash have arguments and physical fights with each other, and she gets irritable or impatient with almost anyone who crosses her path, except for her children. Two other people who live in Susan and Cash’s dumpy house are an unemployed couple in their 20s: Joe B. (played by Karl Glusman) and his girlfriend Georgia Beale (played by Brittany O’Grady), who don’t seem to do much but sleep all day. Joe met Cash when they were in prison together. Cash is the one who invited Joe to stay at the house after Joe got out of prison. Needless to say, Susan isn’t very happy about it.
In one of the movie’s early scenes, Joe makes inappropriate sexual comments to Susan, who understandably gets upset. Joe also calls her “Susie,” which she hates. But then, Susan also takes her anger out on Georgia about it. Susan bursts into the room where Georgia is sleeping and berates her about Joe being a creep. As Susan storms back out of the room, she screams at Georgia, “Pay me my rent money, bitch!”
Joe actually has been making money, but in an illegal way. He’s secretly a bank robber who has been targeting banks in cities near Pikeville, with Georgia’s help as his occasional getaway driver. Susan knows this secret because Joe’s red Chevy pickup truck fits the news media’s description of the getaway car. And she’s found Joe’s stash of cash with the guns that were used in the robberies.
“Above Suspicion” has some druggie party scenes that are exactly what people might expect. And it’s only a matter of time before fights break out at these parties. Susan’s volatile younger brother Bones (played by Luke Spencer Roberts) predictably gets in one of these fights, which leads to a particularly violent scene that was fabricated for this movie, just to add more melodrama.
Susan says in a voiceover: “Welcome to Pikeville, the town that never lets go.” She also says that in Pikeville, which is plagued by drug addiction, there are two main ways that people make money: “the funeral business or selling drugs.” And earlier in the film, this is how Susan describes herself: “I was a regular girl once. But things go wrong, as things will.”
Susan’s life takes a fateful turn when she meets Mark Putnam (played by Jack Huston), an ambitious and fairly new FBI agent, who has transferred to Pikeville to investigate the bank robberies. When Susan first sees Mark, who’s two years older than she is, she describes him like a hunk straight out of a romance novel. It’s lust at first sight for Susan.
And when Susan finds out that Mark is the FBI agent leading the investigation into the robberies, she sees it as an opportunity to get to know him better. It isn’t long before she drops hints to Mark that she knows who the bank robber is, but she’s afraid to be exposed as a snitch. Mark offers to pay Susan for bits and pieces of information, and she becomes his main confidential informant.
Susan dangles enough tips for Mark to investigate to keep him coming back for more. There’s an ulterior motive, of course. Susan wants to seduce Mark. And because Mark is so different from the men she’s used to being involved with, Susan starts to fall in love with him. However, it’s debatable whether it’s true love or if it’s Susan just wanting a ticket out of her dead-end life. At one point, when Mark asks Susan what she wants most in her life, she answers, “Rehab and money.”
Susan knows that Mark is happily married and has a baby daughter with his wife Kathy Putnam (played by Sophie Lowe), but that doesn’t seem to deter Susan from having a fantasy that Mark will eventually leave Kathy to be with Susan. When Susan and Mark meet in out-of-the-way and deserted places in other Kentucky cities such as Portersville and Martin, it’s just like the clandestine way that secret lovers meet. Susan starts to tell Mark that they both make a great team, but she wants to make their “partnership” about more than FBI work.
“Above Suspicion” portrays Susan as toning down some of her vulgar and mean-spirited ways to try to seduce Mark. She gives him a lot of flattery and attention. And anyone watching this movie will not be surprised when Mark starts to fall for Susan too because he’s become slightly bored with his marriage. But Mark doesn’t feel so strongly about Susan that he wants to leave his wife. Mark has a big ego, and he enjoys being with someone who fuels that ego. Huston’s portrayal of Mark is as someone whose top priority in life is being the best at his job and getting recognition and praise for it.
Even if Mark were an available bachelor, Mark and Susan’s relationship has too many other issues, including a power imbalance and a difference in their social classes. And most troubling of all for Mark’s career is that getting sexually involved with Susan is a breach of ethics and an automatic compromise of the evidence that Mark is getting from her for this investigation. And once the investigation is over, where does Susan fit into Mark’s life?
Clarke and Huston (who is also British in real life) aren’t terrible in their roles, but they are hindered by a subpar screenplay. Huston’s Mark character is often written as two-dimensional, while Clarke’s Susan character displays over-the-top trashiness that becomes increasingly annoying, especially when Susan begins stalking Mark and his wife Kathy. It’s supposed to make Susan look emotionally needy, lovesick and vulnerable, but her obsession with Mark only makes her look mentally unhinged. As for Knoxville, his abusive Cash character is just another version of the scumbags that Knoxville usually portrays in movies.
There are some supporting characters in the movie that don’t add much to the story. Susan has a concerned older sister named Jolene (played by Thora Birch), who lives in West Virginia and occasionally calls Susan. Mark has a colleague named Todd Eason (played by Chris Mulkey), who’s retiring from the FBI in six months. There are an informant named Denver Rhodes (played by Omar Benson Miller) and an international drug dealer named Rufus (played by Brian Lee Franklin), who both appear in the last third of the movie.
Noyce’s direction of “Above Suspicion” aims for the movie to be gritty noir, but it’s really just low-budget junk. It’s very easy to predict how this story is going to end. And until that ending, which Susan already blabbed about in the voiceover narration, it’s just one scene after another of contrasting Susan’s riff-raff life with Mark’s law-enforcement life. These two worlds end up crashing in the most horrific of ways. And it’s too bad that the overall result is that “Above Suspicion” is a cinematic train wreck.
Lionsgate released “Above Suspicion” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on May 14, 2021. The movie was released on Blu-ray and DVD on May 18, 2021.
