Archive for the ‘Thriller’ Category
Wednesday, July 24th, 2024
HUDA’S SALON is from 2021 and it’s the most recent film from Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad – I previously reviewed his films RANA’S WEDDING (2002), THE COURIER (2012), OMAR (2013) and THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US (2017). After that last one, a big English language movie starring Idris Elba and Kate Winslet, he returned home for another one of his thriller/dramas about life in occupied Palestine.
It opens in the titular Bethlehem hair salon, where new mother Reem (Maisa Abd Elhadi, Baghdad Central) is having her hair done by Huda (Manal Awad). I kinda fell for the implication that it would be a conversational, day-in-the-life kind of movie, because there’s an 8-minute-long oner as Huda washes and brushes Reem’s hair and they talk about people these days styling their own hair based on Youtube videos, then about the invasiveness of Facebook, and then how possessive Reem’s husband is but how maybe she’ll open her own salon some day when her daughter’s older. And the shot is still going as Huda pours her a cup of coffee (that’s nice) and puts some drops of something in it (oh, that’s not nice) and gets ready to cut her hair but she passes out and Huda closes the curtains and opens a door into a back room where a dude named Said (Samer Bisharat, OMAR) has been sitting on a bed looking at his phone while he waits. Now he helps carry Reem in, takes her clothes off and poses naked for Polaroids with her. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ali Suliman, Hany Abu-Assad, Maisa Abd Elhadi, Manal Awad, Palestine, Samer Bisharat
Posted in Reviews, Drama, Thriller | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, July 23rd, 2024
July 20, 1994
And now we come to a 1994 artifact that doesn’t seem that dated culturally, except it’s in a genre – the legal thriller – that doesn’t really exist on this level anymore. Not as a slick, shot on location, big time theatrical summer release.
THE CLIENT is the third movie adapted from a novel by John Grisham, after THE FIRM and THE PELICAN BRIEF (both released in 1993). The book was his fourth, also released in 1993. The movie had a $45 million budget (more than THE SHADOW, SPEED or CITY SLICKERS II, almost as much as THE FLINTSTONES!) and was a big hit, making $117 million worldwide. Movies like this were a big deal then! (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Akiva Goldsman, Anthony Edwards, Anthony LaPaglia, Brad Renfro, Bradley Whitford, Dan Castellaneta, J.T. Walsh, Joel Schumacher, John Grisham, Kim Coates, legal thriller, Mary-Louise Parker, Memphis, Robert Getchell, Susan Sarandon, Tommy Lee Jones, Walter Olkewicz, Will Patton, William H. Macy
Posted in Reviews, Drama, Thriller | 17 Comments »
Tuesday, June 11th, 2024
HIT MAN (2024) is on the more crowdpleasing side of Richard Linklater movies, a sort of comedy, sort of romance, sort of noir, sort of true story that’s good enough to sort of make me forgive the “based on a true story… sort of” disclaimer and related dad joke vibes. For me it doesn’t quite live up to the hype from the Toronto International Film Festival, where it apparently blew the roof off, but it’s definitely worth watching if you already get Netflix, where it ended up.
This is really a star vehicle for Glen Powell, an Austinite who worked with Linklater in FAST FOOD NATION, EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!! and APOLLO 10 1/2 (an animated/rotoscoped movie that’s also on Netflix, and quite good) before blowing up in TOP GUN: MAVERICK and ANYONE BUT YOU. Now the two of them teamed up to co-write and co-produce this showcase for Powell doing more than just his usual cocky hunky guy thing (but also that). He plays Gary Johnson, a New Orleans psychology professor who lives alone with two cats, enjoys bird watching, and tucks his polo shirts into his cargo shorts. He’s a dabbler who moonlights as a tech guy for the police, recording undercover stings busting people who were asking around about putting a hit out on somebody. When Jasper (Austin Amelio, The Walking Dead) is suspended for excessive force, Gary is pushed into playing the hitman, digs deep to create a macho character, and turns out to be very good at it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, based on a magazine article, Evan Holtzman, Glen Powell, Retta, Richard Linklater, Skip Hollandsworth
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Thriller | 24 Comments »
Tuesday, May 14th, 2024
THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY is a new indie crime movie from rookie writer/director Francis Galluppi. I’d seen some good reviews, the trailer looked intriguing and I read that Sam Raimi saw it and hired Galluppi for an EVIL DEAD movie. The coveted Necronominod. So it seemed like a good thing to check out as soon as it hit VOD last week.
It’s a single location movie, and the location is a diner out in the middle of nowhere, Arizona on a sunny day in the unspecified past, probly early ‘80s. A traveling cutlery salesman (Jim Cummings, THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW) pulls up at the gas station next door, the owner Vernon (Faizon Love, BEBE’S KIDS, who’s very good in this) explains that they’re all out of gas, but the fuel truck is supposed to arrive soon. Also there’s not another gas station for 100 miles, but you’re welcome to wait at the diner next door. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Essoe, Barbara Crampton, Connor Paolo, Faizon Love, Francis Galluppi, Gene Jones, Jim Cummings, Jocelin Donahue, Jon Proudstar, Michael Abbott Jr., Necronominod, Nicholas Logan, Richard Brake, Robin Bartlett, Ryan Masson, Sierra McCormick, single location
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Thriller | 13 Comments »
Thursday, May 9th, 2024
May 6, 1994
The erotic thriller DREAM LOVER is so far the only movie directed by Nicholas Kazan, a writer who’s an Oscar nominee for REVERSAL OF FORTUNE and on my shit list for MOBSTERS. James Spader (SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE) stars as Ray Reardon, successful architect, charmer, admitted bad husband, but supposed to be well-meaning and sweet. At his divorce hearing he fires his lawyer and lets his now-ex Martha (Kathleen York, unaired DARKMAN tv pilot) have everything. Sitting in the courthouse afterwards they look like they’re on a first date that’s going really well. They talk about how much they still love each other but she can’t stay with him because he hit her. Which seems more than fair to me! He tries to downgrade it to a slap or accidental bump and justify it as a response to her cheating on him, and this does not offend her. She puts her head on his shoulder and tearfully promises that the woman he finds who’s right for him will be “the luckiest woman alive.”
He’s got this buddy at work named Norman, played by Larry Miller (SUBURBAN COMMANDO) in the classic Dennis Miller/Denis Leary/Kevin Pollack type role of the comedian playing a horny best friend who’s sexist in a supposedly lovable way. Norman invites Ray to a gallery show to try to set him up with a woman (Blair Tefkin, V, FRIGHT NIGHT PART II), and while trying to escape her he spills wine on Lena Mathers (Mädchen Amick, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, SLEEPWALKERS) and she chews him out. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bess Armstrong, Blair Tefkin, erotic thriller, Gretchen Becker, James Spader, Kathleen York, Larry Miller, Madchen Amick, Nicholas Kazan, Paul Ben-Victor, William Shockley
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 17 Comments »
Tuesday, April 16th, 2024
THE VOYEURS (2021) is a type of movie I really don’t think I’ve seen before: an erotic thriller that feels very now. It has the familiar ingredients of a ‘90s Skinemax joint: voyeurism (of course), extremely beautiful people with enviable living situations, obsession that brings out sides of people they didn’t know were there and slowly erodes a previously strong relationship, deception, forbidden desire, kinkiness, long sexual tension building to super hot but dangerous sex, death, a ridiculous twist. And yet it doesn’t feel remotely Shannon Tweedy. You almost question whether it’s the same genre, but clearly it is.
There are obvious surface reasons for it to seem different. It’s beautifully shot in a modern digital style (director of photography Elisha Christian, COLUMBUS, THE NIGHT HOUSE), so even all the scenes happening in the dark don’t have that faux-noir feel. And there’s absolutely no sexy saxophone (score by Will Bates, LOLA VERSUS, IMPERIUM) – in fact, it uses lots of upbeat electro dance music, and the main characters have what I consider good taste so they’re often listening to Mulatu Astatke and Galt MacDermot and shit.
Also, though there’s more nudity and sex than most movies these days and they’re trying to make it look amazing, it’s not that type where there’s, like, frilly lingerie and a thousand candles lit. So even the horniness is kinda different. The intimacy coordinator is prominently credited – good job Amanda Blumenthal (Euphoria, The White Lotus, BEING THE RICARDOS). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ben Hardy, erotic thriller, Justice Smith, Michael Mohan, Montreal, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Sydney Sweeney, voyeurism
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 34 Comments »
Wednesday, March 27th, 2024
I guess I would classify CATCH THE FAIR ONE (2021) as a thriller more than an action movie, but it’s a certified badass thriller. It’s the first acting role for Kali Reis, the former world champion boxer who recently starred with Jodie Foster in True Detective: Night Country (her reward for this, I believe). Reis also co-wrote the movie with director Josef Kubota Wladyka.
Reis plays Kaylee “K.O.” Uppashaw, a former pro boxer whose younger sister Weeta (Mainaku Borrero) went missing two years ago. Kaylee doesn’t fight anymore, she’s living at a women’s shelter trying to stay off drugs and working as a waitress. But she’s also in her BATMAN BEGINS stage of building up to find her sister. Her friend Brick (fellow pro boxer Shelly Vincent), who reminds me of Joe Pesci (in a good way), not only helps her train to wrestle and fight men much larger then her, but finds a recruiter (Isabelle Chester, THE FALLING WORLD) willing to take a bribe to bring her in with a “new batch” of workers for the traffickers she believes have Weeta. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: boxing, Daniel Henshall, Isabelle Chester, Josef Kubota Wladyka, Kali Reis, Kevin Dunn, Kimberly Guerrero, Mainaku Borrero, Michael Drayer, MMIW, sex traffickers, Shelly Vincent, Tiffany Chu
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Thursday, March 21st, 2024
After watching EL CONDE, I was reminded that Pablo Larraín was also the director of TONY MANERO, a movie I’d always wondered about where a guy is obsessed with John Travolta’s character from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. I think I even considered watching it back when I reviewed SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and STAYING ALIVE last summer, but it didn’t pan out until now.
It’s from 2008, and it’s Larraín’s second film, following FUGA (2006). And watching it plays as kind of a distant cousin to EL CONDE in that it’s a distinct mix of the creepy and the absurd, plays off of movie iconography in strange ways, is not a fan of Chile’s tyrannical past, and is not easily classifiable. It’s basically a character study about a guy named Raúl who dreams of being the best Tony Manero impersonator in Santiago, and also sometimes kills people. Mostly the former, though, honestly. I’ve seen plot summaries that describe him as a serial killer, which is technically true, but this doesn’t play like a serial killer movie. Killing is not where he puts most of his energy.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alfredo Castro, Amparo Noguera, Chile, disco, Hector Morales, Pablo Larrain, Paola Lattus
Posted in Reviews, Drama, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, March 19th, 2024
When I first saw the trailer for LOVE LIES BLEEDING I thought “I need to see SAINT MAUD, don’t I?” It’s the first movie from writer/director Rose Glass, which was heavily hyped after playing TIFF and Fantastic Fest, and was picked up by A24, who of course gave it an intriguing trailer that was playing on all the horror movies. But that was in 2020, so the pandemic happened, it got delayed for a while, and ultimately only received a limited release in January of 2021, which was a no-go for me because it was well before vaccines were available.
So the hype train grinded to a halt, and personally I needed it to push me over the small hill of it looking like religious horror. You know, you put “Saint” in the title, you show her in some kind of robe on the poster, you show her levitating, I’m gonna assume it has something to do with possession or some shit. I can watch a movie like that if it’s a really good one, but I need some encouragement. Glass’s follow-up looking amazing gave me that. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A24, Jennifer Ehle, Lily Frazer, Lily Knight, Marcus Hutton, Morfydd Clark, Rose Glass
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Thriller | 7 Comments »
Thursday, March 14th, 2024
THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US (2017) is to date the biggest Hollywoood production from Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad (RANA’S WEDDING, OMAR). Some reported it as his English language debut, but of course we know that was actually the Jeffrey Dean Morgan DTV action movie THE COURIER. This one is a little more respectable and was given a decent release, opening against BLADE RUNNER 2049 and doing okay-ish, despite pretty negative reviews.
Based on a 2011 novel by Charles Martin, it’s a survival movie with most of its runtime spent with just two actors. Daredevil conflict zone photojournalist Alex Martin (Kate Winslet, TRIPLE 9) and Baltimore-by-way-of-London brain surgeon Dr. Ben Bass (Idris Elba, PROM NIGHT) don’t know each other until their flight is cancelled by a storm, stranding them both at an airport in Salt Lake City. Alex is intent on getting home in time for her wedding, and she overhears Ben saying he needs to get home for a surgery, so she convinces him to go in with her to charter a small plane to another airport to catch a different flight. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: adventure, Beau Bridges, Charles Martin, Chris Weitz, Dermot Mulroney, Hany Abu-Assad, Idris Elba, J. Mills Goodloe, Kate Winslet, Lee Percy, Mandy Walker, Scott Frank, survival
Posted in Reviews, Romance, Thriller | 3 Comments »
