Author Archives: Keith Garlington

REVIEW: “It Was Just an Accident” (2025)

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Jafar Panahi continues his own style of guerilla filmmaking in his latest feature, “It Was Just an Accident”. Panahi once again offers an incisive critique of the ruling regime in his home country, Iran. He has been arrested multiple times, imprisoned, and at one point banned from filmmaking on charges of “propaganda”. Yet he has continued to make movies in Iran, often in secret and with the help of outside distributors. Such is the case with his latest neorealistic work.

“It Was Just an Accident” has been widely lauded across the globe, even winning the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It now sits as France’s entry for Best International Feature Film category at the upcoming Academy Awards. His film offers a clear-eyed examination of dehumanization at the hands of brutal authoritarian regimes as well as the lasting psychological trauma that comes with it. More personally, it wrestles with ethical questions surrounding revenge and the grip it can have on someone.

Image Courtesy of NEON

Written by Panahi, the film opens with a man (Ebrahim Azizi) driving late at night with his wife and daughter. After accidentally striking a dog, his car runs for a few miles before breaking down, conveniently in front of a garage. The man walks into the garage, a noticeable squeak from his prosthetic leg sounding on every other step. A young mechanic kindly goes out to fix his car. But another man named Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) hides upstairs, terrified of something we don’t know.

With his car fixed, the man drives his family home with Vahid secretly following behind. Vahid stakes out the family’s house until morning and then follows the man into town. When the time is right, Vahid abruptly pulls up next to the man, knocks him unconscious, kidnaps him, and then drives him out to the middle of the desert. Once there, Vahid throws the man into a fresh grave and begins to bury him alive.

Up to this point, Panahi has kept us in the dark which adds a thick layer of suspense to his story. But he begins peeling back that layer as the man begs for his life. Through their exchange we learn that Vahid believes he has abducted a man nicknamed “Peg-Leg” who has seriously wronged him. But questions arise when the terrified man disputes his claims. And this launches the story into a borderline outrageous direction that juggles visceral human drama with pitch-black comedy.

Without giving too much away, Vahid sets out on a mission to verify the identity of the man he believes is Peg-Leg. Along the way he’s joined by a colorful group of characters: a bookshop owner named Salar (Georges Hashemzadeh), a wedding photographer named Shiva (Mariam Afshari), a young bride-to-be Goli (Hadis Pakbaten) and her fiancé Ali (Majid Panahi), and Shiva’s hot-tempered ex, Hamid (Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr). Each bring their own unique personalities and each have their own unique testimonies of Peg-Leg’s brutality.

Image Courtesy of Neon

Over time Panahi uses his characters to unveil Peg-Leg’s crimes which get more disturbing with each revelation. And while each remembers the haunting squeak of a prosthetic leg, they all struggle to know for sure if the man they are holding is the same man who ruthlessly tortured them. Their uncertainty leads to tension which Panahi uses to pose some weighty moral questions. Is there justification in their actions or are they blinded by their trauma and their thirst for vengeance?

Nothing about that synopsis sounds amusing yet Panahi finds ways to bring levity to the otherwise heavy subject matter. Not only does it lighten things up, but it adds another layer of authenticity. While “It Was Just an Accident” has a rebellious spirit that pleads to a nation’s conscience, it at times seems more existential than pointedly political. It makes the film more than a simple indictment of theocratic fascism. It has more human implications which resonate from its mysterious start to its hauntingly ambiguous ending.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

REVIEW: “Ella McCay” (2025)

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“Ella McCay” is the first film in fifteen years from writer-director James L. Brooks. Sadly, it’s hard to say it has been worth the wait. In fact, it’s hard to believe it comes from the same acclaimed filmmaker who made “Terms of Endearment”, “Broadcast News”, and “As Good as It Gets”. That’s because “Ella McCay” is a dull, frustrating mess that never feels rooted in the real world despite trying really hard to be.

It’s a shame because there is so much talent attached to the movie. Brooks has proven himself to be a great filmmaker and storyteller. But he miscalculates so much here, leading to him overstuffing his story, undercooking key moments, and diluting his characters. Even worse, the authenticity and sophistication he’s known for is nowhere to be found. It leaves us desperately looking for the humanity and struggling to find it.

Emma Mackey gives her all in the title role, doing her very best to deliver a character worth latching onto. Unfortunately, Ella’s story plays out through a cluttered narrative structure that’s littered with clunky flashbacks and annoying plot devices. It’s surprisingly unfunny as a comedy, noticeably lazy as a movie about empowerment, and completely ineffective as either a political or family drama.

Ella’s life is filled with enough drama to fill a primetime series on The CW. As a teenager, she and her kid brother were forced to navigate a difficult childhood, in large part due to their contemptible father, Eddie (Woody Harrelson). He was a habitual cheater who lost his job as a hospital administrator because of various sexual relationships with staff. When he and their mother Claire (Rebecca Hall) decide to move to California for “a fresh start”, Ella stays behind to finish school, moving in with her beloved Aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis).

Now in 2008, the 34-year-old Ella is a lawyer working as her home state’s lieutenant governor. She has a close but hard to read relationship with her boss, Governor Bill Moore (Albert Brooks) who seems more interested in a potential position in the sitting President’s cabinet. Bill finally gets his big promotion, leading him to step down and leaving Ella to serve as interim governor for the next fourteen months. Ella is excited and ready to get to work for her state. But the political establishment sees her as nothing more than a lame duck.

As for her family, we learn Ella’s mother died sixteen years earlier and she hasn’t seen her loser father in thirteen years. That is until he suddenly shows up hoping to fix things with his estranged daughter. Meanwhile Ella’s dopey husband Ryan (Jack Lowden) is ate up with his wife’s newfound status and is encouraged by his comically overbearing mother (Becky Ann Baker) to milk it for all it’s worth. And if that wasn’t enough, Ella is trying to help her brother Casey (Spike Fearn) who has spent the last year isolated in his apartment after an issue with his girlfriend (Ayo Edebiri).

Sadly none of the above drama connects on any meaningful level, mainly because the story is too bloated and woefully overwritten. Yet it’s a movie full of thankless roles from actors trying to add weight to underwritten characters. Harrelson is collecting a check, popping up at the most peculiar times and then vanishing. Kumail Nanjiani is wasted as Ella’s loyal driver and head of security. Hall is essentially a cameo. Edebiri’s character could be erased and the movie wouldn’t be impacted at all. And Lowden is given an embarrassingly bad role to try and make interesting.

“Ella McCay” ends up disappointing on so many levels. It’s far from what you would expect from an accomplished filmmaker like Brooks. It squanders the perfectly capable but poorly equipped Emma Mackey who (like the rest of the film’s talented cast) finds herself stuck trying to find purpose in this empty and often confounding slog. As well-meaning as it may be, “Ella McCay” is a glaring misfire and a far cry from the significantly better films that have defined James L. Brooks’ career.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS

First Glance: “Disclosure Day”

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Steven Spielberg is returning to a genre that helped solidify him as a household name. “Disclosure Day” sees the revered filmmaker revisiting the world of alien encounters that birthed such classics as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “War of the Worlds”, and of course “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”. The first trailer for the film sets up something that could be pretty special. Besides having Spielberg back in the director’s chair, the trailer also teased an exceptional cast led by Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, and Colman Domingo.

The trailer is wonderfully cryptic which is exactly what you want for a movie like this. In it we see Emily Blunt who suddenly seems possessed by an alien entity during a live weather report. Apparently the strange message she relays catches the attention of millions watching. Meanwhile Josh O’Connor seems to know what’s going on and he’s prepared to share it to the world. Crop circles, strange animal behavior, Colin Firth connected to some strange body-control machine – Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp throw in a lot of compelling ingredients to a movie poised to be a summer hit.

“Disclosure Day” invades theaters on June 12, 2026. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.

REVIEW: “Silent Night, Deadly Night” (2025)

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The original “Silent Night, Deadly Night” released in 1984 to significant controversy. Groups criticized the film for its graphic violence at the hands of a killer decked out in a Santa Claus suit. But over time it would gain a cult following which led to four mostly straight-to-video sequels and a loose 2012 remake. Now the psychological slasher is getting a fresh reboot just in time for the holiday season.

Writer-director Mike P. Nelson puts a new spin on the 1984 original film. He takes several of the same characters and completely reinvents their stories starting with his main character, Billy Chapman (Rohan Campbell). When Billy was eight-years-old he witnessed the brutal murder of his parents by a deranged man in a Santa Claus suit named Charlie (Mark Acheson). Billy’s mother manages to mortally wound Charlie. As the killer is dying, Billy comes in contact with him which has some alarming consequences.

Now years later, Billy is a drifter who moves from town to town at the behest of the voice of Charlie living in his head. Even more disturbing, the voice leads him to kill one person a day during the 24 days of Christmas as part of some grisly ritual connected to a macabre advent calendar. To make it even more twisted, Billy kills his targets while wearing a blood-stained Santa Claus suit. “Naughty boys get punished”, the creepy voice tells him.

Image Courtesy of Cineverse

The movie takes a surprise turn when Billy arrives in the small town of Hackett. While in a diner, an attractive local named Pamela Sims (a very good Ruby Modine) catches his attention. He follows her to a Christmas trinket shop owned by her father (David Lawrence Brown). By this point, Nelson has tuned our minds to expect a blood bath. Instead, Billy gets a job at the shop and quickly falls for Pamela. But as their romance blooms, the voice of Charlie reminds Billy of his serial-killing duties.

It would be criminal to spoil where the story goes. Let’s just say Nelson takes some mammoth swings in his efforts to weave romance and horror into something cohesive and entertaining. Believe it or not he pulls it off, not perfectly, but to a degree you may not be expecting. We get several meaningful reveals and a couple of crazy turns that completely reshape everything we thought we knew. The romance works because Nelson invests time in his two characters. The horror works because he doesn’t shortchange slasher fans when it comes to gory kills.

While “Silent Night, Deadly Night” is unexpectedly entertaining, I don’t want to oversell it. It’s not likely to become a perennial holiday favorite. The story takes a few shortcuts and some characters are underdeveloped. But it’s not throwaway rubbish either. Nelson isn’t just rehashing some tired formula. He offers his own unique take on the story, tossing in plenty of gruesome kills, a warm romance, some pitch-black humor, and a strong sense of self-awareness.

VERDICT – 3 STARS

REVIEW: “Marty Supreme” (2025)

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Timothée Chalamet has been doing some incredible work lately. If you don’t believe me, just ask him. Chalamet lets it fly in his latest feature “Marty Supreme”, a whirlwind dramedy from director and co-writer Josh Safdie. It’s a movie where everything revolves around Chalamet’s full-throttle performance – a frenetic turn that sees the 29-year-old star working hard to keep up with his director’s furious pacing.

“Marty Supreme” is fueled by a chaotic energy that keeps us glued to every wild, unpredictable moment. At the same time, that very manic propulsion rarely slows down enough for Chalamet to find the humanity in his character. Make no mistake, his performance is electric. But the character goes from borderline charming in his arrogance and self-absorption to utterly loathsome and insufferable. It’s only at the very end that we get a different shade of him, but by then it’s too late to matter.

Chalamet plays 23-year-old Marty Mauser, a character loosely inspired by American table tennis player Marty Reisman. Set in 1952, Marty is a scrawny, bespectacled New Yorker with an unquenchable confidence in his own perceived greatness. Marty sells shoes at his uncle’s shoe store, but he sees it as beneath him. Instead, he believes he’s destined to be on a Wheaties box as the best table tennis player in the world.

While Marty may be a tremendous table tennis player, it quickly becomes evident he’s a terrible person. In Marty’s world he is most important, and getting what he wants is all that matters, no matter who he crushes in the process. He’s a narcissist and a shameless self-promoter who uses people to his own advantage, whether they’re his mother, his best friend, or a young married woman named Rachel (Odessa A’zion) who’s carrying his baby. They’re all tools Marty uses to get what he wants.

The first leg of Marty’s run towards greatness begins in London at the table tennis British Open. There he sets his eye on the tournament favorite, Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), Japan’s table tennis champion. But Marty is never out of selling mode, and he begins shopping himself around as the next big thing. In the process he woos Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), a retired actress trapped in an unhappy marriage to a wealthy businessman named Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary). Marty manages to get Kay in his bed, but doesn’t do as well getting money out of Milton.

After disappointment in London, Marty’s whole world becomes about getting to the World Championship in Tokyo. He spends the summer performing halftime acts for the Harlem Globetrotters. But he will need more money if he’s going to make the trip to Japan. And Marty shows he’s willing to do anything to make that happen, no matter how reckless, underhanded, or cruel it may be.

As Safdie ushers Marty from one rambunctious situation to another, his antics get more outrageous and treacherous. Yet as they do, a nagging question kept coming to mind. How can so many people (either emotionally or professionally) buy into such a glaringly obvious self-obsessed fraud? Clearly Safdie and his co-writer Ronald Bronstein want us to see Marty as a cunning salesman and a slick con artist. But too often characters fall for his manipulation in such ways that make them look like buffoons.

Perhaps the biggest casualties of this are the two key women in the story. A’zion gives a superb performance as possibly the only sympathetic character in a movie full of bad people. But the script strips her of any agency and turns her into a loyal puppy dog who will do anything Marty wants, no matter how horrible he treats her. Kay is just as maddening despite a terrific Gwyneth Paltrow turn. Her relationship with Marty is never convincing mainly because she too has to appear hapless for Marty to get what he wants.

Thankfully some of the blindness subsides later in the second half as a handful of characters catch on to Marty’s flagrant nonsense. It adds some welcomed tension and needed conflict to a story that moves so fast that we rarely get a moment to process things. Still, you can’t help but be drawn to the chaos as relayed through Safdie’s kinetic direction and Chalamet’s aggressive theatrics. It keeps us locked into every crazy turn the story takes. Yet it’s also a big reason Marty’s final act conversion doesn’t quite work. After over two hours of despicable actions, he needs more than the final ten minutes to earn our sympathy.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

REVIEW: “Thieves Highway” (2025)

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It’s been too long since the underrated and undervalued Aaron Eckhart has been in a major big screen movie. People may forget, but Eckhart has a pretty stellar résumé, having worked with such heavy-hitting directors as Oliver Stone, Steven Soderbergh, Ron Howard, John Woo, Brian De Palma, Christopher Nolan, and Clint Eastwood. But while he waits for Hollywood to remember his name, Eckhart continues to work, having starred in a run of straight-to-video action thrillers.

His latest thriller is “Thieves Highway”, a feature strengthened by its interesting setting yet frustratingly hampered by a formulaic plot. Written by Travis Mills, the story is set in rural Oklahoma where a sharp spike in livestock theft has cost ranchers and the industry millions of dollars. Eckhart plays the grizzled Frank Bennett, a “cow cop” with the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture who tracks and apprehends modern day cattle rustlers.

Frank’s job has gotten tougher of late. Not only are the cattle thefts on the rise, but the rustlers have become more ruthless, as evident by Frank’s friend and fellow lawman (Johnny Messner) being left permanently paralyzed after a recent encounter. Yet Frank pushes on, mainly because he has nothing else to fall back on after the death of his wife. But we see a spark when he bumps into an old acquaintance named Sylvia (Brooke Langton). Unfortunately their undercooked meet-cute doesn’t lead to anything we can’t see coming.

Equally predictable is the fate of Frank’s partner, Bill (Lochlyn Munro). After sharing his plans to retire and spend more time with his family, Bill insists on accompanying Frank in confronting a gang of rustlers outside of town. To no surprise, Bill is gunned down while Frank manages to escape. From there, a stranded yet determined Frank looks for a way to catch the criminals who killed his partner. Meanwhile the gang hunts for Frank, led by Jones (Devon Sawa), a deranged sociopath wielding a World War II Thompson submachine gun.

Most of the film sees director Jesse V. Johnson setting up a game of cat and mouse between the outgunned but resourceful Frank and Jones, along with his colorful band of thugs. Frank is left stranded with no vehicle and no cell service. But he finds an unexpected ally in an off-the-grid hermit named Axsel (Tracy “The D.O.C.” Curry). Elsewhere a plucky waitress named Peggy (Lucy Martin) finds herself playing a meaningful role in the chaos.

“Thieves Highway” moves along at a fairly crisp pace while streamlining its storytelling within a lean 87-minute runtime. At the same time, the movie could have fleshed out and filled out more if given an extra fifteen minutes or so. As it is, “Thieves Highway” travels down a fairly predictable path. Johnson and Mills do some fun maneuvering with their characters and Eckhart is a sturdy enough lead. But the storytelling takes too many shortcuts and the overall lack of suspense keeps us one step ahead.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS