Tag: Thriller

I am starting to reach the bottom of my barrel in terms of content, and that is exactly where I want to be. Who the hell has even heard about Always Shine, let alone seen it? I am sure very few, if any of you. And that is where I want to be on my reviews.

I picked this movie to review because I knew one of the leads involved and liked her work. But I also liked how it was not even rated and barely released anywhere. Just a small town indie film that no one knows about, and a thriller at that.

There have been a lot of really good small budget thrillers with a small cast. They can do a whole lot with it. So even though I don’t get the title and expect nothing, I can still hope for the best.

Like every morning when I wake up in the middle of the forest. I hope for the best.

Always Shine is about two somewhat friends. They used to be super friends, but their friendship has waned. Beth (Caitlin FitzGerald) is an aspiring actress. She has been in some commercials before. She has been in a few B-Movies. She has an agent! And she is going to try to star in a new horror flick about rocks, but she will be the main female lead, a big step up for her.

Anna (Mackenzie Davis), is also an aspiring actress. But she doesn’t have commercials, she doesn’t have parts in films coming up, she has nothing. And damn it, she is a better actress than Beth. But her life sucks.

Despite their differences, they want to reconnect and have a getaway in the mountains, where the signal sucks, in a nice place owned by Anna’s family. Now they have to deal with each other, go out drinking and meeting people together, and get on each other’s nerves. In fact, Anna is basically starting to hate Beth, because Anna believes Beth is actively trying to crush Anna’s career before it can get started.

Things are not looking good for Beth.

Also starring Lawrence Michael Levine and Khan Baykal.

“It is called acting, bitch, and I’ve been in a movie with Zac Efron!”

I have seen Mackenzie Davis in only a handful of films, with only That Awkward Moment and Freaks of Nature having a major part. And honestly, I thought she did great and should be in more movies. I haven’t seen FitzGerald in anything.

Potential biases, Davis is definitely the stand out here, as she is the one pissed off, she is the one who has to carry the end of the movie, and she is just so damn intense. FitzGerald has to play a meek character, who has only one real decent scene on a panicked phone call to her boyfriend.

But a few good scenes does not make the movie. The entire final act is just slow and dreadful. It seems to serve no purpose. They play it out like a mystery, but I wasn’t sure which parts were supposed to be mysterious. And then it ends with the big obvious reveal, leaving me just annoyed at the previous half hour of movie.

Seriously, the ending is just so bad. It is supposed to be some sort of mental break down. But it is tame (and maybe realistic?) and makes for very unexciting film.

Also, I still have no damn clue what the title alludes to.

I don’t really get Peter Berg. He is such an interesting person, but I don’t get him.

He gave us the Friday Night Lights TV series, and for that, I can thank him. Despite problems during the writer’s strike, we still got an overall solid project that came from a solid film.

And then he did Hancock, which had a bad second half. Then he did Battleship. The real low point. After that, he began to have his Marky Mark obsession, as Patriots Day is the third “real story” film he has done with the singer turned actor in a row. I liked Lone Soldier. I was disappointed with Deepwater Horizon. And Patriots Day seemed like something that was coming out way too soon after the events.

And somehow these last two movies have come out within just a few months of each other. Calm down Berg!

This time Mark has an average amount of guns, right in between the other two films.

Patriot’s Day of course is a film, detailing the events of the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013, about three and a half years old when the film about it came out. Our main character is Sergeant Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg), a police cop who is just returning to the force and has an easy first job back. Finish line at the marathon. Aw, how sweet.

Well, unfortunately, a bomb or two goes off, and a lot of people get injured and a police hunt takes off. And through the smoke, the fire, the wreckage, a lot of local heroes come out to help those wounded. But this is about the cops. And unfortunately, the cops do not find them right away.

Blah blah, the real story shows that they eventually get two suspects, in Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff). With a city on lock down, they try to escape, and eventually get caught. Or, well, one of them does.

Featuring a lot of big time actors, like J.K Simmons, Kevin Bacon, and John Goodman. Also Melissa Benoist, Vincent Curatola, Michelle Monaghan, and Jimmy O. Yang.

Not really a good image, so not really a place for me to make a joke.

After finally watching Patriots Day, I still only feel that this movie came out too soon.

First of all, it was apparently filmed on location. Where the guy hid in the boat? That was most likely the exact same neighborhood as it actually happened. Like those poor people need to relive those experiences so soon. A lot of footage from the film might also have been actual footage, I have no idea. Footage from police cams, or security cams. Either they made it all look as real as possible, or just used the real stuff, and either way I am uncomfortable.

The ending was the best part as, surprise!, it actually did switch to the real people involved. A real tribute to the cops at a baseball game after the fact, then brief interviews with some of the main people the film touch upon. Very brief, the whole thing takes just a few minuets before the credits. And holy shit, this is what the movie NEEDED to be.

In case you didn’t figure it out, it should have been a DOCUMENTARY! That is something truly respectable, something that doesn’t have actor cops and agents running around pretending a terrorist is loose again in your neighborhood, or recreating other painful memeories so soon after they happen. Fuck.

I know people complain about Hollywood being unoriginal, sequels, reboots, yadda yadda. But trying to rush out true stories to keep them relevant is the biggest scandal out of all of those. Most of the true story films that I enjoy end up being the ones I never heard about, where I learn something. I would imagine most people who saw Patriots Day were also glued to their TVs over these few days and even saw the guy get arrested in the boat. I didn’t learn much and it just felt…exploitative.

There should probably be a limit of at least 5-8 years before you film true events, just to give the world some breathing room.

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.

At some point, I probably just assumed that Paul Verhoeven was dead. His last movie was in 2012, Tricked, and I never really heard about it. Before that, 2006, Black Book, another I hadn’t ever seen. And before that, 2000, Hallow Man, which totally fits his style.

He has gotten older so I don’t expect a movie every 2 years, but man he used to be so on the map.

So when I saw Elle I basically ignored it (even with the awards talk), I just can only see so many subtitled movies in a year. It takes a lot out of me when I am in a job that makes me pass out before 9pm most nights. But with Verhoeven directing as some sort of thriller? Where sex and violence might be brought up to 11? Sure, I will give it a shot.

If anything, it will still help me prepare for the Oscars.

Editor said I cannot make a reference about her reminding me of the hook lady from Boston Public, no one would get it.

And at the beginning, Michèle Leblanc (Isabelle Huppert) is raped. In her own home, by a man in a ski mask. She is the head of a video game company in France, with her business partner Anna (Anne Consigny). Her father was a serial killer, found out when she was a young girl, so she has been lashed out against all the time. This has led her to becoming a strong and successful woman, independent as fuck, so how could she be raped in her own damn house?

She doesn’t trust the police, given her childhood problems. So she doesn’t report it, confides in some friends, and goes about her business. After all, her game company has a deadline and they have to finish the product. But at the same time, she begins her own independent investigation as to the culprit. Could it be one of her angry workers? One of the many enemies she has outside of the job? Some pissed off citizen or neighbor?

Whoever it is, Elle is going to handle it on her own. While dealing with a son (Jonas Bloquet) who has grown up to be a little bitch, affairs, and more.

Also starring Christian Berkel, Judith Magre, Virginie Efira, Charles Berling, Alice Isaaz, and Laurent Lafitte.

Revenge is a dish best served with a cold weapon.

At its best, Elle is a slow burn that has a lot of subplots and a couple twisty moments to tell an over two hour story. At the same time, some of these slower moments and subplots do the obvious thing and slow the story down significantly.

All of the plot with the son and his baby? They do end up mattering, but it is a strange thing to watch until it becomes apparent. The extra parts about getting the game in on deadline? Well, besides red herrings, they bring a sense of realism to the story. Her relationship with her father? Well, that explains why Elle is so fucked up and police scared.

Despite wanting to complain that there are slower moments and slower scenes, on my own it is hard to find something that IS actual cut worthy and necessary, in order to tell the complete story.

Huppert gives a nuanced performance as our lead, having to deal with a lot of her internal struggles despite external forces pressing down on her. She has all of the baggage in the world, isn’t a perfect character, and sadistic.

A very interesting character study, despite getting bogged down in excessive story details (yes, that I am unable to pin point exactly. Shut up).

Now that it is February, we have the potential to get some good films again. Split was a January fluke, I am sure everything else that I didn’t see is bad. But this is February!

Last February we were blessed with Hail, Caesar! And before that we got The Lego Movie! So there is a lot of hope for finding the special film in the crowd, and A Cure For Wellness is carrying that flag (along with John Wick: Chapter 2).

I first heard about this film in December when some of my critic friends saw it at Butt-numb-a-thon, but all of their lips were silent as to why they enjoyed it. A mysterious film with a lot of creepy moments. Let’s do it.

Water? Nothing has ever been creepy about water.

Mr. Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) is a young, spry, wall street worker who just got a promotion after closing a big account. And he is ambitious. And he has also cheated on some of his deals. This does not look good, especially when his company is on the verge of a big merger. So the board gives him a task. To head to the Swiss Alps, to a little spa, where their CEO (Adrian Schiller, maybe? God, I hope it was him), has decided to extend his vacation forever and never return home. He hats Wall Street now.

So Lockhart heads to the spa, hoping to convince him right away. But he misses visitor hours, gets distracted by a mysterious woman (Mia Goth), and next thing he knows his driver (Ivo Nandi) gets into a car accident. Lockhart wakes up in the spa, a cast over his leg, with a spa retreat seemingly forced on himself as well in order for him to heal.

While there, Lockhart spends most of his time looking for and failing to talk to his CEO. Trying to discover why the water seemingly is addictive here. And wrap it all up with ancient legends of the place! Fun!

Also starring Jason Isaacs, Celia Imrie, and Judith Hoersch.

Oh man, it is so beautiful it is making me flip my shit.

A Cure For Wellness is not your normal “scary film.” At its core it is a psychological thriller meant to make you feel unnerved throughout its over two hour run time. Every shot is beautiful, showing off the lush Swiss (Well, it was filmed in Germany) landscapes and mountainsides. Rooms uniform to make you feel claustrophobic. Uniformity in the actions of the patrons. Long hallways, identical doors, and a seemingly labyrinth of corridors, the spa is both haunting and beautiful.

The mystery it weaves is a central figure and one that will have you picking up the clues it drops, the smaller references along the way, to build the complete story. Why the spa does what it does, how it does it, and our overall plot is wonderfully crafted and told to make sure you get enough for the average viewer to understand it all.

But in the last 15-20 minutes, they decide that instead of keeping it a smart film, they will dumb everything down, hold the viewers hand and make sure repetitively everyone understands ever little aspect. And it is its biggest failing point. It went from an intelligent film to a tacked on ending that feels normal for Hollywood films but is jarring for this one. It told us too much and also made sure there was no mystery left. It had a conclusion, the story is over, and it could have had many better endings if they just tacked off parts. It reminds me of Don’t Breathe in that regard.

DeHaan and (actors) give great performances. They really dive into these characters and no one is half assing this film. It is a pretty darn good film that people should see if they want to feel unnerved and can handle some body damage horror stuff. I had some pretty extreme cringes during this film, but they are all done in a way that serves a purpose and isn’t just for gore sake.

They just need to know when to end it.

Guess what? I liked The Visit. It creeped me out a bit, had some humor, but overall was a good balance and a decent story. It had a twist, but didn’t really make or break the movie on the twist, so it didn’t get hated for it either.

And that is what M. Night needed to do. He needed to take the twists focus away from his film, because they lived and died by how good the twist became. He can still do twists, but he had to make sure he had a great film regardless of twist.

I was looking forward to see Split. I didn’t see any trailer, any synopsis, just a director and the main actor in a poster. I was excited because I wanted to believe.

I was excited to see M. Night finally kick some ass again.

I was basically as giddy as a school girl, like this little boy here!

Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy) is your regular, average, teenage girl. Well, except she has black hair, so that makes her moody. She goes to detention a lot, has unreliable parenting, has run away before and is a person who likes to keep to herself. But she was invited to a classmate’s party, because it would be weird to invite everyone BUT her. After everyone else had left, Casey’s ride isn’t there, so she gets a ride home with the birthday girl, (Haley Lu Richardson), her other friend (Jessica Sula), and the dad.

But the dad doesn’t get in the driver’s seat. Next thing the girls know, they wake up in a locked room underground, and this creepy guy, Dennis (James McAvoy) is talking strangely and threatening them. There is talk about…a beast?

Long story short, turns out that Dennis is more than Dennis. He is Patricia. He is Hedwig. He has 23 different personalities. He has been mostly non threatening, sees a shrink (Betty Buckley) and everything, but it looks like some of his personalities have taken over and have other plans. The girls are going to have to work with their kidnapper if they hope to escape their kidnapper.

Also featuring some flashbacks with young Casey (Izzie Coffey) and her dad (Sebastian Arcelus) and uncle (Brad William Henke) out hunting.

Dennis is super cereal all the time, and also enjoys young girls dancing for him. Your average joe.

I ended up really enjoying Split. Like, like liking Split. It just shocked the hell out of me.

First of all, it is a very strange movie. I am not going to say that it is accurate scientifically or anything, but based on the universe M. Night created, it totally fits and is plausible. But it is still very weird, while keeping the aura of mystery and thrills, all wrapped up in a psychotic bow.

A lot of cool things happen along the way thanks to the story, but in all honesty it is just McAvoy and Taylor-Joy carrying it. The other two girls are forgettable characters because they are to the side. The psychiatrist is interesting, but not the best. The flashbacks serve a purpose, but don’t end too shockingly. But McAvoy playing the many different roles pulls it off flawlessly. He saw what Tom Hardy did in Legend and thought he would try and 22 up it.

I have now seen Taylor-Joy in only two films, The Witch being the other one, and it amazes me how well she plays a struggling but capable female victim lead. Her roles have not been screaming girl who somehow survives, they have depth to them, fears, and presence.

Split delivered something I hope to see in every movie I watch. It gave me something unique. It gave me a film full of its own mythos. It gave me performances I want to see again and again. And it gave me hope. Not hope for mankind or anything. But just hope in films, because when the credits rolled, I found myself even giddier than when I originally walked to my seat.

I didn’t get a huge helping of sexual thrillers in 2016 like I had in previous years. It was a genre that was just severely lacking.

And of course, I missed it when When The Bough Breaks came out in theaters. One of the few films to really fit the bill. But I made sure to grab it right away when it came out to DVD. You know, just in case it is a giant pile of trash like a lot of similar genre’d films end up being. Remember The Boy Next Door? Addicted? I feel like both of them made previous worst of the year lists.

So sure, I went in expecting the worst, but I have been surprised before.

Ah what a happy pseudo-family, pre bough breaking.

John (Morris Chestnut) and Laura Taylor (Regina Hall) are two very successful married people. They both have fantastic jobs, they make bank, have a nice hall, come from nice backgrounds. But they cannot have a baby together, for whatever reason. After multiple miscarriages, the two have spent years looking for a good surrogate who they trusted with their baby.

And they think they have finally found someone with Anna Walsh (Jaz Sinclair). She is a young and sweet girl, wanting to help others. She will also use the money to help get a good house for her and her boyfriend, Mike Mitchell (Theo Rossi). He is deploying soon, and with the her sudden extra income and his, they should be able to have their dream home.

Well, the surrogate is a success and she is pregnant. But it turns out that Mike is abusive, so they decide to protect Anna and let her live in the house with them. But Anna begins acting peculiar. Spying on John and refusing to be modest with her body. And she is still seeing her boyfriend on the side. He wants her to threaten to back down and keep the baby, they will pay her more money to give it up and they can get rich.

Also they lied about their names and their past. She is also becoming obsessed with John, to the point where she tries to tear their marriage apart and his life if she will not be with her.

Ah, yes, the old unborn baby hostage deal for that sweet Chestnut loving.

Also featuring Michael K. Williams, Romany Malco, Glenn Morshower, and Tom Nowicki.

“Oh sorry, I seem to have fallen on the floor and can’t get up or cover up.”

When The Bough Breaks wants to take a perfectly normal and already scary situation for a couple and go to the extreme with it. I won’t say there is anything morally wrong trying to scare people away from using surrogates, because technically there isn’t, but it is still a pretty damn dark and grey area.

As this isn’t just a drama type film, but a SUPER drama, the actors mostly end up having to over act instead of letting a potentially great thriller play out. The plan for the girl and her boyfriend was pretty dumb. Her way of slowly seducing Chestnut was pretty dumb. Hall’s character was completely absent and terrible in this film as well. Just a lot of badly working together gears not making a lot of progress.

And the ending where all the potential scares occur? Yeah, I was scared once when a character drops the baby safely strapped in its car seat, but none of the other tension was felt. It was instead all laughable, including its finish.

There won’t be any surprises in this film. Heck, there isn’t even nakedness to make a real sexual thriller. Just a laughable thriller, with a terrible idea for a plot, acted by people who normally do a bit better.

Has there been any movies out about JFK yet?

Just kidding. Outside of JFK itself, we have had Thirteen Days, Bubba Ho-Tep (technically), and recently we had Parkland, about his assassination.

But what is with all the focus on the dead president? What about the lives that were left behind?

Jackie wants to give us an important look on his wife, Jacqueline, also told from the perspective of her life before, during, and after the assassination on her husbands life. And when I say it wants to focus on her, we mean mostly every single possible shot and with her stories.

See? No one else in the camera, this is about Jackie not her husband!

For the story, it takes place after the death of John F. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson), where Jackie (Natalie Portman) is now living out side of the White House in a big private estate. Some journalist (Billy Crudup) is invited to get an interview/update with her, knowing that she has full control over what actually gets written. And then the stories all come out.

Most of it is about what little time she had in the White House to actually try and make a difference. Jackie under went a full restoration for many parts of the white house, bringing back original antiques. And she also brings back art in the form of live entertainment, musicians at the top of the careers and instrument group, bringing back culture. She even did a show for PBS giving a tour of the White House on those new fangled television sets.

And then there is the death. The after math. Lyndon B. Johnson (John Carroll Lynch) getting sworn into office, dealing with the logistics of a funeral, telling her two kids about what just happened, while also having not a lot of time to suddenly move out of her home. I think it is great that such normal problems can elevate so much when talking the highest government position in our country.

Also featuring Peter Sarsgaard as Bobby Kennedy, Beth Grant as Lady Bird Johnson, John Hurt as a priest, and Greta Gerwig, Mac Casella, and Richard E. Grant.

If you look close, one of these pictures is a blood red dress, the other just has red blood on it.

Jackie was not what I expected. A drama about a woman in distress. Sure, technically that is what the film delivered. But it had another element attached. A scary element. And it all started before the first real frame. The film began with a dark screen and incredibly jarring music. It made me nervous, not just in its intensity but thinking this film might turn into a real art house flick. The same sounds continue at various parts of the movie, adding a sense of panic to a story that you already know the outcome.

Portman was of course superb. I quickly forgot it was her, she embraced Jackie with her voice, her smile, and even down to the way she presented herself in front of others. I am weaker at the Best Women acting categories (like every year), but I have to imagine her chances are the highest for the Academy. They love biopics.

I was also impressed with Sarsgaard as Bobby Kennedy in this movie. I don’t know a lot about him, I haven’t even watched Bobby, but he did a significant amount in this movie to not make this 100% about Jackie. I also wonder if John Carroll Lynch ever thought he would get to play a real US President in a film one day.

Jackie is not your standard biopic. Is it downright almost scary at points and shows that not all griefs are handled equally.

I wasn’t able to see Nocturnal Animals before it came out, mostly due to screening conflict. But without knowing the plot of the film, I was interested in the cast alone.

But given that I wanted to see it, the title did a lot of work with only two words.

Nocturnal. Animals. It sounds mysterious, secretive, and of course, primitive. It riles up a lot of fears, especially for those people afraid of owls.

Jake Gyllenhaal already had a good year thanks to Demolition, so regardless of how this one went, I consider it to just be bonus Gyllenhaal.

And a bonus amount of this guy, who I didn’t recognize in the film.

Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) is miserable. She lives in a giant house, with her husband (Armie Hammer). She is an art director, but feels like it is all junk. They are close to being poor, selling their items, waiting for a big business deal to come through, but she doesn’t care. She cares that her marriage is just a shell and pointless.

Then she receives a package from her ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal). He is a writer, she criticized him a long time ago, he just didn’t write from his heart. But now he has a new story, one he says was inspired by her, to write from his heart, even dedicated to her. It is even called Nocturnal Animals, his old nickname for her to explain her insomnia.

The story is about a family, a husband (Gyllenhaal), his wife (Isla Fisher), and teenage daughter (Ellie Bamber). They are driving through Texas in the middle of the night, heading to a vacation, empty roads, no signal, simple. Until they do catch up to a few cars, who are up to no good and willing to make a few choices to ruin a few lives.

Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Robert Aramayo, and Karl Glusman as some bad dudes, Michael Shannon as an older, smoking cop, and Laura Linney as Susan’s mom. Real mom in this story, not the book mom.

But also all of these people are fake anyways because: acting.

Nocturnal Animals made me feel a whole lot of emotions. Fright, scares, hope, sadness, angst, tension, extreme sadness, indifference, and even a bit of confusion. Needless to say, I was on the edge of my seat from some parts of the film, and sinking into it later to try and escape the pain.

Nocturnal Animals tells a story, a story in a story, and it does both points so goddamn well. It both made me want it to never end, and to subsequently hurry up so that it could potentially become a sunshine, happy ending. But it sticks to its tone guns and it delivers exactly the perfect ending at the conclusion.

Everyone involved with this project should simultaneously be slapped and hugged because of what I imagine they had to go through to really convey those emotions. The acting, cinematography, directing, fuck, even the costumes, why not. It all just feels so planned to maximize the angst I felt inside.

This movie is extremely hard to talk about because in all honesty, it is something that should be experienced. It isn’t for the feint of heart, it goes into some heart wrenching areas. But if you give it a shot, you will get a smart film that doesn’t hold your hand, some of the best performances of 2016, and a story that will stay with you for a long time afterwards.

Miss Sloane, that’s a lady, and they want you to know that the lady is not married.

Miss Sloane is a strong independent woman who don’t need no man in her life. Or she doesn’t have time for a man in her life, one of those things.

Miss Sloane is the type of woman that Ne-Yo craves and Kelly Clarkson wishes she could be.

Miss Sloane is so god damn independent, she doesn’t even share the poster with any other person, which is hard in this man led world.

I had to struggle to find a picture from this film with an important character sharing the frame with Miss Sloane.

Elizabeth Sloane (Jessica Chastain), is a lobbyist, and powerful one at that. Normally she deals with tax issues, but the big wigs in her firm (Sam Waterston) want her to get into the gun laws. They are big and powerful groups with a lot of money, so if they join them, they can all get paid. They want her to help them get the women voters to show up and vote against gun bills. To re-frame the image of the woman using a gun for equality, not of the mom crying over her shot children.

And Sloane just laughs at that. It is preposterous, it goes against what she believes in and it is a ridiculous strategy. She is so against it, she takes an offer from a small, third tier firm who is trying to help pass the gun bill on morality alone.

And yes, it is just a bill requiring back ground checks, and no, bills like that never get enough Senate approval because the gun lobby is strong. But she wants to take her team and defeat it, not just because she knows she can do it, but because it is the right thing, damn it.

Rodolfo Schmidt (Mark Strong) is the head of the smaller firm, Pat Connors (Michael Stuhlbarg) is her former boss and now main rival, Jane Molloy (Allison Pill) is her former assistant who refused to move with her, Ron M. Sperling (John Lithgow) is a senator who will lead a committee against her, Esme Manucharian (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) a strong anti-gun lobbyist who was also the victim of gun violence, Forde (Jake Lacy) is her new male escort, and Ennis Esmer/Douglas Smith play two of her lobby lackies.

She commands the screen and camera, allowing no one else to even be focused!

Miss Sloane clocks in at over 2 hours, which is honestly surprising after the fact, as it seemed to fly by. There is so much political intrigue, all fictional, but still enough to keep me at the edge of my seat.

I expected this to be the sort of film where Chastain would be carrying the film on her shoulders and the people around her wouldn’t matter as much. And yes, Chastain was wonderful in the film, but other actors put up pretty decent performances as well. I was most impressed with Mbatha-Raw whom has been putting out pretty decent performances lately, and Strong who gave a more subtle performance than normal. He is not in a lot of dramas (don’t send me letters explaining why I am wrong).

There are of course a lot of twists and turns, given that Sloane is meant to be this excellent tactician, who always has back up plans and wants to keep the other side surprised, playing a trump card right after their own trump card. This allows surprises, but also gives us a character that becomes more and more unbelievable.

I have before complained about the character who is so smart, plans were put into action that require a dozen things to go right, but of course they do, because they are so smart. They take me out of the film real quick and usually put me on edge. And in a way, the ending does that. Everything gets wrapped up so neatly, even if not everyone good comes out on top, that it just seems annoying.

Technically a minor complaint, but a crutch too many films want to rely on to prove their point.

Miss Sloane is topically relevant and still a good ride for those who want to learn an exaggerated amount about lobbyists.