Omari Hardwick Archives

Review: ‘Army of the Dead’ (2021), starring Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Tig Notaro, Matthias Schweighöfer and Garret Dillahunt

May 13, 2021

by Carla Hay

Dave Bautista in “Army of the Dead” (Photo by Clay Enos/Netflix)

“Army of the Dead” (2021)

Directed by Zack Snyder

Culture Representation: Taking place in Las Vegas during a zombie apocalypse, the horror flick “Army of the Dead” features a racially diverse cast (Asian, white, African American and Latino) representing the middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A ragtag group is enlisted to retrieve $200 million in cash from a casino bank vault before the government drops a nuclear bomb in the zombie-infested area.

Culture Audience: “Army of the Dead” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in epic and suspenseful zombie thrillers.

Ella Purnell in “Army of the Dead” (Photo by Clay Enos/Netflix)

What’s a filmmaker to do when there are so many movies and TV shows about a zombie apocalypse that cover a lot of the same problems? In the case of director Zack Snyder, you up the ante by making the story about looting a vault filled with $200 million in cash, before the area is detonated by government bomb. That’s the concept of writer/director/producer Snyder’s “Army of the Dead,” which definitely won’t be confused with director Joseph Conti’s 2008 low-budget supernatural horror movie “Army of the Dead,” which was about ghostly conquistadors.

Snyder (who was also the cinematographer for his “Army of the Dead” movie) isn’t new to directing a zombie film, since the previous zombie flick that he directed was the critically acclaimed 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead.” With a total running time of 148 minutes, “Army of the Dead” has a lot of time for viewers to get to know the story’s individual human characters, who each have a distinct and memorable personality. And believe it or not, a few of the zombie characters have semblances of personalities too—or at least a hierachy and customs that they follow—which is a departure from most zombie stories where the zombies only think about killing humans for their next meal.

Is it worth spending nearly two-and-a-half hours of your life watching “Army of the Dead”? It depends. If you’re inclined to watch gory horror movies, then the answer is a definite “yes,” because there’s enough of a good story and suspenseful moments that will keep you riveted. If you can’t stomach seeing brutal battles with blood and guts, then “Army of the Dead” is something that you can skip. The “Army of the Dead” screenplay (written by Snyder, Shay Hatten and Joby Harold) keeps things simple, so that even though there’s a relatively large cast of characters, nothing gets confusing.

“Army of the Dead” opens with a military convoy of trucks and vans somewhere in the Nevada desert, with one of the trucks carrying super-secret cargo. Two military guards named Corp. Bissel (played by Zach Rose) and Sgt. Kelly (played by Michael Cassidy) are in a truck together and speculate about what they might be guarding that’s so top-secret. Bissel thinks it might be an alien from outer space, because whatever is in the mystery truck came from Area 51. Kelly has been told on a walkie talkie to stay away from a truck that’s in the middle of the convoy.

Bissel and Kelly are about to found out what’s in that mysterious truck. A newlywed couple named Mr. Hillman (played by Steve Corona) and Misty Hillman (played by Chelsea Edmundson), who are in a car in the opposite lane of the highway, are engaging in some sexual activity, and the husband takes his eyes off the road while driving. Big mistake. The resulting crash is a big pile-up that ends with a massive explosion that kills the newlyweds and most of the people in the convoy, except for Bissel and Kelly.

The truck that was supposed to be “off limits” topples over. And out comes a zombie named Zeus (played by Richard Cetrone), who immediately goes on a rampage. Bissel and Kelly make a valiant effort to save themselves, but they inevitably become the zombie’s prey and then become zombies themselves.

“Army of the Dead” then fast-forwards to Las Vegas in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, by having a fairly long sequence of opening credits showing much of the action in slow-motion. The movie has many touches of humor, such as zombie showgirls who attack the type of creepy older men who would probably sexually harass them under other circumstances. Zombies have taken over casinos and are shown terrorizing people at slot machines and game tables. And because this is Vegas, there’s at least one Elvis impersonator who’s a zombie.

During all of this mayhem, a news announcement comes on TV that the government will drop a “low-yield, tactical nuclear bomb” in the worst zombie-infested area of Las Vegas, at sunset on (of all days) the Fourth of July. All people in the area have been ordered to evacuate. But a wealthy casino owner named Bly Tanaka (played by Hiroyuki Sanada) has other plans.

Bly’s eponymous high-rise casino is now abandoned and is in the area that’s scheduled to be bombed. The casino has a secret vault filled with $200 million cash. And he wants to get the cash out in time by having other people do the dirty work for him.

Bly visits Scott Ward (played by Dave Bautista), a widower who works as a cook at a diner. Scott isn’t an average diner employee though: He received a Presidential Medal of Freedom for saving several people at the start of the zombie apocalypse. (This heroism is mentioned, but not shown, in the movie.)

And due to his shady past, Scott knows the right people to assemble to get all of that cash out of the vault, even if it means risking their lives in an area crawling with zombies. Bly offers Scott $50 million to do the job and says that it will be up to Scott how Scott wants to divide the payment amongst Scott’s team members. Scott eagerly accepts the challenge because he wants the money to open his own fast-food business.

The decision of where to drop the bomb is controversial because it’s in a quarantine area for people who’ve been suspected of being exposed to zombie infections. In one of the movie’s satirical moments, there’s a TV news debate with political pundits on both sides weighing in on the controversy. Real-life liberal Democrat pundit Donna Brazile (a former acting chair of the Democratic National Committee) and real-life conservative Republican aide Sean Spicer (a former White House press secretary in the Donald Trump administration) are seen in this debate arguing over the ethics of this bombing. Brazile thinks the bombing is a human rights violation, while Spicer thinks the bombing is necessary to ensure the safety of non-infected humans.

Scott’s estranged daughter Kate Ward (played by Ella Purnell) works as a volunteer at the quarantine shelter/refugee camp. Kate has befriended a single mother named Geeta (played by Huma Qureshi), who is desperate to have her two underage children smuggled out of the shelter before the bomb hits. Geeta begs Kate to take the children to the nearby city of Barstow if anything happens to her.

One of the supervisors at the shelter is a sleazy bully named Burt Cummings (played by Theo Rossi), who takes particular pleasure in demeaning women. When he does a thermometer scan of Geeta, he stands too close for comfort and tells her that if she doesn’t like it, he’ll use another way to take her temperature: “I could use my rectal thermometer,” he smirks.

The bomb is supposed to be dropped in 72 hours. But Dave is able to quickly assemble his team. They are:

Maria Cruz (played by Ana de la Reguera), a strong-willed mechanic who had a past romance with Scott.
Vanderohe (played by Omari Hardwick), a quintessential action hero who has a sensitive side (he works at a retirement home) beneath his tough exterior.
Marianne Peters (played by Tig Notaro), a wisecracking helicopter pilot who will be responsible for flying the team’s getaway helicopter.
Dieter (played by Matthias Schweighöfer), a socially awkward and nerdy locksmith who will be responsible for cracking the safe’s complex security codes, which change on a regular basis.
Mikey Guzman (played by Raúl Castillo), a semi-famous YouTuber who likes to make extreme stunt videos of himself hunting zombies.
Chambers (Samantha Win), a feisty but emotionally aloof friend of Mikey’s who only trusts Mikey in the group.
Lilly (played by Nora Arnezeder), also known as The Coyote, a cunning warrior type who works at the quarantine shelter and was introduced to the group by Kate.
Kate, Scott’s daughter, who insists on being part of the team because she wants some of the money to help Deeta.
Martin (played by Garret Dillahunt), a security expert who works for Bly and is there to keep tabs on this motley crew so they won’t steal all the money for themselves.

One of Mikey’s friends named Damon (played by Colin Jones) was also supposed to be part of the team. But a fearful Damon quits early, before they even start their journey, when he finds out that the area they’re going to has a colony of zombies that will be sure to attack. Lilly knows the most about the zombies living in this colony, and she’s the go-to person to come up with strategies on how to outsmart the zombies.

As Lilly tells the rest of the team, these are not ordinary zombies. Regular zombies, which are more common, are called “shamblers” because they don’t think beyond eating and killing. The zombies that are near the casino are called “alphas,” because they’re smarter, faster and stronger than the shambler zombies.

These alpha zombies have formed a tribe headed by a king (Zeus, the same zombie who escaped from the military convoy) and a queen (played by Athena Perample), who expect the rest of the zombie tribe to follow their lead. These zombies, as seen in several parts of the movie, seem to have emotions of anger and sadness. And they also understand things such as bargaining, which might or might not come in handy for this group that will soon invade the alpha zombies’ territory.

“Army of the Dead” keeps things at a fairly energetic pace, although there are a few parts of the movie where people are standing around and talking a little too much. But the action, when it happens, lives up to expectations in intensity and realistic gore. There are some splatter scenes that were deliberately filmed for laughs. The movie also has a male zombie tiger named Valentine, which Lilly says used to be owned by Siegfried and Roy. Valentine is a scene-stealer, even though this creature is nothing but visual effects.

And in this group of opinionated people, there are personality conflicts, of course. Vanderohe doesn’t respect Dieter at first because he thinks Dieter is too wimpy and ill-prepared for the zombie-killing aspects of this mission. Kate has a lot of bitterness toward Scott because of how her mother died. (The death of Kate’s mother/Scott’s wife is shown in a flashback.) And no one seems to really like or trust Bly’s henchman Martin, who has a tendency to be a bossy know-it-all.

The big showdown battle toward the end of the movie is definitely one of the best scenes, as it should be. “Army of the Dead” doesn’t sugarcoat any violence, although there are moments that stretch the bounds of realism with some heavily choreographed stunts. All of the actors play their roles well, with Castillo, Notaro, Schweighöfer and Arnezeder bringing the most individuality to their characters’ personalities. Bautista doesn’t have a wide range of emotive skills as an actor, but “Army of the Dead” is the type of movie that showcases him at his best, rather than the silly action comedies that he sometimes does.

The biggest complaint or disappointment that viewers might have about “Army of the Dead” is regarding the movie’s final five minutes, when a character finds out something that this person should have found out much earlier. It drastically changes the tone of the film’s ending. But this potentially divisive ending doesn’t take away from “Army of the Dead” delivering plenty of thrills and chills that make it a better-than-average zombie movie.

Netflix released “Army of the Dead” in New York City on May 12, 2021, and will expand the movie’s release to more U.S. cinemas on May 14, 2021. Netflix will premiere “Army of the Dead” on May 21, 2021.

Review: ‘Spell’ (2020), starring Omari Hardwick and Loretta Devine

October 30, 2020

by Carla Hay

Omari Hardwick in “Spell” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Spell” (2020)

Directed by Mark Tonderai

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in the rural Appalachian area of West Virginia, the horror flick “Spell” has a predominantly African American cast of characters (with a few white people) representing the poor, middle-class and upper-middle-class.

Culture Clash: After a plane crash, an attorney who’s a family man finds himself held captive by a hoodoo priestess who uses body parts for her potions.

Culture Audience: “Spell” will appeal primarily to people who like to see gory movies with voodoo/hoodoo themes, but the movie has too many dumb plot holes to be considered a quality story.

Omari Hardwick and Loretta Devine in “Spell” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

The horror movie “Spell” has an interesting social theme that is rarely seen in narrative films: The class divide and prejudices that can exist between African Americans who are upper-middle-class and African Americans who have less financial advantages. Unfortunately, this theme, which could have made “Spell” a more interesting film, is squandered and buried in order to go to down yet another predictable and gory horror path. Even the suspenseful scenes are badly handled with plot holes that ruin any credibility that “Spell” hoped to have.

Directed by Mark Tonderai and written by Kurt Wimmer, “Spell” begins with the introduction of the family who will be involved in the fateful plane crash that sets off this movie’s horror. Marquis T. Woods (played by Omari Hardwick) is a successful corporate attorney working in an unnamed big city in the United States. He’s well-respected by his boss Wyman Thatcher (played by Andrew Jacobs) at the law firm.

Marquis is a very tough and very competitive lawyer who doesn’t let the fact that he’s African American get in the way of wanting to win a case if the opponents are also African American. During a conversation between Wyman and Marquis, they discuss a class-action lawsuit where the plaintiffs are African American and the plaintiffs’ attorneys are white. The law firm that Marquis works for is representing the defendants in the lawsuit, and Marquis is the lead attorney in the case.

The exact details of the lawsuit aren’t revealed in the story, but it’s implied that it has to do with accusations of racial discrimination. In other words, Marquis doesn’t really care if people might think of him of being a “race traitor” for representing the defendants in this case. He just wants to win.

He might be a ruthless attorney in the courtroom, but at home, Marquis is a loving and loyal family man with a disciplinarian streak and hints of being a control freak. The movie opens with a somewhat odd scene of Marquis’ wife Veora Woods (played by Lorraine Burroughs) accidentally locked in their bedroom. She pleads with Marquis, who’s on the other side of the door, to break down the door and let her out. He refuses because he says the door cost $1,500.

As a prank, Marquis pretends that he can’t do anything to help her, and he says that he’s going to call a locksmith. It could take more than an hour for a locksmith to come over and break the lock and then replace it. Veora says she doesn’t have that kind of time.

After some more begging and pleading from Veora, Marquis finally puts Veora out of her misery and uses a pin to unlock the door. She rushes out with relief, but she’s slightly irritated that Marquis would put her in this uncomfortable situation as a joke. It shows a manipulative side to Marquis that may not be violent, but it demonstrates how he might get some pleasure out of seeing people squirm.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Marquis has an abusive past. When he was a child, his father often beat, tortured and emotionally abused Marquis, who is so haunted by these memories that he still has nightmares about the abuse. (In flashback scenes, Ri-Karlo Handy plays Marquis’ father, while twins Bodhi Tonderai-Hodges and Sahara Tonderai-Hodges portray Marquis as a child.)

Marquis also grew up very poor in the Appalachian area of West Virginia. It’s a past that he left behind 25 years ago and doesn’t want to go back to anytime soon. Marquis hasn’t lied about his personal history of growing up poor and abused, but he’d rather forget that it happened. And it fuels his drive to be as wealthy and successful as possible.

That’s why he’s instilled in his teenage kids—son Tydon “Ty” Woods (played by Kalifa Burton) and daughter Samsara “Sam” Woods (played by Hannah Gonera)—who are both in their mid-teens, a strong sense of wanting them to become high achievers. But with that ambition also comes a certain snobbery where Sam and especially Ty look down on people who are poor and unsophisticated. Ty doesn’t hesitate to call other black people the “n” word if he thinks they’re of a lower class than he is. When Veora hears Ty use this racial slur, she scolds him and tells him that she doesn’t want him to use that language.

In another scene, Veora tells Marquis in front of their kids that she’s worried about the children turning into entitled jerks. Marquis responds by saying, “If I had my way, your son and daughter will spend their lives in a boardroom, not in some jungle I couldn’t get out of fast enough.” Veora says, “Except sometimes, Marq, that jungle comes back to find you, no matter what boardroom you’re hiding in.”

This conversation takes place on a private single-engine, four-seat plane that Marquis is piloting, with Veora, Ty and Sam as the passengers. They are on the plane because Marquis has been notified that his father has died, and the family is going to back to Marquis’ hometown in West Virginia for the funeral and to take care of some other matters related to the death.

Marquis makes a pit stop in a rural area at a small-strip gas station with a convenience store. An elderly man (played by Leo Wringer) who works at the gas station and a young man (played by Tafara Nyatsanza) who happens to be there too are exactly the type of “country” African Americans who make Marquis and Ty uncomfortable. Ty doesn’t do much to hide his condescension, while these two local men think that Marquis and his family are stuck-up city folks.

Marquis and his family aren’t at the gas station for long, when the local sheriff (played by Tumisho Masha) pulls up to find out why this small plane has landed in his jurisdiction. Marquis reminds the sheriff that it’s legal for him to land there, since it’s a single-engine plane. Marquis also shows his pilot license and tells the sheriff why they’re at the gas station. The sheriff is friendly but a little wary of these newcomers.

After the plane is back in the air, a massive storm hits and the plane looks like it’s in danger of crashing. The crash is actually never shown in the movie. The next thing that happens is that Marquis wakes up in a bed in a house attic, with a head injury and his left foot bleeding and bandaged. Where is he and what happened to his family?

Marquis finds out that he’s being held captive at a farmhouse by a woman named Eloise (played by Loretta Devine), a demented voodoo priestess who has a dual persona of being a friendly “church lady” and a wicked witch. Her mood swings are unpredictable, but largely based on whether or not she thinks she’s in control of a situation. She can get menacing very quickly if she thinks Marquis is trying to escape.

Eloise tells Marquis that he was found in the plane crash, and she insists that no one else was with him. Marquis doesn’t quite believe her and he desperately wants to escape and find his wife and kids. Eloise, who calls herself a “root worker,” says that she doesn’t believe in a lot of technology and inventions, such as phones, computers, radios and television.

The rest of the movie is basically a series of attempted escapes by Marquis, who finds out that Eloise uses body parts (human and animal) for her potions and spells. She tells Marquis she can nurse him back to health with the Boogity, a hoodoo doll that she has made from his skin and blood. She blows powdered potion in Marquis’ face to drug him. And later, Marquis witnesses a revival meeting with Eloise working her magic on some local people with disabilities.

Ms. Eloise has two accomplices who help her keep Marquis captive on her run-down farm: Earl (played by John Beasley), who seems to be Eloise’s love partner/common-law-husband, and a hulking handyman named Lewis (played by Steve Mululu), who looks like he’s strong enough to permanently injure someone with his bare hands. Miss Eloise says of Lewis, “People think he’s slow, but there’s nothing slow about him.”

Later, when Marquis asks Eloise if she really believes in the hoodoo that she practices, she responds in an irritated tone, “I guess I have to. We don’t have much in the way of Obamacare around here.” She also responds to Marquis’ obvious condescension toward her beliefs and lifestyle: “You a city boy. You better than all of this.”

There are a few moments where “Spell” goes from being a mildly interesting horror movie to being a disappointing dud with too many plot holes to ignore. The first big nonsensical moment comes when Marquis gets a chance to run away and escape, but instead he sticks around to watch one of Eloise’s revival gatherings. The second and more improbable scenario that plays out is when Marquis removes a very long nail from his injured foot (the nail is so long that it would definitely destroy tendons) and then shoves it back in his foot, for reasons that are shown in the movie.

What’s ludicrous about these scenes with Marquis removing the nail and then putting it back in his foot, is that in real life, he would go into medical shock if he performed those procedures on himself and would most likely pass out from the shock and infections. And yet, he’s still able to run around (with a limp) before and after this self-surgery. It can’t be stressed enough that this is not a tiny nail. The nail is almost as long as his foot. The only reason to have these unrealistic scenes of Marquis removing the nail and slamming it back in his foot is to just have a gross-out scene that people will remember about this movie.

As for the acting in “Spell,” Devine at least seems to be having some fun hamming it up in this role as the unhinged hoodoo priestess Eloise. However, there’s absolutely no real backstory for this character (there’s only a small hint), and Eloise ends up being a generic villain after a while. In fact, all of the characters are fairly generic, as are most of the performances in this movie. There are hints of Marquis’ complicated and traumatic personal history, but any further exploration of his troubled past is largely abandoned when the rest of the story becomes about his kidnapping ordeal.

“Spell” needed to bring something fresh and creative to the story, considering that the 1990 Oscar-winning horror film “Misery” already set a gold standard for a movie about a man held captive by an evil woman who does something awful to his legs. The ending of “Spell” is very unimaginative, predictable and feels too rushed. The movie’s production design and cinematography are very effective, but the screenplay and overall direction lack the spark, cohesiveness and personality that are needed to make a better-than-average film. The good news for people turned off by “Spell” is that it’s highly unlikely to get a sequel.

Paramount Pictures released “Spell” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and on VOD on October 30, 2020.