Hell or High Water (2016) Revisit

 

For my money, this was the best film of 2016. I originally had La La Land in that spot, but every time I see this movie my opinion of it goes up. We went to a screening at Alamo last week, and once again, I appreciated the movie even more. Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine are exemplary, but Ben Foster steals the movie..

I'm not going to write a new review but here are links to the two posts I did on this film in the past. 

Original Post

LAMB Devours the Oscars Post

Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

 

A Brief Video Review of the Anthony Mackie led Captain America film. 

Heart Eyes (2025)

 

This is a rare film that actually did better at the box office it's second week rather than the first week of release. There is only one reason for that, the tie in to Valentine's Day. In fact February 14th was the highest grossing day for the film, almost double the take from the Friday before. People must be desperate for a film that they can share on Valentine's Day, if this is the thing they committed their romantic holiday to. It is not very good. The level of stupidity can be offset just a little bit by attractive casting. 

"Heart Eyes" is a romantic comedy that morphs into a slasher film, in spite of the fact that it starts with a couple of gruesome murders. That is because the murders are so disconnected from anything that we know about this world. The initial couple that we see killed are trying to produce the perfect tick tock video proposal, and you will dislike them immediately. They are self absorbed and controlling, but that doesn't mean they should be murdered or that we should care that they are. The real story starts with a young ad executive who has miscalculated how to promote romance and engagement jewelry, at the wrong time and in the wrong way. We are supposed to see immediately that she is a darling who has just made a mistake and is uncomfortable with her tasks. I see a stereotypical female romantic lead, who is portrayed as clever but makes every silly mistake you can imagine in the first two acts. The meet cute with her rom-com counterpart is actually a nice play on the trope and he is attractively packaged.

The problem is that the psycho killer is stalking couples and they accidentally become one that the killer is focusing on. Because we know nothing about the killer, other than their costume, we have no idea what the motive is or how the killer thinks. We are getting less than half of the usual slasher film here and the romantic comedy stuff gets run over by the repeated attempts on the lives of our two "non-lovers". Once in a while that pays off with a funny bit of business but not consistently.

If the reveal of the killer feels like an anticlimax, that's because it is. There is more to it and we get a stapled on ending in the third act. If you don't feel cheated by the preposterous new reveal, then all I can say to you is I have an extremely rare copy of "Speed" on Laserdisc that I will let go for $200. Look, I'm a horror fan and I forgive a lot of bad storytelling to allow a fright film room to operate in, but this film expects too much of us simply because it centers around a holiday. 

The best "kills" are revealed in the trailer, so save yourself some time, watch that and get your gore fix. Now put on your LED lit goggles and go out and find somebody to share a real movie with. 

Love Hurts (2025)

 

I've put this off for a couple of days, not because I was busy but because I was indifferent. This should be a fun action comedy with a bunch of martial arts fights thrown in. Instead, it is a bunch of martial arts fights in search of something to be fighting about. From the get go, this story makes no sense. How does hiding from your crime boss brother work, when your face is plastered on every bus bench in the city that you both live in? That's not the most mysterious element of the film, why would a woman marked for death, openly court the criminals she has stolen from? If she had a plan, it was never made clear what it was. The arbitrary use of Valentine's cards to troll her former boss and the other criminal gangs is just a justification to open the movie round the Valentine weekend. They get that wrong too. 

Like everyone else, I am enjoying the return of Ke Huy Quan to the on screen movie world. He has a nice presence but he is really a supporting player, not a leading man. His character Marvin is the former enforcer for his brother, but he betrayed him for love. A love that we never see any sign of, we only get exposition that there must be love there somewhere. The comic persona is fine, even the martial arts moves are convincing. It is not however believable that he has transformed from a stone cold killer to a cheery realtor in such a short time.

I'm sorry, but this is the third film I have seen Ariana DeBose in, where she is not good. Maybe the problem is the material, because in "West Side Stoy" she was fine, but in "Argylle", "Kraven" and this, she is terrible. It's as if they cast someone who looks like they might be interesting, but did not follow through to see if it was true. In this film, it is not. Her line deliver is flat, she has no chemistry with Ke Huy Quan, and the part wants us to believe she is the smartest person on the screen, but nothing she does seems clever.

The movie is loaded with hit men who are menacing looking, but mostly inept. The two targets they are after, get away from them over and over again. Two innocent people get killed in the movie, and those deaths are completely superfluous to the story. This movie wants to be "Smoking Aces" or "Bullet Train", but it is bland and unengaging. I did not hate it, but I can't imagine anyone will be saying "you've gotta see this!" The most appealing character in the film is Sean Astin, who has a good guy persona that charms the audience, and we know from the get go, he will be only a side character for a short time.

See it if you have nothing else to do, but see it quickly, because it will not be in theaters for long. Maybe for even less time than the film stays in my memory. 

My Bloody Valentine (1981) Revisit

How some films become cult classics is beyond me. It's obvious that a film like "Rocky Horror Picture Show" was picked up by fans because of the obvious opportunities to participate in the fun. I never understood why "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension" wasn't a hit in the first place, but it makes perfect sense that it is revered now because it's concept and execution are finally recognized. There however is little reason to believe that "My Bloody Valentine" from 1981 will ever be seen as a hidden gem. The remake from a dozen years ago was far superior in every way. How does that happen?

This Canadian film as little going for it, except the title. The production values on the movie are not great, the script is at times preposterous, and frankly the acting is atrocious. I know they were working on a small budget, and the actors are relatively inexperienced, but it never seems like they got a second take to fix things in their original line deliveries. Sometimes the presentation is so wooden you think the movie is a parody of horror slashers. It's not a parody, it's simply not a very good. Maybe the final song and the demented fade out account for whatever credence the film has.

This criticism should be seen as a reason not to see the film. I still enjoyed being in the theaters the other night, sort of experiencing a nostalgic rush of '80s Horror. As long as you don't mind a horror movie that is not particularly frightening, and is not very titillating, then you can enjoy this film. The main thing that it has going for it is that preposterous concept. A crazed miner, rescued from a cave in after surviving by cannibalizing other coworkers while awaiting rescue, became a spree killer. Now 20 years later, it seems that the spree killer has returned, provoked by the Valentine's Day celebrations which ignored the lead up to the disaster two decades earlier. The pickaxe that is used to kill some of the victims is a good concept but it's not visualized in a very interesting way. Which is why the movie fails to satisfy fans of gore. The kills are relatively tame, and most of them lack of jump scare to pull them off. 

I can see what this movie wants to be, and I can also see where it misses the mark on a regular basis. The 2009 3D version at least had the good sense to include an eyeball impaled on the end of the pickaxe, in a 3-d effect. That's a movie that knows what it's supposed to be doing. So for nostalgia and for setting up the concept, "My Bloody Valentine" is adequate, the problem is it never gets to be insane until the last moment when the crazed killer is finally revealed and runs off screaming curses and a vow to kill again. That's sort of the  delivery which could have made this a lot more entertaining.

Companion (2025)

 

[The above trailer is the teaser that does not reveal too much. Avoid the second trailer entirely]

I've been looking forward to this film for a couple of months now, based on an early trailer which suggested it was a horror film involving a toxic relationship. I didn't want to know too much about it, and that first trailer made me anticipate the film without giving anything away. Sadly, the night before we were supposed to see this movie we went to another film and there was a new trailer for "Companion", and it gave away a major plot point. I am a little pissed. Overall I enjoyed this film very much but I know I would have enjoyed it much more if that twist had not been revealed to me less than 24 hours before I first saw the movie.

"Companion", is in fact a type of horror film but it is also a social commentary, a science fiction story, and a dark comedy. Writing about this without giving away the plot twists is going to be complicated. I want people to go into this movie knowing less than I did so they'll enjoy it more than I did. Let me just say, that there is indeed a toxic relationship in this film, but it is quite a bit different than any that you've seen in other movies. I'm not even going to mention some of the films I would compare it to because that would spoil some of the surprise. The plot takes us in several different directions, and those shifts in direction are result of actions that happen in the film that feel completely earned.

Self Generated Poster
because the official poster
 gives away too much as well

The young actress who appears in this film, Sophie Thatcher, was also in the movie "Heretic" which I saw near the end of last year. She has a quality to her voice and mannerisms that come across as sincere and innocent, while at the same time being able to convey a steely resolve. I thought she was excellent in both films. Her co-star in this film is Jack Quaid, who I know mostly from the Prime video series "The Boys". He also has an innocent quality, and a geeky charm, that is used quite deceptively in this story. Some of the turns that take place are surprising enough, but they are more surprising in the way that our characters have been set up.  

This is something like a cabin in the woods scenario, where a group of friends is spending the weekend in an isolated location and bad things start to happen. Unlike a horror film though, the bad things happen because of deliberate choices made by our characters. Technology also plays a role in the story, and I was on edge from the very beginning when our main couple is riding in a car is completely autonomous. I see those types of vehicles here in Downtown Austin whenever I'm going to the Paramount Theater, and I actually saw one picking up a couple at Lawry's when I was in LA at Christmas time. It's going to be a long time before I am ever comfortable enough to step into a vehicle that is being driven by a computer rather than a human being. My reticence about embracing technology that can do these kinds of things is part of the reason that I'm willing to call this a horror film.

This will probably be the final film I see in January, and interestingly enough everyone I've posted on this year I have seen in a single week. It's still early, but I'm happy to say "Companion" has been my favorite film of January. Go see it, but close your eyes and plug your ears if the trailer comes on at another film before you do. 

Den of Thieves Pantera (2025)

It was 2018 when the original film opened early in the year and gave us a testosterone fueled, action-packed, two hours20  minute Excursion into a brutal crime group and the equally brutal cops that were after them. Gerard Butler has made a career in the last 20 years playing flinty, grizzly, misanthropes in various careers. In this film his Lieutenant in a Major Crimes unit of the LA Sheriff's Department he is out of his jurisdiction when he goes to Europe in pursuit of a lead for the criminal that got away at the end of the last film.

Maybe it would have helped if I had gone back and watched the original film again, so I can make a little more sense out of the opening scenes in this movie. Butler's character, known as Big Nick, is following a lead in the robbery of the Federal Reserve, which the Federal Reserve denies even happened. I was confused about what this was all about, but I didn't worry too much about it since this film is really not something to take seriously but rather to be digested as a puzzle exercise. O'Shea Jackson plays the bartender who it turned out, was the mastermind in the previous crime. He returns as the planner for a diamond heist in Amsterdam. that has drawn the attention of Big Nick. So, there is a connection between the two films, and Nick's primary goal seems to be to make sure that the last time when he was one upped, that he gets even.

Unlike the previous film, Pantera is not filled with action sequences and shootouts. Those scenes occur primarily at the end of the film. Most of the time we are watching the machinations of three different groups who are going to come into conflict with each other over a new robbery. The collection of criminals who are planning the new diamond heist, the law enforcement personnel, who may or may not be aware of what is going on, and a third party of mafiosi's who have been accidentally robbed by the first group, and now want their goods back. It is the confluence of the individuals in the in these groups that makes up the vast majority of the picture. There is intrigue, and the threat of violence, not a whole lot of action.

While the previous film was also a heist movie, most of it centered around the pissing contest between Big Nick and his adversary. I don't remember the heist as being particularly clever. In this film on the other hand, The heist is shown in meticulous detail, we get some idea of the planning that is involved, but as usual some things are left out so that we can discover them while watching the actual crime take place. When it comes to the robbery, for a change I appreciate the fact that the security personnel were not doofuses that the crime gang was taking advantage of. They were professionals that the criminals had to work around. Big Nick has inserted himself into the crime group giving the impression that he is fed up with being on the right side of the law and is looking to make some money. During the course of the film we get several red herrings that lead us to believe either he is still working with the cops, or he is deceiving them in order to work with the criminals. Like I said this movie is full of betrayals and complex relationships.

The high point of the film is in fact the heist, which is as it should be. It has a good deal of suspense, and a couple of humorous moments, as we see that robbers have made good plans but also have improvised so that they can deal with the competence of the security people. As usual as part of the events that take place during the robbery, there are complications that make the plans have to be changed. In a movie of course the getaway car, the communications, and the equipment, all get a chance to play a part. There is a high-speed chase that occurs after the crime, but it is basically another set of criminals, who are trying to hijack the original heist. How it all gets resolved is one of those things that only happens in the movies, but we appreciate the plot development because it is paying off on something that was set up earlier.

You don't need to have seen the previous film to appreciate what's going on here, but I suspect that the movie will not appeal to anybody who hasn't already seen that first movie. If you like Gerard Butler in gruff mode then you should be satisfied with this film. O'Shea Jackson does have a nice screen presence, but it seems odd that he and at least two of the other co-conspirators seem to be a little on the hefty side. When the plot is being executed, it's hard to believe that a couple of these guys can do some of the physical things that are required of them.

If you like this movie, then you can look forward to the next installment which is set up by a plot twist that occurs in the last 5 minutes of the film. There are some character points that help make it make sense, but in the real world of course it would never happen. This however is a movie, and we want to enjoy the creativity of the screenwriter who is finding interesting ways to manipulate these characters. The film is a slow burn with almost an hour and a half before the major crime takes place. If you're looking for an action film with energetic sequences every 5 minutes that display incredible stunt work or EFX then you are probably in the wrong movie. This plays like one of those 1970s crime films where you get a lot of atmosphere, by-play between the characters, and complications set up during the lead into the crime. You want the payoff to all of those things to be satisfying, and as far as I was concerned in "Den of Thieves Pantera" they were.