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Last Seen Alive (2022, Brian Goodman) 4/10
Preposterous thriller that starts out well, but is – in the end – completely implausible.
Plot (spoiler free):
A wealthy real estate agent (Gerard Butler) and his estranged wife drive to her parents, where she intends to stay for a while to get her head clear and find out what she really wants. Shortly before arriving, they stop at a gas station where the wife disappears without a trace. When the police seems stumped, the real estate agent starts to investigate on his own (with not always legal methods).
Starts out good, as the situation is relatable… What would you do if someone close to you disappears suddenly for no apparent reason at a gas station? And the movie certainly speeds along in its first half and is entertaining. But it falls apart at the end with a not very convincing resolution. We had fun watching it, but it didn't end up to anything in the end.
Obviously, the movie has a similar premise to Breakdown starring Kurt Russel from 1997, though that one is certainly the better movie.
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LUCA (2021) – 8/10
This is a minor, but still pleasing, Pixar film that is a riff on THE LITTLE MERMAID.
Yeah, it's a very pleasing film. Not particularly "deep", but gorgeously looking and full of charm.
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Road House (2024, Doug Liman) 7/10
Who would have ever thought that the mediocre Patrick Swayze action movie “Road House” from the 1980s would get a remake? Even stranger, who’d have ever thought the remake would turn out to be good! Well, it happened.
To be fair: this is not a masterpiece or pondering philosophical movie. This is the type of movie Bud Spencer and Terence Hill did in the 1970s.
Plot is quickly explained: down on his luck ex-UFS fighter Elwood Dalton takes up a job to be the bouncer of a Florida “Road House” bar and beats up the bad guys. That’s it, but it’s done well and certainly entertaining. Even the “bad guys” are not all that “threatening”, some of them are quite funny and could just as easily be lifted from a Bud Spencer flick. A real highlight is Conor McGregor, who is playing an over-the-top parody of himself as an opposing enforcer. Entertaining from beginning to end, it’s a “what you see is what you get” movie. With the right frame of mind, very entertaining. We had a lot of fun.
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Posted: |
Apr 5, 2024 - 9:01 AM
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By: |
eriknelson
(Member)
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Road House (2024, Doug Liman) 7/10
Who would have ever thought that the mediocre Patrick Swayze action movie “Road House” from the 1980s would get a remake? Even stranger, who’d have ever thought the remake would turn out to be good! Well, it happened.
To be fair: this is not a masterpiece or pondering philosophical movie. This is the type of movie Bud Spencer and Terence Hill did in the 1970s.
Plot is quickly explained: down on his luck ex-UFS fighter Elwood Dalton takes up a job to be the bouncer of a Florida “Road House” bar and beats up the bad guys. That’s it, but it’s done well and certainly entertaining. Even the “bad guys” are not all that “threatening”, some of them are quite funny and could just as easily be lifted from a Bud Spencer flick. A real highlight is Conor McGregor, who is playing an over-the-top parody of himself as an opposing enforcer. Entertaining from beginning to end, it’s a “what you see is what you get” movie. With the right frame of mind, very entertaining. We had a lot of fun.
Check out the original "Road House" (1948). It's a noir thriller starring Ida Lupino, Richard Widmark, Cornel Wilde and Celeste Holm. Widmark plays a psycho who you won't forget.
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Check out the original "Road House" (1948). It's a noir thriller starring Ida Lupino, Richard Widmark, Cornel Wilde and Celeste Holm. Widmark plays a psycho who you won't forget.
Yeah, I've seen parts of that one. Always wanted to catch it in full. (I didn't mention it up there because it's an unrelated movie.)
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La spietata /the Ruthless
Superb Italian organised crime drama film, now available on netflix. Very decent score too.
8.5 out of 10
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The Devils (1971) 8/10
Finally bought this as a result of a review earlier up the thread ( and probably better). So just a quickie.
Very strong stuff, though watchable. We'll acted. It looked good, mostly, if a bit to clean looking in my opinion. Music went well but I wouldn't really want to heat it on its own. Did anyone else think the last shot looked like a perverted end to the Wizard of Oz. With 'Dorothy' leaving a destroyed oz / wizard. And down a ( not that yellow) brick road.
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Posted: |
Apr 14, 2024 - 11:17 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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MONKEY MAN (2024) – 7/10
Revenge films all have the same basic plot: someone is wronged—often a friend or relative has been killed—and the wronged party sets out to get revenge. In this film, the wronged party is an anonymous man known only as “the kid” (Dev Patel), who lives in a forest village in India. From early flashbacks in the film, we gather that his mother (Adithi Kalkunte) had been killed when he was just a child (Jatin Malik). Later, the full story is filled in, which involves “Baba Shakti” (Makarand Deshpande), a ruthless spiritual guru, who sends “Rana Singh” (Sikandar Kher), the corrupt police chief, to force out the villagers and acquire their land.
A powerful person in a land grab. That’s also the plot of a thousand “B” westerns. The only thing that distinguishes the revenge plot is its treatment. Here, star, co-writer, and co-producer Dev Patel sets his tale in Mumbai, India, supplying plenty of local color. Other than Patel, the actors are likely to be unfamiliar to U.S. audiences.
As a grown man, “the kid” earns his living as a mediocre club fighter who wears a monkey mask in the ring. To take on his mother’s killers, however, he needs to train under the tutelage of “Alpha” (Vipin Sharma), the keeper of a local temple of Ardhanarishvara. That gives us the obligatory training montage of the kid punching, kicking, and pounding a heavy bag until he eventually pulverizes it. The film is overly stylized, particularly in some of the flashback sequences, which are blurrily rendered. (Reportedly, due to budget cuts, multiple shots were filmed with GoPros and iPhones.)
The film has had a long gestation. Initially gearing up to shoot on location in India in early 2020, the film was postponed and nearly canceled as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Patel then opted to shoot the film on a small island in Batam, Indonesia. While filming the first action sequence, Patel broke his hand, causing a further delay.
In March 2021, filming was completed and Thunder Road Films sold worldwide rights to Netflix for $30 million, describing the film as "John Wick in Mumbai." However, Netflix later felt the film was too gritty for Indian audiences and was concerned about their reaction to the film's political commentary, instead quietly shopping it around and nearly cancelling the release. Sometime thereafter, Jordan Peele saw the film and came on board as producer under his Monkeypaw Productions banner and persuaded Universal Pictures to acquire the film from Netflix for under $10 million. The film has grossed $18 million in 10 days of release.
MONKEY MAN is earning some critical points for incorporating social commentary, about the downtrodden poor being exploited by the rich, into its action format. JOHN WICK’s revenge, after all, was only about his dog. Jed Kurzel composed a new score for the film, replacing original composer Volker Bertelmann. It’s nothing special.
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