Tag: Holt McCallany

The last time we got a Guillermo del Toro film is when he directed the one about fucking a fish.

Will someone fuck a different creature in Nightmare Alley? Hard to say based on the title alone. I did not know until a little bit before hand that Nightmare Alley was an older book, and also an older movie from 1947. So we are getting a remake. And honestly, this is the exact reason for remakes in my mind. Often remakes are made for successful film that they just want to try again because people liked the first one. They should do more remakes either based on films that failed, or at least just more unknown work to give them a new fresh light.

Not to insult those of you who know and love the original Nightmare Alley film, but honestly, it isn’t super well known now, regardless of how big it may have been in the past.

This new version promised to be closer to the book. Alright, whatever, I am just hear for the movies. Specifically, Guillermo del Toro movies.

No, this isn’t a screengrab from the next Indiana Jones flick…Who is that mysterious stranger, Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper)? The one with the smooth outfit, the clean face, the twinkle in his eyes, the hat? The one who burned down that house for some reason and is willing to just…drift.

Stan finds himself at a traveling show, a carnival, full of lies and deceit. But he sees a geek show, and agrees to help load up for the night for a small payment. And then he gets offered a job to stay along more, because he looks like someone who just needs to be there.

So he stays, he listens, and he learns. Quickly. He learns the tools of the trade. He has plans and ambitions. He has been kept quiet and hidden for so long, he thinks he can take some of these skills and become famous. A celebrity. But if he becomes a man who deals with deceit, eventually, he will be deceited right in the ass.

Also starring Cate Blanchett, Clifton Collins Jr., David Strathairn, Holt McCallany, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Rooney Mara, Tim Blake Nelson, Toni Collette, and Willem Dafoe.

I bet his eyes aren’t even closed under there. He is using those eyes and his blindfold eye. He is a phony!

Nightmare Alley is so damn aesthetically pleasing to look at. It is polished (some would even say, polished as fuck). I know it is getting harder and harder to really tell how much of a movie is made in front of green screens, but it feels as if this film was mostly main in real places and scenes, using fine cameras to make everything pop. That is what I truly hope and believe, especially since I know del Toro is a fan of using as many practical effects as possible, generally. But maybe most of it is CGI’d, who knows. It looks wonderful.

The big cast works really together. Some in much smaller roles than expected, but still bringing in their all to tell this strange story. It was good to see Perlman get some work in a non straight to video film. Blanchett is in particular quite a force, basically stealing the movie away from Cooper’s character after she walks into it. She is given a really strong role and one that is hard to top. Cooper also does a wonderful job. It takes awhile before his character starts to talk. I wondered if he would be a silent protagonist for the whole film (like Cage was recently in Wally’s Wonderland) but once he started to actual talk, getting him to stop was the harder part.

The actual story for the film is also a pretty good one, if not slightly familiar in some ways. The ending is the type of thing you can see miles away, because they foreshadow everything really hard. However, it is okay knowing how it ends up, because finding out the lengths someone can fall and also rise is often the most exciting part of a film.

Nightmare Alley, shockingly, has no puppet animals, or strange creatures, or any non humans getting fucked. Is this growth? Nah. That was a one time thing for del Toro. Until it isn’t.

3 out of 4.

“Is Guy Ritchie finally back?!”

That is the question I ask myself every time I am about to watch a new Guy Ritchie film. I believe the last time he was actually “back” was when he did The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and I wouldn’t define his Sherlock films as really back either. So maybe he has been off for over a decade for the most part. Taking on strange projects. Nothing that feels like a Guy Ritchie film based on the movies he gave us in the 90’s and early 2000’s.

I could list his many duds, but it is unnecessary. You all know it is true. Duds or okay films or weird sell out films.

But is Wrath of Man, with his favorite actor ever, his return to his roots? This is what we want, after all.

Are these security guards? Nope. Killers.

Hill (Jason Statham) is just a regular average guy, who has done some security work in the past, looking for a new job. He is going to be a security officer who rides in an armored car that picks up and drops off large quantities of money. It is a dangerous job apparently, because people really love to steal from armored cars.

The company he works at now, that he barely qualifies for, is known for having good trained officers and not getting robbed as much, so they get the big business. But when a crew takes out their drivers and steal from them? Well, the drivers are now more shook. So Hill joins them at a strange time. But he quickly puts the stop to another robbery, bad ass incarnate and all, and becomes a hero to them.

But why, why did he join, and what connection does it have with the robberies?

Also starring Eddie Marsan, Niamh Algar, Laz Alonso, Chris Reilly, Holt McCallany, Rocci Williams, Josh Harnett, Jeffrey Donovan, Scott Eastwood, Deobia Oparei, Raúl Castillo, and Andy Garcia.

Is that a construction worker? Nope. A killer.

Maybe…maybe Guy Ritchie is back?

I left Wrath of Man liking it, and it did have a lot of similarities to his earlier work. We didn’t just get the good guys point of view, we got the bad guy point of view as well. Hell, our good guy isn’t really a good guy either. This is about different tiers of bad guys, and some good guys who also get involved. It has betrayal, many named important people getting killed, and it is told non chronologically.

It is also a relatively simple story, given the situation. The only leap of faith we have to take is a society where armored cars get robbed all the time.

It was nice to have the scale be relatively small with so many people being typical bad guys. Criminals vs criminals is the type of action film I can get behind. Especially if one is technically doing some good, even if for selfish reasons.

I don’t think there is anything inherently special about Statham’s “acting” here just like his other work. The twists are pretty simple to determine. It was nice to see various people in the random roles throughout the film. And you can even see Post Malone as Robber #6. If that appeals to you as well.

3 out of 4.

When the first trailer for Monster Trucks hit the scene, the internet latched onto it and immediately made it feel bad for existing.

I was a bit excited. Yeah, it could have been a shitty kids movie. It could have been made as a concept just to sell toys. The fact that it came out in January could mean something.

But I was just impressed that they came up with an original concept. Good or bad, clearly this is them trying SOMETHING different. Something that could be cool. Something that could spawn them a television series and make them money.

Who knows, maybe this movie will be so good on a minor level that it will try to run for president one day. What do I know?

Oh no a selfie? Clearly this is a work of millennials and must be made downtrodden!

Tripp (Lucas Till) is your average high school kid. In that he is bad at school and works in a junkyard shop. Not entirely sure if that is average or not, but it has a high percentage of appearances in movies. His dad (Frank Whaley) is an oil field worker, this is North Dakota by the way, and his mom (Amy Ryan) is dating the town’s sheriff (Barry Pepper) who is always on his ass.

Well, while junking in his yard, a mysterious amphibian looking animal scares him! Ahh! Miles away, at a fracking site (and thus, evil), while drilling under a lake, and these creatures came out of the drill site and messed things up. This company, led by Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe), is able to capture two of them, but one of them escapes, as we know. And there is also a geologist (Thomas Lennon).

Anyways, basically this alien or prehistoric lifeform that likes oil becomes friends with Tripp. And he merges into Tripp’s big truck that he is building that doesn’t have an engine. And through prehistoric lifeform magic, he lives happily around the truck and it is used to help them run from the bad guys. You know, typical stuff.

Also featuring Jane Levy, Danny Glover, and Holt McCallany.

How could they do that just go and have an alien orgy in a PG movie like this?

Monster Trucks, honestly, could have been a really fun film. But they took the creatures and did what? Well, hid them in a truck mostly. They made a truck behave cooler than normal and that on its own isn’t fun.

If that truck shot out laser beams or had rocket boosters? Maybe. But this thing could like, jump higher. Higher than normal trucks, because trucks on their own don’t jump without ramps.

And yeah, this film is just a complete drag. The conflict is all of the same, shady people trying to get their monster back, kid doesn’t want them to get the monster back. I am not saying he is in the wrong, it is just. Yeah, boring.

Monster Truck should have done something to really give more to the monsters in the movie. Slightly abnormal trucks are not worthy of their own movie.

1 out of 4.

When Jack Reacher came out, I was able to avoid the controversy involving casting choices, because I of course never read the books and didn’t care. I just wanted a good action thriller.

And Jack Reacher was a good action thriller. I enjoyed how small and personal it felt. It felt unique. It had an amazing opening.

I was totally pumped for a Jack Reacher sequel. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is a dumb title, but hey, if it was anything like the first one, fuck it, who cares.

This one promises to feature at one visually appealing location.

This film starts off already way less exciting than the first film. Just Jack (Tom Cruise) helping catch a human trafficking cop, without much detail on how he did it or why it was done in any special way. Then we get to see him calling Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), someone he has worked with. But he talks to her a lot, he probably has the hots for her.

Anyway, according to some Colonel (Holt McCallany), Turner has been arrested for espionage. And also she maybe killed two people in Afghanistan. People she wasn’t supposed to kill. That is odd. Also, Jack might have a daughter (Danika Yarosh) that he has no knowledge of, from a prostitute. Look at all these shenanigans!

Somehow all of this gets connected. Jack gets framed for the murder of his lawyer, everyone gets in the same jail so they can break out and figure out all this shit.

Also featuring Aldis Hodge and Patrick Heusinger.

And after all of this, I fucking ran away from the movie.

You might be really interested in why the low rating? That is because I did the unthinkable during this movie. No, I didn’t sleep through it. But sleeping usually gives an automatic 0 as well. I turned the piece of shit off.

I realized my time was far too valuable instead of wasting it on another hour of the shit in front of me. This is not the Jack Reacher I remember from just a few years prior. This is some global conspiracy military film, without a strong focus. This is a complete mess.

Technically, from the first scene it was worse, but the first scene of Jack Reacher was legendary. This felt like a sequel that was made from a different cheaper studio, like a lot of the Disney straight-to-video sequels. Whatever was on the screen couldn’t have possibly been done by the same people. It just seemed so goddamn different.

I obviously don’t have a lot of unique things to say, seeing just under half of the movie. And hey, maybe the ending made it a bit better. But whatever it is I watched just felt so wrong, so non-Jack Reacher, that I figured I had already seen enough. This is not a worthy successor. They should have Never Gone Back to this franchise, apparently.

Do better in your next film Cruise. I trust you.

0 out of 4.

Welcome to Blackweek! Yes, that is the official name of the week, no you can’t make me change it.

It is simple. Every movie this week begins with Black. Part of the reason you may have realized is that in January, literally three movies came to theaters called Blacksomething. So all three of them are featured, plus two more! Boy, do I love me some theme weeks.

So we got Blackhat, a (shudder), January movie, one of handful of January movies I have yet to see. I was forced to see the trailer a long time before it came out, and was immediately turned off from it. It is a “hacker” movie but with more action than computers it looks like. It is directed by Michael Mann, which is a dude with a lot of followers for some reason. I can’t say I have any strong opinions on him one way or another.

But did I mention this movie had a terrible trailer?

\
But a snazzy bullet proof vest.

Shit is going crazy everywhere. Some HACKER is hacking into technical mainframes of nuclear reactors and things and causing explosions. EXPLOSIONS! That is in China. In Chicago he is hacking into stock markets and changing the prices around. Oh man, we got a world villain here. So we need China to bring people over to investigate and work with the FBI. Yeah. So we got Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) who was put in charge. That is good. His old roommate was a really good hacker. Nick Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), currently in prison for hacking related crimes. He is so good, you know. But now they need his help to get this other guy. Who are the we? Oh well, Chen’s sister, Chen Lien (Wei Tang). I have no idea how Chinese names work apparently. Also our FBI person, Viola Davis!

And then you know. Shenanigans. Terrorism. More and more explosions and action action action!

That is literally all I can say about the plot.

Here is some more characters. John Ortiz, Holt McCallany, Andy On. Eh. I’m done.

We could easily make this a comedy if those escalators were going the opposite way.

My entire plot description wasn’t long so I will keep this part brief as well.

Blackhat wasn’t an entertaining movie. It wasn’t exciting action wise, character wise, or anything. It was a huge steaming pile of dull.

I was hoping it could actually be bad enough to find parts funny, but I didn’t laugh, just yawned. I mean, the entire thing is ridiculous as we already know, making some hacker also be an action star because why not. Of course they are involved. I think there is a really detailed plot description on Wiki. Read that instead of watching this movie.

Hemsworth is wasted. Wang was kind of interesting. Davis was giving us nothing new.

And yeah. Good start to Blackweek. With a yawn!

1 out of 4.

The Losers is one of those “Oh this is based on a comic? Why?” type movies. No super heroes involved, just your normal run of the mill elite black ops team, who gets set up/framed, and have to fix it. A story I might have wrote about yesterday, and very popular.

This movie came out around the same time as The A-Team though, which means you were far more likely to not ever see or hear of The Losers, as they are easily compared.

But this one has more than four people. And a woman! Eventually.

Ooh, lets try and do this the team way!
First we have Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) the leader of the group.
Then there is Roque (Idris Elba) the second in command.
Jensen ( Chris Evans) is the communications/tech guy, and a lot of the comic relief.
Pooch (Columbus Short) is the driver, and soon to be family man.
And finally, Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) their ‘long range specialist/sniper’, wears a hat, and doesn’t talk much (At all). So mysterious. So deadly.

Well the missions they take are never officially wrote down, very very covert, don’t technically exist in the government. They are in Bolivia on a search and destroy mission for a drug cartel, but find that the camp has dozens of slave children. They try to call off the attack to their handler, Max (Jason Patric) but he ignores them. So they do the reasonable thing, break into the compound, kill the drug lord, rescue the children and barely escape!

On the helicopter sent to pick them up, they decide to stay behind and save the children instead. And when it gets up to leave. BAM. Missile. It was meant to kill them instead. They know there will be huge back lash here, so they decide to fake their deaths as if they were in the helicopter, and plot their revenge against Max. Which they get four months later, when another mysterious person, Aisha (Zoe Saldana) has a plan. But can she be trusted.

Stealing hard drives, and getting to Max is the rest of the movie, and having to go through his “top notch security” (Holt McCallany). Also filled with betrayal, the Losers try and stop Max before he acquires new age weapon technology, and you know, start a new world war.

The “mind bullets/tech support” scene is one of the better scenes. Of all time. Complete with Journey!

Seriously though, you will probably enjoy that scene even without the rest of the movie. That is what comic relief character gets you. Great scenes.

It is definitely more action than comedy, not everything is laugh out loud heelarious, but the movie is not meant to be taken too seriously. The first picture of the review is just covered in campiness.

Other aspects I found boring. I enjoyed it, but on a rewatch, not as much interests me as it did before. So its definitely a one and done kind of film. Won’t blow your socks off, but can be enjoyed if you are in the right mood.

2 out of 4.