Renowned Hong Kong action director John Woo’s first venture to Hollywood was great for us fans but frustrating for the acclaimed filmmaker. 1993’s “Hard Target” and 1996’s “Broken Arrow” were bullet-riddled blasts but they came with intrusive studio management. It wasn’t until 1997’s “Face/Off” that Woo was finally given the creative control needed to tell the kind of story he wanted to tell and make the kind of movie he wanted to make.

“Face/Off” was a big hit both critically and commercially and the film has aged incredibly well. Without question a major part of the movie’s success was Woo who brought his full arsenal of action-fueled style and imagination to the film. But equally as crucial was the unquestioned talent and charisma of the film’s two leads, John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. Both take on dual roles in portraying the same two characters (sound confusing?) and they absolutely crush it.

Travolta plays plays FBI Agent Sean Archer, the leader of a covert anti-terrorist unit dedicated to taking down a ruthless international terrorist and assassin named Castor Troy (Cage). For Archer the pursuit of Troy is personal. Six years earlier Troy attempted to assassinate Archer, inadvertently killing Archer’s young son Michael instead. Since then Archer has been driven to bring his nemesis down, culminating in a violent shootout at a remote airstrip that leaves several of Archer’s team dead and Troy in a coma.

But Archer’s victory is short-lived after Troy’s captured younger brother and accomplice Pollux (Alessandro Nivola) reveals that a bomb has been placed somewhere in a densely populated area of Los Angeles. But he refuses to give up the location. Out of options, a frustrated Archer is introduced to a top-secret and highly experimental procedure headed by Dr. Malcolm Walsh (Colm Feore) that just might help persuade Pollux to reveal the bomb’s location.

Archer agrees to the procedure which has Troy’s face, voice, and body appearance transplanted to him. From there Archer, who now looks and sounds like Troy (and is now played by Cage), is sent to the same high-security penitentiary where Pollux is being held. But while he’s on his undercover mission to win Pollux’s trust, the real Castor Troy wakes up and forces Dr. Walsh to put Archer’s face on him. Troy then kills everyone who knows about the mission, leaving Archer languishing in prison and stuck as Troy with no way of proving his true identity.

It goes without saying that “Face/Off” has a bonkers premise, but Woo does a great job making it thrilling, suspenseful, and at times surprisingly heartfelt. He injects many of his favorite trademarks from the stylish slow-motion, dual-wielding pistols, and graceful white doves. All of those things on top of his methodical pacing, steady tension building, and layered storylines.

The action is top-notch whether its intensely choreographed gunfights or jaw-dropping (and expensive) set pieces. As for the storytelling, it ranges from funny and over-the-top to downright unsettling. Cage’s wild-man demeanor comes out on several occasions and you can’t help but laugh. At the same time, Travolta slithers under your skin portraying Troy, especially as he infiltrates Archer’s family. His scenes with Archer’s wife Eve (Joan Allen) and their troubled teen daughter Jamie (Dominique Swain) can legitimately make you squirm.

In a time when the action genre seems to struggle to find its identity, it says something that the 27-year-old “Face/Off” still holds up against much of what passes for action cinema today. It’s vintage John Woo who shows why he is such a big screen legend. And it’s a wildly entertaining showcase for John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, both of whom were in the heydays of their careers. So if you’ve never seen “Face/Off” or it has been a while, what better time. It’s now available to own on 4K Ultra HD courtesy of Kino Lorber.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

Director Siddharth Anand (“War”, “Pathaan”) briefly steps away from the popular YRF Spy Universe to make “Fighter”, the first big-budget installment in a planned aerial action franchise. The Hindi blockbuster sees top stars Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone along with screen veteran Anil Kapoor playing aviators in the Indian Air Force who come together to face a potentially devastating threat. Isn’t that usually the case?

Even with that rather obvious setup, “Fighter” still delivers what many will be expecting. It has the unbridled flair, the good-looking stars, the steamy musical numbers, and of course the exhilarating action set pieces. Anand knows what wider audiences want and for the most part he gives it to them. Some will have a hard time with its out-of-fashion hyper-patriotism and comparisons to certain Tom Cruise fighter jet films are inevitable. But as far as big screen fun goes, “Fighter” offers the kind of escapist entertainment many will enjoy.

In the heavily disputed region of Kashmir, a hand-picked group of the Indian Air Force’s top aviators are summoned to Srinagar Air Force Base. There, under the leadership of their commanding officer Rakesh “Rocky” Jai Singh (Kapoor), they are to be turned into a highly trained quick response team. Among the aviators is the infinitely skilled and notoriously reckless flyboy Shamsher “Patty” Pathania (Roshan) and decorated helicopter pilot Minal “Minni” Rathore (Padukone). From the outset we know it’s only a matter of time before sparks fly.

A big chunk of the movie’s first half is spent developing the team’s chemistry and camaraderie. Anand and screenwriter Ramon Chibb do a good job solidifying the group through lighthearted scenes of spirited horseplay and more intense effects-driven training sequences. And of course there’s always time for an elaborate musical number.

As for the characters, Roshan and Padukone are (obviously) an attractive couple and together they have a simmering chemistry. Both of their characters are given emotionally weighty backstories which are hampered by some unnecessary dramatic twists and a schmaltzy narrative convenience or two. Yet Roshan and Padukone keep us attached. As does the solid supporting work from Kapoor, Karan Singh Grover, Akshay Oberoi, Baveen Singh, and Sanjeeda Sheikh.

And of course there’s also the story’s villain, a vaguely conceived terrorist named Azhar Akhtar (Rishabh Sawhney) with an even more vaguely conceived goal of decimating the Indian military. He starts with the horrific bombing of a convoy transporting Indian soldiers. He then sets his eyes on the Srinagar Air Force Base. Indian and Pakistani politics come into play as Akhtar manipulates and maneuvers both sides to his advantage. But neither his motivations or the regional tensions are detailed enough to register, despite Sawhney having the look and grit of a good baddie.

There’s an undeniable playfulness to “Fighter” that blends well with the slow-brewing romance and character-driven drama. But the fuel that flies the film is the action. It’s wild, often thrilling, and sometimes unashamedly over-the-top and reality-defying. This is especially true of the air combat sequences that generally look great, minus the occasionally obvious CGI.

Among the film’s other features or flaws (depending on how you look at them) is a robust score full of emotional cues, some speechifying that goes beyond hokey, and enough gratuitous slow-motion to put Zack Snyder to shame. These things, along with the derivative elements of the script, keep “Fighter” from truly soaring. Yet the film still flies thanks to the sheer star wattage of its outstanding cast and Anand’s go-for-broke style. “Fighter” is out now in select theaters.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

Director, co-writer, co-producer, co-editor, and co-star Erik Bloomquist is the man behind “Founders Day”, a new feature that can best be described as a political slasher film that plays a little like a whodunit but is at its best as a black comedy. It doesn’t all come together particularly well, but there are some good ideas scattered throughout and fans should find enough to carry them over till the next slasher comes down the pipe.

Bloomquist sets his film in the small town of Fairwood that’s in the middle of a heated mayoral race between incumbent Blair Gladwell (Amy Hargreaves) and challenger Harold Faulkner (Jayce Bartok). The two candidates seem to be lightly modeled after Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump (at least at first) which lends to some pretty good early laughs. Both are glaringly obvious phonies who have put winning above everything else including their community and their families.

But Fairwood is rocked after Faulkner’s daughter, Melissa (Olivia Nikkanen) is brutally killed and thrown off a bridge by a preposterous looking killer who wears a ghoulish red mask, a white founding father’s wig, and a long black judge’s robe. The murderer’s weapon of choice – a wooden gavel with a protracting blade in the handle. From there (as you can probably guess), the killer sets out on their own blood-soaked campaign of carnage, terrorizing the little town and sending the people into a panic.

Among the things Bloomquist and his co-writing brother Carson do well is create a diverting assortment of characters. Inevitably some are just fodder for the killer to beat or butcher. Others are there to fill our pool of suspects. No one has much depth, but they all help convey the feeling of a small town community. Aside from the politicians, there’s also the police commissioner, a loyal deputy, an ambitious campaign manager, the local bartender, a beloved high school teacher, and a loving father and daughter (who seem to be the only Black people in town).

And of course there are the fresh batch of teenagers ready to be carved. Among them are the kids of the two candidates, both of whom are forced to take back seats to their parents’ ambitions. There is the Faulkner’s other kid, Adam (Devin Druid) and there is Mayor Gladwell’s daughter Lilly (Emilia McCarthy). Then there’s Allison (Naomi Grace) who was with Melissa the night she was murdered and the lone eyewitness. As for the other teens, there is a psycho couple (Dylan Slade and Kate Edmonds) and the town bad boy (Tyler James White).

Along the way we get some utterly disposable teen drama that never registers and feels more like filler than anything else. But it doesn’t take the Bloomquists long to crank up the kills. They start rather tame but get gnarlier as the story progresses. As for the story, it’s pretty outrageous and culminates in an ending that’s too hard to swallow to have the effect it wants. Yet admittedly it’s kinda fun keeping up with the characters as Bloomquist moves them around from suspect to victim.

While it’s certainly a horror movie, “Founders Day” isn’t the slightest bit scary. But as fans of the slasher sub-genre know, it not necessarily the frights that people enjoy about them. It’s the gruesome kills, guessing the killer’s identity, seeing who survives, etc. “Founders Day” has all of that plus some unexpectedly funny touches of its own. But that’s as close as the movie gets to originality. If you’re looking for anything remotely fresh you won’t find it here. Otherwise, there’s enough bloody fun to satisfy the genre faithful.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

They had me at Anthony Hopkins. That’s all it took to grab my interest. Throw in that he’s playing Sigmund Freud opposite of Matthew Goode as C.S. Lewis and I’m utterly captivated by the possibilities. It has been said that revered neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud met with a young, unnamed Oxford don shortly before his death. Was it C.S. Lewis? We will never know. The new film “Freud’s Last Session” poses the question “What if?”.

Based on the stage play of the same name by Mark St. Germain, “Freud’s Last Session” sees director Matthew Brown pondering a fictional meeting between the two intellectual minds. It couldn’t be better cast, with both Hopkins and Goode slipping right into the skins of their characters and creating a sparkling chemistry. When the two are together the film makes for a mesmerizing study. Unfortunately there are a few too many well-meaning distractions that keep it from fully forming into the brilliant two-hander it could have been.

On September 3, 1939, only two days after Adolph Hitler’s German forces invaded Poland, a sickly Sigmund Freud sits in his London flat awaiting a special visitor. He has invited Oxford professor and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis to pay him a visit. Freud has taken issue with Lewis’ latest book, The Pilgrim’s Regress and is surprised that the young author agreed to come discuss his work. As Lewis makes his way to Freud’s home we get a glimpse of a London in chaos, as Hitler’s actions have put them on the precipice of a Second World War. That inevitability looms over much of the movie.

After some light greetings, Freud and Lewis begin to feel each other out, philosophizing about current events and sharing stories from their childhoods. Written by Brown and St. Germain, the story uses these early conversations and a few brief and well incorporated flashbacks to explore the two men’s backstories. We learn of Lewis’ time in the war and the PTSD that came from it. We hear Freud lamenting his beloved Vienna which he was forced to flee after the Nazi occupation.

But soon their discussions turns to debate as they get to the reasons for their meeting. The pair begin by challenging each other’s dramatically different worldviews, eventually arriving at their key point of disagreement – the existence of God. Freud denies God exists; Lewis begs to differ. The conversations that spring from it are fascinating. Brown and St. Germain put Lewis and Freud on equal footing, highlighting the strengths of their cases as well as their flaws as human beings. Those two elements factor into their positions in a number of intriguing ways.

Much less effective is the side story involving Freud’s daughter, Anna (Liv Lisa Fries). It’s an element of the story that never comes together as the movie hopes and intends. And it’s too thinly sketched to be anything more than an unneeded diversion. Unfortunately Anna’s scenes devour too much of the running time and they repeatedly pull us away from the much more interesting Freud vs. Lewis parley.

Over time the distractions grow frustrating and they ultimately hinder “Freud’s Last Session” from being the thought-provoking drama it almost is. Much of what we get is truly great material and the performances from Hopkins and Goode are exceptional. The interactions between their characters range from funny to heartbreaking to profound. Brown never takes sides and shows respect to both men, allowing them to make their cases and defend their positions. That’s when the movie is at its very best. “Freud’s Last Session” is out now in select theaters.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

Finnish writer-director Aki Kaurismäki returns to the big screen for the first time since 2017 with his poignant working class tragicomedy, “Fallen Leaves”. It’s said to be a continuation of his Proletariat Trilogy which consisted of 1986’s “Shadow of Paradise”, 1988’s “Ariel”, and 1990’s “The Match Factory Girl”. Kaurismäki’s latest sees him once again melding deadpan drama, pinpoint humor, and warm humanism into something refreshingly classical and true to his form.

The imprints of Kaurismäki’s longtime influences (Yasujirō Ozu, Robert Bresson, Jean-Pierre Melville, etc.) are clearly seen in “Fallen Leaves”. He’s once again working within a familiar socioeconomic sphere – one frequently explored by contemporaries like the Dardenne brothers. And as you watch it’s easy to see why he’s often sited as an influence for filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch and Wes Anderson. Yet despite all of these notable connections, Kaurismäki’s minimalistic and slightly enigmatic style remains distinctly his own.

The auteur once again sets his story in Helsinki which he intentionally portrays as unromantically as possible. More intriguing is the mystery of the time period. News broadcasts reporting on the war between Russia and the Ukraine makes it feel very modern day. A calendar on a wall seems to indicate it’s set in the near future. But old corded phones, vintage tube radios, and even some clothing styles are evocations of times past.

Kaurismäki plants our feet in a well-defined blue-collar sector of Helsinki. There we’re introduced to two people, both caught in the gears of a grinding, soul-crushing system that offers little empathy and no lifelines. Kaurismäki’s camera, often still and observing, gives us a good sense of the city’s harsh realities yet finds humor in the most unexpected moments. Even more, there is a surprising sweetness which plays out even as the cruelty of fate attempts to undermine it.

Ansa (Alma Pöysti) stocks shelves at a grocery store but is fired after taking an expired sandwich that’s about to be tossed in the dumpster. She gets a job washing dishes at a pub but loses it after the owner is busted for dealing drugs. So she ends up on a factory floor, barely making enough to get by in the tiny one-room apartment she inherited from her family.

Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) is a construction worker stuck in a low-paying job, but one that allows him to live in a worksite trailer with his friend, Hannes (a terrific Janne Hyytiäinen playing a self-deluded ladies man and karaoke virtuoso). But Holappa compounds his already difficult circumstances with his heavy drinking, which is both a cause and a result of his reoccurring depression.

Ansa and Holappa eventually cross paths and a relationship soon forms between the awkwardly quiet pair. It starts as a cup of coffee and progresses to a movie (our deadpan daters go see Jarmusch’s zombie comedy “The Dead Don’t Die” to which Ansa seriously but hilariously utters “I’ve never laughed so much.”). But a few unfortunate blunders, such as not sharing their names and losing phone numbers, threaten to derail this budding romance. Yet again it seems as if fate is working against them.

Along with the delightfully dry humor, delicate emotions, and bittersweet romance, there’s also a subtle but steady undercurrent of critique from a filmmaker who has often spoke up for the disaffected and marginalized in his native Finland. As with Kaurismäki’s other films, his perspective is clear but never overbearing or intrusive. And when combined with his wry and often melancholic tenor, it conveys a clear message within an otherwise placid and transcendent love story.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

Among the more exciting announcements regarding the 2023 movie year was that Michael Mann was returning to the director’s chair after over eight years away. The 80-year-old filmmaker, producer, and author has been behind some of my favorite movies including “Thief”, “The Last of the Mohicans”, “Heat”, “The Insider”, and “Collateral”. Now he’s back with a new film that’s significantly different from any of those highly-acclaimed gems.

As its name makes obvious, “Ferrari” is a biographical drama about Enzo Ferrari, the founder of the luxury sports car manufacturer that bears his name. The film is based on a 1991 biography by journalist Brock Yates. Mann and the late screenwriter Troy Kennedy Martin wisely narrow their focus to a certain turbulent time in Enzo’s life – one marked by unbridled ambition, dark secrets, and tragedy. It’s more of a snapshot bio than a cradle-to-grave account which ends up serving this particular story perfectly.

The film is set during an eventful three months in 1957. Ten years earlier, racer turned automaker Enzo Ferrari (played by a terrific Adam Driver) and his wife Laura (an equally great Penélope Cruz) launched their car business in post-World War II Italy. But sales of his high-end sports cars are down and the business it is under the threat of bankruptcy. Enzo needs to sell more cars, but to do so requires the help of outside investors.

But just as much of the story (if not more) revolves around Enzo and Laura’s crumbling relationship. We see that their once loving marriage has soured, even turning volatile following the devastating death of their son Dino only one year earlier. Both are still mourning. But they’ve drifted too far apart to be of any comfort to each other. Instead their loss only fuels the growing animosity between them.

To make matters worse, Enzo has a side dish, Lina (played by Shailene Woodley whose on-again, off-again accent is both puzzling and kinda funny). Enzo keeps his mistress comfortably tucked away in a country chateau with their young son and eventual Ferrari heir, Piero. Laura knows of her husband’s dalliances and has even come to accept them (though with growing animus). But Enzo has kept his second family hidden, that is until Laura gets a whiff of his secret life. Does she use the revelation as leverage or does she poor out her vengeance and crush him?

Enzo is a person of contradiction and complexity which Mann impressively uncoils through his business life as much as his personal life. Though things are secretly imploding at home, the public sees Enzo as a national treasure – “a jewel in the crowd of Italy”. He’s a celebrity magnate who makes world-renowned cars that many admire but few can afford. Yet it’s not notoriety or esteem that drives him. It’s racing, and that’s what he determines to use to save his namesake company.

Enzo puts together a crack team of drivers that includes Spaniard Alfonso de Portago (Gabriel Leone), Englishman Peter Collins (Jack O’Connell), and fellow Italian Piero Taruffi (Patrick Dempsey in a wily bit of casting). He enters them into the prestigious Mille Miglia, a treacherous 992-mile open-road endurance race across Italy. Win the Mille Miglia and he’s sure to gain the attention of potential investors.

That builds to the film’s exhilarating final act where Mann’s technical knowhow shines. The racing of the Mille Miglia is as beautiful as it is thrilling with Mann and DP Erik Messerschmidt masterfully incorporating weaving cameras, intense closeups, and gorgeous wide shots to capture a palpable sense of speed and danger. It’s a spectacular display of craftsmanship that will have you holding your breath in anticipation one minute and gasping in horror the next.

To no surprise Adam Driver gives a rich and charismatic turn that sheds a revealing light on a man of many layers. With his combed-back silver hair, finely tailored suits, and stylish black sunglasses, Driver brings gravitas to the part. But it’s the way he conveys what’s lingering just under the surface that makes the performance so compelling. And Penélope Cruz matches him scene for scene. Her Laura is a torrent of emotions, understandably hurt and rightly angry. But she’s also smart and savvy – characteristics that are often hidden under her pain but that eventually burst through in a big way.

Those familiar with the 1957 Mille Miglia race will have a good idea of where the movie goes. But beyond that Mann and Martin surprise us with a unexpectedly heartfelt finish that puts a bittersweet cap on what is largely a heady, well-written drama. Mann has been trying to make this film for over two decades and you can feel his passion. You can also see the creative freedom that allowed him to take an unconventional and at times bold look at such a complicated and fascinating figure.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS