I have to admit the new film “Let Him Go” had me onboard just with its cast. Kevin Costner as a retired sheriff, Diane Lane as his tough resolute wife, and Lesley Manville as a wicked backwoods matriarch. You have three screen veterans whom I love starring in a gritty family drama set across Montana and North Dakota. Talk about a movie that’s right up my alley. So considering all of those glowing personal affections, my expectations were probably a little higher than most.

Don’t you love it when a highly anticipated movie doesn’t let you down? That’s certainly the case with “Let Him Go”. This character-driven neo-Western drama comes from Thomas Bezucha, a Massachusetts native who you would swear was born and raised in Big Sky country. From the very start his film makes such great use of its setting, whether it’s the stunning snow-capped mountain backdrops or the sprawling desolate landscapes that are both ominous and beautiful. Bezucha wastes no time planting our feet on the rich rocky ground.

Photo Courtesy of Focus Features

What surprised me most about “Let Him Go” was the script. This could have easily turned out to be a much more conventional thriller. But Bezucha (who both writes and directs) burrows into his two lead characters making them the focal point. I haven’t read the 2013 novel by Larry Watson, but Bezucha’s adaptation centers itself on the themes of grief, regret and loss, examining them with heartfelt and earnest emotion. The film does have a few genre flourishes, but they come well after we’ve connected with these characters which give the scenes more weight than they would have otherwise.

Set in the early 1960’s, George and Margaret Blackledge (Costner and Lane) are still struggling to cope with the death of their son. Margaret, once an accomplished horse trainer, lost her enthusiasm and has quit riding altogether. George has buried his pain, content with locking it away rather than dealing with it. Both go about their days work on their small Montana ranch doing an admirable job concealing their heartbreak. But it gets tougher when their son’s widow Lorna (Kayli Carter) remarries, this time to a miscreant named Donnie Weboy (Will Brittain).

Neither George or Margaret like Donnie and are especially worried about their grandson Jimmy (played by twins Bram and Otto Hornung). Their suspicions are confirmed after Margaret witnesses Donnie slap both Lorna and Jimmy. The next day she goes to check on them only to discover that they have packed up and left town. No notice, no goodbyes. Determined that her grandson won’t grow up in an abusive home, Margaret convinces George to help her track them down and bring Jimmy home. But Donnie’s a Weboy, a notorious family name known all across North Dakota. The Blackledge’s track Jimmy to the remote Weboy farm house which is ran by the family matriarch Blanche Weboy (a wickedly fun Manville). And let’s just say she’s not too keen on letting Jimmy go.

Photo Courtesy of Focus Features

As you can tell there is a lot of room in the story for tension. And we do get some really good white-knuckled scenes when the Blackledges and the Weboys get together. But at the same time there is a quiet solemnity that runs through much of the film. Bezucha leans heavily on Lane and Costner and their ability to convey deep emotions often with little dialogue. Both performances are superb and give us layered characters rich with honest feelings and unshakable authenticity. It helps that Lane and Costner have a strikingly natural chemistry. Of course this isn’t the first time they played husband and wife on screen. They were also Superman’s earth parents Ma and Pa Kent.

The film’s shakiest scenes come when the Blackledges befriend a thinly sketched Native American named Peter (Booboo Stewart). We see shades of an interesting character but he needed more attention. Otherwise “Let Him Go” hits all the right chords from its wonderfully low-key early rhythm to its effectively pulpy final third. It helps to have seasoned talents giving perfectly calibrated performances. And the story’s unexpected layers of humanity make us genuinely care while ultimately bringing out the deeper meaning to the film’s title. “Let Him Go” is now showing in theaters”.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

The new Netflix Original “Lost Bullet” is a lean, action-packed crime thriller that checks every box for what you want from these kinds of movies. It’s got car chases, shoot-outs, and fist fights. It features crooked cops, cover-ups, betrayals, and revenge. Holding it all together is a story with enough energy and grit but lacking the narrative spark needed to make it feel like it’s own thing.

The film stars former stuntman Alban Lenoir who also serves as co-writer. He plays Lino, a convict serving time for customizing a car Mad Max style and running it through four concrete walls in a botched attempt at robbing a jewelry store (imagine how that looks on a rap sheet). He’s approached in prison by a cop named Charas (Ramzy Bedia) who is putting together a special team to take on a gang of drug runners. He has his drivers. He just needs someone to soup up their rides to keep up with the thugs.

Photo Courtesy of Netflix

Enter Lino and his mad mechanic skills. He’s offered a work release if he’ll join the unit and basically turn their cars into turbo-changed tanks. That’ll give them what they need to finally stop the “go-fasts”. Now if you’re like me and have no idea what a go-fast is, I’ll save you some Google search time. Apparently go-fasts are vehicles loaded with drugs that drive (obviously) really fast. You learn something new everyday.

But I digress, Lino loses his get-out-of-jail-free card amid a series of double-crosses and some old-fashioned police corruption. Soon he finds himself on the run again, framed for the murder of an officer and determined to find a way to clear his name. But it’ll take plenty of bullets and (of course) a highly modified, super-fast car to take out the baddies.

Director Guillaume Pierret puts together some crackling action scenes and Lenoir has the physicality and tough guy personality you want. It’s a simple yet well-conceived story that keeps things moving at a snappy pace. It still doesn’t do much to stand out from the slew of other movies like it, but it’s an entertaining enough ride and a nice diversion especially for action fans. “Lost Bullet” is streaming now on Netflix.

VERDICT – 3 STARS

The 1987 cult classic “The Lost Boys” forever broadened the way moviegoers would look at vampires. Throughout the decades there had been slight variations in the depictions of the fanged bloodsuckers, but most were still in the older, stodgier Dracula vein (bad pun attended). “The Lost Boys” presented them differently – young, cool, and with more real-world complexities than you would expect. The film would inspire the likes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “Angel” and “True Blood” to name a few.

I’ve seen “The Lost Boys” countless times yet I’m always surprised by how funny a movie it is. Yes, it’s a horror film with vampires and a little (very little actually) blood and gore tossed in, but it fully embraces its comedy elements which helps give it a unique flavor. Add to it a terrific rock-infused soundtrack (I remember owning the cassette) and a fun, memorable cast which actually gave birth to The Two Coreys (80’s kids know what I’m talking about).

PHOTO: Courtesy Warner Bros.

The story begins with Lucy (Dianne Wiest) and her two sons Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim) pulling into the fictional beach town of Santa Carla. Recently divorced and flat broke, Lucy and her boys left Phoenix to move in with her eccentric father (Barnard Hughes). She gets a job at a video store (remember those) ran by local bachelor (Edward Herrmann) while the boys try to fit in with their new surroundings.

As cliché as it may sound, Santa Carla itself is very much a character.  The self-anointed “Murder Capital of the World” is full of personality, sporting a boardwalk replete with eclectic shops, street performers, and of course the Santa Clara amusement park. It’s where Michael first eyes a beautiful young woman named Star (Jami Gertz). There’s one problem, she’s in a relationship of sorts with David (Kiefer Sutherland) who quickly lures Michael into his biker group’s big secret (hint: they’re vampires).

PHOTO: Courtesy Warner Bros.

Soon Michael finds himself growing sensitive to sunlight, sleeping all day, and developing, shall we say, new appetites. Sam, fearing that his brother is a bloodsucker, seeks the council of local comic shop owners/Santa Carla vampire killers extraordinaire Edgar and Alan Frog (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander). Resembling something akin to The Goonies meets Rambo, the Frog Brothers offer up the biggest bursts of humor. Feldman and Newlander never crack a grin, straight-facing every line of super-serious yet hysterical dialogue.

If you’ve watched enough of these movies you know that there are so many rules when it comes to vampires. “The Lost Boys” has a blast playing around with them. All of the big ones are present: garlic, holy water, a good ol’ wooden stake through the heart. But there are plenty of obscure ones as well which I’ll let you discover for yourself. They, along with the vampire vernacular aplenty, add an extra layer of fun. Meanwhile the steady theme of what it means to be a family reverberates throughout the entire film.

PHOTO: Courtesy Warner Bros.

But I don’t want to downplay the movie’s horror component. “The Lost Boys” isn’t a particularly scary movie, but director Joel Schumacher does a wonderful job with tone management. While his movie is often funny, Schumacher nicely balances the humor with several memorable scenes of genuine tension along with great atmosphere. And the inevitable showdown at the end is the perfect consummation of all of these elements.

There are several other cool little nuggets. The title is a reference to J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan”. There is a hilarious hard-to-see nod to Schumacher’s previous film “St. Elmo’s Fire”. And all Edgar and Alan need is a brother named Poe. Those are just a few of then little nuggets scattered throughout this 80’s romp that completely earns its cult classic status. It still has its detractors, but I’m firmly in the camp that proudly adores “The Lost Boys”.

VERDICT – 5 STARS

Despite the unusual virus-related circumstances with theater closings and various movie productions halting, there has been no shortage of new horror films in 2020. “The Lodge” actually debuted at Sundance last year but finally premiered in select theaters earlier this year just prior to COVID-19 outbreak. Now it’s available to watch at home and it’s certainly worth a visit.

“The Lodge” is the English-language debut from the Austrian filmmaking duo of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala. The aunt and nephew team not only direct but co-wrote the script along with Sergio Casci. Together they craft a monster-less chiller set within a complicated family framework where there are no clear-cut villains. It’s driven by flawed, hurting characters whose actions aren’t strictly black or white, good or evil. It’s also an unnerving dive into psychological horror that will have you glued to the screen and on the edge of your seat.

Photo Courtesy of Neon Pictures

If there are two tropes modern horror movies relish it’s creepy children and remote cabins in the woods. “The Lodge” uses both (to a measured degree) but hardly in the conventional sense. Teenaged Aiden (Jaeden Martell) and his younger sister Mia (Lia McHugh) have been devastated by the sudden death of their mother Laura (Alicia Silverstone). Separated from their mother at the time, the children’s father Richard (Richard Armitage) is set to marry again six months after Laura’s death.

Richard’s well-meaning fiancé Grace (Riley Keough) hopes to break the ice with the kids via a snowy Christmas-time retreat to the family’s remote lakeside lodge. Aiden and Mia want no part of it, still aching over their mother’s passing and seeing any show of affection towards Grace as a betrayal. They dig into Grace’s past, discovering she was the lone survivor of a pseudo-Christian suicide cult. That only adds to their apprehension and displeasure.

Of course they end up going to the lodge and things are pretty icy. It only gets worse when Richard has to drive back to the city for a couple of days leaving Grace and the children behind. After coming to a head, the needling and contention shows signs of dying down. But then they wake up to a power outage. There’s no food, no running water. Also all of their clothes, luggage, Christmas decorations – everything is gone. Even weirder, Grace discovers all the clocks are suddenly set to January 9th.

From there things grow more unsettling as a dark psychological tension takes a grip. We begin questioning much of what we see and the characters become harder to read. Franz and Fiala make great use of their setting, shooting on location rather than in a studio. You’ve heard this before, but the house truly is a character, in this case representing the looming, watchful presence of the children’s mother. She’s in the family photographs, the Christmas decorations, and more specifically a painting of a saintly woman.

Photo Courtesy of Neon Pictures

Other touches work well to groom the ever-present sense of unease. Frequent cuts to Mia’s realistic dollhouse bring thoughts of “Hereditary” but here it adds its own spooky layer to the story. Also Franz and Fiala are far more interested in atmosphere and mood than cheap jump scares. And they show the effectiveness of silence, using minimal music that gets under your skin rather than dictate your emotions.

The performances are rock-solid especially from Riley Keough who digs deep into her character’s damaged psyche without ever overplaying the inner-turmoil. She fits well into this unique slice of horror that brings a crafty European sensibility to a genre that far too often tends to repeat itself. Certain elements of the story are certain to ring familiar, but as a whole the movie carves out a smart and entrancing path of its own.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

After watching the trailer for Vicky Wight’s new film “The Lost Husband” I was immediately left with a “no thanks, seen it before” impression. But over the years trailers have proven that looks can be deceiving and I love being surprised. Now I’m not claiming this movie brings anything particularly fresh or is breaking any new ground. But it’s a thoughtful, feel-good story which is something we all could use right now.

Much of the story is built around a pretty familiar framework. A hurting woman meets a hunky man. They clash at first but then that inevitable spark is ignited. You know the rest. But Wight makes one pivotal choice that ends up setting her film apart from so many of its kind. She puts her focus squarely on her lead character Libby (Leslie Bibb). It turns out this isn’t a movie about a woman finding love. It’s about a woman finding her way. The prospect of love is certainly an ingredient, but it’s hardly the emphasis.

Photo Courtesy of Quiver Distribution

Libby is still reeling from the death of her husband Danny. In the opening scene she and their two children are leaving her mother’s house in Houston and heading to her Aunt Jean’s (Nora Dunn) farm in rural central Texas. There is a lot of family baggage that goes with her and the movie spends much of its time unpacking it. Suffice it to say Libby and her domineering mother Marsha (Sharon Lawrence) don’t get along. To make matters worse, an ugly scar from their past has left sisters Marsha and Jean at each other’s throats.

Libby only plans to stay at the farm until she can get on her feet. Jean, a widow herself, needs a new farmhand, but before putting her to work Libby needs to be trained. Enter James O’Conner (Josh Duhamel), Jean’s “farm manager”. He reluctantly (it’s always reluctance) agrees to show his city slicker pupil the basics on milking goats, pitching hay, and the importance of opening and shutting gates. That last one provides a metaphor that becomes more obvious as the movie moves forward.

Yes, an attraction springs up between Libby and O’Connor. Yes, we get some of the predictable ‘city girl on a farm‘ humor. Yes, nearly everyone has a secret. But those things are made bearable by Wight’s clear-eyed intent. Her movie never loses sight of Libby’s plight, even during the scattered moments of cheesiness and the couple of scenes that feel like they belong in a different movie (take a strange seance sequence for instance). Grief, family conflict, reconciliation – just some of the prominent themes Wight thoughtfully navigates.

Photo Courtesy of Quiver Distribution

It helps to have an engaging performance from your lead. There’s something a little different about Bibb’s work that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It took some time for me to get in step with it, but I ended up drawn to the personality she brings to her character. And Duhamel brings a pickup truck full of charm but there is a subtly to his performance that keeps him out of cliche territory. And it’s very much a supporting role, further emphasizing the movie’s broader interests.

If you skip the forgettable trailer and misleading title you’ll find that “The Lost Husband” has more to offer than you might think. It is hampered by a couple of standard-issue genre tropes, some spotty child performances, and a couple of story angles that needed more attention. But at the core of the movie is a solid story centered on a lead character you root for from the start. And while not perfect, there couldn’t be a better time for a movie like this to come along.

VERDICT – 3 STARS

I like romantic comedies. I genuinely do. They have been around since practically the beginning of movies. In fact I cut my classic cinema teeth on several early rom-coms including “Bringing Up Baby”, “The Philadelphia Story”, and “It Happened One Night”. But over the last few years romantic comedies have arguably become the most frustrating genre and finding a good one is getting harder and harder.

That’s not to say we don’t still get a few winners. But unfortunately too many end up like the new Netflix Original ” Love Wedding Repeat”, a promising yet exasperating movie that comes off as an R-rated Hallmark Channel flick and a “Four Weddings and a Funeral” knock-off. Writer-director Dean Craig puts a handsome cast together, but some spotty chemistry and dreadfully uneven humor undermine everything else. It’s kind of like a wedding cake – beautifully decorated but bland and tasteless.

A prologue begins with an Englishman named Jack (Sam Claflin) looking into a bathroom mirror and giving himself a pep talk. Turns out he just spent a magical weekend in Rome with Dina (Olivia Munn), an American friend of his sister and an aspiring war journalist. The two have really hit it off and now he hopes to seal it with a kiss. During their romantic nighttime stroll they stop by a fountain. The music swells and their eyes lock. The two move in closer and……in pops an obnoxious college buddy to shatter the moment. It’s one of those maddening movie instances that could have been fixed with one glaringly obvious line of dialogue. We don’t get it, so Jack and Dina go their separate ways.

Photo Courtesy of Netflix

Fast-forward three years. It’s wedding day for Jack’s manic sister Hayley (Eleanor Tomlinson) who is set to marry Roberto (Tiziano Caputo) at a posh Italian villa. Jack is essentially the wrangler, not only tasked with walking his sister down the aisle, but keeping things together and making sure the wedding goes off without a hitch. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to quickly figure out where things are going.

Guests start arriving which is the film’s chance to introduce the side characters, all with parts to play in the inevitable avalanche of complications and (attempted) comic mayhem that’s on the way. First we meet Bryan (Joel Frey), Jack’s neurotic best friend and Hayley’s maid/man of honor. There’s Jack’s hot but catty ex-girlfriend Amanda (Frieda Pinto) along with her sulky, insecure boyfriend Chaz (Allan Mustafa) who’s consumed with the size of his privates. We get a chatterbox in a kilt named Sidney (Tim Key). And then you have Rebecca (Aisling Bea), a daffy looker whose connection to the family still eludes me.

Oh, and I can’t forget Dina who Jack hasn’t seen since that squandered night in Rome three years earlier. He’s determined not to let her slip through his fingers again but first he has to pull off this wedding. That becomes significantly harder once Hayley’s coked-up ex-boyfriend Marc (Jack Farthing) shows up, uninvited and intent on causing a scene. A panicking Hayley comes up with the most logical solution (please note to dripping sarcasm). She talks Jack into slipping a powerful sedative into Marc’s drink, putting him to sleep and saving her big day.

Of course that’s not how it plays out. Of course the wrong person gets roofied. Of course chaos ensues. But just as things mercifully seem to be playing out, we suddenly get a weird “Groundhog Day” moment where Craig basically rewinds and asks “What if it happened this way? What if someone else mistakenly took the sedatives?” Sadly the reset doesn’t fix anything. It’s basically the movie changing course and bowing down to every predictable expectation and outcome.

Photo Courtesy of Netflix

The sad thing is we get really good efforts from the cast but they mostly go to waste. The writing ranges from adequate to juvenile to mind-numbing and not one single character makes it out unscathed. The closest is Frey’s Bryan who is fun to watch and provides the film’s lone laugh-out-loud moment. But even he gets hit with a lame, tawdry bathroom scene that is nothing short of embarrassing. On the other end you get Mustafa’s Chaz who is hands-down one of the worst characters I’ve seen in ages. His one-note blathering about his bedroom insecurity never stops.

Others do the best they can with what little they’re given. Claflin shows some legitimate leading man chops, but he’s handcuffed by a script that would rather bounce him from one absurd scenario to another instead of letting him set his feet and build his character. Munn has always had a fun and witty personality, but this movie barely utilizes it. And by never playing to her strengths she’s left spinning her wheels with a character who never moves forward. And then Tomlinson, an eye-catching actress I wasn’t familiar with but who definitely deserved better material.

Strangely, “Love Wedding Repeat” isn’t a boring movie. It actually keeps your attention. You just keep waiting and waiting for it to get better only to be frustrated when it never does. I found it easy to root for the cast who deserve a ton of credit for keeping the film afloat. But even they can’t sustain it among a deluge of half-witted gags, crass and shallow dialogue, and uninspired storytelling. It’s a baffling experience. So many good parts are in place, but without the underpinning of a good story and good direction there’s nowhere for it to go but down.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS