"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Posts Tagged ‘Catalina Sandino Moreno’

The Rip

Thursday, January 22nd, 2026

THE RIP is Netflix’s new Gritty Cop Thriller (G.C.T.) written and directed by Joe Carnahan (THE A-TEAM, THE GREY, BOSS LEVEL), sharing story credit with Michael McGrale (additional literary material, THE EXPENDABLES 4). It’s a pretty good movie if you enjoy Carnahan’s more serious minded work and/or if you’re interested in the gimmick of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon reuniting as best buddies but in a movie where they’re Gritty Cops so they’re each afraid the other is corrupt and is gonna stab them in the back. There is friendship but also yelling, guns, etc.

It all starts with the prologue death of Captain Jackie Velez (Lina Esco, LONDON) of the Miami-Dade PD. She seems to be Onto Something Big when she gets ambushed by masked men. It’s a good shoot out scene, of the post-HEAT loud and quasi-realistic variety. I like the detail that she’s having trouble calling for help because she got some of her blood on her phone screen. This is the incident that sends FBI agents played by Scott Adkins (X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE) and Daisuke Tsuji (Ghost of Tsushima video game) in to question the members of Jackie’s elite Tactical Narcotics Team (TNT), suggesting they might have been involved. (read the rest of this shit…)

Ballerina (2025)

Thursday, June 12th, 2025

BALLERINA (2025) is “from the world of JOHN WICK.” That’s the tagline, not the title – like “Die Harder.” I have seen some spinoff skepticism swirling around this one, but don’t come to me for that shit. When the makers of JOHN WICK invite me into the world of JOHN WICK I don’t even have to grab my go-bag. I just run full speed toward them.

I have also seen grumbling about it being directed by Len Wiseman (UNDERWORLD) and about having had reshoots (seemingly quite extensive) overseen and/or directed by Chad Stahelski. But I think the former has pretty good action chops and the latter has honest-to-God action vision, so it is not surprising to me that BALLERINA has arrived as a total banger. Is it as good as the JOHN WICKs? No. Is it better than most movies that are not JOHN WICKs? Yes.

Here is my viewing journey with BALLERINA: first 15 or 20 minutes – It’s okay that this is kinda clunky compared to a JOHN WICK because it kinda rules anyway. Everything after that – on second thought this almost is as good as a JOHN WICK and in fact it absolutely rules. (read the rest of this shit…)

Silent Night (2023)

Tuesday, December 5th, 2023

I don’t need to tell any of you that one of the all time great directors, John Woo, has returned to our screens. If you didn’t read it or hear it, you could probly sense it. It’s been six years since his last movie (MANHUNT, 2017) and twenty since his last American movie (PAYCHECK, 2003), so it’s an event. It’s also a Christmas-set action movie, which I always appreciate, and it has a gimmicky storytelling conceit (no dialogue) that makes it a fun formal challenge for the grandmaster.

It is not, however, a poetic story of brotherhood like A BETTER TOMORROW, BULLET IN THE HEAD or THE KILLER, nor an American genre pushed to gorgeous levels of absurdity like HARD TARGET, BLACKJACK or FACE/OFF. Instead it’s a skilled and slightly eccentric but not emotionally complex take on a standard vigilante revenge formula. And there’s another catch, which I will get to soon. We’ll just say it’s more of an interesting film that I’m excited to write about than a great John Woo film. But I got some entertainment from it. (read the rest of this shit…)