Jackie Earle Haley Archives

Review: ‘The Retirement Plan’ (2023), starring Nicolas Cage, Ashley Greene, Ron Perlman, Jackie Earle Haley, Grace Byers, Ernie Hudson and Lynn Whitfield

September 19, 2023

by Carla Hay

Nicolas Cage in “The Retirement Plan” (Photo courtesy of Falling Forward Films)

“The Retirement Plan” (2023)

Directed by Tim Brown

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in the Cayman Islands, the comedy action film “The Retirement Plan” has a white and African American cast of characters representing the working-class, and middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A seemingly mild-mannered retiree is really a former assassin for the U.S. government, and he has to rescue his granddaughter when she is kidnapped as part of an elaborate theft of a classified flash drive.

Culture Audience: “The Retirement Plan” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Nicolas Cage and Cage’s action movies that follow a familiar but tired formula.

Ronnie Hughes, Ashley Greene and Ron Perlman in “The Retirement Plan” (Photo courtesy of Falling Forward Films)

“The Retirement Plan” isn’t nearly as funny as it’s hyped up to be. Nicolas Cage portrays a world-weary ex-government assassin caught up in a hunt for a flash drive. He looks bored for at least half of this predictable action flick. Viewers will be bored too.

Written and directed by Tim Brown, “The Retirement Plan” certainly has a well-known cast that might attract viewers to this comedic action movie. However, the increasingly convoluted plot starts to wear thin, while the so-called jokes are very stale. If you think it’s hilarious to see Cage (or hs stunt double) running around in a bad wig in predictable chase and fight scenes, then “The Retirement Plan” might be your kind of movie.

“The Retirement Plan” has a story where several people are trying to get possession of the flash drive that has “powerful secrets” that can make people rich. The beginning of the movie shows three people stealing this flash drive and then getting shot at while making their getaway in a car. The three people are Ashley (played by Ashley Greene); her husband Jimmy (played by Jordan Johnson-Hinds); and Jimmy’s friend Mitch (played by Jerry Zavadlaw), who gets shot and dies as a result.

With Mitch dead, Ashley and Jimmy are now concerned for the safety of their daughter Sarah (played by Thalia Campbell), who’s about 11 or 12 years old. Jimmy tells Ashley to take Sarah to the Cayman Islands, where Ashley’s estranged, widower father Matt (played by Cage) is living as a retiree. “The Retirement Plan” was filmed on location in the Cayman Island. Jimmy is certain that no one will be looking for Ashley and Sarah in the Cayman Islands.

But there would be no “Retirement Plan” movie if Jimmy was right about Ashley and Sarah being safe in the Cayman Islands. A crime thug named Donnie (played by Jackie EarleHaley) is looking for the flash drive sends two of his goons—Bobo (played by Ron Perlman) and General (played by Ronnie Hughes)—to the Cayman Islands. Matt is about to get his life turned upside down.

Donnie has to answer to a crime boss named Hector Garcia (played by Grace Byers), who owns the flash drive and tells Donnie that Donnie has 24 hours to find the flash drive. And there are federal agents named Fitzsimmons (played by Joel David Moore) and Drisdale (played by Lynn Whitfield) who are also looking for the flash drive. Matt eventually finds out about the flash drive too. A running “joke” in the movie is that Matt is so behind-the-times, he keeps calling the flash drive a “disk.”

Ashley gets detained by Bobo and General on the way to the Cayman Islands, but Ashley anticipated this might happen and arranged for Sarah to take a separate plane trip by herself from Miami to the Cayman Islands. Sarah meets her grandfather Matt for the first time and has a lot of questions that he doesn’t really want to answer.

One thing that Sarah and Ashley eventually find out is that Matt is a former government assassin, who still has his combat skills. Predictably, Sarah gets kidnapped during this mess. Matt comes to the rescue and gets help from a pal named Joseph (played by Ernie Hudson), who also has combat skills. Many chase scenes and fight scenes ensue. The movie’s action scenes have slapstick tone that doesn’t work very well when the jokes in the movie fall flat. The acting performances in the movie are mostly unimpressive.

Most audiences already know that Cage has made a lot of bad movies in his career. “The Retirement Plan” isn’t the worst of Cage’s movies, because there are some moments in “The Retirement Plan” that can be considered entertaining to some viewers. However, these moments don’t add up to a completely enjoyable film. Instead on laughing at a lot of the intended comedy, many viewers will probably be cringing.

Falling Forward Films released “The Retirement Plan” in U.S. cinemas on September 15, 2023.

Review: ‘Hypnotic’ (2023), starring Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, JD Pardo, Hala Finley, Dayo Okeniyi, Jeff Fahey, Jackie Earle Haley and William Fichtner

May 12, 2023

by Carla Hay

Ben Affleck and Alice Braga in “Hypnotic” (Photo courtesy of Hypnotic Film Holdings LLC/Ketchup Entertainment)

“Hypnotic” (2023)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Culture Representation: Taking place in Austin, Texas, the sci-fi action flick “Hypnotic” features a white and Latino cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A police detective, who is searching for his missing 10-year-old daughter, encounters dangerous “hypnotics”: people with the ability to control other people’s minds through hypnotism.

Culture Audience: “Hypnotic” will appeal primarily to fans of star Ben Affleck, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and convoluted sci-movies that are weak imitations of other sci-fi movies about alternate realities.

William Fitchner in “Hypnotic” (Photo courtesy of Hypnotic Film Holdings LLC/Ketchup Entertainment)

No amount of hypnotism can convince viewers with basic quality standards that “Hypnotic” is a good movie. Ben Affleck’s robotic acting makes this dull and witless sci-fi mystery even worse. One of the most irritating things about this misfire of a movie is how it contradicts and undermines the story’s world building many times with avoidable plot holes—just for the sake of adding illogical plot twists.

Directed by Robert Rodriguez (who co-wrote the abysmal “Hypnotic” screenplay with Max Borenstein), “Hypnotic” was filmed on location in Austin, Texas. The movie begins with a scene of Austin police detective Danny Rourke (played by Affleck) in a psychological therapy session in his therapist’s office. Danny is remembering a very painful experience in his life: the day his daughter Minnie disappeared while he was with her in a park.

His unnamed therapist (played by Nikki Dixon) says to Danny: “Park? That’s what you drift to, isn’t it? That park. That day. Take me back there.” A flashback to three years earlier shows 7-year-old Minnie (played by Ionie Nieves) and Danny in the park. Minnie asks Donnie to re-braid her pigtails, which have become slightly loosened. Danny tells Minnie as he touches her hair: “This is not a braid. This is a maze only your mother can solve.” Get used to this cringeworthy dialogue, because “Hypnotic” is full of it.

The flashback shows that Danny was watching Minnie play in the park when he took his eyes off of her for only a few seconds. And then she was gone. Before she disappeared, Danny remembered seeing a suspicious-looking young man lurking nearby. This suspect is 18-year-old Lyle Terry (played by Evan Vines), who was arrested on suspicion of abduction, even though there’s no evidence to tie him to the crime. Lyle has proclaimed his innocence.

Back in the therapist’s office in the present day, the therapist asks Danny if Danny thinks he needs to take a leave of absence from his job. Danny replies that work is “the only thing keeping me sane.” And where is Minnie’s mother? That information is revealed later in the movie. Minnie is now 10 years old (played by Hala Finley) and remains missing.

After leaving the therapist’s office, Danny is given a car ride by his cop partner Randy Nicks (payed by JD Pardo), who prefers to be called Nicks. Danny finds out from Nicks that two Bank of Boston branches in Texas (one bank in the city of Houston, and the other bank in Amarillo) experienced “inside job” armed robberies. The thieves didn’t steal any cash but took just one safe deposit box from each bank. As Danny and Nicks drive in their patrol car, Nicks plays a voice mail recording of a woman calling in an anonymous tip that a bank robbery is in progress at a bank in Austin. The tipster says that robbers plan to take the bank’s safe deposit box number 23.

Danny and Nicks are next seen with some colleagues outside the bank and doing a stakeout from a surveillance van. This van apparently has the surrounding area “bugged” with recording devices, because everyone in the van can hear many people’s conversations outside. On a bench outside, a man wearing a business suit sits down next to an unnamed woman (played by Bonnie Discepolo, also known as Bonnie Kathleen Ryan), who is also in a business suit.

The man, whose name is later identified as Lev Dellrayne (played by William Fitchner), looks intensely at the woman and tells her that it’s a very hot day. The woman then gets up and walks around as if she’s in a trance. She repeats out loud that the weather is so hot. And then she takes off her jacket and blouse, all while looking dazed and wandering out in the street where there’s traffic. Her wandering causes multiple car accidents.

Meanwhile, Dellrayne has gone into the bank, because this mystery man is up to no good and is about to be involved in robbing the bank. Danny leaps into action and goes into the bank too, even though his co-workers don’t want Danny to do that because they think it will disrupt their sting operation. Inside the bank, Dellryane has used hypnotic mind control of a bank teller (played by Natalie Garcia), by telling her that it’s the bank’s closing time in the late afternoon. It should come as no surprise that this bank teller is about to be an unwitting accomplice to this bank robbery.

Danny quickly convinces an unsuspecting bank manager (played by Lawrence Varnado) that Danny wants to open a safe deposit box at this branch. While in the safe deposit room, Danny manages to pickpocket the safe deposit keys from the manager without the manager knowing. The manager leaves the room to look for the keys, giving Danny enough time to open safe deposit box number 23. Inside the box, he finds a photo of Minnie, with these words written on the front of the photo: “Find Lev Dellrayne.”

The rest of “Hypnotic” shows action scenes and plot pivots that get more ridiculous as the story drones on in a stiff and awkward manner. The movie’s visual effects are nothing special. During his investigation, Danny encounters a psychic named Diana Cruz (played by Alice Braga); a technology expert/conspiracy theorist named River (played by Dayo Okeniyi); and an acquaintance of Diana’s named Jeremiah (played by Jackie Earle Haley), whose performance in the movie is a quick cameo that gets less than five minutes of screen time. And there are two people from Danny’s past named Carl (played by Jeff Fahey) and Thelma (played by Sandy Avila), who suddenly show up in one of the movie’s poorly conceived plot twists.

Affleck’s subpar acting looks like he’s bored and disinterested for most of the movie. If the lead actor looks like he doesn’t really care about giving a good performance, why should viewers care about the movie? Braga is the only principal cast member who makes a consistent effort to show some emotional range for her “Hypnotic” character. Finley is adequate but is not in the movie long enough for viewers to get to know her Minnie character. Everyone else in the cast has a role as a hollow character with no personal backstory.

“Hypnotic” could have been a mind-blowing sci-fi thriller, but instead it looks like an inferior ripoff of filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s 2010 classic “Inception.” One of the few highlights of “Hypnotic” is the gripping musical score by Rebel Rodriguez, who is one of the sons of “Hypnotic” filmmaker Robert Rodriguez. The movie is just too enamored with its bad ideas, including a mid-credits scene that’s another contradictory plot hole. This mid-credits scene hints that the “Hypnotic” filmmakers want to make a sequel, which is unlikely to happen for this muddled and misguided flop.

Ketchup Entertainment released “Hypnotic” in U.S. cinemas on May 12, 2023.

Review: ‘Devil’s Peak,’ starring Billy Bob Thornton, Hopper Penn, Brian d’Arcy James, Jackie Earle Haley and Robin Wright

April 15, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Devil’s Peak”

Directed by Ben Young

Culture Representation: Taking place in Jackson County, North Carolina, the dramatic film “Devil’s Peak” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A young man tries to start a life apart from his drug-dealing father, who expects him to take over this family’s criminal business, while the father of the young man’s girlfriend is the district attorney who has been targeting the drug-dealing father in a sting operation.

Culture Audience: “Devil’s Peak” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching convoluted and fake-looking crime dramas.

Billy Bob Thornton in “Devil’s Peak” (Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films)

The novelty of real-life mother-and-son duo Robin Wright and Hopper Penn portraying a mother and a son in “Devil’s Peak” is not enough reason to watch this dreadful crime drama with a putrid plot and subpar acting. Almost nothing in this flop is believable. It’s the type of dreck that is overstuffed with bad dialogue and ridiculous plot twists that add up to a complete waste of time.

Directed by Ben Young, “Devil’s Peak” is based on David Joy’s 2015 novel “Where All Light Tends to Go.” Robert Knott wrote the low-quality adapted screenplay for “Devil’s Peak.” Just when you think the movie can’t get any worse, the last 15 minutes are such a pile-on of utter stupidity, it will have viewers rolling their eyes more than the tweaking meth addicts who are the customers of the drug-dealing family at the center of the story.

“Devil’s Peak” opens with a scene of a terrified-looking guy in his late teens named Jacob McNeely (played by Penn), who is half-crouched behind his truck that’s parked on an deserted road. He’s pointing his rifle at an approaching car and has the stance of someone who’s expecting a shootout. The movie circles back to this scene in the last third of the film to reveal who’s in this showdown with Jacob.

Viewers will know from the beginning of “Devil’s Peak” to brace for some bad dialogue when Jacob is heard saying in this voiceover narration: “In Jackson County, North Carolina, my family name meant something. Our family was a matter of blood, just like hair color and height. By the time I was 9 or 10, Daddy had me breaking down big bags of crystal meth.”

Jacob continues, “He got them from the Mexicans through his biker buddy Ed McGraw. The auto shop was a front, where I worked with Gerald Cabe and his skinny-ass brother Jeremy Cabe. They were the ones who did Daddy’s dirty work. And everyone in these parts knew he was not the kind of man you want to cross.”

If you can get past the ridiculousness that a guy who’s being groomed by his father to be a menacing drug dealer is still calling his father “Daddy,” there’s still more phony garbage to come in “Devil’s Peak.” It doesn’t help that many of the cast members either over-act or their acting is too stiff. Try not to laugh at the cringeworthy utterings of Jacob as he continues to tell his story in voiceover narration.

“Even though they were mean as hell,” Jacob says, “the Cabe brothers were the closest thing I had to kin. Methamphetamine was a living, breathing body in Jackson County. Daddy was the heart-pumping blood in every vein in the region.”

Jacob continues, “I got a cut from the sales, like most kids got allowance. But Daddy held on to my money. Maybe it’s a life I could’ve accepted, like generations of McNeelys had done before me, But Maggie Jennings, she made it so I couldn’t.”

Viewers soon find out that Maggie (played by Katelyn Nacon) is Jacob’s 18-year-old girlfriend, who lives with her mother and stepfather in an upper-middle-class part of Jackson Country. Maggie is a “good girl” who plans to go to the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Maggie wants Jacob to go to the same university with her at the same time.

But Jacob’s ruthless father Charlie McNeely (played by Billy Bob Thornton) has other plans for Jacob: He expects Jacob to stay in the family’s meth distribution business. Charlie says to Jacob at one point in the movie: “We did not choose this way of life. It chose us. It’ll be that way until we ain’t breathing.”

And to make matters more complicated, Maggie’s stepfather is district attorney Bob Jones (played by Brian d’Arcy James), who is up for re-election and has been targeting Charlie and his gang for a major drug bust. Bob has secrets that are eventually revealed in the movie. The secrets should come as no surprise to viewers who’ve seen enough of these types of films where politicians can be just as corrupt as the criminals.

As a money-laundering cover for his drug dealing, Charlie owns and operates a mechanic shop called McNeely’s Automotive. All of the men who work at the shop, including Jacob, are really part of the McNeely drug gang. The aforementioned brothers Jeremy Cabe (played by Jared Bankens) and Gerald Cabe (played by David Kallaway) are stereotypical sleazeballs. (The story in “Devil’s Peak” takes place in North Carolina, but the movie was actually filmed in Georgia.)

One of the worst and most unbelievable things about “Devil’s Peak” is that the McNeelys are supposedly the most powerful drug-dealing family in Jackson County for generations, with the current district attorney intent on busting them. But only two cops are part of this story: Sheriff Rogers (played by Jackie Earle Haley) has been in law enforcement in Jackson County for years and knows all about the McNeely family. A junior officer named C. Bullock, also known as Bull (played by Harrison Gilbertson), is a hothead bully who likes to pick on Jacob.

Sheriff Rogers has a soft spot for Jacob’s mother Virgie (played by Wright), a forlorn meth addict who has been trying unsuccessfully for years to conquer her addiction and clean up her act. Virgie and Charlie have been divorced since Jacob was a child. Charlie is still bitter because Virgie cheated on him when they were married, but viewers will get the impression that hypocrite Charlie isn’t exactly the “faithful spouse” type either.

Virgie is currently down on her luck, unemployed, and living in near-poverty. She doesn’t have a car, but sympathetic Sheriff Rogers sometimes gives her car rides and looks out for Virgie as much has he can. The movie shows hints that Sheriff Rogers probably has romantic feelings for Virgie. Because of her drug addiction, Virgie has been in and out of Jacob’s life. Charlie has been the parent who has primarily raised Jacob. And Charlie doesn’t let Jacob forget it.

As the emotionally broken Virgie, Wright gives perhaps the closest thing to an authentic-looking performance in “Devil’s Peak.” Unfortunately, she’s not in the movie for very long (her screen time is less than 20 minutes), and her scenes consists mostly of Virgie apologetically trying to reconnect with Jacob, or Virgie defensively trying to convince suspicious Charlie that she’s not a confidential informant for the police. Virgie is openly driving around with Sheriff Rogers in his squad car, so it’s no wonder that Charlie thinks that desperate drug addict Virgie might be getting paid to set up Charlie to get arrested.

Charlie has a girlfriend who’s young enough to be his daughter. Her name is Josephine, nicknamed Josie (played by Emma Booth), and she goes along with whatever Charlie wants. Josephine shows a little bit of sassiness and occasionally talks back to Charlie, but he’s really the one in control of the relationship. “Devil’s Peak” is ultimately a male-dominated movie where the few female characters in the film just react to whatever the men are doing.

The rest of “Devil’s Peak” involves murders, a kidnapping, chase scenes and a race against time for people who want possession of Charlie’s hidden stash of cash. Thornton’s portrayal of Charlie is a caricature of a villain, with every action utterly predictable and soulless. Penn, who pouts his way through his performance, lacks charisma in his role as protagonist Jacob. And that’s a problem when viewers are supposed to be rooting for the protagonist.

“Devil’s Peak” tries to cram in too many “surprises” in the last 15 minutes of the film. It all looks so fake, because the movie makes it look like there are only two cops in Jackson County who are dealing with the huge mess that Charlie causes in this story. There are many more than two people to blame for the mess that is “Devil’s Peak.”

Screen Media Films released “Devil’s Peak” in select U.S. cinemas on February 17, 2023. The movie was released on digital and VOD on February 24, 2023.

Review: ‘Death of a Telemarketer,’ starring Lamorne Morris and Jackie Earle Haley

March 3, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Death of a Telemarketer”

Directed by Khaled Ridgeway

Culture Representation: Taking place in California’s San Fernando Valley, the comedic film “Death of a Telemarketer” features a cast of African American and white characters (with a few Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An overly ambitious telemarketer is held hostage by a man who’s angry about the lies the telemarketer told to try and get a sale.

Culture Audience: “Death of a Telemarketer” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching idiotic and boring comedies.

Gwen Gottlieb and Lamorne Morris in “Death of a Telemarketer” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

How bad is “Death of a Telemarketer,” a movie that’s trying to pass itself off as an edgy comedy? The only real “death” in this garbage movie is any hope that watching this film will be an enjoyable experience. It’s excruciatingly horrible, with comedy that’s not funny and filled with extremely annoying characters.

Written and directed by Khaled Ridgeway, “Death of a Telemarketer” does everything wrong in a movie that’s supposed to be a comedy. The jokes are terrible. The pacing is dull. The scenarios are mind-numbingly stupid. The acting is substandard. And there’s barely anyone to root for in this moronic film.

The movie’s central character is Kasey Miller (played by Lamorne Morris), a cocky and unscrupulous telemarketer who has ambitions to be the top sales employee at Telewin!, the company where he works in California’s San Fernando Valley. He works in a call center, and his job is selling phone/cable TV/Internet packages to people, even if they don’t really want or need them. Like a lot of shady telemarketers, Kasey will do whatever it takes, including lie to people, in order to get the sale.

One day, a Telewin! supervisor named Liz Carson (played by Gwen Gottlieb) announces to the call center’s telemarketers that there will be a contest where the top-selling telemarketer will get $3,000 as a prize bonus. There will be a penalty for any telemarketer who gets a caller asking to be put on the Do Not Call list. Predictably, Kasey thinks he can easily win this contest.

Kasey has some competition from a religious co-worker named Barry (played by Woody McClain), who thinks he can get sales through more ethical means than the tactics that Kasey uses. There’s a considerable amount of time wasted on the rivalry between Kasey and Barry, which leads to a lot of painfully unfunny jokes. Kasey uses some bizarre tactics for closing a sale, including promising free Rick James wigs (styled to look like the cornrows that the singer wore in the 1980s) to customers who agree to buy what Kasey is selling. The promise of free Rick James wigs is used as a stupid gag later in the movie.

Kasey can get so outlandish in his sales calls that one of his calls is recorded and put on YouTube as an example of how telemarketers can be scammers. The video goes viral. And when supervisor Liz finds out and calls Kasey into her office, Kasey thinks he might get reprimanded or worse. Instead, Liz praises him because this viral video showed how Kasey made a sale by being relentless. She’s so impressed with Kasey that she tells everyone that they should emulate his unethical way of selling, which she calls the Kasey Method.

In a movie that’s polluted with unimaginative clichés, the protagonist is successful at his job but unsuccessful in love. Kasey is trying to win back his ex-girlfriend Christine (played by Alisha Wainwright), who works at a hair salon and is studying to get her master’s degree in psychology. One day, Kasey shows up at the hair salon with a bunch of roses, which he hands out to the customers to try to impress Christine. She reluctantly agrees to go to dinner with him.

During conversations between Kasey and Christine, it’s eventually revealed that Kasey dropped out of law school and is drifting, when it comes to his career. Because of Kasey’s aimless direction in life, he’s become estranged from his father. Christine is paying her own tuition for grad school, and reveals that Kasey has a privileged background when she says about her tuition, “Unlike you, I don’t have a father footing the bill.”

Christine isn’t too happy about the fact that she hasn’t met all of Kasey’s family. He doesn’t want her to meet his father. She also doesn’t like it when he treats her like a sales customer. Those are some of the hints that the movie drops to show why Christine broke up with Kasey. But even without those hints, it’s easy to see why the relationship didn’t work: Kasey is a selfish twit.

Something happens during the contest at work that propels Kasey to want to go to extremes to be considered the company’s top salesperson. One evening, when he’s supposed to meet Christine for dinner, he postpones the date so that he can stop by the office while everyone has left. Kasey has decided to call people who are on the Do Not Call list to try to sell them what they refused before.

One of the people he calls is Asa Ellenbogen (played by Jackie Earle Haley), an elderly man whom Kasey has targeted because he thinks old people are especially gullible to telemarketers. Before he made the call, Kasey looked up Asa on Facebook and pretends to be a friend of Asa’s named Phil French. Asa and Phil used to be in the same marching band when they were in high school.

Kasey impersonates Phil on the phone and asks Asa to buy this Telewin! phone/cable TV/Internet package as a favor. Asa mentions that his son Dean (played by Haley Joel Osment) needs a job, so Asa asks “Phil” if he can get Dean a job at the company. Of course, “Phil” lies and says yes. Kasey thinks the scam call is going well until Asa angrily announces that the real Phil French is dead. And through a series of circumstances, Asa shows up at the office and takes Kasey hostage as revenge.

This hostage storyline of “Death of a Telemarketer” doesn’t happen until the last third of the movie. What should have been the funniest part of the film is a tedious slog that just has a lot of yelling. It just makes all the characters more irritating.

The acting in the movie ranges from over-the-top silly to dreadfully boring. All of the dialogue is simply horrendous. “Death of a Telemarketer” is so ill-conceived, it’s mind-boggling that this time-wasting junk got financing. There might or might not be any death in this movie, but watching it feels like an assault on viewers’ time and intelligence.

Vertical Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment released “Death of a Telemarketer” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on December 3, 2021.