Karl Glusman Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘The Running Man’ (2025), starring Glen Powell, William H. Macy, Lee Pace, Emilia Jones, Michael Cera, Daniel Ezra, Jayme Lawson, Colman Domingo and Josh Brolin

November 11, 2025

by Carla Hay

Glen Powell (center) in “The Running Man” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“The Running Man” (2025)

Directed by Edgar Wright

Culture Representation: Taking place in a dystopian version of the United States, the sci-fi action film “The Running Man” (based on the Stephen King novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An unemployed and financially struggling hothead, who is desperate to get medical treatment for his ailing daughter, enters a brutal reality TV show contest where the grand prize is $1 billion to the contestant who can survive for 30 consecutive days when people from all over the United States are given financial incentives to kill the show’s contestants.

Culture Audience: “The Running Man” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the book on which the movie is based, the 1987 movie “The Running Man” and sci-fi action movies that are predictable and shallow.

Josh Brolin and Colman Domingo in “The Running Man” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“The Running Man” stumbles in the last 20 minutes by cramming in too many action clichés. The movie sacrifices development of supporting characters to showcase Glen Powell’s hollow lead character. Changes made to the original story aren’t very interesting.

Directed by Edgar Wright (who co-wrote “The Running Man” screenplay with Michael Bacall), “The Running Man” is adapted from Stephen King’s 1982 novel of the same name. “The Running Man” book was also made into a 1987 movie, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed by Paul Michael Glaser, with an adapted screenplay by Steven E. de Souza. The stories in the book and the movies take place in a dystopian version of the United States. Both “Running Man” movies have very different endings from the book.

The 2025 version of “The Running Man” is closer to the book’s original story than the 1987 version of the movie. (The 2025 movie has a quick nod to Schwarzenegger by featuring his face on a $100 bill.) The story protagonist Ben Richards (played by Powell) is a civilian married father of an ailing daughter (just like in the book), instead of the 1987 movie version of Ben (played by Schwarzenegger), who was a military captain bachelor with no children. Ben and his family live in Co-Op City in the fictional U.S. state of Co-Op, somewhere on the East Coast. (“The Running Man” was actually filmed in the United Kingdom and in Bulgaria.)

The character of Ben in 2025’s “The Running Man” is an arrogant hothead whose only loyalties are to his family. Ben, who is 35 years old, has a history of not being able to keep jobs because he repeatedly gets fired for insubordination. His most recent job was being a vague low-level worker for a government company called Defense Net. That’s all you’ll really learn about Ben’s personal background throughout the entire movie.

Ben has been unemployed for an unspecified period of time. His wife Sheila (played by Jayme Lawson) works as a waitress in a nightclub bar called The Libertine and has to work extra shifts because she and Ben are financially struggling and need the money. It’s hinted in the movie that women who work at the Libertine engage in side hustling as sex workers who proposition Libertine customers.

In “The Running Man” book, Sheila has resorted to this sex work. But in this movie, it’s repeatedly mentioned that Sheila is not a sex worker. If anyone thinks that Sheila is a sex worker, Ben will be ready to fight that person. He loses his temper and instigates fights many times in the movie.

Ben and Sheila have a toddler daughter named Cathy (played by Alyssa Benn and Sienna Benn), who has a fever from a severe flu and needs medicine that the couple can’t afford. In the beginning of 2025’s “The Running Man,” Ben is seen going back to Defense Net to ask if he can be re-hired. He is coldly rejected by a gatekeeper named Richard Manuel (played by David Zayas), who makes a snarky remark about Ben bringing Cathy with him as a sympathy ploy.

Ben denies it (even though it’s true) and says, “I didn’t bring her here to guilt trip you.” Ben adds that he brought Cathy with him so he wouldn’t viciously assault Richard. This angry comment further alienates Richard. Ben, knowing he has reached a dead end in this discussion, leaves the building before he can be thrown out by security.

The United States in this story has several reality TV shows from the government-operated Games Network, where contestants can win prize money, but at great risk to their physical well-being. The contestants usually have to do dangerous stunts in order to get the money. The movie eventually reveals the obvious: The games are a way for the government to control and manipulate the financially desperate people who are the majority of the contestants.

The most dangerous and most lucrative of these game shows is “The Running Man,” which offers a grand prize of $1 billion to any contestant who can survive 30 consecutive days without being hunted down and murdered by Games Network assassins called Hunters. The Hunters use sphere-shaped drones called roving cams to assist in tracking down their targets. People in the general public get financial rewards if they give informant tips or can hunt down the contestants themselves. In the beginning of the movie, no one has ever won “The Running Man” game.

With no other job prospects, Ben tells Sheila that he’s going to apply for one of the contests that’s not “The Running Man.” Ben tells Sheila that he has no interest in being a “Running Man” contestant. Sheila adamantly doesn’t want Ben to apply for “The Running Man,” which is why it’s contradictory and strange when Sheila finds out that Ben is a contestant on “The Running Man,” she easily accepts this decision without getting upset, even though the chances are very high that Ben will be murdered.

Ben ends up as a contestant in “The Running Man” after he stands in line to apply for another contest, and he is seen getting into a physical fight with security officers who accost Ben for trying to help an elderly man who has vomited while waiting in line in front of Ben. “The Running Man” executive producer/showrunner Dan Killian (played by Josh Brolin) sees Ben on security camera footage and instantly decides that Ben’s rebellious nature and bad temper would be perfect for the show.

Ben takes the show’s required psychiatric evaluations, which reveal he’s the “angriest” contestant that “The Running Man” has ever had. Dan is thrilled. Dan convinces Ben to be on “The Running Man” by appealing to Ben’s ego. Dan tells Ben that he’s the first person who has a realistic chance of winning “The Running Man” because of Ben’s high level of anger. Dan tells Ben that Ben should use this anger as Ben’s “superpower.”

Dan is a stereotypical cold-blooded villain who doesn’t care how many people get murdered, as long as he can reap the benefits. In this case, Dan’s only goal is to make “The Running Man” the biggest TV show in U.S. history, no matter how many lives are lost. “The Running Man” is hosted by a flamboyant loudmouth named Bobby Thompson (played by Colman Domingo), whose only loyalties are to anyone who is most likely to make him rich and famous.

The rules of “The Running Man” are fairly straightforward: A contestant can go anywhere in the world and use disguises and fake names to hide the contestant’s true identity. Each contestant gets a 12-hour head start with $1,000, and can earn $100 per hour for staying alive and avoiding capture and an additional $100 for each law enforcement officer or Hunter who is killed by the contestant.

Each contestant is given a portable video device and is required to record a video message per day and mail the message back to Game Networks headquarters. Failure to send this video message means that the contestant will forfeit the grand prize and can still be murdered for profit and will be hunted for the rest of the contestant’s life. People in the general public can get money by giving informant tips (with proof) on where the contestant is, or can earn even more money by murdering the contestant before a Hunter can do it.

Ben finds out the hard way that the government tells lies about the contestants, in order to get the general public to hate the contestants. In Ben’s case, one of the first lies that is told about him is that he was fired from Defense Net for selling military defense secrets to America’s enemies. The government also uses deepfake artificial intelligence to manipulate and fabricate things on the video messages that the contestants send.

In 1987’s “The Running Man,” the beginning of the movie showed that Ben was sent to a prison camp for refusing to open fire on anti-government protestors. Eighteen months after his imprisonment, he escapes with fellow inmates Harold Weiss (played by Marvin J. McIntyre) and William Laughlin (played by Yaphet Kotto), who are both resistance fighters in the anti-government movement. Harold and William, who were not in “The Running Man” book, are Ben’s sidekicks when Harold and William are put in “The Running Man” contest at the same time.

In 2025’s “The Running Man,” these two supporting characters are put in “The Running Man” competition at the same time as Ben, but all three go their separate ways as soon as they start the contest. The other two “Running Man” contestants in the 2025 version of the movie are named Tim Jansky (played by Martin Herlihy) and Jenni Laughlin (played by Katy O’Brian), whose personal backgrounds are never mentioned in the movie. Tim is a socially awkward nerd, while Jenni is a hedonistic lesbian.

It’s later explained in the movie (just like it’s explained in the book) that these three contestants were chosen because they fit the ideal three personality types that Dan and other executives want for “The Running Man.” Tim is the Hopeless Dude type, who can’t help but make stupid mistakes because he craves attention. Jenni is the Negative Dude type, who hates the world and only cares about partying as much as possible. Ben is the Final Dude type, who is the most serious about winning the contestant and is expected to be the last contestant standing.

“The Running Man” doesn’t have a lack of adrenaline-pumping energy in its expected chase scenes, explosions, fist fights and gun violence. The problem is that it’s like watching a hyperactive and incoherent video game that ultimately wastes a lot of time with nonsense. Ben also gets too many lucky breaks to be believable. By the last third of the film, it’s just a pile-on of more shouting, running, and gun-toting—all of it extremely predictable and increasingly irritating because you start to care less and less about these characters.

Ben’s outlaw journey takes him to various cities (such as New York City, Boston, and Derry, Maine), as several people help him along the way. Molie Jernigan (played by William H. Macy) is a recluse who gives Ben disguises and fake identities. Bradley Throckmorton (played by Daniel Ezra) and his pre-teen brother Stacey (played by Angelo Gray) are resistance rebels, who help Ben with advice on escape routes and where to get weapons. Bradley and Stacey have a 5-year-old sister named Cassie, who has lung cancer because low-income communities, such as where the Throckmorton family lives, are being polluted with toxic chemicals from the government.

Bradley puts Ben in touch with Elton Parrakis (played by Michael Cera), a resistance rebel in Derry, who publishes an anarchist newsletter-zine and can supply Ben with more weapons. (Derry is a well-known city in the Stephen King universe, because it’s the location of King’s 1986 horror novel “It.”) Elton lives with his elderly mother Victoria Parrakis (played by Sandra Dickinson), a “Running Man” fanatic who will do whatever it takes to get some of the show’s prize money. A woman named Amelia Williams (played by Emilia Jones) is a civilian who has the same role as a hostage that she does in “The Running Man” book.

As for the movie’s Hunters, they are as generic as generic can be, with none having names except for their leader Evan McCone (played by Lee Pace), who wears a full face mask for most of his screen time, as if he thinks he’s a comic book supervillain. By the time Evan shows his face in the movie, it doesn’t help the story, because there’s nothing compelling about him or his personality, unless you consider the ability to sneer and snarl a personality trait. Karl Glusman plays a bleach-blonde Hunter who has such a blank personality, this character might as well be a robot.

“The Running Man” has some comedy that quickly grows redundant and ends up going nowhere. Throughout the movie, there are scenes of people watching a reality TV show called “The Americanos,” which is the movie’s obvious parody of “The Kardashians.” Debi Mazar has the role of Amoré Americano, the Kris Jenner-type matriarch character, who rules over her spoiled adult daughters. Although slightly amusing, “The Americanos” has no bearing on the movie’s plot.

Powell is in danger of being typecast in action movies as a leading character who thinks he can get by on cockiness and wisecracking quips. It’s not enough to carry an entire movie when the jokes strain to be funny and relevant and come across as reheated leftovers from the 1980s. “The Running Man” will satisfy anyone who just wants to see a lot of mindless action. But the movie is so busy rushing around, it doesn’t care enough to give the principal characters any fully developed personalities and instead just renders them as glorified video game characters. It’s hard to care about characters that you feel like you don’t really know by the end of the movie.

Paramount Pictures will release “The Running Man” in U.S. cinemas on November 14, 2025.

Review: ‘Pretty Thing’ (2025), starring Alicia Silverstone, Karl Glusman, Catherine Curtin, Britne Oldford and Tammy Blanchard

July 10, 2025

by Carla Hay

Karl Glusman and Alicia Silverstone in “Pretty Thing” (Photo courtesy of Shout! Studios)

“Pretty Thing” (2025)

Directed by Justin Kelly

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City (and briefly in Paris), the dramatic film “Pretty Thing” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people and black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A 33-year-old restaurant server begins a steamy affair with an upper-middle-class businesswoman in her 40s, but when she wants to end their fling, he refuses and begins to stalk her.

Culture Audience: “Pretty Thing” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and superficial movies about romantic entanglements that turn into dark obsessions.

Even though the drama “Pretty Thing” has committed performances, the main characters are underdeveloped and the story seems unfinished. This shallow movie does nothing new in an over-used plot about an obsessed lover who refuses to accept a breakup. “Pretty Thing” is a mildly sexually explicit version of a Lifetime movie.

Directed by Justin Kelly and written by Jack Donnelly, “Pretty Thing” takes place primarily n New York City and briefly in Paris. (The movie was actually filmed in New Jersey.) “Pretty Thing” begins with showing how the two lovers at the center of the story meet. Elliot (played by Karl Glusman) is a shy 33-year-old server who works at a hotel restaurant/bar, where a business cocktail party is taking place. Sophie (played by Alicia Silverstone), who is in her late 40s, is a confident businesswoman who is at the party.

Elliot catches the eye of Sophie, who looks like she wants to devour Elliot as her next meal. Elliot notices Sophie ogling him, and he likes what he sees too. When Elliot is on a break and smoking a marijuana joint in the back alley of the restaurant, Sophie suddenly shows up. They share the joint. And she gets straight to the point when she says,”Hi. I’m in Room 706.”

Elliot nervously shows up at her hotel room with a bottle of champagne that he stole from the restaurant. They make small talk. Sophie asks Elliot what his age is and is surprised that he’s 33, because she thought he was younger. Elliot asks Sophie if she’s visiting and is surprised to find out that she lives in New York City but is just renting the hotel room to have a temporary break from her regular life.

The inevitable happens. It’s the beginning of a torrid sexual affair. The second time that they meet up, they have dinner first, and Sophie plays coy when Elliot asks her if she’s married or has kids. She finally admits that she’s not married and does not have any children. After some initial reluctance, Sophie also tells Elliot what she does as a job: She’s a partner in a pharmaceutical firm, where she’s a marketing executive.

Elliot, who lives in an apartment, isn’t exactly forthcoming about everything in his life either. He doesn’t tell Sophie that he lives with his overprotective and emotionally needy mother Peggy (played by Catherine Curtin), who has some health issues, including agoraphobia. Elliot spent the night with Sophie for their first sexual encounter, but he lies to Peggy by denying it when she asks him if she’s dating anyone.

The third time that Elliot and Sophie hang out together, she invites him to stay with her for the weekend in Paris, where she is on a short business trip. Elliot, who is unsophisticated and unaccustomed to traveling, is flown to Paris on a private plane. Sophie pays for everything, including a camera that she gives to Elliot as a gift when she finds out that college dropout Elliot has a passion for photography.

Elliot, who acts like a teenager in love, thinks this trip to Paris is an indication that Sophie sees him as more than a fling. He’s about to find out that he’s very wrong about that assumption. “Pretty Thing” ambles along with more sexual hookups between Elliot and Sophie. The cinematography is dreamy, but the movie (including any attempt at being erotic) is really just style over substance.

The turning point for Sophie is when Elliot takes her to see his friend Sam (played by Britne Oldford) perform in an off-Broadway play. After the play, Elliot introduces Sophie to Sam and Sam’s boyfriend Dan (played Kyle Bary), and they all have a conversation that is friendly but very uncomfortable for Sophie. It’s not just because of the generation gap between Sophie and the others but it’s also because Sophie sees how deeply Elliot has fallen for her. You can easily figure out the rest of how “Pretty Thing” is going to go after Sophie breaks up with Elliot, and he becomes obsessive about getting back together with her.

In addition to “Pretty Thing” having an abrupt and disappointing ending, one of the biggest problems with the movie is that is barely tells who Elliott and Sophie are outside of this toxic relationship. In a scene where Sophie has dinner with her nosy sister Amanda (played by Tammy Blanchard), it’s unsurprisingly revealed that Sophie is addicted to having flings with younger men. The scenes with Elliot and Peggy show that he is a mama’s boy who has mental health issues. This type of story has been done so many times before (and much better) in other movies. “Pretty Thing” might as well have been called “Pretty Boring.”

Shout! Studios released “Pretty Thing” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on July 4, 2025.

Review: ‘The Bikeriders,’ starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist and Norman Reedus

June 18, 2024

by Carla Hay

“The Bikeriders”

Directed by Jeff Nichols

Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in the Chicago area, from 1963 to 1973, the dramatic film “The Bikeriders” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A woman struggles to keep her marriage intact as her husband gets more involved in a motorycle gang called the Vandals.

Culture Audience: “The Bikeriders” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and history-based stories about motorcycle gangs.

Mike Faist and Jodie Comer in “The Bikeriders” (Photo by Kyle Kaplan/Focus Features)

“The Bikeriders” could have been a typical macho movie about a gang, starring actors who are much better-looking than the average gang member. This gritty drama has a lot of predictability, but it avoids some clichés by having a female narrator for an otherwise very masculine film about a violent gang. Jodie Comer gives a standout performance in the role of the movie’s narrator/chief protagonist, who tells the story of this dangerous and dysfunctional American gang from her perspective. “The Bikeriders” had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.

Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, “The Bikeriders” is inspired by photojournalist Danny Lyon’s 1968 non-fiction book “The Bikeriders,” which chronicled Lyon’s four years as a member of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club. The movie takes place from 1963 to 1973, with the story told in non-chronological order. Some viewers might be confused or annoyed by this timeline jumping. The gang at the center of the story is the fictional Vandals, which began in Chicago and eventually expanded to other cities throughout the Midwest. (“The Bikeriders” was actually filmed in Cincinnati.)

“The Bikeriders” structures the narrative by having it in the context of former Vandals insider Kathy (played by Comer) telling the story of the gang to a journalist named Danny (played by Mike Faist) during a series of interviews in 1973. The movie then has several flashbacks to Kathy’s life as the girlfriend and then wife of Vandals member Benny Cross (played by Austin Butler), who becomes increasingly unstable and at risk of dying while he’s in the gang. Kathy is the only substantial female role in the movie. All the other women in with speaking roles in “The Bikeriders” get very little screen time and mostly portray friends or acquaintances of Kathy.

Benny is a typical brooding outlaw, who doesn’t talk much about his past. However, Benny is clear about one thing: He has a passion for motorcycle riding, even though he’s had too many motorcycle crashes by any standard. Benny also has an arrest record, for things such as disorderly conduct, driving without a license, and resisting arrest. After he joins the Vandals, Benny will get involved in more serious crimes.

Benny, who has spent much of his life as a loner, finds camaraderie in the Vandals. The leader of the Vandals is a menacing brute named Johnny (played by Tom Hardy), who expects unwavering loyalty to the gang at all costs. And Benny is a very loyal member. The opening scene in the “Bikeriders” shows Benny getting brutally beaten up by two men in a bar just because Benny refuses their demands to take off his Vandals motorcycle jacket.

There’s a scene in “The Bikeriders” were Johnny says he was inspired to create the Vandals motorcycle club after seeing Marlon Brando in “The Wild One,” the 1953 drama in which Brando has the role of Johnny Strabler, the troublemaking leader of a motorcycle gang. It’s no coincidence that Johnny has the same first name as this iconic movie character. Hardy’s performance in “The Bikeriders” is obviously influenced by Brando’s performance in “The Wild One.” Benny and Johnny form a close friendship, in which Johnny becomes a mentor to Benny.

The other core members of the Chicago chapter of the Vandals are practical-minded Brucie (played Damon Herriman), who is Johnny’s right-hand man; easygoing Cal (played by Boyd Holbrook), who’s originally from California; eccentric Zipco (played by Michael Shannon), who was rejected when he volunteered for military duty for the Vietnam War; fidgety Cockroach (played by Emory Cohen), who is a family man; raggedy Funny Sonny (played by Norman Reedus), who asks to join the Vandals; and best friends Corky (played Karl Glusman) and Wahoo (played by Beau Knapp), who are like the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the Vandals. There’s also an ambitious younger gang member, who is just called The Kid (played by Toby Wallace), and he has a pivotal role in the story.

When Kathy tells the story of the Vandals from her perspective, she is at various times sassy, jaded, nostalgic or heartbroken. “The Bikeriders” follows her journey from being relatively straight-laced and naïve about gang life to becoming so involved in gang life, it becomes very difficult for her to leave, out of fear of getting assaulted or killed. Most of the conflicts in her marriage to Benny are about how she wants him to leave the Vandals, but he stubbornly refuses.

The first time Kathy meets Benny, it’s 1963, and he’s playing pool at a bar that is a regular hangout for the Vandals. Kathy and Benny lock eyes in the way that people do in a movie that makes it obvious that they’re eventually going to get together. Benny and Kathy exchange the type of banter where they’re intensely attracted to each other but they want to play it cool.

And the next thing you know, Kathy is on the back of Benny’s motorcycle while they ride around town. Kathy says in a voiceover about the first time she rode on a motorcycle with Benny: “I have to admit, it took my breath away.” Benny is portrayed as a scruffy and tough James Dean type, who constantly has to prove to others that he’s more than just a pretty face.

At the time Kathy meets Benny, she already has a live-in boyfriend named David (played by Michael Abbott Jr.), who’s about 10 years older than Kathy. But Kathy’s relationship with David doesn’t stop Benny from pursuing Kathy. After Benny drops Kathy off at her house on the first night they meet (which is the first time an annoyed David sees Benny), Benny decides he’s going come back later and wait across the street for the entire night and part of the next day to see Kathy again.

This stalking would be a red flag for a lot of people, but Kathy is charmed and thinks it shows Benny must really be into her, even if she thinks Benny is a little unhinged and obsessive. These personality traits also apply to how Benny feels about the Vandals. Eventually, there comes a time when Kathy wants to choose between her and the Vandals.

Benny doesn’t have to say a word to David or get in a fight with David to literally drive David away. There’s a scene where David is very unnerved by seeing Benny waiting across the street, soon after Benny met Kathy. David storms into the house, has a brief but angry argument with Kathy, and then announces to Kathy: “We’re done!” David drives off in his truck with his possessions and is never seen in the movie again.

Kathy in 1973 is then seen smirking when she tells journalist Danny about what happened next between her and Benny: “Five weeks later, I married him.” The rest of “The Bikeriders” shows the ups and downs of the marriage of Kathy and Benny as he becomes involved in deadly crimes with the Vandals. The movie shows the expected fight scenes and gang rivalries.

The Vandals open up chapters in other cities (Milwaukee is mentioned the most), but Johnny has difficulty managing so many different chapters as the overall leader of the Vandals. Johnny doesn’t really want to admit he’s losing control of a rapidly expanding gang with various agendas, but other people see flaws in Johnny’s leadership, so there are inevitable power struggles. A few gang members occasionally challenge Johnny to replace him as the leader of the Vandals. Johnny gives these challengers a choice to fight him with their fists or with a knife.

“The Bikeriders” doesn’t have a lot of surprises but can maintain viewer interest because of the talented cast members’ performances. Comer and Hardy (who are both British in real life) have accents in this movie that will get different reactions. Comer’s Midwestern twang sounds very authentic and actually makes her plain-spoken, often-sarcastic storytelling have more resonance. Hardy (who’s doing yet another role as a mumbling tough guy) has an American accent that sounds a lot more contrived, although at this point Hardy has mastered the type of character who looks like he could hit someone and hug the same person within a span of seconds.

Butler’s depiction of Benny isn’t outstanding, but it’s not terrible either. Is he convincing as a gang member? The scenes where he’s on a motorcycle or being a “bad boy” lover to Kathy are better than his scenes where he’s in gang-related fights. Benny could have easily been the narrator of “The Bikeriders,” but writer/director Nichols wisely chose to avoid such a predictable perspective. Benny’s obsession with the Vandals is a hint that there’s a huge void in Benny’s life that isn’t fully explained.

It’s perhaps the biggest flaw of the movie: Benny is just too mysterious. He’s not exactly a gang member with a heart of gold, but the movie wants to keep people guessing until the very end: Is Kathy or the Vandals gang the one true love of Benny? The answer comes at the end of “The Bikeriders,” which isn’t a groundbreaking movie about motorcycle gangs but it’s satisfying enough for people who want to see a version of gang life with people who mostly look like Hollywood actors.

Focus Features will release “The Bikeriders” in U.S. cinemas on June 21, 2024. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on June 17, 2024.

Review: ‘Civil War’ (2024), starring Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sonoya Mizuno and Nick Offerman

April 9, 2024

by Carla Hay

Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura and Cailee Spaeny in “Civil War” (Photo by Murray Close/A24)

“Civil War” (2024)

Directed by Alex Garland

Culture Representation: Taking place on the East Coast of the United States, the action film “Civil War” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latin people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: During a civil war in the United States, a team of four war journalists take a tension-filled and dangerous road trip to the White House to try to get an interview with the U.S. president, who is under siege.

Culture Audience: “Civil War” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Alex Garland, and war movies that have observations about political turmoil.

Stephen McKinley Henderson in “Civil War” (Photo by Murray Close/A24)

“Civil War” has some gripping action sequences, but it’s not a non-stop action flick about gun-toting heroes. It’s an effective commentary about war journalism, political unrest, and the psychological toll on people caught in the crossfire. The movie is set in the 21st century, but the themes in “Civil War” are timeless.

Written and directed by Alex Garland, “Civil War” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival. It’s not a typical war movie because much of the story takes place during a road trip from New York state to Washington, D.C., with journalists as the central characters. The movie gives an accurate depiction of how being a war journalist requires a certain mentality, skills and attitude, including the ability to document what’s happening without getting involved.

The movie begins with an unnamed U.S. president (played by Nick Offerman) privately rehearsing a speech by himself at the White House before he gives the speech live on camera. “Civil War” does not offer a detailed explanation for why there is a U.S. civil war in this story, but it’s mentioned in the movie that Texas and California have seceded from the Unted States and formed a faction called Western Forces, which want to bring down the U.S. government. As eventually revealed in the movie, this U.S president (who is in his third term) is currently under siege by Western Forces, which want to assassinate him.

However, during this speech, the U.S. president is trying to put on a brave face during this crisis. He says of the U.S. military defense against this Western Forces attack: “Some are calling it the greatest victory in the history of mankind.” During his speech rehearsal, he changes this statement to: “Some are calling it the greatest victory in the history of military campaigns.”

The movie then shows the four central characters who go on a “race against time” road trip to try to interview the U.S. president at the White House before he is possibly assassinated. Joel (played by Wagner Moura) is addicted to the adrenaline rush of being a war journalist. He is the one who plans to interview the U.S. president. Joel’s jaded photojournalist colleague is Lee Smith (played by Kirsten Dunst), who is considered one of the top war photographers in the media.

The original plan was for Joel and Lee to go on this trip by themselves. However, they are accompanied by a New York Times journalist named Sammy (played by Stephen McKinley Henderson), who has an “elder sage” personality and uses a cane. Also along for the ride is an eager-to-learn aspiring photojournalist named Jessie Cullen (played by Cailee Spaeny), who thinks of Lee as one of her idols.

Lee isn’t very happy about adding these two people to the trip. However, Lee reluctantly agrees to have these extra two journalists join them in the press van. Sammy wants to prove that he’s useful in a media job that often discriminates against elderly and disabled workers. Joel thinks sensitive newbie Jessie can learn a lot from Lee.

Jessie and Lee met early on in the film when Lee came to Jessie’s aid in New York, during a violent street conflict between protesters and military police officers. During this conflict, Jessie accidentally got hit in the face with a police club while she was taking photos. Lee later found out that Jessie was staying at the same hotel when Jessie approached her in a lounge area to thank Lee for Lee’s help.

The rest of “Civil War” shows the harrowing events that happen during their dangerous and often-chaotic journey. However, there is also some dark comedy and a burgeoning camaraderie between these four journalists. It should come as no surprise that Jessie is the one in this group who goes through the biggest personality transformation because of what she experiences during the mayhem.

Jesse Plemons (who is Dunst’s real-life husband) has an uncredited role as a militant enforcer who holds certain people captive. Plemons’ role in the movie is not as big as his appearance in the “Civil War” trailer suggests: His screen time is less than 10 minutes. Two of Joel’s journalist friends named Tony (played by Nelson Lee) and Bohai (played by Evan Lai) have small but pivotal roles in the second half of the movie.

“Civil War” has several cast members who were also in Garland’s 2020 sci-fi/drama limited series “Devs.” Spaeny and Henderson are “Devs” alumni. “Devs” star Sonoya Mizuno has a brief role in “Civil War” as a rival journalist named Anya. Another “Devs” cast member is Jin Ha, who has a small supporting role in “Civil War” as an unnamed sniper who’s in a standoff with an unseen person or persons shooting from a large residential house. Karl Glusman (also from “Devs”) is in the same scene as an unnamed spotter who’s working with the sniper.

“Civil War” invites viewers to think about how you or people you know would react if this civil war really happened in the United States. There are scenes in the movie that show how some people want to block out the realities of this war and pretend that it’s not happening. Others want to jump in and do what they can to fight for causes they believe in, even if it means they will die. Other people are somewhere in between and acknlowedge the war but are just trying to survive without taking sides. “Civil War” doesn’t try to pass judgment on what unfolds in the movie, but it is an impactful story that shows there are no easy answers when it comes to war.

A24 will release “Civil War” in U.S. cinemas on April 12, 2024.

Review: ‘God Is a Bullet,’ starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Maika Monroe and Jamie Foxx

June 27, 2023

by Carla Hay

“God Is a Bullet”

Directed by Nick Cassavetes

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2020, in New Mexico, the action film “God Is a Bullet” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A police officer becomes a rogue vigilante while investigating the deadly cult that kidnapped his 14-year-old daughter and murdered his ex-wife and her lover.

Culture Audience: “God Is a Bullet” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching ultra-violent and mindless action flicks.

Karl Glusman and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau in “God Is a Bullet” (Photo courtesy of Wayward Entertainment)

Trashy and moronic, “God Is a Bullet” is a pathetic excuse to show brutal and violent misogyny. The dialogue is as cringeworthy as the scummy characters. Jamie Foxx is a co-headliner, but he’s in this bloated 155-minute movie for less than 15 minutes.

Written and directed by Nick Cassavetes, “God Is a Bullet” is based on Boston Teran’s 1999 novel of the same name. Even though the movie is adapted from a work of fiction, there’s a caption shown in the introduction of the movie that says, “Based on a true story.” At the end of the film, another caption states that although the movie is based on a true story, parts of the story were fictionalized for the movie. Whatever the filmmakers want to call the movie version of “God Is A Bullet,” it’s still time-wasting garbage.

The beginning of “God Is Bullet” (which was filmed on location in New Mexico) is an indication of some of the nauseating scenes that pollute the movie: A woman is seen vomiting multiple times. That woman is Case Hardin (played by Maika Monroe), a 23-year-old, tattooed vagabond, who has escaped from a small but ruthless cult that has about seven to nine members. The cult kidnapped Case when she was 11 years old. Case lived with the cult for the next 12 years, until recently, when she decided to leave the cult for good.

The mostly male cult is led by a disgusting sadist named Cyrus (played by Karl Glusman), who is shown committing almost every type of heinous violent crime you can imagine throughout the movie. The opening scene of “God Is a Bullet” shows Case, who is a needle-using drug addict, vomiting in a toilet in a jail cell. Some viewers will feel like retching when they see some of the gruesome torture and murder scenes in this vile movie. Case is in jail for heroin possession and assault with a knife.

It’s late December 2020, and people are in the midst of the end-of-year holiday season. An early scene in the movie shows the heavily tattooed members of Case’s former cult hanging out at a parking lot near a strip of retail stores. Now that Case is no longer in the cult, the only woman who’s left in the cult is Lena (played by Gina Cassavetes), who looks like a reject from a Marilyn Manson video.

A little girl, who’s about 9 or 10 years old, is playing with a balloon in the parking lot while her mother is shopping inside a nearby store. And you know what happens next: The cult members kidnap her. It’s later shown in the movie that this cult is involved in child prostitution and other sex trafficking of children. When Case was kidnapped as a child by this cult, she was forced to endure the same sexual abuse. Flashbacks of a pre-teen Case (played by Elise Guzowski) show some of this forced prostitution.

After this kidnapping in the parking lot, the cult isn’t done with its crime rampage. On December 24, 2020, the cult members do a nighttime home invasion of mansion, where they savagely murder two of the mansion’s residents: divorcée Sarah Hightower (played by Lindsay Hanzl) and her boyfriend Sam (played by Kola Olasiji). A third resident of the home is Sarah’s 14-year-old daughter Gabi Hightower (played by Chloe Guy), who is kidnapped by the cult.

The next morning, on Christmas Day, two people arrive at the house for a planned visit: Sarah’s ex-husband Bob Hightower (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Sarah’s businessman father Arthur Naci (played by David Thornton), who are shocked and devastated when they go inside the house and see the bloody crime scene. They also quickly determine that Gabi has been kidnapped.

Bob is a police detective, but he’s not very well-respected in his police department, because he’s assigned to mainly doing paperwork. Predictably, Bob wants to be the lead investigator of this kidnapping/murder case, but he’s blocked by colleagues, who think he won’t be objective, and because Bob doesn’t have enough experience doing police work outside of the office. One co-worker comes right out and calls Bob a “desk jockey” and a “seat warmer.”

Undeterred, Bob thinks that the cult is responsible and goes on a mission to find this nomadic and elusive cult. And it just so happens that Bob finds out that a woman who’s currently in a nearby jail cell is a former member of this cult. Bob visits Case and asks her for information in tracking down the cult members. Bob, who is very religious, is immediately judgmental of Case. When they first meet, Bob treats Case like she’s a degenerate.

Bob is somewhat remorseful when he finds out that Case was kidnapped as a child and forced to be in the cult. She says to Bob about the cult members: “We all came from family-oriented communities—even me.” Case later explains why, as an adult, she has not been in contact with her single mother, who still thinks that Case is missing: Because of all the crimes she committed while in the cult, Case has a lot of shame and is afraid that her mother will reject her.

Case gives Bob this advice on finding his kidnapped daughter Gabi: “If you want her back, you have to get her yourself.” She adds, “You think you can do this alone. No offense, but you don’t send sheep to hunt wolves.” It should come as no surprise that Bob arranges for Case to be let out on bail so that she can help him track down her former cult colleagues.

One of the first things that Bob and Case do is go to a remote desert-like area where the cult members have been known to congregate at a compound. A cult member named the Ferryman (played by Foxx) is still hanging out at one of the houses in this compound. The Ferryman’s skin looks like he has vitiligo. He also has a prosthetic left arm.

Bob thinks the best way to find the cult is to “infiltrate” the cult, even though he looks like he would never fit in with this scuzzy-looking group. It leads to a ridculous scene of the Ferryman giving Bob tattoos on parts of Bob’s body, while Case gives Bob a face tattoo. After getting these tattoos, Bob doesn’t look like a menacing cult member. He looks like a man going through a sad mid-life crisis.

Meanwhile, viewers are taken into the home of a couple with a very dysfunctional and miserable marriage: Maureen Bacon (played by January Jones), who acts like she’s some kind of femme fatale, is shown taunting the masculinity of her police sergeant husband John Lee Bacon (played by Paul Johansson), because apparently she’s fed up with their lack of a sex life. When she starts to ridicule him for liking gay male porn, he brutally assaults her. Maureen’s reaction is to laugh and tell John Lee: “You’re such a wimp!”

John Lee just happens to be a colleague of Bob, who has now gone rogue and decided to become a vigilante, with Case as his sidekick. The hunt for the cult members gets dragged out in mind-numbing ways that include showing more tortures and murders committed by the cult members, with Cyrus the one giving the orders and participating. The other cult members have names like Gutter (played by Ethan Suplee), Snatch (played by Rooter Wareing) and Shitstain (played by Zac Laroc), and they have no distinguishable personalities beyond the mayhem that they commit.

There’s also a sniveling drug dealer named Errol Grey (played by Jonathan Tucker), who gets caught in this maelstrom of destruction. Case knows Errol because he used to be her drug dealer. Case tells Bob that she’s “clean and sober,” but she still pretends to be a needle-using drug addict during their “undercover” investigation when she encounters Errol again.

Several flashbacks show that when Case would try to leave the cult, Cyrus would viciously beat her up. If Lena tried to come to Case’s defense, then Cyrus would attack Lena too. It’s later shown that Case and Lena had some kind of sexual relationship when they were in the cult together. Lena apparently had stronger feelings for Case than Case did for Lena, who gets very jealous when she sees Case with Bob. The purpose of the Lena character is to literally be a token female in a group of men who all seem to hate her.

As if this cesspool movie weren’t icky enough, a subplot develops where Bob and Case start to become romantically attracted to each other. It’s not their age gap that’s the problem. It’s the fact that this rotten movie wants to push a narrative that even while he’s searching for his kidnapped daughter and seeking justice, this broken man is still “hot enough” to possibly get some sexual action from someone who’s in no emotional shape to be in a relationship either. Case sometimes calls Bob her “boy toy,” which is a weird thing to say about someone who’s old enough to be her father.

Needless to say, with a terrible screenplay and soulless direction, the acting performances in “God Is a Bullet” range from empty to bottom-of-the-barrel awful. Coster-Waldau looks like he’s sleepwalking through a lot of his scenes. Monroe overacts in many scenes, where she’s trying to come across as part damaged waif, part redneck seductress. Glusman is basically doing a not-very-good caricature of a twisted villain. (On a side note, Monroe and Glusman previously co-starred as spouses in the 2022 horror movie “Watcher,” which is a superior film to “God Is a Bullet” in every way.)

The Ferryman character didn’t even need to be in the movie because he’s barely in the film and has no real bearing on the plot, unless you waited your whole life to see Foxx in a movie where he plays a tattoo-making character who has a prosthetic arm. Foxx’s presence in “God Is a Bullet” is just a manipulative “bait and switch” way for the filmmakers to attract viewers by using Foxx’s celebrity name as a headliner, even though his role in the movie is really an extended cameo.

The movie’s scenes where women and girls get assaulted, exploited or murdered are filmed with a particular glee that is simply atrocious. The film has a “plot twist” that is not surprising at all. There are violent movies that can have meaning if the story is compelling and has something interesting to say. “God Is a Bullet” is just an onslaught of asinine trash that is as putrid as the movie’s nasty characters.

Wayward Entertainment released “God Is a Bullet” in select U.S. cinemas on June 23, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on July 11, 2023.

Review: ‘Lux Æterna,’ starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Béatrice Dalle

July 10, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Lux Æterna”

Directed by Gaspar Noé

Some language in French and German with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in France, the comedy/drama film “Lux Æterna” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: One the film set of a movie about a witch hunt, the atmosphere of the set quickly descends into chaos.

Culture Audience: “Lux Æterna” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Gaspar Noé, star Charlotte Gainsbourg and visually striking movies that don’t follow a traditional narrative structure.

A scene from “Lux Æterna” (Photo courtesy of Yellow Veil Pictures)

People who watch the boldly unconventional “Lux Æterna” will get more out of it if they know it’s a satirical fever dream that unfolds in “real time.” In other words, forget about getting to know the characters in depth during this 51-minute movie. Underneath the rambling dialogue and chaotic scenes, “Lux Æterna” is a snapshot of how a movie set can reflect gender politics in society.

Gaspar Noé wrote and directed “Lux Æterna,” which had its world premiere at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. People who are familiar with arthouse movies might already know that Noé is a very divisive filmmaker. The central characters in his movies tend to be very “unlikable.” Regardless of how people feel about Noé as a filmmaker, his movies are unquestionably memorable.

If “Lux Æterna” had been at least 90 minutes, it would have been a complete chore to watch. But a 51-minute running time for this movie just enough time for “Lux Æterna” to make a point without being repetitive. There’s not much to the screenplay (which looks very improvised), except to show—in a mockumentary cinéma vérité style—how quickly a movie set can shatter illusions that the movie set is a safe “bubble” but can actually cause a lot of the same chaos that exists in the “real world.” All of the “Lux Æterna” cast members portray versions of themselves with the same names.

“Lux Æterna” opens with director Béatrice Dalle having a freewheeling discussion with actress Charlotte Gainsbourg on the set of a movie they’re doing together. This unnamed movie, which is about a witch hunt, is being filmed in an unnamed location in France. Before they begin filming a scene where three witches will be burned at the stake, Béatrice asks Charlotte, who portrays one of the witches: “Have you ever been burned at the stake?” Charlotte says no.

The two women then discuss their careers and romantic entanglements that they’ve had during film shoots. Béatrice tells Charlotte: “I’ve never seen you in shit films.” Charlotte replies, “Oh, sure. I’ve done loads.”

Charlotte then talks about how she had a sexual hookup with an unnamed younger male co-star, who ejaculated on her leg during a sex scene that they filmed together. “The director told him he should’ve jacked off beforehand,” Charlotte adds. Charlotte then reveals that this younger co-star was 16. (In most of Europe, the minimum legal age of consent to have sex is 16.)

Béatrice mentions her difficulties with two producers, whom she calls Tic and Tac. She describes them as creeps who are “my Fagin and Scrooge,” in reference to the villains in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Later, Béatrice will experience a new slew of agitations on this film set.

In the lead-up to filming the “burning at the stakes” scene, Charlotte is interrupted more than once by an actor named Karl (played by Karl Glusman), who wants to talk to Charlotte about starring in a movie called “Danger,” which will be his feature-film directorial debut. Charlotte politely tells Karl that she’s too busy to discuss his movie, but he still bothers her about it. Charlotte is also pestered for an interview by a middle-aged man who works as a journalist for a magazine called Cinematic Eye.

Meanwhile, an actress named Abbey (played by Abbey Lee), who’s playing a witch in the movie, expresses discomfort and annoyance that she has been asked to do a nude scene that she didn’t agree to in her contract. The movie shows how Abbey’s concerns about this unexpected nudity are constantly dismissed. The more she speaks up, the more she’s made to look like she’s being “difficult” and is holding up the production, until she finally relents and agrees to do the nude scene.

“Lux Æterna” shows a lot of people talking over each other and sometimes shouting as the atmosphere on the set grows more hostile and disorderly. What does this say about director Béatrice, who eventually has a meltdown? Did she lose control of the film set because she’s incompetent, or was she outnumbered by too many people on the set who disrespected her authority?

“Lux Æterna” lets viewers make up their own minds, but the movie set depicted in “Lux Æterna” is clearly intended to be a microcosm of how women are often treated in a male-dominated world. The last 10 minutes of “Lux Æterna” have a lot of strobe light flashing that’s intended to make viewers very uncomfortable. (The beginning of “Lux Æterna” has a viewer discretion warning about these flashing lights.) The final images in “Lux Æterna” send a powerful message that when women are often shamed, demeaned or misunderstood for being who they are, they won’t always get a fairytale ending of someone coming to their rescue.

Yellow Veil Pictures released “Lux Æterna” in select U.S. cinemas on May 6, 2022. The movie was released on digital and VOD on June 10, 2022.

Review: ‘Watcher’ (2022), starring Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman and Burn Gorman

February 15, 2022

by Carla Hay

Maika Monroe in “Watcher” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films/IFC Midnight)

“Watcher” (2022)

Directed by Chloe Okuno

Some language in Romanian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Bucharest, Romania, the horror movie “Watcher” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After a young married couple moves from New York City to Bucharest, the wife begins to suspect that a man in a nearby apartment building has been stalking her.

Culture Audience: “Watcher” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in horror movies that take their time to build suspense, even if the movie’s ending is entirely formulaic.

“Watcher” succeeds more often than not when it comes to immersing viewers into a tension-filled stalker mystery. The cast members’ believable performances elevate the movie’s repetitive tendencies and predictable ending. As far as horror movies go, “Watcher” is slightly better-than-average, but it’s not outstanding.

“Watcher” is the feature-film directorial debut of Chloe Okuno, who previously directed the “Storm Drain” segment for the 2021 anthology horror film “V/H/S/94.” Okuno co-wrote the “Watcher” screenplay with Zack Ford. It’s a movie with a very straightforward, easy-to-follow story—even if it recycles the over-used horror concept of a pretty young woman who thinks she’s being harassed by a “fill-in-the-blank” attacker, but she has a hard time getting anyone else to be believe her. “Watcher” had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

There are no ghosts in “Watcher,” but the movie’s protagonist, whose name is Julia (played by Maika Monroe), feels haunted by her own feelings of inadequacy of being unemployed in a country where she can’t really speak the language. Julia (who’s in her late 20s) and her husband Francis (played by Karl Glusman), who’s in his early-to-mid-30s, have recently moved from New York City to Bucharest, Romania, because of his job. Francis is a businessman who works for an unnamed company. The movie never mentions any further specifics about what Francis does for a living.

Francis, who grew up in the United States, feels comfortable living in Bucharest because his mother is Romanian, so he’s fairly fluent in the language. By contrast, Julia knows only a few words in Romanian and is starting to learn the language. She feels ill-at-ease about not being able to communicate in the way that she was accustomed to when she lived in the United States. There are enough people who speak English in Romania that Julia can get by on speaking English in most places, but she still feels like an “outsider.”

The language barrier isn’t the only thing that makes Julia feels insecure. When she was living in New York, she was an aspiring actress, but things didn’t work out for her, and she’s now given up on her dream to be an actress. In Bucharest, her employment prospects are also very slim. Her immigration status is unclear, since she doesn’t have a work visa. So, for now, Julia is a homemaker with a lot of time on her hands. Luckily, Francis makes enough money to support the both of them.

Soon after moving into their high-rise Bucharest apartment, Julia and Francis get the first inkling that something might be wrong. On their first night in their new home, Julia notices that a man in the high-rise apartment building across from theirs is looking directly into their apartment and staring at her while she’s alone. Julia can only partially see the man’s face, because the room he’s in is fairly dark, and his face is somewhat obscured by shadows. The man (played by Burn Gorman), who appears to be in his 40s, is of average height and build.

It unnerves Julia that this man might be spying on her, but there’s not much she can do because they’ve just moved into the apartment and haven’t had time to install drapes or blinds on all the windows facing this other building. Julia tells Francis that they might have a neighbor who’s a voyeur, but he tells her not to jump to conclusions. He also thinks that this mystery man is probably curious to see the new residents of this apartment.

Soon after Julia and Francis have moved into the apartment, they have a small dinner party with one of Francis’ male co-workers and his wife. It’s during this dinner that Julia and Francis first hear about a serial killer who hasn’t been caught and has been targeting young women in the area. The unknown serial killer beheads the murder victims and has been nicknamed The Spider in the media. You know where this movie is going as soon as you find out that the movie has a serial killer on the loose.

Julia then meets the neighbor who lives alone in the apartment unit next door. Her name is Irina (played by Madalina Anea), who’s about five or six years older than Julia. Irina asks Julia if she can hear any noises coming from Irina’s apartment. Irina seems relieved when Julia says no. However, Julia’s first impression of how soundproof the apartment walls are might not be a correct impression.

Not long after Julia and Irina meet for the first time, another creepy incident happens to Julia. She’s watching an Audrey Hepburn film by herself at a movie theater. There are only a few other people in the room, but she notices that a man has decided to sit directly behind her, even though there are plenty of other seats that he could’ve taken.

Julia can sense that the man is staring at her, but she’s so frightened that she doesn’t turn around to get a good look at this stranger. The theater is pretty dark anyway. Instead of moving to another seat, Julia quickly leaves the theater before the end of the Hepburn movie.

And then another incident happens. But this time, it’s at a grocery store, and Julia can clearly see the man who appears to be following her. Julia is pretty sure that it’s the same man who was staring at her from the apartment building across from hers. Julia and the man don’t say anything to each other, but he noticeably follows her in the grocery aisles, keeping enough of a distance away to not invade her personal space.

Julia impulsively hides in a stock room at the grocery store, in order to get this man to lose track of where she is. However, a store employee named Sebastian (played by Stefan Iancu) sees Julia in the stock room and tells her to leave this employees-only room. He doesn’t know much English, so he doesn’t understand her explanation of why she was in the stock room.

When a terrified Julia gets home, she tells Francis about this stalking incident and asks him to go back with her to the store, so they can look at surveillance footage to prove that the man was stalking her. Francis thinks Julia might be overreacting, but he accommodates her request. They find store employee Sebastian, and Francis explains to him in Romanian what happened to Julia and why they need to look at the surveillance footage.

The footage does show the man looking at Julia in the store and appearing to follow her. Julia exclaims, “See! He’s staring at me!” Francis is still skeptical: “Maybe. Or he’s staring at the woman who’s staring at him.” Because no crimes were committed, there’s nothing more that can be done about this incident.

After Julia has this scare at the grocery store, Irina invites Julia to hang out with her in Irina’s apartment for a drink. During their conversation, Irina tells Julia a little bit about herself: She studied ballet in London, but her dream of becoming a professional ballerina was crushed when she injured her knee.

Julia mentions that she once thought that she’d be an actress, but she’s has given up on pursuing that dream. Because Julia and Irina have a similar experience of not having their dream career in the arts, it establishes a rapport between them. It seems like Julia might have found her first friend in Romania.

During this get-together, Irina’s ex-boyfriend Cristian (played by Daniel Nuta) shows up and bangs on the door. Irina doesn’t want to see him, so she tells him to go away. When he leaves, Irina shows Julia the gun that Cristian gave to her. It’s at this point in the movie that you know that gun is going to be used. “Watcher” is not subtle at all when it comes to foreshadowing.

The rest of “Watcher” is about more stalker incidents experienced by an increasingly terrified Julia, who turns to law enforcement for help but also decides to do her own investigating. Meanwhile, because many of these incidents are a “he said/she said” situation, what Julia experiences is a little hard to prove. Far from being a supportive husband, Francis questions Julia’s credibility. And eventually, he questions her mental stability.

Yes, it’s another horror movie where the woman who’s the “target” is not believed and is perceived as mentally ill by certain people. However, where “Watcher” is most effective is in creating a growing sense of dread that something terrible really is going to happen. The movie also keeps viewers guessing until the last 30 minutes if the mystery man in the apartment building is just a stalker, or if he could be the notorious Spider serial killer too.

Monroe has been in other horror movies before where she’s played the “female in peril” leading role—most notably, 2014’s critically acclaimed “It Follows.” Therefore, she’s definitely got the skills to make her Julie character in “Watcher” look authentic and relatable. Glusman’s Francis character isn’t very interesting and isn’t in the movie as much as some viewers might think he is, mainly because Francis is at his job during a lot of the moments that Julia experiences terror.

However, what makes this movie work so well (in addition to Monroe’s acting) is Gorman’s ominous performance as the stalker. (The stalker’s real name is eventually revealed in the movie.) One of the best scenes in “Watcher” is when Julia sees him looking out his window, but she can’t be entirely sure if he’s staring at her. As a test, she gives him a slow wave. And he gives a slow wave too. It’s a moment that will give chills to viewers. The rest of the movie’s cast members give serviceable performances.

The movie’s last 15 minutes stretch some bounds of credibility and could have been handled better. And the way that the serial killer is revealed is sloppily edited, because the serial killer suddenly disappears from sight in a moving subway car when a certain person finds out the killer’s identity. Despite these flaws, “Watcher” is an overall solid horror thriller that doesn’t really do anything particularly inventive, but there’s enough to the story to keep viewers in suspense.

IFC Films/IFC Midnight will release “Watcher” in select U.S. cinemas on June 3, 2022. The movie is set for release on digital and VOD on June 21, 2022. Shudder will premiere “Watcher” on August 26, 2022.

Review: ‘Above Suspicion’ (2021), starring Emilia Clarke, Jack Huston and Johnny Knoxville

May 30, 2021

by Carla Hay

Jack Huston and Emilia Clarke in “Above Suspicion” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Above Suspicion” (2021)

Directed by Phillip Noyce

Culture Representation: Taking place in Kentucky from 1988 to 1989, the crime drama “Above Suspicion” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A drug-addicted woman becomes a confidential informant to the FBI, and complications ensue when she gets emotionally involved with the FBI agent who is her contact.

Culture Audience: “Above Suspicion” will appeal mostly to people who don’t mind watching predictable and pulpy crime movies that put more emphasis on being tacky than being suspenseful.

Johnny Knoxville and Emilia Clarke in “Above Suspicion” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

The cheap-looking and tawdry drama “Above Suspicion” is based on a true crime story, but the movie foolishly gives away the ending at the very beginning of the film. In other words, if viewers don’t know what happened in this case in real life, they’ll know exactly what the outcome is in the movie’s opening scene, which has a morbid “voice from the dead” narration from the movie’s main character. “Above Suspicion” just goes downhill from there.

Directed by Phillip Noyce, “Above Suspicion” is one of those “flashback” movies where the narrator is telling what happened in the past. And in this movie (which takes place in 1988 and 1989), the narrator tells viewers that she’s already dead. Her name is Susan Smith (played by Emilia Clarke), a divorced mother of two children. She was in her late 20s when she died.

In these flashbacks of her life, Susan is a cocaine-snorting, pill-popping, marijuana-smoking ne’er do well who makes money by committing fraud. She’s been collecting government welfare checks from the state of West Virginia, which she’s not entitled to have because she actually lives in Kentucky, where she gets welfare checks too. And occasionally, Susan sells drugs to make money.

In the movie’s opening scene, Susan says in a voiceover: “You know what’s the worst thing about being dead? You get too much time to think. Thinking is painful. Knowing things is painful.”

To serve as a warning to viewers, a better way to open this movie would have been: “You know what’s the worst thing about a brain-dead movie? It wastes too much time. Watching it is painful. Knowing this movie could be so much better is painful.”

And sitting through all the cringeworthy lines that stink up this movie is painful. Chris Gerolmo wrote the “Above Suspicion” screenplay, which is based on journalist Joe Sharkey’s 1993 non-fiction book of the same name. People who’ve read that book will probably find this movie difficult to watch because it takes what was fascinating about this true crime book and turns it into a trashy melodrama.

Clarke, who is British in real life, attempts to give a believable and edgy performance as a Kentucky mother who’s lost her way in life and ends up falling for and clinging to a seemingly straight-laced married FBI agent. But there are moments when Clarke’s true British mannerisms come through, such as when she slips up and says the word “whilst” instead of “while” during one of the many scenes where her Susan character is yelling at someone. “Whilst” is not the kind of word that would be in the vocabulary of a Kentucky hillbilly like Susan.

Because “Above Suspicion” reveals in the opening scene that Susan is dead, the rest of this 104-minute movie is really just a countdown to Susan’s death. Given the lifestyle that she leads and what’s at stake when Susan gets involved with a married FBI agent with a squeaky-clean reputation, it’s not hard to figure out how she’ll die. And it won’t be from a drug overdose. If viewers don’t know what happened to the real Susan Smith in this case before they see “Above Suspicion,” it’ll become pretty obvious what her fate will be soon after this movie begins.

Susan lives in a dirty and disheveled house in Pikeville, Kentucky, with her sleazy ex-husband Cash (played by Johnny Knoxville), who’s a small-time drug dealer. They’re still living together because they can’t afford to get their own separate places. (In real life, the name of Susan’s ex-husband was Kenneth, but he really was a drug dealer.) Susan and Cash’s two children—an unnamed daughter who’s 7 or 8 years old (played by Lex Kelli) and a son named Isom who’s 5 or 6 years old (played by Landon Durrance)—don’t say much, probably because they’re shell-shocked by living in such a dysfunctional home.

Someone who does talk a lot is Susan. She and Cash have arguments and physical fights with each other, and she gets irritable or impatient with almost anyone who crosses her path, except for her children. Two other people who live in Susan and Cash’s dumpy house are an unemployed couple in their 20s: Joe B. (played by Karl Glusman) and his girlfriend Georgia Beale (played by Brittany O’Grady), who don’t seem to do much but sleep all day. Joe met Cash when they were in prison together. Cash is the one who invited Joe to stay at the house after Joe got out of prison. Needless to say, Susan isn’t very happy about it.

In one of the movie’s early scenes, Joe makes inappropriate sexual comments to Susan, who understandably gets upset. Joe also calls her “Susie,” which she hates. But then, Susan also takes her anger out on Georgia about it. Susan bursts into the room where Georgia is sleeping and berates her about Joe being a creep. As Susan storms back out of the room, she screams at Georgia, “Pay me my rent money, bitch!”

Joe actually has been making money, but in an illegal way. He’s secretly a bank robber who has been targeting banks in cities near Pikeville, with Georgia’s help as his occasional getaway driver. Susan knows this secret because Joe’s red Chevy pickup truck fits the news media’s description of the getaway car. And she’s found Joe’s stash of cash with the guns that were used in the robberies.

“Above Suspicion” has some druggie party scenes that are exactly what people might expect. And it’s only a matter of time before fights break out at these parties. Susan’s volatile younger brother Bones (played by Luke Spencer Roberts) predictably gets in one of these fights, which leads to a particularly violent scene that was fabricated for this movie, just to add more melodrama.

Susan says in a voiceover: “Welcome to Pikeville, the town that never lets go.” She also says that in Pikeville, which is plagued by drug addiction, there are two main ways that people make money: “the funeral business or selling drugs.” And earlier in the film, this is how Susan describes herself: “I was a regular girl once. But things go wrong, as things will.”

Susan’s life takes a fateful turn when she meets Mark Putnam (played by Jack Huston), an ambitious and fairly new FBI agent, who has transferred to Pikeville to investigate the bank robberies. When Susan first sees Mark, who’s two years older than she is, she describes him like a hunk straight out of a romance novel. It’s lust at first sight for Susan.

And when Susan finds out that Mark is the FBI agent leading the investigation into the robberies, she sees it as an opportunity to get to know him better. It isn’t long before she drops hints to Mark that she knows who the bank robber is, but she’s afraid to be exposed as a snitch. Mark offers to pay Susan for bits and pieces of information, and she becomes his main confidential informant.

Susan dangles enough tips for Mark to investigate to keep him coming back for more. There’s an ulterior motive, of course. Susan wants to seduce Mark. And because Mark is so different from the men she’s used to being involved with, Susan starts to fall in love with him. However, it’s debatable whether it’s true love or if it’s Susan just wanting a ticket out of her dead-end life. At one point, when Mark asks Susan what she wants most in her life, she answers, “Rehab and money.”

Susan knows that Mark is happily married and has a baby daughter with his wife Kathy Putnam (played by Sophie Lowe), but that doesn’t seem to deter Susan from having a fantasy that Mark will eventually leave Kathy to be with Susan. When Susan and Mark meet in out-of-the-way and deserted places in other Kentucky cities such as Portersville and Martin, it’s just like the clandestine way that secret lovers meet. Susan starts to tell Mark that they both make a great team, but she wants to make their “partnership” about more than FBI work.

“Above Suspicion” portrays Susan as toning down some of her vulgar and mean-spirited ways to try to seduce Mark. She gives him a lot of flattery and attention. And anyone watching this movie will not be surprised when Mark starts to fall for Susan too because he’s become slightly bored with his marriage. But Mark doesn’t feel so strongly about Susan that he wants to leave his wife. Mark has a big ego, and he enjoys being with someone who fuels that ego. Huston’s portrayal of Mark is as someone whose top priority in life is being the best at his job and getting recognition and praise for it.

Even if Mark were an available bachelor, Mark and Susan’s relationship has too many other issues, including a power imbalance and a difference in their social classes. And most troubling of all for Mark’s career is that getting sexually involved with Susan is a breach of ethics and an automatic compromise of the evidence that Mark is getting from her for this investigation. And once the investigation is over, where does Susan fit into Mark’s life?

Clarke and Huston (who is also British in real life) aren’t terrible in their roles, but they are hindered by a subpar screenplay. Huston’s Mark character is often written as two-dimensional, while Clarke’s Susan character displays over-the-top trashiness that becomes increasingly annoying, especially when Susan begins stalking Mark and his wife Kathy. It’s supposed to make Susan look emotionally needy, lovesick and vulnerable, but her obsession with Mark only makes her look mentally unhinged. As for Knoxville, his abusive Cash character is just another version of the scumbags that Knoxville usually portrays in movies.

There are some supporting characters in the movie that don’t add much to the story. Susan has a concerned older sister named Jolene (played by Thora Birch), who lives in West Virginia and occasionally calls Susan. Mark has a colleague named Todd Eason (played by Chris Mulkey), who’s retiring from the FBI in six months. There are an informant named Denver Rhodes (played by Omar Benson Miller) and an international drug dealer named Rufus (played by Brian Lee Franklin), who both appear in the last third of the movie.

Noyce’s direction of “Above Suspicion” aims for the movie to be gritty noir, but it’s really just low-budget junk. It’s very easy to predict how this story is going to end. And until that ending, which Susan already blabbed about in the voiceover narration, it’s just one scene after another of contrasting Susan’s riff-raff life with Mark’s law-enforcement life. These two worlds end up crashing in the most horrific of ways. And it’s too bad that the overall result is that “Above Suspicion” is a cinematic train wreck.

Lionsgate released “Above Suspicion” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on May 14, 2021. The movie was released on Blu-ray and DVD on May 18, 2021.