Review: ‘Carry-On,’ starring Taron Egerton, Sofia Carson, Danielle Deadwyler and Jason Bateman

December 25, 2024

by Carla Hay

Tonatiuh and Taron Egerton in “Carry-On” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Carry-On”

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, the action film “Carry-On” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent is forced to participate in a terrorist plot, where he has been told that he has to let a certain carry-on suitcase past the X-ray machine that he is monitoring and onto a certain plane, or else his pregnant girlfriend will be murdered.

Culture Audience: “Carry-On” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and action movies that are predictable but enjoyable.

Jason Bateman in “Carry-On” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Carry-On” is a preposterous but entertaining thrill ride about an airport security agent caught up in a deadly terrorist plot involving a smuggled carry-on suitcase. The movie doesn’t take itself seriously and has well-cast heroes and villains. This is the type of movie made for escapism for viewers—not to make any meaningful statements or to provoke deep thoughts.

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and written by T.J. Fixman, “Carry-On” takes place in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve. The movie was actually filmed in New Orleans, mainly at the decommissioned terminal at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. “Carry-On” begins by showing two Russian thugs named Olek (played by Jeff Pope) and Yuri (played by Raymond Rehage) at a large greenhouse somewhere in Los Angeles. The movie’s chief villain (played by Jason Bateman)—an assassin whose name is never revealed—enters the greenhouse, shoots Olek and Yuri, and the sets the greenhouse on fire.

The next scene in “Carry-On” shows live-in couple—30-year-old Ethan Kopek (played by Taron Egerton) and 27-year-old Nora Parisi (played by Sofia Carson)—waking up to get ready to go to work. Ethan and Nora, who have been dating each other for three years, both work at Los Angeles International Airport, also known as LAX. Ethan is a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent. Nora is an operations manager at North Wind Airlines, a company that was fabricated for this movie.

Nora is pregnant with her and Ethan’s first child, but the movie never says how far along she is in her pregnancy. Based on her physical appearance and conversations about the pregnancy, Nora is probably two or three months pregnant. Ethan and Nora are a happy couple looking forward to the birth of the child, but Ethan has some lingering insecurities that are affecting the relationship.

It’s eventually revealed in conversations that Ethan, who is originally from New Jersey, isn’t satisfied with the way his career is going. He moved to Los Angeles to be with Nora after she was hired by North Wind, which requires her to live in the Los Angeles area. Ethan only became a TSA agent at LAX so he and Nora could work in the same building.

What Ethan really wants to do with his life is be a police officer. He applied to enroll at a police academy once and was rejected. He was so hurt by this rejection that he hasn’t bothered to apply again, even though Nora keeps encouraging Ethan to re-apply. Nora candidly tells Ethan that when he applied to a police academy, it was the last time she saw him truly excited about his life.

A little later in the movie, it’s revealed there are other reasons for Ethan’s insecurity and disillusionment about becoming a police officer: His father (who’s never seen in the movie) also wanted to be a police officer and applied to a police academy several times but was always rejected. Ethan’s father is now an Uber driver. You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to know that Ethan is afraid he’s going to end up just like his father—doing a job he doesn’t really like because he couldn’t get his dream job.

It’s under these circumstances that Ethan arrives for work late (which apparently isn’t the first time), where he has a reputation for being likable but not particularly reliable. It’s why Ethan has been assigned the job of a metal-detector agent instead of the more challenging job of being an X-ray agent responsible for operating the equipment that scans carry-on items. It’s also why Ethan hasn’t been promoted in the three years that he’s had this job.

Ethan’s closest friend at his job is a mild-mannered co-worker named Jason Noble (played by Sinqua Walls), a married father who is a TSA agent who operates X-ray machines. Jason advises Ethan to try to get a promotion to have this type of job because Ethan is going to need more money to raise a child. Their boss Phil Sarkowski (played by Dean Norris) bluntly tells Ethan that he hasn’t given Ethan a promotion because Ethan acts like he doesn’t want to be at this TSA job. Ethan promises that he will be more responsible and wants to prove that he’s worthy of getting a promotion.

Jason tells a skeptical Phil that Jason will switch job responsibilities with Ethan on that day so Ethan can get a chance to show that he has the ability to do the X-ray job. Phil reluctantly agrees. It’s the first of many things that don’t ring true in “Carry-On” because there’s nothing to show that Ethan was trained for this X-ray job before being suddenly thrust into it.

Of course, this unlikely but still possible twist of fate is why Ethan is in the proverbial “hot seat” that makes him the distressed hero of the story. He becomes a target when terrorists force him to allow a certain passenger and the passenger’s carry-on suitcase through the X-ray machine and onto the plane. The terrorists refuse to say what’s in the suitcase, but Ethan finds out that the plan is to kill all of the approximately 250 people on the plane after the plane is in flight. (This review won’t reveal what’s in the suitcase, except to say it’s not an obvious weapon, such as a bomb.)

It isn’t long before Ethan is contacted by the person who forces Ethan to participate in this deadly terrorist plot. This person (the same killer from the movie’s opening scene) becomes Ethan’s chief adversary. Even though this assassin’s name is never revealed in “Carry-On,” in the movie’s end credits, he is listed only as Traveler. This elusive killer is able to avoid detection because he looks like a regular middle-aged guy who’s able to blend in easily.

Traveler has an unnamed accomplice, identified as Watcher (played by Theo Rossi), who is stationed in a repair van in an airport parking lot. Somehow, this van has surveillance equipment that can track several areas inside the airport. One of the repeated scenarios is that Watcher and Traveler are constantly tracking Ethan in the airport through surveillance, which makes it harder for Ethan to get help when he finds himself embroiled in this terrorist plot. It’s a very far-fetched scenario. Ethan is able to find a few “blind spots” in the airport that the terrorists can’t see.

Watcher and Traveler are able to quickly find out a lot of personal information about the TSA agents. These two criminals had originally planned to force Jason into their terrorist plan by holding Jason’s wife and daughter hostage. But when Watcher and Traveler see that Ethan is working at the X-ray station where Jason normally works, they decided to target Ethan under the threat of killing pregnant Nora.

Traveler tells Watcher about this sudden change of plans: “Let’s pivot. Fill in some blanks. No matter what, this gets done today.” Traveler is able to get a cell phone placed on the conveyer belt that Ethan is operating. Just as Ethan sees that no airline passenger has claimed this phone, he sees text messages appear on the phone telling Ethan to wear an ear bud that is placed nearby.

It’s the first time that Ethan hears from Traveler, who communicates with Ethan through this ear bud. Traveler tells Ethan about the plan and describes in detail what the passenger and briefcase look like. Ethan later finds out that the passenger carrying the briefcase is named Mateo Flores (played by Tonatiuh), who is wearing a red baseball cap. At first Ethan thinks it’s all an elaborate prank. But when Traveler tells Ethan how many personal details he knows about Ethan’s life, Ethan is convinced this is no prank.

Traveler not only threatens Ethan by saying Nora will be killed if Ethan doesn’t follow Traveler’s orders but Traveler also threatens to kill other people inside the airport if Ethan tries to get help or report this terrorist plot. Traveler says that if Ethan does something such as removing the ear bud to cut off contact with Traveler, that could get someone killed too. At one point, Traveler asks Ethan if he would rather have 250 die on an airplane or thousands of people die in an airport.

When Ethan asks Traveler if he’s a terrorist, Travel replies: “I consider myself a freelance facilitator.” It’s implied throughout the movie that Traveler and Watcher are “middle men” hired by a larger entity, which is never named in the movie. Traveler is often cold and detached, but he also has a tendency to rant and ramble about things that irritate him. During some of his rants, he reveals his contempt for millennials and Gen Z people, whom he thinks are wimpy and over-reliant on technology. Traveler also thinks he’s the smartest person in the room who’s skilled at psychoanalysis as a way to predict and manipulate people’s actions.

“Carry-On” has a few supporting characters who are pivotal to the story. Los Angeles police detective Elena Cole (played by Danielle Deadwyler) is the first law enforcement officer to suspect that there might be a terrorist plan put into motion at LAX. She’s later joined by Agent Alcott (played by Logan Marshall-Green) from the FBI. Ethan also has a TSA co-worker named Eddie (played by Gil Perez-Abraham), an aspiring rapper who shamelessly peddles his music to his co-workers and other people at the airport. Eddie is the movie’s “comic relief” character.

“Carry-On” has some other intentionally comedic moments, including a montage of angry and difficult passengers who feel that they’re being inconvenienced in some way by the TSA screening process. Traveler also has some wry comments that are meant to show that he’s deeply cynical about how society works and he’s just a hired gun who doesn’t care about taking sides in politics when it comes to the work he’s hired to do. Detective Cole also has some one-liner jokes that are a bit corny but are intended to bring some laughs.

“Carry-On” is an effective thriller not just because of the adrenaline-packed actions scenes because of the performances from the movie’s talented cast members. A movie like this is often appealing because of the chief hero and the chief villain. Egerton is able to be a vulnerable “everyman” who’s easy to root for when it’s time for Ethan to show he’s a lot braver and smarter than most people think he might be. Bateman is also quite convincing as a mysterious but menacing terrorist. “Carry-On” doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a crowd-pleasing movie that has a few twists to its formulaic plot but ends up right where most viewers expect.

Netflix premiered “Carry-On” on December 13, 2024.

Review: ‘Reverse the Curse,’ starring Logan Marshall-Green, David Duchovny, Stephanie Beatriz, Jason Beghe, Evan Handler, Santo Fazio, Daphne Rubin-Vega and Pamela Adlon

July 11, 2024

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from left to right: David Duchovny, Stephanie Beatriz and Logan Marshall-Green in “Reverse the Curse” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)

“Reverse the Curse”

Directed by David Duchovny

Culture Representation: Taking place in New Jersey, mostly in 1978 (and briefly in 1956 and 2004), the comedy/drama film “Reverse the Curse” (based on the novel “Bucky F*cking Dent”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An aspiring writer and his terminally ill father try to mend their rocky relationship during the 1978 Major Leage Baseball season that had a World Series competition between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. 

Culture Audience: “Reverse the Curse” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of director/star David Duchovny and movies about father-son relationships that alternate between being cynical and sentimental.

Logan Marshall-Green and David Duchovny in “Reverse the Curse” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)

“Reverse the Curse” awkwardly fumbles its attempts to balance sarcasm and sappiness. This comedy/drama has too much phony-sounding and lackluster dialogue in portraying a volatile father-son relationship affected by the 1978 World Series. Perhaps because of the maudlin and frequently dull screenplay, the principal cast members look like they’re trying too hard to be convincing as their often-unhappy characters. And that desperation just ends up being a distraction.

Written and directed by David Duchovny, “Reverse the Curse” is based on his 2017 novel “Bucky F*cking Dent,” which was the original title of the movie. After the movie had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival, Vertical acquired the film and changed the movie’s title to “Reverse the Curse.” The “Reverse the Curse” title refers to the theory that the Boston Red Sox baseball team was cursed from winning the World Series after trading Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1919.

“Reverse the Curse” begins by explaining this theory in a scene taking place in New Jersey in 1956. In a household living room, 11-year-old Theodore “Ted” Fullaker (played by Liam Garten) is watching a TV news report about how the Boston Red Sox hasn’t won a World Series because of this supposed curse. The movie then abruptly shifts to 1978, to show 33-year-old Ted (played by Logan Marshall-Green) is now working as a peanut vendor at Yankee Stadium.

Ted is divorced, has no children, and still lives in New Jersey. (“Reverse the Curse” was filmed on location in New Jersey.) What Ted really wants to do for a job is be a novelist, but he hasn’t had luck getting any of his manuscripts published. It doesn’t help that Ted would rather get stoned (he has a fondness for marijuana) instead of working on his craft. It’s mentioned several times that he doesn’t do much except smoke marijuana and watch TV when he’s at home.

One of the problems with “Reverse the Curse” is that it never really shows if Ted is a good writer or not and therefore doesn’t give viewers anything to root for when it comes to Ted wanting to fulfill his dream of becoming a professional writer. His writing aspirations are sidelined and overshadowed by the repetitive bickering that Ted has with his father and other people. It all becomes tiresome and annoying to watch after a while.

An early scene in the movie shows Ted in a meeting with a book publisher or a book agent named Blauner (played by Pamela Adlon), who tells Ted: “You’re a real writer. You’re a goddamn writer. But you’ve got nothing to write about. You write as if you haven’t lived … You haven’t suffered—and it shows.” She then advises that Ted commit a crime so that he can go to prison and get raped in prison. If you think this type of conversation is hilarious, then “Reverse the Curse” is the movie for you.

Ted’s cranky father is Marty Fullaker (played by Duchovny), a widower who is 60 years old and has heart disease and terminal lung cancer. Marty has declined any further medical care and just wants to die at home. During his stay in a hospital, he was assigned a nurse named Mariana Blades (played by Stephanie Beatriz), who calls herself a “death specialist”—someone who gives counseling to patients to prepare them for death.

Ted meets Mariana for the first time at the hospital where Marty will soon be discharged. Mariana tells Ted that Marty been working on a “biographical novel.” Mariana tells Ted that Marty wants Ted to help him finish the book. Mariana has this to say about Marty: “He’s been a villain. He’s been a scapegoat. Now, he just wants to die a hero.”

Marty is a longtime Red Sox fan who believes that he will live to see the Red Sox “reverse the curse” and win the World Series. In 1978, the Red Sox get closer and closer to making it to the World Series. Ted is a Yankees fan. One of his favorite players is Bucky Dent, who was a short stop for the Yankees at the time.

“Reverse the Curse” makes Marty an Archie Bunker-type character who is curmudgeonly and openly racist but is supposed to be “loveable” anyway. When Marty introduces Mariana to Ted, Marty calls her a racial slur for Hispanics. Mariana shrugs it off and says to Ted: “Your father and I are friends. Epithets can sometimes be endearments. It’s all in how you tell the story.” She then adds by saying to Marty: “Right, honky?”

In order to help Marty finish his book, Ted reluctantly spends more time with Marty. And what a coincidence: Every time Ted is visiting Marty, Mariana just happens to come over to visit too, even though Marty is technically no longer her patient. It’s the movie’s predictable set-up for a romance to start between Ted and Mariana, who have the type of attraction to each other that they try to hide but it’s very obvious.

Ted (who’s not very smart and is self-defeating) and Mariana (who is quick-witted and ambitious) have the type of “opposites attract” banter that a would-be couple can have in movies where they spend quite a bit of time clashing before admitting that they want a romantic relationship with each other. It’s all so predictable but made very boring because Ted and Mariana don’t really have great chemistry with each other. While Ted opens up to Mariana about his past, she’s very emotionally guarded and doesn’t want to talk to Ted about her personal life.

There are the inevitable father-son arguments that are extensions of long-simmering resentments from the son’s childhood. (Benny Mora plays a young adult Marty in flashback scenes.) It should come as no surprise that Marty wasn’t a great husband and father and now has some regrets. Marty has a habit of treating Ted as kind of a loser who didn’t live up to Ted’s potential. Will Ted and Marty heal their grudges against each other before it’s too late? Hint: Did the Red Sox ever “reverse the curse”?

It would be enough for “Reverse the Curse” to have subplots about the writing of Marty’s novel; Marty’s battle with a terminal illness; the possible romance between Ted and Mariana; and Marty’s obsessions with the Red Sox reversing the curse. But no. The movie throws in yet another subplot about Marty pining over a long-lost mistress he fell in love with when he was married to Ted’s mother.

The name of this long-lost love is Eva Maria Gonzalez (played by Daphne Rubin-Vega), who is portrayed by Kathiamarice Lopez in flashback scenes. It leads to a meandering part of the story where Ted enlists Mariana’s help to look for Eva in neighborhoods where people mostly speak Spanish. The movie shows if Eva and Marty reunite or not.

“Reverse the Curse” also has some time-wasting nonsense about Marty’s friends at a barbershop who plot ways for Marty to not find out if the Red Sox lost a game this season. These barbershop friends are yammering meddlers named Benny (played by Evan Handler), Shticker (played by Santo Fazio) and Tango Sam (played by Jason Beghe), who tell Ted a bizarre story about how Marty thinking that the Red Sox is a winning team has direct links to Marty’s health.

Years ago, when Ted was too young to remember, Marty was sick and had to use a wheelchair. Benny said that he fabricated a newspaper story about the Red Sox winning a game (when in fact, the Red Sox lost the game) and gave the fake newspaper article to Marty. Benny says that after seeing the newspaper article, Marty “miraculously” stopped needing to use a wheelchair.

Marty’s barbershop pals think the same tactic can work on Marty again to improve his health. And so, there are entire segments of the movie where Marty’s barbershop friends and Ted go to great lengths to keep any news from Marty that the Red Sox lost a game, including the old trick of fabricating newspaper articles. Marty doesn’t watch TV, which makes it easier for him to not find out the truth. “Reverse the Curse” fails to be believable in this subplot of “hiding the real Red Sox game scores from Marty” because the movie doesn’t want viewers to think that avid Red Sox fan Marty, who has a lot of time on his hands, could easily and realistically find a way to get Red Sox game scores on the radio.

All of these subplots and shenanigans are rarely amusing to watch in this very uneven movie. It seems as if writer/director Duchovny was too enamored with the “Bucky F*cking Dent” book to leave out the parts of the book that didn’t need to be in the movie. Ted is such a mopey sad sack, and Marty is such arrogant bore, it’s hard to care that they’ve made their own lives miserable.

For most of the film, Marshall-Green wears a fake-looking hippie wig that’s very distracting because it looks so artificial. In “Reverse the Curse,” Marshall-Green also looks too old to be 33-year-old Ted. In fact, Marshall-Green was in his mid-40s when he filmed the movie. Because of this noticeable age miscasting, Duchovny (who is only 16 years older than Marshall-Green) and Marshall-Green do not look convincing as father and son.

But that’s not the only problem with this movie. There’s so much cringeworthy dialogue, it diminishes the intended emotional impact of the story. “Reverse the Curse” lurches around from one subplot the next, like the rambling novel that Marty’s book seems to be. “Reverse the Curse” crams in some heavy-handed schmaltz in the last 20 minutes, but by then, it’s too late to save this well-intentioned but mishandled movie.

Vertical released “Reverse the Curse” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on June 14, 2024.

Review: ‘Intrusion’ (2021), starring Freida Pinto and Logan Marshall-Green

February 13, 2022

by Carla Hay

Logan Marshall-Green and Freida Pinto in “Intrusion” (Photo by Ursula Coyote/Netflix)

“Intrusion” (2021)

Directed by Adam Salky

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional U.S. town of Corallis, the dramatic film “Intrusion” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one person of Indian heritage and a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After a married couple experiences a terrifying and deadly home invasion, the wife begins her own investigation into why this break-in happened.

Culture Audience: “Intrusion” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in mystery thrillers that follow a predictable formula and have too many moments of ridiculousness to be considered high-quality entertainment.

Logan Marshall-Green and Freida Pinto in “Intrusion” (Photo by Ursula Coyote/Netflix)

“Intrusion” is a mystery crime drama that’s so lazy and mediocre, it’s too easy to figure out who’s the chief villain, long before the movie is over. The only memorable things about “Intrusion” are some of the ludicrous and unbelievable scenes that some viewers might consider unintentionally funny. The film’s climactic showdown scene permanently sinks “Intrusion” into the cesspool where vapid and generic thrillers are quickly forgotten.

Directed by Adam Salky, “Intrusion” has very little flair, wit or charisma. And that includes the non-existent chemistry between Freida Pinto and Logan Marshall-Green, who play the married couple at the center of the story: Meera Parsons and Henry Parsons. Meera (who’s a therapist) and Henry (who’s an architect) have been married to each other for 12 years. They have recently moved into their dream home that Henry built for Meera.

The house is in a fictional American small town called Corallis, which has a mix of working-class and middle-class people. Moving to a small town is quite an adjustment for this couple. Meera, who is originally from India, met Henry when they used to live in Boston. Meera and Henry have also had a big challenge in their marriage: Meera is recovering from breast cancer, which is currently in remission.

One evening, shortly after moving into their new house, Meera and Henry have dinner together at a nearby restaurant. When they come home, they immediately see that their living room and study have been ransacked. When an investigating cop named Detective Steven Morse (played by Robert John Burke) shows up to take the crime report, Henry tells him that two cell phones and a laptop computer were stolen from the home. Detective Morse remarks that if Henry designed the house himself, then Henry should’ve also installed a security system.

Not long after the break-in, Meera has an appointment with her oncologist Dr. Burke (played by Denielle Fisher Johnson), who has some good news for Meera: The test results came back for a lump that Meera felt on one of her breasts, and the lump was scar tissue, not cancer that returned. Dr. Burke can see how Meera’s cancer recovery has been taking a toll on Meera’s emotional well-being, so she recommends that Meera see a therapist, but Meera dismisses this advice. She tells the doctor that her husband Henry provides all the emotional support that she needs.

Dr. Burke also mentions that she heard about the break-in, and she’s concerned this invasive crime might cause extra stress for Meera, who is very surprised that Dr. Burke knows about the break-in. “It’s a small town,” Dr. Burke explains. Meera will soon find out that there’s a lot she has to learn about Corallis.

Trust and uncovering secrets are recurring themes in “Intrusion.” Meera had made her appointment with Dr. Burke without telling Henry. And when Henry finds out about it, he gets annoyed, and he lectures Meera about how they shouldn’t keep secrets from each other. They have a little tiff over this issue, but it’s not an argument that causes a big rift in their relationship.

Meera’s and Henry’s lives change forever one night, when three intruders break into their home—and not everyone makes it out alive. The first sign that something is wrong is when there’s an electrical power outage in the home. Henry checks the power generator outside, and he sees that it has been deliberately damaged. When he goes back in the house, he’s shocked to find that Meera has been tied up by intruders, who are not in the room.

Henry quickly unties Meera. He gets a gun and fights off the intruders, who are three other men, and they have an attack dog with them. Meanwhile, Meera jumps from a second-floor balcony to go outside to her car to try to escape. She hears gunshots coming from inside the house. And the next thing you know, one of the men appears in front of her with the dog, but he’s shot and immediately killed by Henry.

It’s later revealed that Henry also shot the two other intruders inside the house. Two of the intruders are now dead, while the other has survived and is in the local hospital’s intensive care unit. Who were these three intruders? They all come from the same family: Paul Cobb (played by Antonio Valles) and his younger brother Colby Cobb (played by Brandon Fierro), both in their 20s, are the ones who were shot dead. Their father Dylan Cobb (played by Mark Sivertsen) is the one who is severely injured in the hospital.

Because Corallis is a small town with a small police department, Detective Morse is on this home invasion case too. He tells Meera and Henry that the Cobbs are related to Christine Cobb, a freshman at a community college, who has been missing for several weeks. Christine is Dylan’s daughter and the sister of Paul and Colby. After the police investigate the crime scene and take statements from Meera and Henry, it’s determined that Henry acted in self-defense, so he’s not charged with any crimes.

As upsetting and traumatic as this home invasion was, Henry still wants to go ahead with the housewarming party that he and Meera had planned for the following evening. Meera is reluctant to have the party, but Henry insists that the best way to deal with the trauma is to not let it disrupt their lives. Even though Meera is grateful that Henry saved their lives, she’s upset that Henry secretly had a gun that she didn’t know about until this home invasion happened.

The police are investigating why Henry and Meera were targeted for these two break-ins, but the police investigation is not enough for Meera. She begins looking for clues on her own, starting with what she can find around the house when Henry isn’t home. Meera suddenly acts like a private detective when certain clues lead her to some of the seedier areas in town. It isn’t long before Meera does some trespassing and break-ins herself, in her growing obsession to find out the truth.

There’s a scene at a trailer park where Meera is confronted by a local lowlife named Clint Oxbow (played Clint Obenchain), who catches her snooping around. It’s an example of one of many scenes in “Intrusion” that will have viewers giggling or groaning at the absurdity of it all. The clues in this mystery lead to a very predictable answer. By the time the big reveal happens in a very clumsily written and poorly executed scene, a lot of viewers who already had the mystery figured out will probably be very unimpressed. The cast members give very average or subpar performances.

Between the too-obvious clues and the short list of possible suspects, “Intrusion” offers very little suspense. The movie might have risen above its mediocrity if the main characters were more engaging. Unfortunately, Meera and Henry are so boring and emotionally awkward as a couple, viewers will have a hard time believing that Meera and Henry are supposed to be each other’s best friend. “Intrusion” gives everything the “blah” treatment, including the marital relationship and the mystery that are supposed to be at the heart of the story.

Netflix premiered “Intrusion” on November 22, 2021.

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

February 12, 2022

by Carla Hay

Abigail Cowen and Tom Lewis in “Redeeming Love” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

“Redeeming Love”

Directed by D.J. Caruso

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Review: ‘How It Ends’ (2021), starring Zoe Lister-Jones and Cailee Spaeny

July 21, 2021

by Carla Hay

Zoe Lister-Jones and Cailee Spaeny in “How It Ends” (Photo courtesy of MGM/American International Pictures)

“How It Ends” (2021)

Directed by Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles, the comedy film “How It Ends” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: Hours before an impending apocalypse, a woman in her 30s sees a physical manifestation of her 15-year-old self, and together they visit people they know to say their goodbyes in case they don’t survive the apocalypse. 

Culture Audience: “How It Ends” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in “mumblecore” comedies that are self-consciously quirky in a way that will annoy some viewers.

Zoe Lister-Jones and Cailee Spaeny in “How It Ends” (Photo courtesy of MGM/American International Pictures)

The smugly oddball “How It Ends” looks and sounds like it could have been a pilot episode for a mumblecore sitcom rather than a compelling cinematic experience. In this time-wasting apocalyptic comedy, the end of the world is depicted as Los Angeles hipsters and weirdos acting as annoying as possible and thinking that they’re hilarious. You can see that on Hollywood Boulevard for free. You don’t need to pay money to see that in a movie as dull as this one.

Husband-and-wife duo Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein wrote and directed “How It Ends,” and it looks exactly like what it is: A movie that was rushed into production during the pre-vaccine COVID-19 pandemic, just so the filmmakers could brag about how they braved the pandemic to make this movie. Unfortunately, not enough time seems to have been spent on developing an interesting story for this repetitive and mostly empty-headed film.

“How It Ends” takes place in Los Angeles, just hours before an apocalypse is supposed to destroy the world. It’s never explained how people know the exact hour that this apocalypse is going to hit. But the characters in this movie are just way too calm about it, and they go about their lives as if it’s just another sunny day in California.

At least half of this movie just shows the two main characters walking from house to house, as they say goodbye to friends and assorted loved ones before the end of the world happens. Expect to see repetitive shots of people sauntering down a street as if they’re just out for a pleasant stroll before the apocalypse. And everyone they talk to just happens to be “quirky.”

The two main characters in the story are supposed to be the same person at different stages in her life. The movie opens with protagonist Liza (played by Lister-Jones), who’s in her 30s and with an unknown occupation, in her home on the morning before the apocalypse. There’s a teenage girl (played by Cailee Spaeny) jumping up and down on Liza’s bed.

Liza checks her voice messages and finds out that her friend Mandy (played by Whitney Cummings) has invited Liza to an end-of-the-world party happening that night. Liza tells the teenage girl, “Tonight, I want to get really fucking high and eat ’til I puke.” The girl in Liza’s house replies, “I can list so many problems with that idea. The first is: You’re out of weed.”

Who is this girl? Liza finds out this other person in her home is her 15-year-old self. Liza might want to roll on Ecstasy to get high, but the only thing rolling during this movie will be viewers’ eyes at the self-consciously twee absurdity of it all. Guess who’s hanging out with Liza for the whole movie? Young Liza, who’s somehow wiser and more emotionally intuitive than the older Liza.

It’s explained in the movie that Young Liza can only be seen on the last day before the apocalypse happens. And based on the advice that Young Liza gives her older self, Young Liza is supposed to embody hindsight. Young Liza also doesn’t have the emotional baggage that older Liza has, so she’s able to see things more clearly when it comes to unresolved issues in older Liza’s life.

Before Liza and her younger self go to the party, they decide to visit a series of people to say their final goodbyes. A lot of these half-baked scenes (many of them look improvised) are just filler. There are long stretches of the movie where it’s nothing but Liza and her younger self walking from place to place and encountering goofy, strange and usually very irritating people.

Wait, doesn’t everyone drive in Los Angeles if they can afford it? The movie comes up with a reason for why Liza and her teenage mini-me end up walking everywhere for more than half the movie: Liza’s car has been stolen. It’s the end of the world, so there’s no point in reporting the theft to the police. Will Liza get her car back though? That question is answered in the movie.

Most of the people whom Liza and her young self visit are the type of characters you would expect in a low-budget indie flick where the filmmakers think that it’s automatically supposed to be funny to see adults acting like immature kooks. There are the wacky neighbors in different homes, such as Derek (played by Bobby Lee), who’s a babbling stoner; Manny (played by Fred Armisen), a forgetful eccentric; and anxious Dave (played by Paul Scheer), who gets yelled at by another neighbor for not washing his recycling container.

And then there are a few people randomly performing in the middle of the street or on a sidewalk in this residential area, including a nameless stand-up comedian (played by Ayo Edebiri), who’s actually one of the few highlights of the film. Real-life singer Sharon Van Etten shows up toward the end of the film as a folksy singer named Jet, who plays acoustic guitar in the street to an enthralled audience of two: Liza and her younger self.

“How It Ends” desperately wants to be a uniquely modern film, but it uses the oldest and most cliché trope in a comedy starring a woman: She’s pining over a man because she wants him to be her romantic partner. In Liza’s case, “the one who got away” is Nate (played by Logan Marshall-Green), a former hookup whom she has deeper feelings for than she was willing to admit when he was in her life and when she emotionally pushed him away. Liza regrets shutting Nate out of her life, and she wants to see Nate again so she can tell him that she loves him before the end of the world happens.

Liza also has some unfinished business with her divorced parents Kenny (played by Bradley Whitford) and Lucinda (played by Helen Hunt), as well as her ex-boyfriend Larry (played by Lamorne Morris), who cheated on her when they were together. Liza visits all of them during this movie to tell them how she really feels. Viewers find out that she has major abandonment issues and has had a problem communicating her true feelings to the people who are closest to her.

But the best and funniest encounter that Liza has is with an estranged friend named Alay (played by Olivia Wilde), who’s just as neurotic as Liza is. Liza and Alay have a rapid-fire conversation where they talk over each other about what went wrong in their friendship (they fell out because Alay didn’t approve of Larry), and they call a truce—because of, you know, the apocalypse.

Alay eats a very decadent-looking cake during this conversation and says she’s a psychic. What does she see in Liza’s afterlife future? Alay says, “Timothée Chalamet and lots of dairy with no consequences.” Sounds like heaven for a lot of people.

If only “How It Ends” had more of this type of laugh-out-loud comedic scene with Wilde and Lister-Jones, because they have such natural and appealing chemistry with each other. Maybe they can co-star in another movie someday. Hopefully, it would have a better screenplay and more exciting direction than what’s in “How It Ends.”

But for every scene like the rip-roaring one with Wilde, there are five or six more scenes in “How It Ends” that are just so tedious and downright cringeworthy. For example, when Liza goes to her ex-boyfriend Larry’s home, it’s a retro ripoff with derivative ideas: She holds up a boombox (just like John Cusack famously did in the 1989 movie “Say Anything”), and then she quotes the chorus of Alanis Morissette’s 1995 hit “You Oughta Know.”

And there’s some self-pitying drivel, such as when Liza and her younger self have an argument with each other. Liza wants to ditch her younger self and continue on her own, because she thinks Young Liza doesn’t count as her real self. Young Liza shouts, “I do count! All your life, you’ve been licking your fucking wounds, when I’m the biggest wound of all!” Oh, boo hoo. Did anyone bring any tissues?

Lister-Jones and Spaeny previously worked together in the disappointing 2020 horror film “The Craft: Legacy,” which was written and directed by Lister-Jones and starred Spaeny as a teenage witch who joins a coven of other teen witches. The chemistry between Lister-Jones and Spaeny in “How It Ends” is more like older sister/younger sister as two different people, rather than entirely convincing as two versions of the same person. One of the takeaways from the movie is that Liza looks physically older than her younger self, but she hasn’t emotionally matured very much since she was a teenager.

Spaeny makes some attempt to mimic certain mannerisms that older Liza would have had in her teen years. And there are times that Liza and her younger self do things in snyc when they’re walking down the street. However, the movie looks like it was filmed so quickly that Spaeny and Lister-Jones didn’t have enough time to do work on body language and speech patterns that are more subtle and nuanced.

“How It Ends” is not so off-putting that it won’t find its share of people who will love this movie. There’s a very specific type of viewer who automatically thinks any movie that reeks of being self-congratulatory “quirky” is something that’s worth admiring. But for people who prefer their comedies to actually be funny and have a significant plot, you’ll have to look elsewhere, because “How It Ends” comes up very short in these elements and is mostly just a series of poorly conceived vignettes.

MGM’s American International Pictures released “How It Ends” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on July 20, 2021.

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