The Upside (2017)

13 Sunday Jan 2019

Tags

Bryan Cranston, Comedy, Drama, Kevin Hart, Life auxiliary, Neil Burger, Nicole Kidman, Quadriplegia, Remake, Review

D: Neil Burger / 126m

Cast: Kevin Hart, Bryan Cranston, Nicole Kidman, Aja Naomi King, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Golshifteh Farahani, Genevieve Angelson, Tate Donovan, Julianna Margulies

Parolee Dell Scott (Hart) is fresh out of prison and trying his best (which isn’t much) to avoid going straight back in. Tasked with finding a job as quickly as possible by his parole officer, Dell attends what he thinks is an interview for a cleaning job. The number of waiting applicants surprises him, but when time drags on and he’s in danger of not picking up his son, Anthony (Winston), from school on time, he crashes the interviews in order to get a signature to say that he’s attended. But the job proves to be a life auxiliary for ex-businessman Phillip Lacasse (Cranston), who is paralysed from the neck down. Against the better wishes of Phillip’s associate, Yvonne (Kidman), Phillip takes to Dell’s unconventional attitude, and decices to hire him. Unsure at first, Dell’s decision is made for him thanks to a row with his wife, Latrice (King), over his inability to properly provide for her and Anthony. Realising that being a carer for Phillip could solve a lot of his problems, Dell accepts the job, but soon finds that he’s not quite as prepared for it as he thought…

The third remake of the French movie Intouchables (2011), The Upside reaches us long after its first screening at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2017. Caught up in the scandal involving Harvey Weinstein, the movie’s planned release in March 2018 was shelved until it was picked up for distribution by STX Entertainment and Lantern Entertainment (the successor to the Weinstein Company). Now the only question is: was it worth the wait? Sadly, the answer is, not really. This is a movie that is almost entirely depth-free, and dramatically inert. It’s a standard Hollywood interpretation of the kind of feelgood story that comes along every now and then and which, thanks to its sincerity and innate positivity, tugs at the heartstrings. But as usual in Hollywood, this kind of narrative can’t be allowed to exist in and of itself; it has to be treated with a level of over-simplification that five year olds would find frustrating, and slathered with enough gooey sentimentality to induce Type 2 diabetes in the unsuspecting viewer. There’s often a formula to these kinds of stories, but the best versions try their best to wrest something new from the material. Here the formula is embraced wholeheartedly… and then some.

This leaves the viewer with two choices: to either go with the flow and settle for spending an occasionally amusing, occasionally effective couple of hours that will leave them unmoved, or to rail against every predictable plot and story development for being so obvious. Either will involve a tremendous amount of effort on the viewer’s part, and neither will see them coming away singing the movie’s praises. For despite the chemistry between Hart and Cranston, and their performances – which at least stop the material from becoming too sappy – this is very much a movie that coasts for most of its running time, and which struggles to find anything to say. Burger does what he can, but someone really should have stepped in at the first draft stage and told screenwriter Jon Hartmere that a by-the-numbers approach wasn’t what was needed (though you do get the feeling that’s exactly what the producers wanted). Cranston is good value as always, and Hart, trying to broaden his range, is okay, but he doesn’t do anything to make us think that there’s a serious actor inside him who’s desperately seeking the dramatic limelight. And then there’s Kidman, on something of a role at the moment, but so under-utilised it’s hard to work out why she said yes. Like much about this movie, her presence begs a secondary question: was it worth the effort?

Rating: 5/10 – though its leads work well together, and there are some good comedic moments in amongst the otherwise routine material, The Upside is, unfortunately, a movie that doesn’t live up to its title; with issues around disability, class and race carefully ignored in favour of making this purely a feelgood movie, even the obligatory falling out between Dell and Phillip feels as manufactured as everything else.

Monthly Roundup – March 2018

31 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

5 Headed Shark Attack, Action, Adventure, Airport, Al Capone, Alex Hannant, All the Money in the World, And Then Came Lola, Animation, Anthony Bushell, Archery, Ashleigh Sumner, Barack Obama, Biography, Bob Logan, Braven, Brian Keith, Cenobites, Charlie Bean, Chokeslam, Chris Bruno, Chris Marquette, Christopher Plummer, Comedy, Crime, Damon Carney, Dave Franco, David Bruckner, Deepika Kumari, Documentary, Drama, Dwayne Johnson, Ellen Seidler, Elsa Lanchester, Fantasy, Father/son relationships, Film noir, Foreign policy, Gangster Land, Garret Dillahunt, Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Ghosts, Greg Barker, Hellraiser: Judgment, Heritage Falls, High school reunion, Hiking trip, Horror, Hugh Grant, India, Jackie Chan, Jake Kasdan, Japan, Jason Momoa, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Kevin Hart, Kidnapping, Ladies First, LGBTQ+, Lilli Palmer, Lin Oeding, Logan Huffman, Luke Rivett, Matt Jones, Megan Siler, Michael Barrett, Michelle Williams, Monster, Murder, Nico De Leon, Oasis, Paddington 2, Passport to Destiny, Paul Fisher, Paul King, Puerto Rico, Rafe Spall, Ray McCarey, Ready Player One, Reginald Beck, Relationships, Reviews, Rex Harrison, Ridley Scott, Robert Cuffley, Sci-fi, Sean Faris, Sequel, Shea Sizemore, Something Real and Good, Steven Spielberg, Sweden, SyFy, The Forest, The LEGO Ninjago Movie, The Long Dark Hall, The Ritual, Thriller, Timothy Woodward Jr, Tye Sheridan, Uraaz Bahi, Video game, Virtual reality, World War II, Wrestling

The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017) / D: Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan / 101m

Cast: Jackie Chan, Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Fred Armisen, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Peña, Abbi Jacobson, Zach Woods, Olivia Munn

Rating: 6/10 – when you’re the despised son (Franco) of an evil warlord (Theroux), there’s only one thing you can do: vow to defeat him with the aid of your ninja friends; after a superhero mash-up and a solo Batman outing, The LEGO Ninjago Movie brings us ninjas, but in the process forgets to provide viewers with much in the way of story, though the visual innovation is still there, as is (mostly) the humour, making this something that is only just more of a hit than a miss.

Braven (2018) / D: Lin Oeding / 94m

Cast: Jason Momoa, Garret Dillahunt, Stephen Lang, Jill Wagner, Zahn McClarnon, Brendan Fletcher, Sala Baker, Teach Grant, Sasha Rossof

Rating: 4/10 – a trip for Joe Braven (Momoa) and his father (Lang) to their family cabin located in the Canadian wilderness sees them fighting for their lives when drug runners come to claim a shipment that has been hidden in the cabin; an unsophisticated action thriller, Braven has an earnestness to it that sees it through some of its more absurdist moments, but its Nineties vibe works against it too often for comfort, and despite the occasional effort, Dillahunt remains an unconvincing villain.

Passport to Destiny (1944) / D: Ray McCarey / 61m

Cast: Elsa Lanchester, Gordon Oliver, Lenore Aubert, Lionel Royce, Fritz Feld, Joseph Vitale, Gavin Muir, Lloyd Corrigan

Rating: 6/10 – in World War II, a cleaning woman, Ella Muggins (Lanchester), who believes herself to be protected from harm thanks to a magical glass eye, determines to travel to Berlin and kill Hitler; a whimsical comic fantasy that somehow manages to have its heroine save a German officer (Oliver) and his girlfriend, Passport to Destiny is an uneven yet enjoyable product of its time, with a terrific central performance by Lanchester, and a winning sense of its own absurdity.

Hellraiser: Judgment (2018) / D: Gary J. Tunnicliffe / 81m

Cast: Damon Carney, Randy Wayne, Alexandra Harris, Paul T. Taylor, Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Helena Grace Donald, Heather Langenkamp

Rating: 3/10 – the hunt for a serial killer finds its lead detective (Carney) coming face to face with the Cenobites – still led by Pinhead (Taylor) – but the solution to the case isn’t as obvious as it seems; the tenth movie in the series, Hellraiser: Judgment at least tries to offer something new in terms of the Cenobites’ involvement, but in the end it can’t escape the fact that Pinhead et al are no longer frightening, the franchise’s penchant for sado-masochistic violence has lost any impact it may once have had, and as with every entry since Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), it fails to introduce one single character for the viewer to care about.

The Final Year (2017) / D: Greg Barker / 89m

With: Ben Rhodes, Samantha Power, John Kerry, Barack Obama

Rating: 7/10 – a look at the final year of Barack Obama’s second term as President of the United States focuses on his foreign policy team and their diplomatic efforts on the global stage; featuring contributions from some of the key players, The Final Year is an interesting if not fully realised documentary that never asks (or finds an answer for) the fundamental question of why Obama’s administration chose to concentrate so much on foreign policy in its last days, something that keeps all the good work that was achieved somewhat in isolation from the viewer.

And Then Came Lola (2009) / D: Ellen Seidler, Megan Siler / 71m

Cast: Ashleigh Sumner, Jill Bennett, Cathy DeBuono, Jessica Graham, Angelyna Martinez, Candy Tolentino, Linda Ignazi

Rating: 4/10 – in a series of Groundhog Day-style episodes, the undisciplined Lola (Sumner) is required to rush a set of photographs to her interior designer girlfriend, Casey (Bennett), so she can seal the deal at a job interview – but she has varying degrees of success; an LGBTQ+ comedy that stops the action every so often to allow its female cast to make out with each other, And Then Came Lola doesn’t put enough spins on its central conceit, and doesn’t make you care enough if Lola comes through or not.

The Ritual (2017) / D: David Bruckner / 94m

Cast: Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Robert James-Collier, Sam Troughton, Paul Reid, Maria Erwolter

Rating: 7/10 – following the tragic death of one of their friends, four men embark on a memorial hiking trip in Sweden, but when one of them is injured, taking a short cut through a forest puts all their lives in jeopardy; a creature feature with a nasty edge to it and above average performances for a horror movie, The Ritual employs mystery as well as terror as it creates a growing sense of dread before it runs out of narrative steam and tries to give its monster a back story that brings the tension up short and leads to a not entirely credible denouement.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) / D: Jake Kasdan / 119m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Rhys Darby, Bobby Cannavale, Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff, Ser’Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner

Rating: 7/10 – four teenagers find themselves transported into a video game called Jumanji, where, transformed into avatars, they are charged with thwarting the dastardly plans of the game’s chief villain (Cannavale); a reboot more than a sequel, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has the benefit of well-drawn, likeable characters, winning performances from Johnson, Hart, Black and Gillan, and confident direction from Kasdan, all things that serve to distract from the uninspired game levels and the predictable nature of its main storyline.

Paddington 2 (2017) / D: Paul King / 103m

Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, Imelda Staunton, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ben Miller, Jessica Hynes, Noah Taylor, Joanna Lumley

Rating: 9/10 – the theft of a unique pop-up book sees Paddington (Whishaw) end up in jail while the Brown family do their best to track down the real thief, Phoenix Buchanan (Grant); an absolute joy, Paddington 2 is just so unexpectedly good that even just thinking about it is likely to put a smile on your face, something that’s all too rare these days, and which is thanks to an inspired script by director King and Simon Farnaby, terrific performances from all concerned, and buckets of perfectly judged humour.

Gangster Land (2017) / D: Timothy Woodward Jr / 113m

Original title: In the Absence of Good Men

Cast: Sean Faris, Milo Gibson, Jason Patric, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Peter Facinelli, Mark Rolston, Michael Paré

Rating: 4/10 – the rise of boxer Jack McGurn (Faris) from potential champion to right-hand man to Al Capone (Gibson), and his involvement in Capone’s feud with ‘Bugs’ Moran (Facinelli); a biopic that’s hampered by lacklustre performances and a leaden script, Gangster Land wants to be thought of as classy but budgetary constraints mean otherwise, and Woodward Jr’s direction doesn’t inject many scenes with the necessary energy to maintain the viewer’s interest, something that leaves the movie feeling moribund for long stretches.

Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) / D: Trish Sie / 93m

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Hailee Steinfeld, John Lithgow, Ruby Rose, Matt Lanter, Elizabeth Banks, John Michael Higgins, DJ Khaled

Rating: 4/10 – the Borden Bellas are back for one last reunion before they all go their separate ways, taking part in a European tour and competing for the chance to open for DJ Khaled; a threequel that adds nothing new to the mix (even if you include Lithgow as Wilson’s scoundrel father), and which is as empty-headed as you’d expect, Pitch Perfect 3 isn’t even well thought out enough to justify its existence and trades on old glories in the hope that the audience won’t notice that’s what they are.

Something Real and Good (2013) / D: Luke Rivett / 81m

Cast: Matt Jones, Alex Hannant, Colton Castaneda, Marla Stone

Rating: 4/10 – he (Jones) meets her (Hannant) in an airport lounge, and over the next twenty-four hours, get to know each other, flirt, have fun, and stay in a hotel together due to their flight being cancelled; the slightness of the story – boy meets girl, they talk and talk and talk and talk – is further undermined by the cod-philosophising and trite observations on life and relationships that they come out with, leaving Something Real and Good as a title that’s a little over-optimistic, though if it achieves anything, it’ll be to stop people from striking up random conversations with strangers in airports – and that’s now a good thing.

Ladies First (2017) / D: Uraaz Bahi / 39m

With: Deepika Kumari, Geeta Devi, Shiv Narayan Mahto, Dharmendra Tiwari

Rating: 8/10 – the story of Deepika Kumari, at one time the number one archer in the world, and her efforts to obtain Olympic gold in 2012 and 2016; a sobering documentary that for a while feels like it’s going to be a standard tale of triumph over adversity (here, relating to Indian culture and gender equality), Ladies First offers a much deeper examination of success and failure than might be expected, and shows that in India, as in many other countries, there are precious few opportunities for women to be anything more than wives and mothers.

Heritage Falls (2016) / D: Shea Sizemore / 88m

Cast: David Keith, Coby Ryan McLaughlin, Keean Johnson, Sydney Penny, Nancy Stafford, Devon Ogden

Rating: 4/10 – three generations of males head off for a bonding weekend designed to overcome the divisions that are keeping them distant or apart from each other; a mixed bag of drama and lightweight comedy, Heritage Falls wants to say something sincere and relevant about father-son relationships, but falls way short in its ambitions thanks to a script that can’t provide even one of its protagonists with a convincing argument for their position, a bland visual style, and even blander direction from Sizemore, making this a turgid exercise in emotional dysfunction.

The Long Dark Hall (1951) / D: Anthony Bushell, Reginald Beck / 86m

Cast: Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer, Denis O’Dea, Reginald Huntley, Anthony Dawson, Brenda de Banzie, Eric Pohlmann

Rating: 7/10 – when an actress is murdered in the room she rents, suspicion falls on her lover, married man Arthur Groome (Harrison), but even though he goes on trial at the Old Bailey, his wife, Mary (Palmer), stands by him; an early UK attempt at film noir, The Long Dark Hall has its fair share of tension, particularly in a scene at the Groome home where Mary is alone with the real killer (Dawson), but Harrison doesn’t seem fully committed (it wasn’t one of his favourite projects), and the screenplay lurches too often into uncomfortable melodrama, though overall this has an air of fatalism that keeps it intriguing for viewers who are used to their crime thrillers being a little more straightforward.

Ready Player One (2018) / D: Steven Spielberg / 140m

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen

Rating: 7/10 – in 2045, people have become obsessed with a virtual reality game called Oasis where anything can happen, but when its creator (Rylance) reveals there’s a hidden prize within the game, one that will give overall control of the game and its licence to the winner, it’s up to a small group of gamers led by Parzifal (Sheridan) to stop a rival corporation from winning; an elaborate sci-fi fantasy that provides a nostalgia overload for fans of Eighties pop culture in particular, Ready Player One has plenty of visual pizzazz, but soon runs out of steam in the story department, and offers way too much exposition in lieu of a proper script, a situation it tries to overcome by being dazzling if empty-headed, but which in the hands of Steven Spielberg still manages to be very entertaining indeed – if you don’t give it too much thought.

The Temple (2017) / D: Michael Barrett / 78m

Cast: Logan Huffman, Natalia Warner, Brandon Sklenar, Naoto Takenaka, Asahi Uchida

Rating: 4/10 – three American tourists – best friends Chris (Huffman) and Kate (Warner), and Kate’s boyfriend, James (Sklenar) – are travelling in Japan when they hear about an abandoned temple and decide to go there, little knowing what will happen to them once they get there; even with its post-visit framing device designed to add further mystery to events, The Temple is a chore to sit through thanks to its being yet another horror movie where people behave stupidly so that a number of uninspired “shocks” can be trotted out, along with dreary dialogue and the (actually) terrible realisation that movie makers still think that by plundering legends and myths from other countries then their movies will be much more original and scary… and that’s simply not true.

Chokeslam (2016) / D: Robert Cuffley / 102m

Cast: Chris Marquette, Amanda Crew, Michael Eklund, Niall Matter, Gwynyth Walsh, Mick Foley

Rating: 5/10 – a 10-year high school reunion gives deli owner Corey (Marquette) the chance to reconnect with the girl he loved, Sheena (Crew), who is now a famous female wrestler; a lightweight romantic comedy that pokes moderate fun at the world of wrestling, Chokeslam is innocuous where it should be daring, and bland when it should be heartwarming, making it a movie that’s populated almost entirely by stock characters dealing with stock situations and problems, and which, unsurprisingly, provides them with entirely stock solutions.

All the Money in the World (2017) / D: Ridley Scott / 132m

Cast: Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer, Mark Wahlberg, Romain Duris, Timothy Hutton, Charlie Plummer, Marco Leonardi, Giuseppe Bonifati

Rating: 8/10 – a recreation of the kidnapping in 1973 of John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer), and the subsequent attempts by his mother, Gail (Williams), to persuade his grandfather (Christopher Plummer) to pay the ransom, something the then world’s richest man refuses to do; Scott’s best movie in years, All the Money in the World is a taut, compelling thriller that tells its story with ruthless expediency and features yet another commanding performance from Williams, something that takes the spotlight away from the presence of Christopher Plummer (who’s good but not great), and which serves as a reminder that money isn’t the central concern here, but a mother’s unwavering love for her child.

5 Headed Shark Attack (2017) / D: Nico De Leon / 98m

Cast: Chris Bruno, Nikki Howard, Lindsay Sawyer, Jeffrey Holsman, Chris Costanzo, Amaanda Méndez, Ian Daryk, Jorge Navarro, Lorna Hernandez, Michelle Cortès, Nicholas Nene

Rating: 3/10 – a four-headed shark terrorises the waters off Palomino Island in Puerto Rico before mutating into a five-headed shark, and being hunted by both the island’s police force, and a team of marine biologists from a local aquarium; operating at the bargain bucket end of the movie business, 5 Headed Shark Attack, SyFy’s latest cheaply made farrago, references Sharknado (2013) early on (as if it’s being clever), and then does it’s absolute best to make its audience cringe and wince and wish they’d never started watching in the first place, something the awful screenplay, dialogue, acting, special effects and direction all manage without even trying.

Mini-Review: The Secret Life of Pets (2016)

19 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Albert Brooks, Animal Control, Animals, Animation, Chris Renaud, Comedy, Duke, Eric Stonestreet, Gidget, Illumination Entertainment, Jenny Slate, Kevin Hart, Lake Bell, Louis C.K., Max, New York, Pets, Snowball, The Flushed Pets

D: Chris Renaud, Yarrow Cheney / 87m

Cast: Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Ellie Kemper, Albert Brooks, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Hannibal Buress, Bobby Moynihan, Chris Renaud, Steve Coogan, Michael Beattie

The latest from Illumination Entertainment, the creators of the Minions, The Secret Life of Pets asks that familiar-sounding but rarely asked question: what do our pets get up to when we’re away from home? And the answer seems to be: a lot more fun than we get up to while we’re away. In a multi-storey apartment block that seems built along the lines of the Flatiron Building, it seems that every resident has a pet or two. And each of these pets has their own thing they do each day. Max (Louis C.K.), a terrier, sits in front of the door waiting for his owner to come home again.

But his perfect life with his owner, Katie (Kemper) is destroyed by the arrival of Duke (Stonestreet), a big hairy stray that Katie brings home wth her one day. Soon Max and Duke are at loggerheads, until while out for a walk, they become separated from their dog walker, and end up victimised by a group of feral cats led by Ozone (Coogan). With their collars removed they’re soon picked up by Animal Control. Only a mission by Snowball (Hart) and his gang of “flushed pets” to rescue one of their own sets them free, but at a price that will see Max and Duke being chased by Snowball, and their animal neighbours – led by Pomeranian Gidget (Slate) – setting out on a rescue mission of their own: to bring back Max and Duke safe and sound.

The plot of The Secret Life of Pets is so slight as to be almost invisible. It’s one long chase movie bookended by convivial scenes of the animals’ home lives, and while there’s nothing ostensibly wrong with this approach, what it does mean is that if the jokes along the way don’t match up to the promises the movie has been making since around this time last year then the movie itself is going to fall flat on its face. Fortunately, the jokes do match up, and the movie contains enough laugh-out-loud-funny moments that the movie can’t help be rewarding – if only on a broad, superficial level. Animal lovers will enjoy this the most, and it’s true that some of the animals’ secret lives do involve some hilarious imagery, but anyone taking a closer look will be dismayed by the way in which the characters behave like stereotypes, and how little they develop over the course of the movie.

But this is mainly about two adversaries learning to let go of their differences and work together, and thus earn equal respect. If it’s a tried and trusted storyline, and it’s been done to death by now, the fact remains that it hasn’t been done by Illumination Entertainment, and they manage to bring a freshness to the tale that helps lift the often banal nature of the narrative. In the hands of directors Renaud and Cheney, the movie is a bright, garish, enjoyable fun ride with a plethora of great sight gags – Buddy the dachshund (Buress) climbing a fire escape is inspired – and a big heart. It’s perfect for children below a certain age (who will love it), but some adults may find it hard going. Nevertheless this is still a lot of fun, and features a performance by Kevin Hart that, for once, is easy on the ears.

Rating: 7/10 – not as engaging as expected but still enjoyable for the most part, The Secret Life of Pets tells its simple story with a great deal of verve but little in the way of imagination or invention; not exactly forgettable, but not exactly memorable either, a situation that could, and should, have been avoided.

Central Intelligence (2016)

24 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aaron Paul, Action, Amy Ryan, Black Badger, CIA, Comedy, Drama, Dwayne Johnson, High school reunion, Jason Bateman, Kevin Hart, Rawson Marshall Thurber, Review, Satellite codes

D: Rawson Marshall Thurber / 114m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Amy Ryan, Danielle Nicolet, Jason Bateman, Aaron Paul, Ryan Hansen, Tim Griffin, Timothy John Smith, Thomas Kretschmann

An action comedy that doesn’t take itself, or its raison d’etre, seriously, Central Intelligence is the kind of buddy movie that lives or dies depending on the chemistry between its two leads. It’s a relief then that the pairing of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart – this decade’s answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito perhaps – works so well, and the pair are able to riff off on one another with an ease that belies the fact that this is their first movie together.

It all begins twenty years ago at a high school rally that sees put-upon fat kid Robbie Weirdicht grabbed from the school showers and sent sprawling across the floor of the gymnasium where everyone is gathered. While everyone else laughs, only Calvin Joyner, the most popular kid in school, helps Robbie to cover up. Robbie runs away and is never seen again. Fast forward twenty years and the class of 1996 is preparing to attend their high school reunion. Calvin (Hart) is now an accountant whose initial promise seems to have petered out: he’s just been passed up for promotion. He’s married to his childhood sweetheart, Maggie (Nicolet), but they don’t have any kids and she’s more successful than he is. Then, out of the blue, Calvin recieves a friend request on Facebook from someone called Bob Stone (Johnson). Stone persuades Calvin to meet him for a drink, and when they do, Calvin is amazed that Bob is actually Robbie, and that Robbie has changed so completely from the fat kid he remembers from school.

The pair end up back at Calvin’s home, where Bob asks him to look at his payroll account as there’s a problem with it. But the account is actually a list of bids for an unknown item at an auction due to finish the next night. Bob stays over, but the morning brings a surprise visit by the CIA in the form of Agent Harris (Ryan) and her fellow agents, Mitchell (Griffin) and Cooper (Smith). They’re after Bob who, it transpires, is a CIA agent who is apparently wanted for the theft of spy sateliite codes and the murder of his partner. Bob has left, however, and only catches up with Calvin later at his office. A firefight with the CIA ensues and the pair narrowly escape. Bob explains he’s trying to find the location where the codes will be bought, and needs Calvin’s accounting skills to help him do so. Calvin balks at the idea however, and takes off at the first opportunity.

Pressure from the CIA is brought to bear on Calvin and he’s forced to give up Bob’s whereabouts. But with Bob in custody and being interrogated “the hard way”, Calvin has a change of heart and helps him escape. They use another high school alumni, Trevor (Bateman), to help them find the location of the buy, and head off to Boston to crash the meeting, and discover just who the buyer is and if he’s a shadowy figure called the Black Badger, also the man responsible for the death of Bob’s partner, Phil (Paul)…

From the above synopsis you can guess that Central Intelligence doesn’t have exactly the greatest of scripts, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Yes, it has several painful moments where the basic plot rebounds against the constraints of credibility, and the storyline surrounding Calvin and Maggie’s relationship takes the movie off into odd areas that slow the movie down and feel like padding, but overall it’s a movie that provides solid laughs, both visual (Bob’s dislocated finger) and verbal (“And you’re still shorter than my cat” – Trevor to Calvin). For once, Hart doesn’t overdo his usual schtick and delivers his best performance for a while, making Calvin’s eventual, committed, partnership with Bob more believable than expected. Meanwhile, Johnson reminds viewers just how good he can be in a comedy role, playing Bob as an over-exuberant man-child whose enthusiasm for pretty much everything is expressed through a variety of gushing excitement and childlike wonder.

Indeed, it’s the inspired pairing of Johnson and Hart that makes Central Intelligence work as well as it does. Unlike, say, Hart’s pairing with Ice Cube in the Ride Along movies, here he displays a genuine chemistry with the former WWE Superstar that makes watching the movie far more enjoyable than it appears at first glance. And while, as mentioned above, Hart employs his trademark cowardly, fast-talking movie persona on several occasions but perhaps in deference to Johnson’s cleverer, less in-your-face approach, refrains from going as over the top as he’s done in the likes of Get Hard (2015). This makes for one of his better performances, and in his scenes with Johnson you can see and feel him upping his game, something he hasn’t done since co-starring with Stallone and De Niro in Grudge Match (2013).

Without Johnson and Hart’s sterling performances, however, Central Intelligence would be even more derivative and lightweight than it looks, thanks to its piecemeal plotting, obvious villain, and low-key action sequences (they’re well choreographed but aren’t that memorable when all’s said and done). There’s an awkward subplot involving bullying that is resolved in typically inappropriate fashion, and the secondary characters are practically cardboard cutouts, leaving the likes of Ryan and Bateman little else to do but recite their lines and hope for the best once the movie’s cut together. Thurber, whose last movie was the wickedly smart and under-appreciated We’re the Millers (2013) makes light work of a screenplay that could have been filed under “fluffy nonsense” and no one would have complained, and shows an aptitude for the buddy movie – and showing these characters in a good light in particular – that hopefully will keep him retained if a sequel is ever greenlit (which is likely).

Rating: 6/10 – there’s plenty of silly fun to be had in Central Intelligence, but while it’s amusing enough, it doesn’t excuse the waywardness or clumsiness of the script; Hart and Johnson make a great double act (though Johnson proves to be the better comic actor), and there’s enough merit to the action scenes to keep genre fans happy, all of which adds up to a surprisingly entertaining viewing experience – if you don’t expect too much.

Ride Along 2 (2016)

23 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Action, Atlanta, Benjamin Bratt, Comedy, Crime, Drugs, Ice Cube, Ken Jeong, Kevin Hart, Miami, Olivia Munn, Review, Sequel, Tim Story

D: Tim Story / 102m

Cast: Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, Ken Jeong, Benjamin Bratt, Olivia Munn, Tika Sumpter, Bruce McGill, Michael Rose, Sherri Shepherd, Tyrese Gibson

Overheard at a cinema in Boise, Idaho (or somewhere like that – you get the idea):

Assistant: Hi, how can I help you today?

Customer: Hi. I’d like two tickets for Ride Along 2, please.

Assistant: Two tickets? Why?

Customer: I’m sorry?

Assistant: Why do you want two tickets? Don’t you like the person you’ve come with?

Customer: I beg your pardon.

Assistant: Look, it’s no skin off my nose, but wouldn’t you rather see something else? Like Norm of the North perhaps?

Customer: No, we’d like to see Ride Along 2. We like Kevin Hart. He’s funny.

Assistant: He is, yes. But unfortunately the movie isn’t.

Customer: Well, that’s your opinion. Now, can I have two tickets to see Ride Along 2? Please.

Assistant: Well, okay, I guess you’re old enough to know what you’re doing.

Customer: You know, you’re being very rude. I don’t think I’ve ever been so insulted before.

Assistant: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? Wait until you’ve seen the movie, then decide, huh?

Rating: 3/10 – a dire sequel that recreates several of the first movie’s so-called “funniest moments”, Ride Along 2 proves that recycling isn’t as good for the environment (and particularly a cinema screen) as we’ve all been told; formulaic in the extreme, and low on real laughs, this is the kind of movie that studios make when they can’t think of anything that’s better/more original/more entertaining to make.

Mini-Review: Get Hard (2015)

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alison Brie, Comedy, Craig T. Nelson, Embezzlement, Etan Cohen, Fraud, Kevin Hart, Mayo, Prison, Review, Will Ferrell

D: Etan Cohen / 100m

Cast: Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, Craig T. Nelson, Alison Brie, T.I. “Tip” Harris, Edwina Findlay, Ariana Neal, Paul Ben-Victor, John Mayer, Greg Germann, Ron Funchkes

Hedge fund manager James King (Ferrell) has it all: a beautiful home, a beautiful fiancee (Brie), a recent promotion to partner in his future father-in-law Martin’s firm, and all the money he needs for a dream lifestyle. But it all comes crashing down when he’s arrested for embezzlement. In court, the judge sentences him to ten years in San Quentin, but allows him thirty days to get his affairs in order. In the wake of this, Alissa dumps him, Martin vows to find the person really responsible for the embezzlement, and James faces the prospect of prison by trying to run away to Mexico. But when he bumps into Darnell Lewis, who runs the car wash business at his place of work, he makes the assumption that Darnell has been in prison because he’s black. Asking for Darnell’s help in surviving on the inside, Darnell agrees to help him for $30,000.

Darnell does his best to toughen up James and prepare him for prison life, but James proves a less than able pupil. In the end Darnell decides James needs to be protected on the inside and hooks him up with his cousin, Russell (Harris), who has his own gang, the Crenshaw Kings. James makes a good impression on Russell but Russell decides he needs protection from a white gang instead and sends him to see the Allegiance of Whites gang, but the meeting ends in disaster, and both he and Darnell barely escape with their lives. At this point, Darnell realises that James really is innocent, and together they look for the real crook. But finding and keeping the evidence to convict that person proves to be another matter entirely.

Whatever your feeling about mismatched buddy comedies, or indeed any movie starring Will Ferrell or Kevin Hart, chances are that this will appeal to a broad audience base, and entertain accordingly. If the movie lapses too often into the kind of farcical schtick that seems to underpin this particular comedy sub-genre, then it shouldn’t be a surprise that it lacks even the requisite number of belly laughs. This isn’t to say that Get Hard isn’t funny – it definitely has its moments – but what holds it back is that it doesn’t try hard enough to make its intended audience really laugh out loud (though a couple of one-liners come close). What it does is present situation after situation that allows Ferrell to trot out his idiot man-child persona one more time, and with little or no variation from any other comedy he’s made in the last ten years. James is a role tailor-made for him, but the problem is that it doesn’t stretch Ferrell as an actor, and for large stretches he coasts along in the role, hitting his mark but without any appreciable effort.

It’s the same for Hart, giving us the same manic portrayal he’s given us in Ride Along (2014), The Wedding Ringer (2015) and others. With nothing to shake up the performance, it looks tired already. Add to that an increasingly bizarre series of situations where James has to “man up” – including giving a blow job to a stranger, easily the movie’s most uncomfortably plotted moment – and a criminal plot that has all the originality of of a photocopy, Get Hard is lazy, opportunistic and, at times, unbelievably crass.

Rating: 4/10 – not the absolute worst way to spend ninety-four minutes of your time, but certainly not the best either, Get Hard wastes the talents of its two stars, and plays it all by numbers; save your money and wait for it to become available for free in whichever way you can access it.

Mini-Review: The Wedding Ringer (2015)

08 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Best man, Comedy, Golden Tux, Groomsmen, Jeremy Garelick, Jorge Garcia, Josh Gad, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Kevin Hart, Review, Wedding

D: Jeremy Garelick / 101m

Cast: Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, Affion Crockett, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Jorge Garcia, Dan Gill, Corey Holcomb, Colin Kane, Aaron Takahashi, Alan Ritchson, Ken Howard, Olivia Thirlby, Mimi Rogers, Cloris Leachman, Ignacio Serricchio, Jenifer Lewis

Though Doug Harris (Gad) is a successful tax attorney, when it comes to his impending marriage to Gretchen Palmer (Cuoco-Sweeting), he’s having no success in conjuring up a best man or any other friends to be his groomsmen. With literally no one to call on, Doug hears about The Best Man Inc and checks it out. He meets best man for hire Jimmy Callaghan (Hart) and explains his predicament. Jimmy realises he needs a “Golden Tux” (seven groomsmen), which has never been done before. He takes on the challenge and finds seven “friends” for Doug who will be able to attend various pre-wedding functions and be there on the day.

Jimmy assumes the role of Bic Mitchum, a military priest fresh from a tour in El Salvador. He and Doug spend time getting to “know” each other before Jimmy meets Gretchen’s family, including her ultra-competitive dad (Howard) and immediately suspicious sister, Allison (Thirlby). Doug and Jimmy do well enough that Gretchen doesn’t suspect a thing, though as the wedding day gets nearer and nearer, a bond develops between Jimmy and Doug that Jimmy is wary of, as his one stipulation is that their relationship is purely a business one. But on the day of the wedding, Jimmy learns something that changes everything, including his role of best man, and Doug’s role as the groom. Does he keep to the terms of his agreement with Doug, or does he put it all aside to help Doug?

The latest movie in Kevin Hart’s seemingly unstoppable rise to superstardom, The Wedding Ringer is a comedy feature that pauses on too many occasions to ram home its message about the importance of friendship, and largely forgets to include the belly laughs it so desperately needs to work. It’s workmanlike stuff, the script by director Garelick and Jay Lavender never really coming up with situations or diversions that prove really funny. It is amusing – what happens to Gretchen’s gran (Leachman) at the lunch is surreally hilarious – but only in fits and starts. Like many comedies released in recent years, there’s too much exposition and too much emphasis on the set up rather than the pay off. What doesn’t help is that Hart appears to coasting on auto pilot, while Gad (easily the better comic actor) is stuck playing the straight guy.

The whole premise is weak, and Doug’s explanation for his situation seems improbable, while Jimmy’s lack of friends seems equally unlikely. There are lots of other contrivances on display, and they all stop the movie from being anything more than a loosely connected series of scenes that are there to tick the boxes. Garelick makes his feature debut but fails to impress, and the whole look of the movie is one step removed from a TV episode. Ultimately, it’s a movie that doesn’t try very hard, and gives new meaning to the word “underwhelming”.

Rating: 4/10 – with Hart citing The Wedding Ringer as his “best work to date”, some viewers may think it has a lot going for it, but the truth is more banal: it’s just not as funny as it should be; predictable and too pedestrian to be effective, the movie is a disappointment, and wastes its more than capable cast.

Ride Along (2014)

07 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Arms deal, Blackhammer, Bruce McGill, Ice Cube, John Leguizamo, Kevin Hart, Laurence Fishburne, Omar, Review, Serbian gangsters, Tim Story

D: Tim Story / 99m

Cast: Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, John Leguizamo, Bruce McGill, Tika Sumpter, Bryan Callen, Laurence Fishburne

There’s a moment in Ride Along where the viewer – even if they’ve only ever seen one other mismatched buddy-cop movie – has to say to themselves, “Whoa, hang on!” The moment occurs when Ben (Hart) walks into a strip club convinced he’s dealing with a 126 (a nuisance call) and finds two guns pointed at him. He doesn’t realise he’s in trouble and berates the two gunmen and challenges them to shoot him (he even throws in some reverse-racist taunting as well). It’s the moment when the viewer has to throw his or her hands up in the air and say to themselves, “Okay, I know this isn’t the best mismatched buddy-cop movie in the world, but really, am I supposed to believe Ben is this dumb?” Sadly, the answer is yes.

Ride Along is yet another dispiriting movie where the premise of two mismatched people having to work together to solve a mystery or crime is trotted out with ever decreasing results. Ben is planning to marry Angela (Sumpter) but first has to get the approval of her brother, James (Cube). James is a cop and thinks Ben isn’t good enough for Angela; he’s also trying to track down and apprehend a mysterious criminal called Omar (Fishburne). Ben wants to impress James, and lets him know he’s been accepted to the police academy. In an effort to dissuade him, James invites Ben on a ride along, a day spent with James to see if Ben has what it takes to be a police officer.

There’s no prizes for guessing that while Ben makes mistake after mistake, he still manages to stumble onto clues that help James get closer to catching Omar. It’s a tried and tested (and trusted) formula, but here it’s so wrung out and poorly plotted that even the average viewer is going to shake their head in disappointment. It’s the same problem that most of these movies have to overcome: just how dumb or stupid does the main character have to be, and yet still be able to credibly help resolve whatever problem, crime or investigation is at the centre of the movie. Hart is a promising talent – he’s like a less high-pitched Chris Tucker – but as Ben he’s unable to show a through line to both parts of the character. He plays video games and it’s this that’s supposed to help him when he and James get into a firefight; but other than being able to recognise the sounds different guns make, it’s baffling how this could be of any real benefit, yet it’s treated like a major asset (and then only as briefly as it will take to read this). Hart also falls into the trap of thinking that if he shouts something loudly enough it will be funny (it’s not).

Cube clumps through the movie like it’s a contractual obligation, using his trademark scowl as if it’s the only piece of characterisation he needs. He has two expressions: mad and angry, and he uses them like weapons to batter the other characters. It’s like watching someone who’s been told he’s got a week to live and the only item on his bucket list is to be as miserable as the situation demands.

With scenes that either outstay their welcome after a couple of minutes, or fail to advance or add to the storyline, Ride Along stutters and stumbles its way from the lacklustre, poorly edited opening action sequence to the ridiculous denouement that inevitably involves Angela being put in danger by Omar. By that point, anyone who’s stayed the distance will be hoping Omar wins out and shoots both Ben and James so that we don’t have to endure the inevitable – and recently announced – sequel.

Further down the cast list we have John Leguizamo, an actor with such a varied range and filmography that he can be forgiven his involvement here, while Fishburne pops up to provide unconvincing menace as Omar. In the director’s chair, Tim Story brings a journeyman’s approach to the material, failing to add anything special to proceedings and shooting in a predictable, straightforward style. It all adds up to something that’s actually less than the sum of its parts.

Rating: 4/10 – a dire retread of an already overworked “comedy” formula, Ride Along is about as rewarding as a cold sore; derivative, embarrassing and just plain bad.

Grudge Match (2013)

08 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alan Arkin, Billy 'The Kid' McDonnen, Boxing, Comedy, Drama, Henry 'Razor' Sharp, Jon Bernthal, Kevin Hart, Kim Basinger, Peter Segal, Raging Bull, Rematch, Review, Rivalry, Robert De Niro, Rocky, Sylvester Stallone

D: Peter Segal / 113m

Cast: Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, Alan Arkin, Kim Basinger, Kevin Hart, Jon Bernthal, Camden Grey, LL Cool J

Thirty years after they fought against each other, ageing boxers Henry “Razor” Sharp (Stallone) and Billy “The Kid” McDonnen (De Niro) are tempted back into the ring for one last bout to decide, once and for all, which of them is the better fighter. When they first fought, Billy won easily. In the rematch, it was Henry who won. A third, deciding fight was planned but Henry refused to fight and retired from the ring. Billy has always wanted a third fight to happen, and when the son of their old promoter, Dante Slate Jr (Hart) offers both men a chance to get back in the ring and settle the issue, it all hinges on getting Henry to say yes. Initially reluctant, but eventually persuaded by the size of the payout – which he needs to pay the nursing home bill of his former trainer Louis (Arkin) – Henry also has to contend with the reappearance of Sally (Basinger), an old flame of his who slept with Billy and as a result, had his child (and awkwardly called him BJ). With Sally attempting to win Henry back, and BJ (Bernthal) becoming a part of Billy’s life, both fighters have to deal with long buried personal as well as professional issues before they can step back into the ring.

As a piece of high concept matchmaking, the idea of bringing together Stallone and De Niro under the veiled banner of “Rocky vs Raging Bull” was probably too hard to resist (though why it’s taken so long for someone to come up with the idea is a little surprising). You can almost imagine the delight on the faces of the studio executives at Warner Bros when the pitch was made to them. You can also imagine that the script was the last thing they would have worried about. And while the whole idea has a whiff of Cocoon-style wish fulfilment about it, the basic plot is augmented with enough emotional and comedic incident to make Grudge Match watchable if not exactly unpredictable. The storyline involving Billy’s burgeoning relationship with BJ (it obviously stands for Butterscotch Jellies), is almost straight out of Screenwriting 101, but there’s enough there to make it affecting in a gentle, enjoyable fashion. Likewise the reawakening of Henry and Sally’s feelings for each other; again, nothing original and with the usual stumbling blocks along the way to true happiness, but done with enough feeling and conviction to keep the audience invested in the outcome.

With its ageing cast required to poke gentle fun at greater glories – Stallone wanting to punch a slab of beef during a training session and being soundly told off for it, De Niro getting heckled at a speaking engagement – Grudge Match never really aims to be as dramatic as the set up might imply. Its notions of family ties and relationships aside, the boxing side of things is played mostly for laughs, particularly when both men agree to provide motion capture for a video game, or when pressed to make a public appearance together. It’s only when the fight finally happens that the comedy is dropped altogether and the two men – both in remarkably good shape – batter each other over twelve rounds. The rivalry, such a big part of the script and the plot, is allowed a proper resolution here, and it’s good to see a way in which both men can be seen to be winners.

This awkward mix of comedy and drama, both lightweight yet curiously satisfying, is saved by the sterling work of its cast. Both Stallone and De Niro are fun to watch, and while neither is stretched (in or out of the ring), they acquit themselves well. As the lost love who wants a second chance, Basinger fares well with an under-developed role, but it’s always good to see her, whatever she’s in. Left with the bulk of the dramatic content, Bernthal is still a fresh enough screen presence that you’re never entirely sure what he’s going to do next, and this helps immensely in his scenes with De Niro. The comedy then is left to Hart and Arkin, Hart edging it with a manic, ADHD-style performance that appears largely improvised and is often very funny, while Arkin replays his crotchety OAP from Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and almost steals the movie.

On the production side, the movie is well-mounted without being spectacular or too visually arresting, and the location work is suitably low-key and reflective of the two fighters’ backgrounds and current circumstances. The movie flows thanks to Segal’s capable direction and William Kerr’s measured editing, and while the photography by Dean Semler is mostly subdued by the wintry colour scheme, it’s still sharp and carefully framed throughout, with good compositions and blocking. Trevor Rabin’s score supports the action almost casually, and there’s fun to be had looking for background references to both Rocky and Raging Bull.

In the end, Grudge Match fails to live up to its potential by choosing to tread some very worn paths, and by failing to decide whether it should be a comedy with dramatic elements, or a drama with comedic moments. The script by Tim Kelleher and Rodney Rothman could have been tightened a little, but it remains what it is: effective in a predictable, sometimes banal way, but falling short of making a solid impression. A shame, then, as the basic premise is a good one.

Rating: 7/10 – not as bad as it could have been but equally not as good as it should have been, Grudge Match won’t win any awards (probably) but it’s a pleasant enough way to spend a couple of hours; a movie that, sadly, in boxing terms is “punching above its weight”.