A now broken up folk duo has been brought to a remote island under the guise of a concert with a big payday. From the beginning it is clear that this is an ultra-remote and oddly eccentric situation. And it turns out that the concert is a private showing for a super-fan who happens to be a lotto winner. Ultimately, this is an exploration of loss and renewal. It is charming, weird, heart-felt and engaging. Excellent small film.
5 stars (out of 5)
Can Jason Statham be any more typecast? And could I not even care if he is? In this version, Statham is a construction supervisor who left his British Special Forces life behind. When the daughter of his boss is kidnapped to be sold into the sex trade, he goes full metal. Along the way, his brash attacks on "The Brotherhood" end up causing him more trouble that had he been more thoughtful, but thoughtful is not what makes revenge action thrillers appealing. So now you know.
4 stars (out of 5)
A spinoff of late stage Avengers. I've been out of the MCU universe for awhile, but I loved Florence Pugh as Yelena in both Hawkeye and Black Widow. Here she is working as a mercenary and comes to find out that her patron (CIA special director Julia Louis-Dreyfus) has sent all the mercenaries on staff to kill each other in an attempt to clean up evidence of bad stuff. So it is a bunch of misfits that self identify as "not fitting in" who accidentally awaken the god of all misfits, only to find that the bipolar nature of his mental health makes everything really bad. "Can't have the good without the bad". So maybe it is an attempt to explore the space of workplace stress, mental health and the importance of a good community. Or maybe it is all that as a means to make another superhero movie. Felt like the latter, with the important character and story pieces filling a second priority. But in this age of watching tent-pole films at midnight on my couch, this is not bad.
3 stars (out of 5)
