REVIEW: “The Rhythm Section” (2020)

February 4, 2020 by Keith Garlington

‘Tis the season for January new releases. Known as a veritable wasteland of movie projects which studios have no faith in, a January release is usually a bad sign for the film and the audience. Enter “The Rhythm Section”, a globe-trotting revenge thriller with some interesting names attached. Unfortunately it feels right at home among the usual January movie doldrums.

Revenge thrillers are a dime a dozen these days and finding one that can stamp its own identity is pretty rare. “The Rhythm Section” looked promising. A gritty female-led tale of vengeance featuring Blake Lively, Jude Law, and Sterling K. Brown sounds alright. But 30 minutes into it I was still looking for a spark, something to energize a movie that frankly never generates any real excitement or suspense.

Photo: Paramount Pictures

“The Rhythm Section” comes from cinematographer turned director Reed Morano and from a screenplay written by Mark Burnell (adapting his own novel). In it Lively plays Stephanie Patrick, a former Oxford student with a bright future. But that life is gone following a plane crash that killed her entire family, a plane she too was supposed to be on. The tragedy sent her spiraling into a world of depression, prostitution and heroin addiction. We don’t see how she got there. Instead the first act spends most of its time showing her in various states of misery.

She’s contacted by a journalist named Proctor (Raza Jeffrey) who has information that the plane her family died on was actually blown out of the sky by a terrorist’s bomb. He identifies the bombmaker who was doing the bidding of an unidentified higher-up who ordered the bombing. Stephanie wants payback but going from street worker to avenging angel is no easy task.

Enter Boyd (Jude Law), a disgraced MI6 agent living off the grid in a remote part of Scotland. If you need quick lessons on how to become an assassin he’s the kind of hard-nosed guy you go see. After some tried-and-true, cliche training sequences Stephanie heads out, tracks down Sterling K. Brown who plays a pretty hilarious (unintentionally) CIA operative and information broker, and sets her sites on the terrorists responsible for her family’s death.

You have to give Lively a lot of credit. She really commits to her role, deglamorizing to the extreme and squeezing whatever emotion she can out of the character she’s given. Unfortunately her performance is undercut by a script that is painfully dull. You can see what it’s trying to be, but it never gets there and sadly Lively is the biggest causality. She deserves better. As for Law, he’s kinda fun but you can’t help but think he’s cashing a check or doing a favor.

Photo: Paramount Pictures

As for the action, there is nothing to it that really sticks with you. The lone exception is an inspired scene involving a car chase where the camera sits in the passenger seat next to Lively. It plays like one continuous take with the camera looking out the front windshield, panning to Lively driving, looking out the back, and so on. It’s a relatively short scene but visually impressive. Everything else is pretty run-of-the-mill.

Part Bourne, part Bond but with none of the vigor or personality of either, “The Rhythm Section” has some good ideas but not enough original ones. And despite a determined Blake Lively performance, the bland low-energy script simply can’t match the film’s ambition. I really wanted to like this movie, but wading through the implausibility and monotony proved to be chore.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

First Glance: “Fast & Furious 9”

February 3, 2020 by Keith Garlington

I feel I say this every time, but it blows my mind that the Fast & Furious movies make up one of the most popular and profitable franchises in existence today. With a total of ten films (so far) and a combined gross of over $5 billion, it’s easily Universal’s biggest franchise. It begs the question, how long can the series keep its head of steam? Well, if the trailer for the latest film is any indication, they still have a lot left in the tank.

“Fast & Furious 9” or “F9” or “F9: The Fast Saga”, whatever they want us to call it, has finally dropped it’s much anticipated first trailer. It’s a solid four minutes of familiar faces, a big new baddie, ridiculously over-the-top car chases, and an interesting surprise at the end. Ultimately it looks like F9 is sticking close to their proven formula which should make franchise fans really happy.

“Fast & Furious 9” is set to hit theaters May 22nd. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.

REVIEW: “Gretel & Hansel” (2020)

February 3, 2020 by Keith Garlington

January is notoriously a dumping ground for movies that studios generally have no confidence in. Out of those we are all but guaranteed a handful of low budget horror films that are as forgettable as they are superfluous. Dropped into this year’s veritable dead zone is the surprisingly inspired “Gretel & Hansel”. It’s a high concept fantasy horror dive that exceeded my expectations at nearly every turn.

“Gretel & Hansel” comes from director Osgood Perkins, son the late Anthony Perkins. It’s from a script Perkins co-wrote with Rob Hayes and is based on the classic German folktale from the Brothers Grimm. Here the bigger focus is on creating atmosphere and building tension visually more so than narratively. It’s something the movie leans heavily on and for the most part nails.

You’ll quickly notice that Gretel is the film’s centerpiece hence the name switcheroo in the title. In the fairy tale the two kids are around the same age. Here Gretel (played by Sophia Lillis) is both narrator and older sister taking care of her precocious younger brother (Sam Leakey) after the two are cast into the dark woods by their destitute and unstable mother. They travel across the hellish, famine-stricken land, helped by a mysterious hunter (Charles Babalola), haunted by eerie apparitions appearing in the distance, and growing hungrier with every passing day.

Photo: Orion Pictures

The story settles in when starving Gretel and Hansel come across a remote A-frame house deep in the forest. A peep through a window reveals a table full of fruits, meats, breads, and sweets. Hansel sneaks inside but is snagged by the owner, a creepy old crone named Holda. She’s played by a terrifically menacing Alice Krige who exudes dread from her eerie glances to her fingertips black with rot. Thanks to the source material we know she’s actually a witch and her motivations going forward are unquestionably sinister.

She invites Gretel inside to join her brother at the table where the two stuff their empty stomachs. The witch convinces the children to stay and soon is teaching Gretel small spells and female empowerment while steadily pushing second helpings in front of Hansel. As the witch inspires Gretel’s desire for agency and independence she soon begins to manipulate it. The question becomes will Gretel see through the witch’s radicalization and become her own woman? If not the consequences could be horrific.

When all is said and done the story itself (though interesting) is pretty light. Perkins and Hayes stretch their tale about as far as they can just to fill the small 88 minute runtime. At first it was something that set the movie back for me, but since then I’ve seen it as less of an issue because I’m convinced there are more thematic layers than I gave it credit for. It’s a case where I’m anxious to give the movie a second look hopefully with a more attentive eye.

Photo: Orion Pictures

But I have to get back to the visuals and the way they develop and maintain mood and atmosphere. There are countless haunting images, meticulously framed and resembling something plucked out of a Robert Eggers picture. In fact there is a genuine arthouse quality to the presentation and I could imagine seeing an A24 stamp in front of the title. Much of the credit goes to cinematographer Galo Olivares who was a collaborator on Alfonso Cuarón’s exquisite Oscar winner “Roma”. His use of lighting, shadows, camera angles, and simple still shots to brilliantly capture Perkins’ vision and verve.

Better yet, the movie truly believes in its visuals which convey the bulk of the horror. It’s refreshing to see a reliance on something other than cheap, overused jump scares. And there is rarely a shot where something doesn’t catch your eye. It’s all done with a minuscule $5 million budget. Further proof that you don’t need tons of money and big digital effects to make a movie look incredible.

So you could say “Gretel & Hansel” is a macabre coming-of-age story about individuality and burgeoning womanhood. You could embrace it as a grim slice of medieval period horror. There are several things you could call it including an ‘unexpected surprise’. Unfortunately I can see it struggling to find an audience. It’s leisurely paced and requires audiences to do a little more work than in traditional horror pictures. But I found it to be visually arresting, light on story but big on ideas, and a welcomed break from what January usually has to offer.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

Discussing “Gretel & Hansel” on Tavern Talk

February 1, 2020 by Keith Garlington

I had the honor of once again appearing on Tavern Talk, this time to film two shows. The first being this review of the new horror movie “Gretel & Hansel”. As before, the idea is that host Phillip Price and his guest watch the newest release of the week and then immediately share their raw first impressions. It was a ton of fun.

Check it out below and let me know what you think.

REVIEW: “Disturbing the Peace” (2020)

January 31, 2020 by Keith Garlington

I make no bones about it, I love Guy Pearce and have always considered him to be underrated and underappreciated. He’s a talented actor who has tackled a broad and impressive range of roles throughout his 30 year career. Sure, a handful of his movies have wildly missed their mark, but none quite as badly as his latest “Disturbing the Peace”. How he got wrangled into this sure-fire early candidate for the worst movie of 2020 is beyond me.

This small indie action flick from director York Alex Shackleton feels yanked from a different era and I don’t say that as a compliment. Everything about “Disturbing the Peace” feels outdated: the story, the dialogue, the characters. Even worse its budget restrictions are evident in practically every shot. From cringe-inducing supporting performances to production values on par with a bad high school play.

Pearce deserves credit for at least giving it his all even though he isn’t asked to do much. He plays Marshal Jim Dillon (I’m not making this up), a former Texas Ranger still haunted by an accidental shooting that left his partner paralyzed from the neck down. That was ten years ago and Marshal Dillon now serves and protects the small Kentucky town of Horse Cave with his one deputy (Michael Sirow).

One day two roughneck bikers ride into town looking mean and stirring up trouble with Catie (Kelly Greyson), the owner of the local diner and the Marshal’s uninspired love interest. Soon the rest of the gang arrives led by the hilariously named Diablo (Devon Sawa) who waxes not-so-elegantly about Pavlov’s Dog and killing townsfolk basically in the same breath. And with henchmen names like Pyro, Spider and Big Dog you know these guys mean business. They hold the entire town hostage which is surprisingly easy considering the majority of the population shrinks to about ten people in the span of one scene.

“Disturbing the Peace” is essentially a rural heist thriller minus the thrills and without a single character we can empathize with. The filmmakers make an attempt by throwing together several town locals hoping we’ll find some of them interesting. But you’ll remember them more for their excruciating line deliveries rather than anything of value they bring to the story. And you know what to expect when your second biggest cast member is Barbie Blank, aka ex-WWE wrestler Kelly Kelly (or was it Kelly Kelly Kelly). No offense to Ms. Blank, but….never mind.

None of the things that make “Disturbing the Peace” watchable are intentional. The cheap production, the cliche-riddled script, the laughably bad dialogue. Even Guy Pearce can’t make us buy some of his lines and his MacGyver-styled action is an even harder sell. He seems utterly bored throughout the entire proceedings which is completely understandable. Nothing about the movie is even remotely original and it wasn’t for the accidental hilarity it would be a tough 90 minutes to endure.

VERDICT – 1 STAR

REVIEW: “I Lost My Body” (2019)

January 30, 2020 by Keith Garlington

The French animated fantasy drama “I Lost My Body” is one of the quirkiest features to come out of 2019. It’s consists of two fascinating halves that make up an interesting but not quite cohesive whole. It’s a movie that not only marches to its own beat but demands that viewers embrace it on its own terms. While I found that to be easier said than done, I can’t help but commend it for sticking to its visions and convictions.

“I Lost My Body” received a strong reception after screening at the Cannes Film Festival and was picked up by Netflix. It’s an adaptation of Guillaume Laurant’s novel “Happy Hand” that sees director Jérémy Clapin (who co-write the screenplay with Laurant) taking two narratives which seem unrelated on the surface but are clearly working their way together. It makes for one oddly braided story.

On one hand (dopey pun intended) this is a macabre adventure tale where a …ahem…severed hand ventures across a treacherous Parisian district in an attempt to reconnect (please forgive me) with its body. The movie begins with the hand breaking out of a medical lab refrigerator. It takes a second to shake off the wackiness of the idea, but soon we’re caught up in this peculiar ‘journey home‘ storyline. Along the way the hands faces numerous challenges and perils: a protective mother pigeon, subway rats, a busy freeway among other things.

On the other hand we get the story of Naoufel (voiced by Hakim Faris), a teenager who has had a rough go. Through thoughtfully crafted flashbacks we learn that Naoufel lost his parents at a young age. He was sent to live with his apathetic uncle and bully of a cousin in Paris. Lost and clinging to his painful past, Naoufel has an encounter that gives him hope. While delivering pizza to an apartment complex he strikes up a conversation with Gabrielle (Victoire Du Bois) over an intercom. It gives Naoufel a spark of life and he sets out to learn more about her.

As we watch the two storylines which are inevitably bound to intersect, one question in constantly in your mind. How did Naoufel lose his hand. One narrative heads towards it while the other represents present day. It’s undeniably original and engaging. The problem is one is more interesting than the other. In many of Naoufel’s scenes I often found myself wondering about the hand? How far had it come? Was it in danger? This is due to Clapin filling the hand’s journey with a surprising amount of tension while some scenes with Naoufel are a bit more uneven.

Reoccurring motifs and images tease deeper meanings that (I assume) are meant to be better understood as the film reaches its end. But the ambiguous finish makes it a challenge mainly because the story never got its hooks deep enough in me to encourage much afterthought. Yet despite the difficulty in uncovering answers, “I Lost My Body” still manages to be an endearing meditation on physical and emotional displacement, childhood loss, and loneliness wrapped up in a beautiful animated style.