Tag: action

STOPPING for ERIC RED by KENT HILL

by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

With pages that zoom ahead at the pace of a well-crafted screenplay; the further I was pulled along by what seemed like a rope around the neck, deeper into Eric Red’s (Body Parts, Bad Moon) latest action spectacle-in-print, I found myself thinking of that old story of a script called Simon Says. Of course, by the time Simon came to a theater near you…the title of the picture had changed to Die Hard: With a Vengeance.

If you carry on and research that story…you’ll stumble across another little tale about another spec script titled: Troubleshooter. This also would eventually find its way before eager, action-seeking audiences. Though, they weren’t so eager when they came out of Speed 2: Cruise Control.

But let us not dwell on the frailties of ego and hubris, I’m here because, although I haven’t podcasted them softly from a distance in some time, all-of-sudden, there came the opportunity to have a powwow with a filmmaker/novelist whose work I’ve long admired. It sounded like a hot ticket. And I was flattered beyond belief when, being accustomed to the ever-convenient PDF, I not only received a copy of STOPPING POWER, but two other of Eric’s newest efforts, including one headed for our screens in the form of WHITE KNUCKLE.

 So now, as my veracity may be in question, you’re wondering why I would begin writing about Mr. Red’s new book talking about how someone else’s idea was transformed into franchise fodder? The answer isn’t simple. It’s kinda just where my head went to as the story unfolded. I kept thinking, “If Eric Red wasn’t ERIC RED…they would totally reconfigure this into like a Speed 3.” And as Stephanie Power’s problems start to look like the tidal waves the James Cameron’s NTI’s were going to use to wash the pestilence that is humanity from the face of the Earth in his ABYSS, my head kept spinning like the wheels of so many vehicles in, HANDS DOWN, the best car chases I’ve thus encountered on the printed page.

STOPPING POWER will make an equally incredible film. And should WHITE KNUCKLE’s transition prove successful, I dare say, then it shall not be long before this mother/daughter/action/heist/thriller; with an ensemble of such surprising, terrifyingly and delightfully depraved villains that play cat and mouse and Russian Roulette with the lives Stephanie Power and her daughter. There’s 60 million dollars in bearer bonds as well as every cop in Texas on the hunt for this woman who is Power by name, but powerful by nature. I’ve already spoke on the blinding action that awaits you here, but the character work is not to be underestimated. Mr. Red, you can tell is a screenwriter as the pages decline. He knows that if you don’t give a damn about the people in peril…then he’s gonna lose you.

Lucky for you, dear reader, there are enough twists and turns and further secrets unearthed as the story snakes around the highways like the frantic mother behind the wheel, a puppet being pulled by evil strings as her daughter sits at the end of the barrel of a loaded, automatic weapon. She’s a bomb on the bus, only the bus is an RV. There’s a shitty ex-Husband, there’s an unlikely hero. There are moments that’ll you wish were up there on a screen in front of you as the roads are lashed with Mad Max fury; all culminating in a climax that’s as good as they come. Heck, if the whole thing was set around Christmas time…it could also work as a Die Hard movie too, I guess.

Point is STOPPING POWER works! It works damn well. And if you’re not completely satisfied with some really tight storytelling, involving and emotion human components, all dressed to the nines with scintillating mechanical carnage, explosions…all part of your complete breakfast really.

I really loved this book, and as I mentioned earlier, a chat with Mr. Red was on the cards. So, here it is. He’s taken the time out from his busy schedule to field a fistful of questions from yours truly. Ladies and Gentlemen…Eric Red…

Eric Red

KH: So, Mr. Red, like WHITE KNUCKLE, I believe it won’t be long before we’ll be hearing that STOPPING POWER is headed for the Big Silver. I see it clearly as SPEED meets DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE; what was the genesis of the story?

ER: One day was watching a TV news report showing a high-speed chase of a bank robbery suspect on an L.A. freeway with all the news helicopters filming it. Wondered what would happen if the bank robber switched their getaway car with someone else’s car and used them as a decoy. They might get away with it. Everybody would be watching the other car. But how would you make another driver drive the getaway car? Then I thought what if the escaping bank robber carjacked a parent and child, kidnapped the kid, switched cars and blackmailed the parent into doing the driving the bank robber’s car as a decoy leading the police in the wrong direction. It would be a perfect crime, a clean getaway. That was the seed of the story.

The characters of the mother, daughter and kidnapper sprang from the idea. Here’s this mother suddenly in this extraordinary situation where everybody thinks she’s a bank robber and nobody believes her daughter has been kidnapped. It’s up to her not only to elude a citywide police dragnet but also somehow catch up to the kidnapper and get her daughter back. And the kidnapper is watching the high-speed chase on the TV news and has eyes on her every minute. She is all alone. Out of this impossible situation, the ultimate predicament for a mother, the fun for us is how she figures it out. Because of course she will.

In a book, it seemed like the kind of thing people would believe could really happen and happen to anyone. In thriller terms it was preposterous yet plausible. My favorite suspense stories are the kind of in-the-wrong place-at-the-wrong time situations that could happen to regular people like us. I love Alfred Hitchcock and this appealed to me as a classic Hitchcock mistaken identity set up where an innocent individual is framed for a crime he didn’t commit, as if Alfred Hitchcock had done a car chase thriller.

KH: When you sit down to write is it a book idea, a script idea, or simply…I have to get this story out?

ER: Some ideas I have are for novels and others for scripts. I often get an idea for a screenplay and sit down and write it in two weeks. Novels involve much more material on every level, and on those will usually make notes for months or even years until I have enough notes that the book is ready to write. Author Tom McGuane phrased that stage perfectly calling it “building up the cabin pressure.” In the end, the ones that get written are the ideas I can’t stop thinking about, for purely subjective reasons.

KH: Having recently seen and enjoyed The Last Duel, appreciating the Rashomon quality, what made you choose the shifting POV from first person to third person storytelling…or did the story dictate that

ER: Maximizing reader identification with the characters meant telling the story from multiple voices. The novel has two first person narratives with the mother Stephanie and her kidnapped daughter Libby, so we see the same events from their contrasting different perspectives, giving us the whole picture. First person gets the reader right inside the character’s heads. We needed to be outside of the villainess Ilsa, so I wrote her third person so we never truly know what she’s thinking, keeping her unpredictable because we never know what she’ll do next. What I love about Rashomon is the truth is the whole of the sum of the parts of all of the characters’ perspectives!

KH: You’ve spoken in other interviews about liking in movies “what you don’t see.” Can a writer get away with that when writing novels, or is that best left to the screenplay?

ER: “Keeping it off-screen” is a storytelling technique that works equally well in films and books. In a movie we would describe that as “not how you show it but how you don’t show it” or in a novel we might say something is described “between the lines,” but either way it means handling a scene in such a way that people fill in the blanks. Then they use their imagination picturing things you just suggest instead of explicitly showing or describing graphically. There’s a place for both.

KH: Christopher Isherwood was quoted as saying writing for Hollywood made him a better novelist in the sense that it showed him greater economy of language; do you feel the same?

ER: Yes, writing screenplays you cut everything out that doesn’t move the story forwards. You “load” words because you use as few as possible. It’s a strong background to have as a novelist because for screenwriters “when in doubt, cut it out.” Also, scriptwriters are story wonks and we bring that narrative skill-set to novels. When we write them. Most screenwriters can’t write a novel even though they try, or write just one. I’ve written eleven. And honestly many novelists can’t write a script to save their life. Screenplays and books are very different animals.

For instance, in a novel you have many more tools in your storytelling toolbox. In a script, you have just action and dialogue. You have those in a novel, too, but also first second and third person narratives, different voices, and much more ordinance to weaponize your prose. The thing I love about doing both is that when a script is made into a movie, we give you the pictures so everyone sees the same film, but in a novel, we bring their own pictures to the prose, based on our mental images and memories, so it’s more personal.

KH: I love the tension in the early scenes with Ilsa and Libby, before their dialogue kicks in later. It was for me, reminiscent of what you did in the scenes involving Michael Pare and the dog in Bad Moon.

ER: There’s a lot of stare-downs, that’s for sure! At first, Ilsa and Libby deal with each another in a silent primal animal level, sniffing each other out. Not unlike Pare and Thor in Bad Moon, as you say.

KH: Stephanie’s thought as she makes a dynamic and daring rooftop evasion from the police is that “it’s like being in a car commercial from Hell.” Does the Fury Road adrenaline you capture come from the novelistic glee that says, “Gee, I’m glad I don’t have to do this on a budget with a schedule?”

ER: Sure, writing a novel obviously the only limits are the limits of one’s imagination. The only thing to worry about is fully imagining the scene in enough detail so it’s believable. But the rooftop car chase certainly could be viably filmed with first-class precision vehicular stunt driving and standard mechanical special effects.

KH: Dan Crockett turned out to have more moxy than I gave in through the early stages. You pay off characters well, and as much as this is a book about “hot minutes” and high-octane mechanical carnage; what makes it all work is the people?

ER: It’s always all about the people. Action or suspense scenes are empty exercises in mechanics unless you care about the characters involved, even the bad guys. It’s not about sympathetic characters—we become involved with flawed characters we don’t morally approve of all the time in what we read and watch—audience and reader involvement is the apt phrase. I’d say it’s an even split with the mother and kidnapper in STOPPING POWER as far as who interests us the most. Stephanie is a mother tiger protecting her cub, hard not to root for. We don’t root for Ilsa, quite the opposite, but we do get to understand the kidnapper and become involved with her. Many readers tell me she is the most interesting character in the book. We all know villains are often the most compelling characters, like in Shakespeare. Lots of reasons for that.

A big part of the drama in Stopping Power deals with the Stockholm syndrome dynamics of the kidnapper Ilsa and her teenage captive Libby. Each needs to keep the other talking for survival reasons, forcing this unlikely pair to engage and form an unusual if not friendly bond. Ilsa, a completely emotionally detached human being, finds herself experiencing younger sister feelings for the teenage girl, and because Ilsa has no experience with feelings she becomes unstable, which could have consequences for both her and Libby. It’s an instance in the book where the drama between the characters ups the jeopardy. Those are some of my favorite chapters in the novel.

KH: In light of the recent tragedy on the set of RUST, it made Stephanie’s backstory, primarily her relationship with her father extremely poignant?

ER: Sam Power took reckless safety risks as a stuntman like his generation of stunt people did making movies during those days, but Stephanie’s dad was a seasoned professional and the only lives he risked were his own and unfortunately hers that one time. Ironically, if her father Sam had not taken those risks with Stephanie teaching her how to stunt drive, she would not have survived the ordeal in the novel when Ilsa puts her to the test.

KH: $64,000 question. Did Jack Stevens crap his pants when the boys from SWAT came calling. I only ask ’cause the Sheriff said things got messy?

ER: Let’s say it’s an example of “between-the-lines!”

About The Author: Eric Red is a Los Angeles-based novelist, screenwriter, and film director. His films include The Hitcher, Near Dark, Cohen and Tate, Body Parts, Bad Moon, 100 Feet and The Last Outlaw. He has written nine novels, including Don’t Stand So Close, It Waits Below, White Knuckle, The Guns of Santa Sangre, The Wolves of El Diablo, Noose, Hanging Fire and Branded. Red divides his time between California and Wyoming with his wife and two dogs. Find out more about Eric Red and his books and films on his official website EricRed.com, on Facebook at OfficialEricRed, and on Twitter @ericred.

“There isn’t another novel this year that cuts as quickly to the chase as Stopping Power. Eric Red’s new thriller is tense, tough and tenacious. Once the story evolves from its simple but highly effective premise there’s no exit for the reader: a psychologically clever described mother-and-daughter relationship and a vicious villainess sure make for a hell of a ride – a purist genre narration encased in a very contemporary almost all-female action firework.”

  • Marco Siedelmann, Publisher and Editor, Seidelman & Company.

Cary Joji Fukunaga’s No Time To Die

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Every character’s story must have an end, even a seemingly immortal, totemic hero like James Bond who is, after, still just a human being. In a way Daniel Craig has found the most humanity in the character of any actor so far, and Cary Joji Fukunanga’s No Time To Die is a spectacular sendoff for both his 007 and this spellbinding, pentamerous group of entries in the legacy. The film opens as Bond and the enigmatic Madeline Swann (Léa Seydoux) are hiding out somewhere in Italy, where he broods over the grave of his fallen love, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), and ponders an uncertain future. That future is made frighteningly immediate for him when he’s attacked, Madeline proves to be just south of trustworthy and he’s propelled into another clandestine netherworld of globetrotting espionage, betrayal and warfare as a new threat looms over MI6 and the entire world. What didn’t work for me in Spectre was how Christoph Waltz’s hammy Blofeld (seen only very briefly here) was sort of the puppeteering ringmaster of every villain that came before him in the previous films, which to me felt cheap, cartoonish, way too neat and self contained to be believable. This film sort of rectifies that by having a new rogue element in the form of Rami Malek’s whispery, vaguely deformed bio-terrorist Safin, who although is admittedly not a very strong or memorable villain when you compare him to the likes of Mads Mikkelsen and Javier Bardem’s characters, is still appreciated as his own independent force outside of the whole silly spectre organization gimmick. This film soars from set piece to action to incident to spectacle with the same fluid, immersive momentum that SkyFall did, the lengthy runtime feels like a breeze because the film is so dynamic and engaging. A romp in Cuba sees Bond make a split second alliance with Ana De Armas as a ruthless agency contact, the two have a balletic, symmetrical action scene together that positively sings. The film’s opening is one of immense power as we see a young version of Madeline (Coline Defaud) have a horrifying encounter with Safin when she’s only a child, setting her dark and turbulent life arc into motion. Ralph Fiennes’s M, Ben Withshaw’s Q and Naomie Harris’s always lovely Moneypenny hum along in the background doing their thing, solid as ever while the usually subdued David Dencik (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) has a scene stealing supporting turn providing wicked comic relief as a hapless Russian doctor essential to Safin’s diabolical plans. The film’s strength, soul and effectiveness lies in its third act, which is not only a visually gorgeous example of inspired production design and choreography but truly a courageous, controversial choice that no other Bond film has had the stones to try and pull off. What sets the Craig films apart from the rest and what has made me a huge fan is the heart, the vulnerability and humanity put into this character, who is usually the paradigm of cavalier, womanizing, cliched suaveness and one dimensional grit in other areas of the Bond-verse, most in fact. Craig’s 007 is flesh, blood and fallible human soul, which makes his five-film arc stand out in realistic splendour. The ending they chose is one of power, and not what you may expect, but it hit home hard for me, and is the perfect final note to an epic chapter in this iconic story. Oh, and the theme song by Billie Eilish is a stunner too, up there with Adele’s efforts as my two favourite songs.

-Nate Hill

Cary Joji Fukunaga’s No Time To Die

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Every character’s story must have an end, even a seemingly immortal, totemic hero like James Bond who is, after, still just a human being. In a way Daniel Craig has found the most humanity in the character of any actor so far, and Cary Joji Fukunanga’s No Time To Die is a spectacular sendoff for both his 007 and this spellbinding, pentamerous group of entries in the legacy. The film opens as Bond and the enigmatic Madeline Swann (Léa Seydoux) are hiding out somewhere in Italy, where he broods over the grave of his fallen love, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), and ponders an uncertain future. That future is made frighteningly immediate for him when he’s attacked, Madeline proves to be just south of trustworthy and he’s propelled into another clandestine netherworld of globetrotting espionage, betrayal and warfare as a new threat looms over MI6 and the entire world. What didn’t work for me in Spectre was how Christoph Waltz’s hammy Blofeld (seen only very briefly here) was sort of the puppeteering ringmaster of every villain that came before him in the previous films, which to me felt cheap, cartoonish, way too neat and self contained to be believable. This film sort of rectifies that by having a new rogue element in the form of Rami Malek’s whispery, vaguely deformed bio-terrorist Safin, who although is admittedly not a very strong or memorable villain when you compare him to the likes of Mads Mikkelsen and Javier Bardem’s characters, is still appreciated as his own independent force outside of the whole silly spectre organization gimmick. This film soars from set piece to action to incident to spectacle with the same fluid, immersive momentum that SkyFall did, the lengthy runtime feels like a breeze because the film is so dynamic and engaging. A romp in Cuba sees Bond make a split second alliance with Ana De Armas as a ruthless agency contact, the two have a balletic, symmetrical action scene together that positively sings. The film’s opening is one of immense power as we see a young version of Madeline (Coline Defaud) have a horrifying encounter with Safin when she’s only a child, setting her dark and turbulent life arc into motion. Ralph Fiennes’s M, Ben Withshaw’s Q and Naomie Harris’s always lovely Moneypenny hum along in the background doing their thing, solid as ever while the usually subdued David Dencik (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) has a scene stealing supporting turn providing wicked comic relief as a hapless Russian doctor essential to Safin’s diabolical plans. The film’s strength, soul and effectiveness lies in its third act, which is not only a visually gorgeous example of inspired production design and choreography but truly a courageous, controversial choice that no other Bond film has had the stones to try and pull off. What sets the Craig films apart from the rest and what has made me a huge fan is the heart, the vulnerability and humanity put into this character, who is usually the paradigm of cavalier, womanizing, cliched suaveness and one dimensional grit in other areas of the Bond-verse, most in fact. Craig’s 007 is flesh, blood and fallible human soul, which makes his five-film arc stand out in realistic splendour. The ending they chose is one of power, and not what you may expect, but it hit home hard for me, and is the perfect final note to an epic chapter in this iconic story. Oh, and the theme song by Billie Eilish is a stunner too, up there with Adele’s efforts as my two favourite songs.

-Nate Hill

Brian De Palma’s Domino

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I expected something mediocre from Brian De Palma’s Domino given the overall reputation, but I think people are just comparing it to his legendary pantheon of influential films because, for the most part, this is one intensely exciting crackerjack thriller. It sees Copenhagen detective Nicolaj Coster-Waldau joining forces with former Game Of Thrones costar Carice Van Houton to avenge the death of his partner, murdered by a known terrorism affiliate (Eriq Ebouaney). The problem is this guy is on CIA payroll and pretty soon his handler (a smarmy, scene stealing Guy Pearce) scoops him up for some other covert games in North Africa, forcing the pair to go rogue in order to both kill him and stop another impending terrorist attack. Now the film isn’t perfect, there’s a humdrum midsection where not much happens beyond people talking, planning, going through subplot motions and running about. But that weaker part is bookended by the absolutely sensational first and third acts, wonderfully shot and calibrated set pieces that feel like De Palma is steadily and assuredly at the helm making his suspenseful magic once again. The opener sees Waldau and his partner chasing the suspect all over a darkened tenement building, full of crackling tension, brutal violence and dynamic visual composition. The grand finale is set in a roaring bullfighter stadium somewhere in North Africa as the two race to smoke out the terrorists and stop them, with a drone sequence and villain death that is so bombastically, dementedly De Palma I had to let out a long deranged laugh. I see just by looking at IMDb that this isn’t held in super high favour by De Palma acolytes and fair enough the man has done more innovative, captivating work but to me this is still a perfectly enthralling thriller with solid, headstrong hero work from Waldau, an emotional core from the always excellent Van Houten, a sly, sleazy turn from Pearce who is *almost* a villain and some pulse pounding, musically invigorating action sequences as only this filmmaker can bring us.

–Nate Hill

Joe Carnahan’s CopShop

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It’s always cool when one of my favourite filmmakers not only puts out two films in the same year, but that they both end up being ones I absolutely love. Joe Carnahan gave us the knockout action SciFi Boss Level earlier in 2021 (highly recommended) and now we have CopShop, a tough as shit, gritty as fuck, funny as hell homage to the lower budget, one location cop thrillers of the 70’s, particularly one I need not name drop but pretty much set the bar, and whose influences are there. Hitting new collaborative notes in his ongoing working relationship with Carnahan is Frank Grillo, who also headlined Boss Level and here plays greasy, self centred mob fixer Teddy, wanted by several hitman including gruff, violent Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler) and off the chain mega-psychopath Anthony Lamb (Toby Huss). Teddy deliberately gets himself thrown into county lockup which he thinks will be safe, but both contract killers follow him there for a bloody showdown as cops are picked off one by one, a cat and mouse game ensues and we gradually learn more about these characters. Grillo uses his hair as an asset to performance here and it’s hilarious to the point where one character makes fun of it in reference to a Tom Cruise flick. Butler is mean, efficient and darkly sarcastic while Huss, never an actor to back down from a challenge, is a terrifying nightmare tornado of perverse looney toons energy, a seriously diabolical, constantly hilarious and severely scary villain for the ages. As great as these three actors are, the real star of the show and my favourite character is Alexis Louder as Valerie, the toughest cop in the county and the real protagonist amidst this stable of shady scumbags. She’s terrifically resilient and charismatic, owning the emotional grounding, dark humour and lethal physicality of her role to the point where I wanted to see a sequel with just her pitted against a whole new roster of baddies. The film has Carnahan’s typically realistic, candid dialogue that I always appreciate so much and a kinetic, propulsive forward momentum that is reminiscent of his excellent 2006 Smokin Aces, although much lower in pitch, tone and budget. I enjoyed the morally sticky, ambiguous nature of Butler and Grillo’s characters who are genuinely hard to read and predict, while Huss’s mad dog cavorts around the precinct like a bull in a CopShop. This was a ton of fun for what it was, and I love seeing mean, unapologetically brutal, off the cuff genre efforts still surface in this day and age. Great times.

-Nate Hill

John Carpenter’s Escape From L.A.

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I don’t know about Escape From L.A., man. It’s kinda like when someone tells you a really funny joke and just tells it perfectly, and then somewhere down the line you’re like “tell that awesome joke again” and they do, but they just don’t quite encapsulate or get it right a second time and the magic goes sour. Escape From NY is that first time and this sequel… well let’s just say the magic was lost on me this time around. I get that John Carpenter wanted to expand the lore, his first film was definitely popular enough to warrant a sequel and Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken for sure deserves many more films, but this… was just not a great time at the movies. Snake once again finds himself in a near identical predicament as the first film: infiltrate futuristic Los Angeles, now also a cordoned off no fly zone for dissidents, find and neutralize a Che Guevara clone (kind of a weak villain, I might add) with plans on rebel terrorism who is in cahoots with the daughter of the US president (Cliff Robertson) who is about as corrupt, evil and unscrupulous as you can get. So a ponytailed Stacy Keach handles his mission and he ventures into LA where he meets a motley gaggle of freaks, criminals and outliers including a renegade surfer (Peter Fonda), a twitchy guide (Steve Buscemi), a Botox saturated mad doctor (Bruce Campbell, but you’d only know by the voice) and more. Poor Pam Grier shows up as a gang commander but they’ve dubbed her voice over with a different dude to make her sound like a man, which was a huge WTF, like is the character supposed to be transgender or just fuckin really husky? There’s fights, shootouts, hang gliders, betrayals, but none of it happens with the sheer Grindhouse joy of the first film, and it all feels very strained, try-hard and disingenuous. Even Russell as Snake falters here and there, his whispery tough guy shtick that was SO effective in Escape from NY feeling a tad silly here. The obligatory final ‘fuck you’ Snake gets here is fun and appropriately cathartic but it’s too little too late after an entire film of subpar antics that just don’t cut it. Not impressed.

-Nate Hill

Jonathan Hensleigh’s The Ice Road

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

The Liam Neeson ice road trucking movie might not top any 2021 charts (including mine) and is admittedly an outlandishly hectic thriller but I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy every tension soaked, amped up minute of it. Neeson plays a down on his luck trucker with a special needs brother (Marcus Thomas) who is recruited by a powerful trucking boss (Laurence Fishburne) for a near suicide mission: deliver excavation parts to a remote Winnipeg mining quarry where a handful of workers have been trapped underground following a tunnel collapse. This involves navigating miles of ruthless ice road terrain with giant 18-wheel semis and someone who is trying to sabotage their mission with brutal corporate espionage at the behest of the corrupt mining company underboss (Matt McCoy). The stakes are high, the ice is thin and the sensationalism runs thick with this one; it’s not just a trucking survival thriller although those elements are handled well, it also incorporates elements of classic Neeson action fare too as their crew does battle with an almost invincible company assassin (Benjamin Walker) trying to bring them down. Neeson is reliably gritty and even displays some vulnerability while Fishburne, although sadly underused, goes by the porn-star name of ‘Jim Goldenrod’ here which alone hilariously makes up for his lack of screen time. Others make nice impressions including Amber Midthunder as a badass indigenous trucking prodigy who moonlights as a fierce activist and the always awesome Holt McCallany as the foreman of the trapped workers. The film is hectic as all hell, over-plotted and packed with incident, in addition to the hair raising ice trucking episodes we also get gunplay, snowmobile chases, surprisingly effective dramatic heft, hand to hand combat, a dynamite fuelled avalanche and the film even somehow finds time to throw in some social commentary on veterans with PTSD, the opioid crisis and stolen native land. It’s a LOT, but it somehow kind of works in a big jumble of plot, action and incident that while definitely too cluttered, could never be accused of not being anything but 100% ambitious from stem to stern.

-Nate Hill

Taylor Sheridan’s Those Who Wish Me Dead

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I miss the days in the 90’s or so when big budget, star studded thrillers dominated the summer and they’d often have slightly outrageous yet totally exciting high concepts that melded different elements into one palette. Taylor Sheridan’s Those Who Wish Me Dead is a terrific example of this and a banger of a film, the exact type of summer popcorn escapism I miss having around a lot. Angelina Jolie plays an ex wildfire fighter/smoke jumper with PTSD after a mission gone horribly wrong, now relegated to fire-watch atop a lonely tower and occasionally getting arrested by the local sheriff (Jon Bernthal) for doing insane daredevil stunts just to keep the pain at bay. One day a kid runs into her region of Montana forest trying to escape two psychotic contract killers (Aiden Gillen and Nicholas Hoult) who have chased him and his dad (Jake Weber) in there from the city, for dark reasons that are, wisely, only hinted at. It’s up to a haunted Jolie to protect this kid at all costs with the help of Bernthal’s badass lawman, his equally badass and very pregnant wife (Medina Senghore) and some of her former smoke jumping crew, but will it be enough to stop these incredibly heinous assassins? I’m not even kidding either, these two are literal cold blooded monsters who aren’t above blowing up houses with families in them, killing pregnant women and kids and even deliberately starting a wildfire that torches half a valley just to smoke out their prey. “I hate this place” growls an unreasonably sinister Gillen (if you thought he was slimy in Game Of Thrones, well…), to which another character replies “it hates you back” in trademark pulpy yet elemental Taylor Sheridan writing fashion. Jolie is stunning here and I wish she’d headline more films these days, she captures the flint-spark resilience and crushing vulnerability of her character beautifully in a top shelf performance. The sweeping Montana cinematography is gorgeous and threatening in equal parts, the violence and action vicious and unrelenting, as is the very effective suspense. I see that this has gotten lukewarm reactions almost all across the board and I’m really not sure what film most people were watching; this is the kind of blockbuster stuff I live for and miss greatly these days. It’s bombastic, grandly drawn, hearty genre meal material that’s exciting, tightly written, unforgivingly brutal and solidly directed. One of the best so far this year, I’m my books.

-Nate Hill

James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

James Gunn has always been a delightfully rambunctious, perennially irreverent filmmaker whether he’s exploring the realm of sentient alien slugs, sad-sack superhero wannabes or comic book property, which he gets to do once again in The Suicide Squad, one of his very best films yet. He feels more at home in the world of DC than he does in Marvel and it’s not just the larger playground that a hard-R rating gifts him, although that is a *huge* factor given his stylistic tendencies as an artist and his roots in horror, which are on gooey display here as well. The DC stable, particularly villains, just has this dark, perverse edge to it that Marvel can’t match and in creating a maniacal palooza of second tier baddies in a subversive, heavily violent extravaganza he has found a groove and achieved an aesthetic that for the entire two plus hour runtime I wasn’t bored by once. Some of our familiar favourites from the other Suicide Squad naturally return including Harley (Margot Robbie, resplendent in the role of her career), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman) as well as welcome new additions like Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher (Daniela Melchior), Savant (Gunn totem Michael Rooker looking like he walked in from a Rob Zombie flick) the scene stealing Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), impossibly adorable King Shark (Sylvester Stallone) and of course Viola Davis as their game warden Amanda Waller, the cunt to end all cunts. Their missions here include the overthrow of a South American country, constant bickering, shocking team casualties, betrayals, clever skewering of American patriotism, a giant alien starfish, bountiful loads of gratuitous and blessedly gory violence and a clever balancing act between lighthearted, frothy banter and a darker undercurrent of thematic heft that sneaks in the back door and lands with an effective, grounded touch. Obvious comparisons will be made to the 2016 Suicide Squad and I’d like to sideswipe that other than to say I love both films, they’re both very different and the 2016 is what it is, it has its reputation. I do believe this to be the stronger film but I think they both have their place on my shelf, they are M&M’s and Skittles, Pepsi and Coke, or Warheads and Airheads to reference a junk food as obscure as the characters on display here. Gunn has made a rollicking, badass, bizarre yet strangely accessible piece of pop art nutso comic book madness here with many standout moments including an emotional monologue by Ratcatcher (she’s the soul of the film), some stunning technicolor gore effects that call to mind Lovecraft and Carpenter, an Easter egg hunt of many hidden film and literary references, a ballsy, nihilism laced opening sequence wherein some of the characters brutally live up to the title of the film, one instance of Waller *finally* getting a modicum of what she deserves, some painfully on the nose political satire and, in my favourite sequence the film has to offer, a brilliantly placed and paced opportunity for Robbie’s ever awesome Harley to work through the trauma of her past and absolutely TAKE DOWN toxic relationships like the badass boss bitch we all know she is. A wonderful, weird, wild and fantastic film.

Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea is about as loud, silly, gory and hilarious as you’d expect a ‘killer smart shark’ flick to be and is for the most part a lot of fun, even if it sometimes dissolves into eyeball melting pandemonium. The premise is actually a good one: a brilliant and obligatorily sexy scientist (the lovely Saffron Burrows) has developed a potential formula to treat Alzheimer’s using genetic material from shark brains, and she’s gotten a high level executive (Samuel L. Jackson) to convince his CEO boss (a brief, contemplative cameo from Ronny Cox) to sign off on funding, pending an inspection visit to her test facility out in the ocean. There we meet others including shark hunting guru Thomas Jane, gruff scientist Stellan Skarsgard, oddball cook LL Cool J and grunt Michael Rapaport, all who make great cannon fodder for the marauding sharks once they decide they’re too smart to be lab rats for these people anymore. There are some great gory kills here and the timing of them is sometimes genuinely shocking and inspired, including one death scene that is straight out of the book of nihilism and dark humour 101 and had me laughing hard. It’s basically a decent B movie souped up with Hollywood effects, tons of explosions and while it has the misfortune of being released when CGI wasn’t too great (it shows), it also has the advantage of being made at a time when shark horror films weren’t over saturated and done to death like they are these days and as such feels somewhat fresh, especially given its additional premise of sentient sharks. It’s fun, engaging and a bit cacophonous in some instances where it could have employed more stealth and suspense, but overall a good example of the shark sub genre.

-Nate Hill