Eric Dane Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Americana’ (2025), starring Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser and Halsey

August 20, 2025

by Carla Hay

Paul Walter Hauser, Sydney Sweeney and Halsey in “Americana” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Americana” (2025)

Directed by Tony Tost

Culture Representation: Taking place in South Dakota and in Wyoming, the comedy/drama film “Americana” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Native Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Several people become entangled in a violent power struggle to own a valuable Lakota ghost shirt.

Culture Audience: “Americana” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and 21st century Westerns that mix violent action with serious drama and absurdist comedy.

Gavin Maddox Bergman and Zahn McClarnon in “Americana” (Photo by Ursula Coyote/Courtesy of Lionsgate)

If 1994’s “Pulp Fiction” and 1996’s “Fargo were put in a blender and fermented in South Dakota and Wyoming, it would be the lumpy comedy/drama “Americana.” Halsey stands out in this erratic story about people fighting over a Lakota ghost shirt. “American” is very derivative in some ways but has enough unique elements and engaging performances to be watchable for people who don’t mind seeing an uneven Western with a second half that’s better than the first half.

Written and directed by Tony Tost, “Americana” is his feature-film directorial debut and had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film and TV Festival. The movie (which was filmed in New Mexico) is told in five chapters, with events shown in non-chronological order in the first half of the movie. “Americana” features a group of characters, most of whom are strangers to each other, who become entangled in each other’s lives—for better or for worse.

It takes a while before “Americana” find its best groove because the characters start off being very one-dimensional. The movie begins in an unnamed small town in South Dakota, where Amanda “Mandy” Starr (played by Halsey) is living in a trailer with pre-teen Calvin “Cal” Starr (played by Gavin Maddox Bergman), who’s about 9 or 10 years old. Cal is an eccentric child who is being raised as Mandy’s brother. Also living in the trailer is Mandy’s abusive boyfriend Dillon MacIntosh (played by Eric Dane), who complains in the first scene that Cal is living with them.

Dillon (who’s about 20 years older than Mandy) owns the trailer and car that he and Mandy are using. It’s the first indication that Mandy has fallen on hard times and is financially dependent on Dillon. Cal is fixated on pretending that he is the reincarnation of Sitting Bull, the Hunkpapa Lakota chief who died in 1890 and led a resistance against U.S. government policies that were harmful to Native Americans.

Cal never wavers from acting as if he’s Sitting Bull. Why is Cal having an identity crisis? The answer is revealed later in the movie, which implies that Cal knows a secret that other people don’t want him to know.

Cal is outside when Mandy suddenly runs out of the trailer and tells Cal that they have to leave immediately. She says Dillon is unconscious because she smashed his head with a weapon. (A flashback scene later reveals that Mandy used a hammer for this attack.) Mandy is fleeing the scene by taking Dillon’s car.

Cal refuses to leave because, as Sitting Bull, he says his land is here. Mandy is in a frustrated panic and is in a rush to leave, with or without Cal. When she sees that Cal won’t leave with her, she tells him to go to the Whitleys’ house nearby because the Whitleys can take care of Cal. It’s presumed that the Whitleys are neighbors who know Mandy and Cal. Mandy then speeds away and leaves Cal to fend for himself.

“Americana” then shows the rest of the characters who make up this tangled web. Lefty Ledbetter (played by Paul Walter Hauser), who is actually right-handed, is a socially awkward and lovelorn military veteran who wants to find a nice woman to marry. He “falls in love” very quickly and his marriage proposals get rejected. How quickly does Lefty fall in love”?

In one of the movie’s first scenes with Lefty, he asks a woman named Brittany Gable (played by Austin Boyce) to marry him after they’ve been dating each other for two weeks. Brittany says no because even though she thinks Lefty is a nice guy, they don’t know each other well. Brittany immediately breaks up with Lefty after he proposes.

Lefty is a regular customer at George’s 50s Diner, where Penny Jo (played by Sydney Sweeney) is a server. Penny Jo is shy and sweet. She’s an aspiring singer whose idol is Dolly Parton. Penny Jo’s dream is to move to Nashville to become a country music singer, but she doesn’t have the money and she’s self-conscious about her speech impediment that often makes it hard for her to form words in a sentence.

Lefty and Penny Jo become platonic friends because they both feel like misfits in this world and haven’t had much luck when it comes to dating. Even though Penny Jo is physically attractive and gets attention from men, she is very introverted and seems to be afraid of having an active social life. Penny Jo lives with her strict and cranky grandmother Tish Poplin (played by Harriet Sansom Harris), who scolds Penny Jo for playing the guitar at night in Penny Jo’s bedroom. Tish thinks Penny Jo is foolish for wanting to be a country music star and discourages Penny Jo from pursuing this dream.

One day at the diner, Penny Jo observes three customers who are seated at the same table for a meeting. It’s a flashback scene showing Dillon, his younger crony Reggie Dale (played by Jasper Keen) and a museum owner named Roy Lee Dean (played by Simon Rex), as they concoct a scheme to steal a rare Lakota ghost shirt from a wealthy artifact collector named Pendleton Duvall (played by Toby Huss), who lives in South Dakota. Various people name prices of what they’d be willing to pay for in the sale of the shirt. Roy, for example, is willing to pay $500,000 for it so he could possibly resell it on the black market.

Some other people want the shirt for different reasons. The Red Thunder Society, which is described by its members as a Lakota Nation version of the Blank Panthers, also wants possession of the shirt, which was originally stolen from the Lakota Nation many years ago. Red Thunder Society leader Ghost Eye (played by Zahn McClarnon) and his main sidekick Hank Spears (played by Derek Hinkey) have prominent roles in the story.

It’s enough to say that the ghost shirt is stolen from Pendleton. And several people try to gain possession of the shirt, with deadly consequences. At one point in the movie, a desperate Mandy goes back to her family’s home in rural Wyoming. It’s revealed that she’s the prodigal daughter of a very religious clan led by Mandy’s father Hiram Starr (played by Christopher Kriesa), a racist and sexist patriarch who expects the women in the family to act and dress like farm women who live in the 1820s, not the 2020s.

Also living in the oppressive Starr household are Mandy’s mother/Hiram’s wife Grace Starr (played by Augusta Allen-Jones) and Mandy’s sisters Abigail Starr (played by Rhiannon Frazier), Florence Starr (played by Kenzie Shea Ross) and Calliope Starr (played by Emily Perry), whose ages range from late teens to early 20s. It’s during this tension-filled family reunion that Halsey has her best scenes, as the character of Mandy is revealed to be more than the self-centered rebel than she first appears to be.

Of course, not everyone will make it out alive when the inevitable gunfight showdown occurs. The trailer for “Americana” already reveals a lot about the movie that should have been left out of the trailer and left to be surprises for people who watch “Americana” for the first time. However, there are some worthwhile parts of the movie that aren’t in the trailer.

Because Mandy is the most complex character in “Americana,” the movie showcases Halsey’s impressive acting range, as she becomes the scene-scene star of the show. Not so great are the movie’s cheap-looking wigs that look like they’re from 1981: Sometimes, Mandy’s hair looks like she’s a Joan Jett wannabe. Other times, Mandy’s hair looks like Paul Stanley from Kiss.

Sweeney puts in a good performance as the stammering Penny Jo, who becomes more confident as the story goes along. However, you never forget that Sweeney is acting, whereas Halsey’s performance is more natural. Although “Americana” is marketed around Sweeney’s image and the Penny Jo character, Mandy has the most interesting story and is the real leading character.

All of the other well-known cast members in “Americana” are perfectly adequate in their roles but have played these types of characters many times before on screen: Hauser as the sad-sack outsider, Dane as the nasty criminal, Rex as a sleazy hustling/con man type. It doesn’t help that he characters of Lefty, Dane and Rex are underdeveloped. By the end of the movie, you still won’t know much about these characters outside of how they got mixed up in wanting the ghost shirt.

“Americana” gets a little awkward when it tries to bludgeon viewers over the head with messaging about anti-colonialism and pro-feminism. Cal’s impersonation of Sitting Bull is meant to be a symbol of misguided cultural appropriation, but sometimes the tone of Cal’s scenes are a little too preachy to drive the message home with the intended satirical edge that they need. Similarly, there’s a shootout scene where a man scoffs at the idea of a woman using a gun. And as soon as he makes this derogatory remark, you know what’s going to happen to him.

“Americana” isn’t as witty or funny as it could have been. Some of the characters could have been written better. But if viewers are patient enough to watch the movie past the halfway mark, the story improves and becomes more intriguing. The ending of “Americana” might seem like a tonal mismatch, but it should be satisfying for anyone who’s looking for some humanity amid the carnage and the chaos.

Lionsgate released “Americana” in U.S. cinemas on August 15, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on September 16, 2025. “Americana” will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 28, 2025.

Review: ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die,’ starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence

June 4, 2024

by Carla Hay

“Bad Boys: Ride or Die”

Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah

Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in Miami, the action film “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” features a racially diverse cast of characters (African American, white and Latin) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Best friends/Miami cop partners Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett become wanted criminals when they try to clear the name of their deceased police captain, who has been accused of colluding with major drug cartels.

Culture Audience: “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the “Bad Boys” franchise; stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence; and uninspired action films about cops and criminals.

“Bad Boys: Ride or Die” is a mindless and formulaic mush of a sequel that has more cliché-ridden plot holes than the bullet holes in the movie’s unimaginative fight scenes. The movie’s jokes are stale and idiotic. After 2020’s “Bad Boys for Life” took some bold risks that reinvigorated the franchise, the disapponting and lazy “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” shows that the franchise is running out of steam.

Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (who also directed “Bad Boys for Life”), “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” is the fourth movie in the “Bad Boys” franchise. The “Bad Boys” movie series began with 1995’s “Bad Boys,” followed by 2003’s “Bad Boys II.” Chris Bremner, Joe Carnahan and Peter Craig wrote the “Bad Boys for Life” screenplay, which had several unexpected twists and turns and realistic character developments. Will Beall and Bremner wrote the derivative “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” screenplay, which is a cringeworthy copycat of many other “buddy cop duo” films where the two people in the central duo have opposite personalities.

In “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” longtime best friends and Miami Police Department partners—cocky daredevil Mike Lowery (played by Will Smith) and constant worrier Marcus Burnett (played by Martin Lawrence)—are reduced to spewing a lot of very unfunny jokes, as they have become more buffoonish than ever before. And that’s saying a lot, considering that “Bad Boys” and “Bad Boys II” weren’t good movies either. All of the villains and supporting characters in “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” are cartoonish and/or hollow.

At the beginning of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” Mike and Marcus go through major life events— marriage for Mike and a heart attack for Marcus—that get shoved aside in the story and only brought back as a punchline or to do something incredibly unoriginal. In fact, everything in “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” can be easily predicted within the first 20 minutes of the film. What makes it worse is that viewers have to sit through a lot of moronic banter and awkward jokes to get to the inevitable bombastic and silly ending.

Near the beginning of the movie, Mike (who was a playboy bachelor in the first three “Bad Boys” movies) gets married to his physical therapist Christine (played by Melanie Liburd), who makes her first “Bad Boy” franchise appearance in this movie. Christine, who is generally pleasant but has a vague personality, is seen for the first time at the wedding. At Mike and Christine’s wedding, it’s briefly mentioned that Christine helped Mike recover from the bullet wounds that he got in the events that took place in the “Bad Boys for Life” movie.

In other words, viewers don’t get to see the relationship that Mike and Christine had before they got married. And even after they get married, Christine is not seen for most of the movie until she’s brought back for a stereotypical “damsel in distress” plot turn that is very much a rehash of the “damsel in distress” plot turns in the first two “Bad Boys” movies. Christine isn’t the only “damsel in distress” in “Bad Boys: Ride or Die.”

Marcus, who is a happilly married family man, has been under doctor’s orders to have a healthy diet. The movie’s opening sequence (whose biggest “jokes” were already revealed in the trailer) shows Mike and Marcus in a rush to get Mike’s wedding. Mike is driving, while Marcus is in the front passenger seat. Mike is scolding Marcus because the two of them are running late, and Mike blames Marcus for this tardiness.

Marcus insists on stopping to get some ginger ale at a convenience store because he says he isn’t feeling very well. Mike reluctantly relents and tells Marcus that Marcus has 90 seconds to be in and out of the convenience store. Marcus decides to get some junk food. (A certain candy brand is said and shown enough times in the movie, it’s obvious product placement shilling. This review won’t mention the name of this candy brand.)

Just as Marcus is about to pay for these items, a lone gunman (played by James Lee Thomas) holds up the sales clerk (played by Enoch King) in an attempted robbery. Of course, Mike happens to walk in during this fake-looking robbery where the thief just stands there, as Mike scolds Marcus for buying junk food, and then Marcus and Mike (who identify themselves as police officers) crack some stupid jokes. Mike then shoots and injures the robber.

Marcus and Mike then irresponsibly leave the store in a hurry, so the clerk has to fend for himself. Right before these two clownish cops leave, Marcus tells the store clerk to call 911. The clerk says in astonishment, “Aren’t you cops?” If you think this is hilarious comedy, then “Bad Boy: Ride or Die” is the movie for you.

At the wedding reception for Mike and Christine, you can almost do a countdown to when something goes wrong. It’s almost a requirement in comedies with a wedding scene to have a major disruption at the wedding. In this case, Marcus (who gorges on sweets and alcohol at the wedding reception) has a heart attack when he’s on the dance floor.

During this heart attack, Marcus has his first vision of deceased Captain Conrad Howard (played by Joe Pantoliano), who (mild spoiler alert) was killed in “Bad Boys for Life” and who was the respected supervisor of Marcus and Mike. Marcus’ visions of Captain Howard happen throughout the movie and usually show Captain Howard talking to Marcus and giving him trite advice. During the heart attack, Marcus sees Captain Howard commenting to him about Marcus potentially dying: “It’s not your time.”

At the hospital where he’s recovering, Marcus has an epiphany where he decides he will no longer live his life in fear. He also starts to think he can’t die. Unfortunately, Marcus has this “immortal messiah complex” rant while on the hospital rooftop and while wearing nothing but a hospital gown. Mike coaxes him down from the roof in another tiresome scene that strains to get laughs.

After Marcus is discharged from the hospital and goes home, he finds out that his wife Theresa (played by Tasha Smith) has hidden food items from him that have a high percentage of salt, sugar or fat. (Smith replaces Theresa Randle, who had the role of Theresa in the first three “Bad Boys” movies.) Marcus is annoyed and starts ranting about not being allowed to eat what he wants. Again, this is not funny at all in this dreadful movie, which barely shows Marcus’ personal life, compared to the first three “Bad Boys” movies.

The rest of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” is a convoluted mess that involves a corrupt former cop named James McGrath (played by Eric Dane) framing the dead Captain Howard to make it look like Captain Howard was getting paid large sums of money to work with drug cartels. The movie shows a ridiculous way how this framing happens when Captain Howard’s bank accounts are altered after his death. There is nothing interesting, clever or unusual about the utterly generic McGrath villain.

Mike points out to investigators that it would be illogical for Captain Howard to put all that illegal money in a bank account that could easily be traced to Captain Howard. Still, the dimwitted “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” doesn’t follow this logic and has law enforcement investigators ignore that all these suspicious activities are happening after Captain Howard’s death. Captain Howard is then publicly named as a law enforcement “mole,” suspected of colluding with drug cartels for years.

Mike’s ex-girlfriend Rita Secada (played by Paola Núñez), who is now the supervisor for Mike and Marcus, is leading the investigation and thinks that Captain Howard is guilty. Mike and Marcus vehemently disagree and then set out to prove that Captain Howard is not guilty of these accusations. It leads to the obvious “cops go rogue” storyline that has been in too many other cop buddy movies.

Mike and Marcus get help from three characters who were first introduced in “Bad Boys for Life.” These allies are weapons expert Kelly (played by Vanessa Hudgens); tech expert Dorn (played by Alexander Ludwig); and Mike’s estranged young adult son Armando Aretas (played by Jacob Scipio), who was born from a brief relationship that Marcus had with a woman who became a crime boss. The personalities of Kelly, Mike and Armando in “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” are watered down considerably, compared to how they were in “Bad Boys for Life.”

Mike met Kelly and Dorn when they all used to be in an elite law-enforcement unit called Advanced Miami Metro Operations (AMMO), which was led by Rita in “Bad Boys for Life.” Armando is in prison for killing Captain Howard. However, things happen where Armando is broken out of prison and ends up becoming a high-octane fight warrior alongside his father Mike. Yes, the movie really is this ludicrous.

All of the supporting characters in “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” are very underdeveloped. Rita is currently dating a slick, high-profile attorney named Lockwood (played by Ioan Gruffudd), who is a political candidate to be mayor of Miami. Captain Howard’s daughter Judy Howard (played by Rhea Seehorn) is a U.S. marshal who’s hell-bent on getting revenge on Armando.

Judy is a single mother to a teenager named Callie (played Quinn Hemphill), who gets caught in the mayhem in exactly the way you think it will happen. John Salley, DJ Khaled, Tiffany Haddish and Michael Bay (the director of the first two “Bad Boys” movies) have useless cameo roles in the movie. And the character who’s behind a “surprise doublecross” is so obvious and easily predicted, it shouldn’t be a surprise at all.

Much of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” is like a garish video game with awful dialogue. The filmmakers mistakenly think that Mike and Marcus shouting bad jokes should automatically make these jokes funny. It doesn’t. “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” is like being stuck in a misguided, swerving car with loud and obnoxious people, intoxicated by their own horrible jokes and failing to see where they are going. By the time “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” is over, viewers might think twice about getting on another “Bad Boys” journey when so much of it turns into an irredeemable wreck.

Columbia Pictures will release “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” in U.S. cinemas on June 7, 2024, with a sneak preview in U.S. cinemas on June 5, 2024.

Review: ‘Dangerous Waters’ (2023), starring Odeya Rush, Eric Dane, Saffron Burrows and Ray Liotta

November 3, 2023

by Carla Hay

Odeya Rush in “Dangerous Waters” (Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media)

“Dangerous Waters” (2023)

Directed by John Barr

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Atlantic Ocean near the Dominican Republic, the action film “Dangerous Waters” features a predominantly white cast (with a few Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A 19-year-old woman goes on a boating trip with her widowed mother and the mother’s new boyfriend, but things go horribly wrong after a violent invasion on the boat, and the daughter finds out some terrible secrets.

Culture Audience: “Dangerous Waters” will appeal mainly to people who don’t mind watching tawdry “women in peril” movies that have a lot of unrealistic scenes.

Saffron Burrows, Eric Dane and Odeya Rush in “Dangerous Waters” (Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media)

With horrendous film editing, “Dangerous Waters” (which is about a boat vacation that goes very wrong) has too many plot holes that are bigger than the ocean where much of this misguided story takes place. Characters are shown in deadly danger in one scene, and then in the next scene, they’re no longer in danger, with no explanation for how they got out of the predicament. The movie’s protagonist also has a showdown at the end of the film that looks like a rushed and badly conceived part of the story.

Directed by John Barr and written by Mark Jackson, “Dangerous Waters” has too many unbelievable scenarios to be taken seriously, but the movie desperately wants to be taken seriously. There’s no hint of irony, satire or comedy in the film. It’s just an erratically paced movie that alternates between dull “stranded in the ocean” scenes and fake-looking action scenes.

In “Dangerous Waters,” a woman has to fight off a lot of villains in order to escape from this hellish situation. The movie’s protagonist is 19-year-old Rose (played by Odeya Rush), who lives with her widowed mother Alma (played by Saffron Burrows), who works as a server at a local restaurant. Very little is told about Rose in this movie, except that she’s taking a gap year before going to college. Rose’s father, who was a decorated soldier in the U.S. military, passed away when she was very young. He died in combat when he was “blown up in Iraq,” according to what Rose says in the movie.

The movie doesn’t say where Rose and Alma live in the United States, but it’s close enough to the Caribbean, where Rose and Alma intend to sail on a fateful boating trip that is scheduled to be a 10-day vacation for them. (The movie was filmed on location, in and near the Dominican Republic.) Alma and Rose are going on this trip with Alma’s new boyfriend Derek Stipes (played by Eric Danes), a former police officer who is now a private security consultant. Alma and Derek have been dating each other for about a month. Derek owns the small sailboat that they will be taking for this trip.

Rose is wary about this trip because Alma doesn’t know Derek very well, but Alma convinces Rose to go on this vacation with her and Derek. There isn’t much to do on this boat but lounge around. Derek and Alma act as if they’re on a romantic couple’s trip, which makes Rose feel out of place. Expect to see Rose pouting a lot and having a hard time trusting Derek, who might as well be wearing a T-shirt that says, “I’ve Got Some Dirty Secrets.”

All of this sounds like the plot of a Lifetime movie. However, the main differences between “Dangerous Waters” and a Lifetime movie is that “Dangerous Waters” has graphic violence and explicit adult language, and the quality of filmmaking is much worse than a Lifetime movie. The atrocious film editing in “Dangerous Waters” jumps from scene to scene, often with no real continuity and with unexplained gaps in the story.

The first third of “Dangerous Waters” is a somewhat boring depiction of Rose, Alma and Derek having awkward conversations on the boat. At one point, Derek sharply swerves the boat, causing Alma (who is on deck) to fall into the water. Alma falls while holding Rose’s cell phone, which drops in the ocean. Derek rescues Alma, which makes Rose a little more trusting of Derek. But viewers are supposed to wonder: “Was Derek’s sharp swerve really an accident, or was it deliberate?”

While Derek was rescuing Alma, Rose went below deck to look for a blanket that Alma could use after emerging from the cold water. Rose sees in a trunk that Derek has an AR-15 rifle. As soon as she finds this gun, you just know this gun is going to be used.

And sure enough, Rose asks Derek if she can shoot the gun. He says yes, with Alma’s reluctant permission. It turns out that Rose is very skilled at shooting guns. Alma says that Rose has somehow inherited the gun-shooting skills that Rose’s father had. Rose is going to need those gun skills.

The middle of the movie is about a boat invasion and Rose being stranded in the ocean. The trip becomes a catastrophe when two men on a speedboat show up at night and suddenly invade Derek’s boat. It’s a violent robbery where Alma and Derek are attacked while Rose stays hidden out of sight from the attackers, who don’t know that she on the boat. The boat invaders are looking for something that Derek has, but Derek denies that he has it.

These invaders obviously know Derek and don’t believe him. When the invaders find what they’re looking for, they punish Derek by throwing him overboard. Alma is shot by the invaders, and she doesn’t survive. After the attackers leave, Rose finds Derek still alive in the ocean, when a barely conscious Derek floats near the boat. This isn’t spoiler information, since the trailer for “Dangerous Waters” gives away about 85% of the plot.

Before the invaders leave, they set fire to the boat, not knowing that someone (Rose) on the boat is alive and hiding inside. Rose uses a fire extinguisher to try to put out the flames, which are everywhere. (This part of the movie is also in the “Dangerous Waters” trailer.) You don’t have to be a firefighter to know that one fire extinguisher isn’t going to be enough to put out this raging blaze.

However, the movie abruptly cuts to the next day to show that the fire has vanished. One of the most idiotic things about “Dangerous Waters” is how the movie never bothers to explain how the fire got extinguished. Rose is stuck on a boat that doesn’t look as burned as it should be, considering how large this fire was. Rose can’t call for help because the boat’s communication equipment is burned and inoperable.

Rose also doesn’t show any signs that her health was negatively affected by smoke inhalation. Other moronic scenarios in the movie: There’s more than one occasion where Derek is presumed dead but then he shows up alive. “Dangerous Waters” gets more ridiculous, as it tries to make Rose some type of combat warrior heroine.

“Dangerous Waters” is the final movie that actor Ray Liotta filmed. At the age of 67, he died in his sleep from several health issues in 2022, while he was making this embarrassing flop movie. Liotta doesn’t appear until the last third of “Dangerous Waters,” where he has the role of the movie’s chief villain: a sex trafficker named The Captain. The acting performances in “Dangerous Waters” are mediocre but made worse by the awful screenplay. There are no real surprises in “Dangerous Waters,” which just turns into a mindless mishmash of fight scenes which look as phony as the movie’s failed attempt to look like a feminist movie.

Brainstorm Media released “Dangerous Waters” in U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on October 13, 2023.

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

February 12, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Redeeming Love”

Directed by D.J. Caruso

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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