drama Archives – Page 90 of 91

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘The Kill Team’

April 28, 2019

by Carla Hay

Nat Wolff and Alexander Skarsgård in "The Kill Team" — Nat Wolff and Alexander Skarsgård in “The Kill Team” (Photo by Manolo Pavon/A24)

Directed by Dan Krauss

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 27, 2019.

In 2013, “The Kill Team” (directed by Dan Krauss) won the Tribeca Film Festival jury prize for Best Documentary Feature for its chilling chronicle of the Maywand District murders scandal, in which members of the U.S. Army were arrested in 2010 for murdering unarmed, innocent civilians during the war in Afghanistan. Krauss has revisited the story—this time, by writing and directing the dramatic, scripted film also titled “The Kill Team,” which is based on real-life events but using fictional names of the real people involved. Whereas the documentary (which was released by The Orchard in 2014) spends a lot of time explaining why this tragedy happened, the scripted feature film does something even more disturbing: It shows how it happened in the first place.

“The Kill Team” documentary, which includes interviews with several of the soldiers involved, takes place entirely after the arrests of the soldiers. The documentary is set not in a combat zone, but in the type of conference rooms and offices where defense attorneys or therapists meet with their clients, as the defendants prepare for their cases to be resolved. The “Kill Team” scripted feature film takes place almost entirely before the arrests, and brings the viewers directly into the environment that created the horrific “Kill Team” mentality to murder people for thrills.

The main protagonist in both films is the young specialist who enters the Army as a wide-eyed, eager-to-please rookie and leaves the Army as a disillusioned, broken man wracked with guilt over his participation in the murders. In real life, that man is Adam Winfield, whose name has been changed to Andrew Briggman in “The Kill Team” scripted film. In the beginning of the movie, Andrew (played by Nat Wolff) is excited and proud to join the Army, since his father is an Army vet who served honorably.

Andrew has a close relationship with his loving parents, William and Laura (played by Rob Morrow and Anna Francolini)—and it’s a relationship that plays a pivotal part later on in the story. However, Andrew is in for a rude awakening when he leaves the supportive cocoon of his middle-class family and goes off to war in Afghanistan. Early on, Andrew experiences the brutality of war when he and other squad members witness their squad leader being killed by an improvised explosive device (IED). In addition, several of the other soldiers in his squad initially give Andrew a hard time—they think because of his scrawny physique that he’s a nerdy wimp who’s not cut out for combat.

Andrew and his college-age peers essentially have a fraternity-like existence, with each member jockeying for position and testing boundaries when it comes to egos, power and respect. They argue, but they also party together (smoking hashish is one of their preferred leisure activities), and they have varying degrees of expectations on how much violence they’ll commit while they’re on active duty.

The stakes in the team’s power plays get higher when the squad gets a new staff sergeant named Sergeant Deeks (played by Alexander Skarsgård), who is charismatic but extremely manipulative. He does what most toxic leaders do: He pits his subordinates against each other so that they can prove who is the most loyal to him, and those who “win,” get the most rewards and benefits from him. Deeks (who is based on the real-life Calvin Gibbs) makes it known to his squad that he’s looking for a trusted right-hand man, which sets off a competition to see who’s the toughest of the bunch to get that position. Andrew is eager to prove himself worthy of being Deeks’ second-in-command, and he surpasses Deeks’ expectations by fulfilling increasingly violent tasks that Deeks orders him to do.

The other members of the squad—including Rayburn (played by Adam Long), Coombs (played by Jonathan Whitsell), Marquez (played by Brian Marc), Weppler (played by Osy Ikhile) and Cappy (played by Oliver Ritchie)—join in on the mayhem, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and reluctance. Coombs in particular has an almost joyful zest in the violence that he causes, because he thinks war should be about “kicking ass,” and he thinks it’s boring for soldiers to have duties such as patrolling areas and protecting civilians.

On the surface, Deeks appears to be an accomplished and upstanding military man—he lovingly checks in on his wife and young son back home via Skype chats—but it’s a façade that masks a sadistic criminal who likes to kill for fun, and he has a total disregard for the law and U.S. military policies. The first sign of Deeks’ corruption is when he catches his subordinates smoking hash, but instead of reporting this punishable offense, he tells them that what they’re doing is wrong because he knows where they can get better-quality hash.

It isn’t long before Deeks lets his young subordinates in on some of his secrets: He’s gotten away with an untold number of murders in Iraq and Afghanistan, simply by lying and saying that the people attacked first and were killed because of self-defense. In many of the cases, Deeks admitted to planting weapons on the victims (which is called a “drop weapon” technique) to further perpetuate the lie that the killings were justified. Deeks has also kept body parts (such as fingers) of many of his victims, and he likes to pose for pictures next to their dead bodies, much like a hunter poses for photos with dead prey.

Some of Deeks’ subordinates are all too eager to join him on his murder sprees, if it means that they can rise through the military ranks with Deeks as their mentor. They call themselves “The Kill Team,” and become a twisted fraternity of soldiers looking for unarmed victims to murder, under the guise of being good military men who are eliminating the enemy at war. When some of the squad members show signs of guilt, they’re threatened by Deeks to keep silent, or else he’ll make sure they’ll be beaten up or killed. After all, Deeks has shown that he’s capable of not only committing these crimes but also covering them up and making the victims look like the aggressors. Deeks’ subordinates are isolated, far from home, and under the command of a dangerous and powerful leader, so it’s easy to see why they went along with his heinous actions in order to protect themselves.

We’ve seen villains in many war movies before—the Oscar-winning classics “Apocalypse Now” and “Platoon,” for example, each features a corrupt leader who fits the mold of the gruff, scowling bully instilling fear in his subordinates. What makes “The Kill Team” villain Deeks even more insidious is that his dominance isn’t all by brute force—he barks commands, but he also presents himself as a smiling, older brother to be admired and whose approval is a reward that his subordinates are desperate to get, even if it means that their morality gets stifled or snuffed out in the process.

Deeks’ physical presence—tall, blue-eyed good looks, as embodied by Skarsgård—also has a lot to do with his powerful influence, because he fits many people’s image of an American military hero. Skarsgård brings complexity to the role by portraying Deeks as loathsome but also with a self-righteous magnetism that makes it convincing that he could manipulate other people into thinking what he wants them to think. The merits of this film are largely centered on authentically explaining how someone like Deeks could get away with so much horrific destruction—and Skarsgård successfully rises to the challenge. The Andrew Briggman character is less complex and more transparent than Deeks, but Wolff effectively portrays the morality crisis and emotional turmoil of a soldier whose world is turned upside down by the horrors of war and corrupted values.

Krauss and his team did a terrific job of recreating not only the Afghanistan war zones (the movie was actually filmed in Spain) but also the military weapons and automobiles (which were actually digital effects) that were shown in the movie. Although many people already know the real-life outcomes of the Maywand District scandal, Krauss builds a level of suspense and emotional tension that will leave an impact on viewers and serve as a painful reminder that serial killing in the context of war is an issue that will never be fully erased.

UPDATE: A24 Films will release “The Kill Team” in select U.S. theaters and on VOD on October 25, 2019.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Initials SG’

April 28, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Initials SG” (“Iniciales SG”)

Directed by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia

Spanish with subtitles

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 28, 2019.

The trials and tribulations of a struggling actor have been the subject of classic Oscar-winning movies, ranging from the 1937 drama “A Star Is Born” to the 1982 comedy “Tootsie” to the 2016 musical “La La Land.” The dark comedy “Initials SG” (“Iniciales SG”) is not going to be an Oscar-winning classic, but it’s a compelling movie about the seedy underbelly of the acting profession far outside of the United States—in this case: Buenos Aires, Argentina. In “Initials SG,” Diego Peretti plays Sergio Garces, a down-on-his-luck, middle-aged actor who still holds on to the dream of achieving major stardom. Years before, Sergio recorded a long-forgotten album of Serge Gainsbourg cover songs in a misguided bid for fame. The title of the movie is a nod to Sergio Garces and Serge Gainsbourg having the same initials.

Sergio—who is single and lives alone—is the type of actor whose career was once promising, but has in recent years been reduced to mostly bit parts as an extra or voiceover roles, and he’s not above making adult films to help pay the bills. After being sentenced to anger management and probation for a fight where he pushed someone out of a window, he gets into a bike accident that injures his nose. The injury negatively affects his health and immediate job prospects.

In the midst of this personal crisis, Sergio meets a visiting American sales agent named Jane (played by Julianne Nicholson) by chance at a bar. She’s more attracted to him than he is attracted to her, and they eventually become lovers after Sergio misses a chance to hook up with a younger woman he’s been lusting after for a while. Sergio’s ego also gets a temporary boost when he finds out that he’s going to honored at a film festival.

“Initials SG” at first gives an appearance of being an absurdist comedy with a protagonist who keeps running into bad luck. This movie is not for the faint of heart. In one of the movie’s scenes, Sergio’s nose injury causes him to have a nose bleed while filming a sex scene in a porn movie. In another scene, we find out the nose injury is more serious than it first appears to be. (Hint: If you’re disgusted by the idea of a slithery animal being stuck in a human body, you might want to skip this film.)

When Sergio goes out on the street outside his apartment, he keeps seeing a weird young man, who’s apparently in a drug-induced haze, because the young man stares up at the sky and points at something that isn’t there. That sidewalk character will play a pivotal role in the last third of the movie, which takes a very sinister turn, as secrets are revealed and covered up. But the movie’s final act is one that might leave audiences the most divided. It’s a bold twist to the story that will linger long after the credits roll.

UPDATE: “Initials SG” is available on HBO and HBO Max.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Stray Dolls’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Stray Dolls”

Directed by Sonejuhi Sinha

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 27, 2019.

The crime thriller “Stray Dolls” is described by director/co-writer Sonejuhi Sinha as a “love story,” but all the characters in the film aren’t very lovable. Most of the film takes place at the sleazy Tides Plaza Motel, which is in an unnamed city in the U.S., but it’s the kind of dump where a lot of people are either down on their luck and/or doing something bad. A young woman named Riz (played by Geetanjali Thapa) has recently arrived from India to work as a live-in maid at the motel. We find out that Riz has escaped from her street life in India, and wants a better life for herself in America, where she plans to send some money home to her family.

Riz tries to re-invent herself as a hard worker with a clean lifestyle, but it’s slowly revealed that when Riz was in India, she has done illegal things, such as con games and robbery, in order to survive. Having a past life as a street hustler makes it all the more unbelievable that Riz would give her passport for safekeeping to her new boss Una (played by Cynthia Nixon), a no-nonsense Russian who is the motel’s manager. In the beginning of the film, Una is seen shredding the passport, which will have dire consequences for Riz later on in the movie.

Soon after arriving at the motel, Riz finds out that she has to share living quarters with a fellow maid named Dallas (played by Olivia DeJonge), who’s strung out on meth, obsessed with Dolly Parton, and trying to make enough money to open her own nail salon. Dallas’ dimwitted boyfriend Jimmy (played by Robert Aramayo) is also her drug dealer, and he also happens to be Una’s son.

Riz and Dallas get off on the wrong foot when Riz catches Dallas trying to steal from her, and the two get into a fight that leaves Riz feeling threatened. Riz continues to put on a façade of being a “good girl”—she refuses to drink alcohol or do drugs when hanging out with Dallas. But one night, when they’re at a restaurant, Dallas slips a painkiller drug into Riz’s milkshake while Riz is in the ladies’ restroom. Under the influence of the drug, Riz’s inhibitions are lowered, and she spends the rest of the night partying with Dallas and her druggie friends. When Riz and Dallas go back to their room at the motel, Riz asks Dallas to kiss her, which foreshadows the sexual attraction that is underneath later motivations in the film.

While cleaning a motel room when the room’s guest is away, Riz finds a hidden package of cocaine, impulsively steals it, and then gives the package to Dallas, in an effort to impress Dallas and with the hope that Dallas doesn’t pick a fight with her again. It’s one of many dumb and unnecessary decisions that the supposedly streetwise Riz makes in this film. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that things don’t turn out well for anyone who steals from a drug dealer.

But the movie’s plot really goes off the rails when Riz commits a serious crime twice, and what she does to cover up her misdeeds would make her a candidate for “World’s Dumbest Criminals.” The first time she commits the crime, it’s somewhat of an accident. The second time she commits the crime, it’s completely unwarranted and planned in such a cold-blooded manner that any sympathy that anyone might have for Riz will probably evaporate. The last 15 minutes of the movie have so many absurd things happening (including a ludicrous attempt to frame Riz and Dallas as “Thelma and Louise” type of outlaws) that “Stray Dolls” should have been named “Stray Plot Holes.”

UPDATE: Samuel Goldwyn Films will release “Stray Dolls” on digital and VOD on April 10, 2020.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Blow the Man Down’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Blow the Man Down”

Directed by Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 26, 2019.

How many times have we seen this in a movie or a TV show? A person accidentally kills someone in self-defense, but instead of doing the logical thing (calling the police or an attorney), the person gets rid of the body, which makes things worse because now the cover-up makes the death looks like a murder. That plot device of throwing logic out the window in order to create suspense is done repeatedly in “Blow the Man Down,” a film that has good intentions and solid performances, but so many illogical actions that you won’t feel much sympathy for the people who keep digging themselves further into criminal (plot) holes.

The movie begins with a scene showing a family gathering taking place right after a funeral. The deceased person is Mary Margaret Connolly, the mother of sisters Priscilla Connolly (played by Sophie Lowe) and Mary Beth Connolly (played by Morgan Saylor). The two sisters are very different from each other: Priscilla is the older, more sensible sister, while Mary Beth is the younger, wilder sister. With their mother’s death, the Connolly sisters now bear the responsibility of running the family business, Connolly Fishing, in their small village of Easter Cove, Maine. Mary Beth has a restless spirit. She wants to sell the business and use the money to get out of town and start a new life. Priscilla vehemently disagrees and thinks the best thing to do is to keep the business going.

Meanwhile, the town has a bed-and-breakfast inn called Ocean View, which is run by Enid Nora Devlin, who also goes by the name Mrs. Devlin (played by Margo Martindale), who’s known the Connolly family for years. The other matriarchs in town—Doreen Burke (played by Marceline Hugot), Gail Maguire (played by Annette O’Toole) and Susie Gallagher (played by June Squibb)—are busybodies who make a point of knowing what’s going on with everyone in the community. It all sounds so quaint and small-town folksy—except it’s not.

Ocean View is really a brothel, and Mrs. Devlin is a madam who has a steely attitude underneath her friendly façade. Without giving away any spoilers, more than one person ends up dead, plus there’s a missing bag of $50,000 cash, blackmail and cover-ups of crimes. Mary Beth and Priscilla are involved in covering up the death of one of the people—a thug named Gorski (played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach). They dismember his body and hide it in an ice box. Another dead person’s body washes up at sea, and the cause of death might be an accident or a murder.

A young police officer named Justin Brennan (played by Will Brittain) is the main person investigating the death of the person found at sea. Justin takes a liking to Priscilla, whose guilty conscience makes her even more nervous when he makes excuses to come over and visit her. At first, Officer Brennan appears to be a somewhat dimwitted neophyte who can be easily fooled, but he slowly begins to suspect that the sisters know more than they are telling him.

Because Easter Cove is such a small town, it’s easy to believe that only one cop would be doing most of the investigating. However, with all the small-town gossips who are in everybody else’s business, it’s hard to believe that word wouldn’t get out quicker about some of the suspicious activities that were done in plain view. As for that bag of $50,000 in cash that changes possession throughout the film, spending that kind of money wouldn’t go unnoticed in this small town, so it defies logic that certain characters go to a lot of trouble to get the cash in order to spend it in a way that the town would take notice.

“Blow the Man Down” has the benefit of a talented cast that adds layers of depth to a script that isn’t particularly original. Saylor and Martindale stand out as the most compelling to watch because their morally dubious characters in the movie have impulsive tendencies, so their actions aren’t always predictable. “Blow the Man Down”—written and directed by Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy—also cleverly shows local fisherman characters singing well-known sailor songs (including the film’s namesake), as this movie’s version of a Greek chorus. The movie’s last 15 minutes are a flurry of activities that look like desperately written scenes aimed at trying to tie up some loose strings in the plot. If you’re willing to overlook the screenplay’s flaws, you might enjoy “Blow the Man Down” for the movie’s best assets: the cast’s performances and the way the film convincingly captures the mood of a small town with some very big, dirty secrets.

UPDATE: Amazon Prime Video will premiere “Blow the Man Down” on March 20, 2020.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Only’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Only”

Directed by Takashi Doscher

World premiere at Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 27, 2019.

Does the world need another bleak post-apocalyptic movie? Not if it’s as disappointing as this one. The above-average performances of Leslie Odom Jr. (“Hamilton”) and Freida Pinto (“Slumdog Millionaire”) are the main reasons to see “Only,” a depressing drama with unrelenting emotional claustrophobia that can’t quite mask some of the film’s most glaring and annoying plot holes. Odom and Pinto play Will and Eva, two lovers who have quarantined themselves in an apartment in an unnamed U.S. city during a mysterious plague. From the opening scene, there’s a sense that Eva is somehow in danger: She frantically hides in a secret crawlspace in the apartment when men wearing hazmat suits suddenly enter the home to search it and interrogate Will, who lies to them by telling them that he lives alone.

In the film’s numerous flashbacks that might confuse some viewers, it’s revealed that the plague started when ash began to fall all over the world like a steady snowstorm, and females who are exposed to the ash develop a strange illness that makes them bleed near their ears, go into convulsions, then die within a matter of hours. Eva has managed to avoid this contagious disease by being in the apartment when the ash started to fall.

But in a major plot disconnect, a flashback scene shows her to be completely exposed in a hospital’s emergency ward, where Will and Eva have taken Eva’s roommate Carolyn (played by Tia Hendricks), who was caught outside when the ash started to fall. While at the hospital, which is filled with patients and their loved ones covered in the mysterious ash, Will figures out that only females are getting sick from the ash. In a “too good to be true” coincidence, he sees an “Authorized Personnel Only” door, which happens to contain two hazmat suits that he and Eva can wear when they flee the hospital to go back home and quarantine themselves. Never mind that Will and Eva have already been exposed to the deadly ash when they went outside to travel to the hospital while the ash is in the air, and they were in a hospital filled with people and things covered with the ash.

It’s not a spoiler to reveal this ludicrous part of the storyline because the entire movie relies on the premise that Eva has avoided exposure to the ash for at least 400 days, which contradicts the fact that she was exposed early on during the plague at the hospital. The entire hospital scene and the Carolyn character are completely unnecessary, since Will and Eva could have found out the cause of the plague and who was at risk by staying home and watching the news. It’s one of the movie’s several plot holes that will leave viewers shaking their heads in dismay at how “Only” writer/director Takashi Doscher sabotaged his own script.

Later in the movie, it’s revealed that because the plague has almost wiped out the world’s population of women and girls, and many of the surviving women who can get pregnant end up having miscarriages, the U.S. government has put up a $2 million bounty for anyone who can find a woman who can give birth to a child. However, since the government is doing scientific experiments on surviving women who are found, there’s little incentive for any of the remaining women like Eva to give themselves up.

The movie’s flashback scenes show that Will and Eva had a happy relationship before the plague. But after the plague, their relationship has become strained because Will has become so paranoid about Eva being discovered and getting infected, that he’s kept her a virtual prisoner in their home, and she has developed a simmering resentment over it. It’s a plot concept that could have been mined for some deep and emotional insight into male/female relationships and power struggles in society (something that “The Handmaid’s Tale” does so well), but “Only” jumps back and forth too much in the story’s timeline, which takes away from what could have been a more cohesive movie.

After Will and Eva have decided to quarantine themselves, the movie goes to great lengths to show us how Will dictates much of what Eva can and can’t do because he’s so afraid of Eva being discovered and getting infected. For example, he gets upset when she uses a cell phone or computer because he doesn’t want her technology activities to be traced. But then another part of the story reveals that Will allows Eva to communicate with the outside world in an Internet chat room with other female survivors, who also send email to the couple. Even though Eva is using an alias, we’re supposed to believe that paranoid Will doesn’t know that this type of Internet activity can still be traced. It’s a contradiction that’s almost laughable if this weren’t such a downbeat movie.

By the time viewers see that Eva (who’s disguised as a man) and Will have made a trip outside to get food, the story veers into a random fugitive thriller with Will and Eva trying to hide from a father and son (played by Jayson Warner Smith and Chandler Riggs), who are would-be bounty hunters. The problem is that the movie tries hard to convince viewers how Eva has been hidden for over a year, but Eva and Will make some decisions both in and outside their home that make it hard to believe that their secret hadn’t been discovered sooner. Their home is meticulously protected in a way that shows their long-term quarantine gave them plenty of time to think about ways to safeguard their home, yet Eva’s “disguise” as a man is so poorly thought-out that it’s a glaring contradiction. (It’s revealed in the last 15 minutes of the film why Eva is outside wearing unprotected clothes when she and Will leave their home to get food.)

Pinto and Odom have a few scenes where they adeptly show the emotional toll that the quarantine has taken on their relationship, but not even the best actors in the world can save this problematic and ultimately unsatisfying script.

UPDATE: Vertical Entertainment will release “Only” in select U.S. cinemas and on VOD on March 6, 2020.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Clementine’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Clementine”

Directed by Laura Jean Gallagher

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 27, 2019.

“Clementine,” the first feature film from writer/director Lara Jean Gallagher, is a slow burn of a drama that is more of a psychological portrait than a psychological thriller. No one in the movie is named Clementine; the movie’s title comes from what clementine oranges mean to the central characters Karen (played by Otmara Marrero) and Lana (played by Sydney Sweeney). You’ll have to see the movie to find out how clementine oranges are mentioned, but we’re first introduced to Karen at the beginning of the film, when she breaks into a remote Oregon lake house owned by her older ex-girlfriend. The Karen character is supposed to be 29, but Marrero looks and acts much younger than a typical 29-year-old.

When there is a movie that takes place primarily in a secluded lake house in the woods, all sorts of sinister things usually ensue. But in the case of “Clementine,” don’t expect there to be any mysterious killer on the loose. Instead, the movie plays guessing games about who is trustworthy when it comes to matters of the heart.

It’s apparent early on that Karen’s breakup with her ex-girlfriend is recent and painful, because she broke into the house with the intent of taking back a dog without her ex-girlfriend’s knowledge. It’s unclear if Karen has rightful custody of the dog, but what is clear is that Karen feels that she deserves to have custody. When she finds out that the dog isn’t at the house, she decides to stay while she contemplates her next move. The only thing that viewers know about the ex-girlfriend, who’s named “D” (and is played in a cameo by Sonya Walger), is that “D” is a busy career woman who’s broken Karen’s heart, and Karen knows enough about her schedule to know when “D” won’t be at the lake house.

One evening, a teenager named Lana shows up at the house and asks Karen to help her look for her lost dog. Karen is a little reluctant to help at first, but she agrees, even though the sun is going down and it will soon get dark outside. They get in Karen’s car to search, and as the night wears on, they still haven’t found the dog. Karen’s skepticism grows, while she’s aware that she’s becoming sexually attracted to the mysterious Lana, who says she’s 19 and living with a boyfriend not too far from the lake house. Just when Karen is about to end the search because she thinks she’s being conned, Lana finds the dog, and Karen lets her guard down because she thinks Lana might be an honest person after all.

It isn’t long before they exchange phone numbers, and Karen invites Lana over for a late-night visit. Lana opens up to Karen and says she’s an aspiring actress, and the boyfriend she lives with is neglectful and someone who might be emotionally abusive. At first, Karen pretends that she lives in the lake house, but Lana quickly figures out the truth when Karen’s ex-girlfriend “D” unexpectedly calls on the house phone. It’s clear that the movie wants us to see that Karen projects a lot of her own experiences onto Lana as a way to bond with her: the idea of being seduced by an older woman, having unfulfilled dreams, and even searching for a beloved dog.

As Karen and Lana spend more time together at the house, Lana gives Karen subtle hints that she’s attracted to her, and Karen tries to decide if she’s going to initiate a romantic relationship with Lana. One day, the sexual tension between the two gets even more complicated when a young man aptly named Beau (played by Will Brittain), who does yard work and other maintenance for the house, shows up to do some work, and he openly flirts with Lana. Much to Karen’s dismay, Lana flirts back with Beau. Sensing Karen’s jealousy, Lana flirts with Beau even more whenever Karen is around.

All of this might turn into a suspenseful love triangle, but the movie takes somewhat of a ridiculous turn in the last 20 minutes when Karen commits an act of revenge that’s straight out of a Lifetime movie. The motivations for her to commit such a risky act don’t ring true, considering viewers know at that point in the movie if Karen and Lana have a future as a couple.

Marrero gives a solid performance as someone having inner morality conflicts over getting romantically involved with a teenager (even if the teen says she’s over the legal age of consent), but Sweeney has to carry the heavier acting load as someone who may or may not be a manipulative Lolita type. Unfortunately, the teen seductress role has been done so many times before in better-written movies that Sweeney often falls short of the challenge to create a fascinating and memorable character. The Lana character is certainly capable of inspiring lust, but Sweeney’s portrayal of Lana lacks the necessary charm that would make it believable that Lana would inspire true love. By the time secrets are revealed in the movie, the ending of “Clementine” is so anti-climactic that people won’t care much about what happens to the characters after the movie ends.

UPDATE: Oscilloscope Laboratories will release “Clementine” in select U.S. virtual cinemas on May 8, 2020. The movie’s digital and VOD release date is July 14, 2020.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘The Place of No Words’

April 27, 2019

by Carla Hay

“The Place of No Words”

Directed by Mark Webber

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 27, 2019.

If you want to sit through a 95-minute family home movie with the production values of a drama-student program and artsy pretensions about death, then step right up and get ready to experience “The Place of No Words” from writer/director/star Mark Webber. The movie goes back and forth between parallel worlds—one world takes place in the present day, while the other is a fantasy realm inhabited by creatures that look like rejects from Spike Jonze’s 2009 movie “Where the Wild Things Are,” as well as fairies, witches and knights.

The film’s story centers on a family, played by Webber, his real-life wife (Australian actress Teresa Palmer) and their eldest child (Bodhi Palmer). All of their characters in the movie’s modern-day world have the same first names. In the movie’s fantasy world, Mark and son Bodhi (who’s 3 years old in the movie) are supposed to be Vikings of some sort, and they spend a lot of time walking together through woods, where they occasionally encounter the aforementioned mystical creatures. The fantasy world isn’t completely in the dark ages because Viking Mark uses his smartphone to take photos after a fairy named Esmerelda (played by Nicole Elizabeth Berger) leads him and Bodhi into a scenic area in the woods. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

Bodhi is an angelic-looking child, whose long blonde hair gives him a deliberately androgynous look. (Webber and Palmer have told the media that they’re raising their children as gender-neutral.) Bodhi is curious, intelligent and a little rebellious, and he adeptly handles what appears to be a lot of improvised dialogue. But when the movie’s press notes describe Bodhi as giving a “tour-de-force performance” in the film, that’s a sign that perhaps Webber is being too much a proud stage dad to notice that this movie is a self-indulgent bore that was obviously made to showcase his family instead of offering quality entertainment.

“The Place of No Words” attempts to answer a question that Bodhi asks in the beginning of the film: “Where do we go when we die?” It’s eventually revealed that modern-day Mark in the movie is a father who has the kind of illness (which is not named in the film) that requires him to be in a hospital bed with an IV tube stuck in his arm. There are enough scenes in the movie to signal that his illness is terminal, and everyone in the family is going through various emotions because of it.

The fantasy sequences are clearly a reflection of the way the real-world characters are coping with his illness. This might be a high concept, but the film’s cheesy production values (including 1980s-level visual effects and the fantasy-world costumes that look like they were borrowed from a high school) are distinctly lowbrow even for an average low-budget film. The film’s sloppy-cheap look might have been a deliberate choice since the movie tries really hard to be the type of cool-ironic indie film that will be praised as “edgy.” Instead, the “edgy” humor that the movie attempts sometimes goes into “Jackass” territory, such as a sequence whose details are too gross to mention here, but it involves farting, excrement and the use of the word “Uranus” as a pun.

Disgusting anus gimmicks aside, “The Place of No Words” has Mark and Bodhi’s relationship at the heart of the movie. Wife/mother Teresa is almost there as a sidekick to either play with Bodhi or comfort her husband. The supporting characters are somewhat forgettable, but that might be because the cheap costumes they have to wear are very distracting from what they say in the movie, which isn’t anything substantial. The aforementioned “Where the Wild Things Are” wannabe gnome-like creatures are a father-and-son team that some might interpret as being a weird monster manifestation of Mark and Bodhi as adults.

“The Place of No Words” isn’t the worst movie you could ever see, but its intentions to make a thoughtful commentary on death are so badly handled that it’s disappointing and might be offensive to some people. Any messages that the movie had about dying are overshadowed by the real intention of the movie, which seems to be director Webber casting his adorable son in the film to make him a star.

UPDATE: Gravitas Ventures will release “The Place of No Words” on digital and VOD on October 23, 2020.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Aamis’

April 26, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Aamis”

Directed by Bhaskar Hazarika

Assamese with subtitles

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 26, 2019.

[Editor’s note: After this movie premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, the movie’s title was changed from “Aamis” to “Ravening.”]

A married mother is seduced into an emotional love affair by a good-looking younger man—and things take a dark turn. It sounds like the plot of a Lifetime movie, but “Aamis” is not a predictable TV movie of the week—far from it. The twist in “Aamis” is so disturbing that it would be too freaky for Lifetime. It’s best for anyone seeing this movie to be blissfully unaware of the spoiler information that’s revealed in the second half of the story.

“Aamis,” which is set in modern-day India, is the first Assamese-language film to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. What can be told without any spoilers is that the secretive love affair in the movie starts out innocently enough. Nirmali “Niri” Saikia (played by Lima Das) is a successful pediatrician who’s in a fairly uneventful marriage to another doctor. Niri’s husband Dilip (played by Manash Das) is a workaholic who is frequently away from home on business, leaving Niri to raise their young son mostly on her own. There’s no indication that Dilip is a bad husband and father. He’s just become inattentive to Niri, and it’s led to stagnancy and boredom that Niri feels not just about her marriage about also about her life.

When she meets grad student Sumon Boruah (played by Arghadeep Baruah), Niri is ready for something new and exciting in her life. Sumon, who is a long-haired bohemian type, has an obvious crush on Niri, who initially plays it cool and basks in the attention that the younger man gives her. Sumon is researching food habits—specifically meat eating—as part of his Ph.D. studies. It’s an excuse for him to arrange foodie dates with Niri so that they can sample unusual types of meat. Sumon encourages Niri to be more adventurous in what she eats, and he makes the bold claim that any animal can be eaten under the right circumstances.

Niri, who has a prim and proper image, makes it clear to Sumon and others who ask about their relationship that she wants to keep it strictly platonic. But her lingering glances with Sumon and her increasing anticipation for their next meet-up tell otherwise. It isn’t long before Sumon and Niri open up to each other emotionally, but Niri won’t let Sumon cross the line for them to become lovers. Meanwhile, Sumon becomes increasingly uncomfortable with suppressing his growing feelings for Niri, and it no longer becomes enough for him to take her to restaurants. He begins giving her gifts—artfully made gourmet meals that he has prepared himself.

The gourmet food gifts are a turning point in Sumon and Niri’s relationship. And when Sumon tells Niri what he did to prepare the meals, their relationship reaches the point of no return. The last 15 minutes of “Aamis” deliver a knockout punch that will leave viewers feeling both nauseated and emotionally haunted over the choices made in the name of love.

UPDATE: Kamakhya Films released “Ravening” (formerly titled “Aamis”) in India on November 22, 2019.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Noah Land’

April 25, 2019

by Carla Hay

Ali Atay and Haluk Bilginer in "Noah Land" — Ali Atay and Haluk Bilginer in “Noah Land” (Photo by Federico Cesca)

“Noah Land” (“Nuh Tepesi”)

Directed by Cenk Erturk

Turkish with subtitles

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 25, 2019.

There’s a whole lot of daddy issues going on in “Noah Land,” a Turkish movie about family, death and religious conflict. The movie centers on Ibrahim (played by Haluk Bilginer), a senior citizen with a terminal illness, and Ömer (played by Ali Atay), who is Ibrahim’s son. Ibrahim’s dying wish is to be buried underneath a tree that he says he planted as a boy. The problem is that land where the tree was planted has become a holy site called the “Noah Tree.” The locals in the community don’t believe Ibrahim’s claim that he planted the tree. The villagers think the tree was planted by the biblical figure Noah after the Great Flood, so it would be sacrilegious to dig up the area surrounding the tree.

Regardless of who planted the tree, Ibrahim claims that his family still owns the land, so he has a right to be buried there. But the family had moved away more than 45 years ago, and there are no records to prove that the family legally owns the land. Ibrahim enlists Ömer to help him in his fight to be buried under the tree, and Ömer finds himself in heated conflicts with people who might go to extremes to protect the land.

Ömer is fraught with other emotional conflicts, because Ömer is still seething with resentment over his love/hate relationship with Ibrahim. The way Ömer remembers it, Ibrahim was often an absentee father when Ömer was growing up, and when Ibrahim was around to raise Ömer, he was overly critical of his son. Now that Ibrahim is asking for Ömer’s help in his last days before he dies, Ömer wants to be a good son, but he can’t help but feel that he’s being used by his father for selfish reasons.

And there are other daddy issues, because Ömer’s estranged wife (played by Hande Doğandemir) is pregnant, and he’s feeling anxiety about how he will be involved in his child’s life. Ömer fears that he might turn into an absentee father himself, so he makes an attempt to get back together with his wife, but she refuses, and says she wants to go through with their divorce. Ömer’s failed marriage and impending fatherhood have forced to him look at himself and his shortcomings—and he doesn’t like what he sees because he might be more like his father than he cares to admit. And he must ask himself, “Who is the real enemy?” Is it the community, his father, or is it himself?

Essentially, Ömer has to decide how far he’s willing to go to help his father, and how much he’s willing to forgive him for any real wrongdoings. Father and son spend quite a few scenes bickering back and forth, and they confront some of the issues from their past. “Noah Land” director Cenk Erturk, who also wrote the film’s screenplay, does an admirable job of portraying the messiness of complicated family issues.

Ömer is also realistically written as a flawed human being who’s having a hard time coping with what’s going on in his life—he’s often ill-tempered, petty, and understandably stressed out because he’s lost his wife and is about to lose his father. But all the arguing in the movie becomes a tad repetitive, and it’s dragged out for too long. “Noah Land” could have used some more editing to weed out some scenes that serve a redundant purpose and to tighten the suspense. The cast members, especially Atay, do a fine job in their roles. Some viewers might have a problem with the movie’s ending, but the actions taken at the conclusion of the film are authentic to the characters involved.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘The Gasoline Thieves’

April 25, 2019

by Carla Hay

Regina Reynoso and Eduardo Banda in "The Gasoline Thieves" — Regina Reynoso and Eduardo Banda in “The Gasoline Thieves”

“The Gasoline Thieves” (“Huachicolero”)

Directed by Edgar Nito

Spanish with subtitles

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 25, 2019.

There have been countless movies made about different crimes, but “The Gasoline Thieves” is probably the first dramatic film that you’ll see about a crime that is starting to get national attention in Mexico: thieves trespassing on land with Pemex pipelines, stealing gasoline from the pipes, and selling the gasoline on the black market. This riveting first feature-length film from director Edgar Nito takes a look at the crime from the perspective of a teenage boy named Lalo (played by Eduardo Bando), who gets involved with a local group of gasoline thieves and finds out that that he is in way over his head.

Even though the characters in “The Gasoline Thieves” are fictional, they are all entirely believable, and Nito has written them as characters with the sort of quiet desperation of people yearning for a better life. Lalo is actually a good kid, who loves and respects his single mother, who lives with him in a ramshackle building. He also has a crush on a fellow student named Ana (played by Regina Reynoso), whom he hopes to impress enough to convince her to be his girlfriend.

Like many people who turn to a life of crime, Lalo is struggling financially, and he is desperate for cash. He plans to steal temporarily just so he can get enough money to help his mother and have enough cash left over to woo Ana with dates and gifts. As a gift for Ana, he has his eye on the latest cell phone that he won’t be able to afford unless he can come up with the cash quickly.

Joining Lalo in the thieving activities is Rulo (played by Pedro Joaquin), a tough older teen who has less of a conscience than Lalo does. Unlike Lalo, Rulo is more comfortable with being a criminal, and there’s the sense that Rulo is in “thug life” for the long haul. Leading the group of local gasoline thieves is Don Gil (played by Fernando Becerril), a senior citizen who acts almost like a grandfather to Lalo when Lalo is recruited to steal gasoline.

Much of the movie shows Lalo and his accomplices working together as a coordinated team to commit the thefts. Lalo essentially begins to live a secret double life—harmless student by day, reckless thief at night. He also makes tentative steps to get Ana to show interest in dating him. Ana plays it coy by keeping him in the “friend zone” while still flirting with him.

Meanwhile, the local police are investigating the gasoline thefts and are starting to close in on the gang. When Lalo finally reaches a decision about when he’s going to quit being a criminal, it has a ripple effect that spreads almost as quickly as a fire accelerated by gasoline. “The Gasoline Thieves” director Nito (who co-wrote the movie’s screenplay) has a flair for ramping up the suspense in key moments, whether through well-placed camera angles or how he weaves Carlo Ayhllón’s gripping score into each scene. The results are a haunting story that will make viewers wonder how many anonymous gasoline thieves are out there in real life who are like Lalo—fooling themselves into thinking it’s a harmless crime, and finding out the hard way that it’s not so easy to quit.