Operation Finale (2018)
DIRECTOR: Chris Weitz
CAST: Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Melanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Aronov, Joe Alwyn, Lior Raz, Torben Liebrecht, Greg Hill, Greta Scacchi, Peter Strauss, Russell Simon Beale
REVIEW:
Operation Finale is a well-crafted, sure-handed, engaging spy thriller chronicling in unvarnished docudrama fashion the (mostly) true story of the 1960 mission by agents of Mossad (Israeli secret service) to track down, apprehend, and extradite fugitive Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann from his hiding place in Argentina. It’s not the first production about this subject (there is a 1996 TV movie, The Man Who Captured Eichmann, starring Arliss Howard as lead Mossad agent Peter Malkin and Robert Duvall as Eichmann), but it’s the most big-budget and the best quality. It’s a good starting point for anyone unfamiliar with the story, and worth a watch for those who already are, even if it doesn’t really bring much new to the genre. Continue reading
Red Sparrow (2018)
DIRECTOR: Francis Lawrence
CAST: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeremy Irons, Charlotte Rampling, Ciaran Hinds, Joely Richardson, Mary-Louise Parker
REVIEW:
For those seeking something a little less action-oriented and a little more nitty gritty than James Bond without being as cerebral as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Red Sparrow (an adaptation of the 2013 novel of the same name by Jason Matthews) is an unflinchingly hard-R, unglamorous espionage thriller that serves up enough twists, turns, sex, and violence to hold the viewer’s attention for its 140-minute runtime. Continue reading
The 15:17 to Paris (2018)
DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood
CAST: Spencer Stone, Alec Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler
REVIEW:
I’ll get the obligatory disclaimer out of the way right up front: it goes without saying to any reasonable person that of course what Spencer Stone, Alec Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler did on the 15:17 train to Paris in August 2015 is commendable. That doesn’t mean it needed a movie. Or at least definitely not this movie. Veteran actor-director Clint Eastwood, whose right-wing propagandistic “rah rah” tendencies have increasingly permeated both his offscreen persona and his cinematic output in recent years, has churned out an amateurishly stilted, narratively meandering, and often frankly interminably boring misfired attempt at a tribute to the real-life heroes, counting not least among its various flaws the stunt casting of the (non-actor) heroes as themselves. Continue reading
American Assassin (2017)
DIRECTOR: Michael Cuesta
CAST: Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Taylor Kitsch, Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, David Suchet
REVIEW:
Based on Vince Flynn’s 2010 novel, one of a series of books following the titular “American Assassin” Mitch Rapp, American Assassin is diverting enough for undemanding fans of the action genre, but doesn’t do anything special to distinguish itself in a crowded genre. The generic by-the-numbers plot could easily have been lifted from a Tom Clancy novel (in fact, with minor tweaks, it could have easily been a young Jack Ryan adventure), and the movie doesn’t feature any surprising twists or turns or anything we haven’t seen (and seen better) elsewhere. Continue reading
Atomic Blonde (2017)
DIRECTOR: David Leitch
CAST: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Sofia Boutella, John Goodman, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Til Schweiger, Bill Skarsgard, Roland Moller
REVIEW:
Atomic Blonde plays out like a blend of the convoluted, labyrinthine Cold War intrigue of a John Le Carre novel with the kinetic action of a Jason Bourne movie, but the level of style and panache director David Leitch brings to the material, and the entertainment value of Charlize Theron kicking ass and looking stylish while doing it can’t quite make up for a murky, muddled plotline that’s difficult to follow. Continue reading
Allied (2016)
DIRECTOR: Robert Zemeckis
CAST: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard
REVIEW:
Robert Zemeckis is no stranger to period films (Forrest Gump travels through decades of historical events), and now he’s turned his attention to crafting an old-fashioned wartime romance and potboiler of the like that Hollywood churned out in the 1940s. Unsurprisingly for someone of his much-lauded technical craftsmanship, Zemeckis has succeeded on a superficial level, but while engaging enough to be worth a look for a fan of this sort of thing, Allied, a bit like Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German, focuses more on pretty pictures and capturing a certain style than on its pedestrian and undistinguished narrative. It’s not a bad film, but while it pays homage to them, it’s not likely to become an enduring classic. Continue reading
Jason Bourne (2016)
DIRECTOR: Paul Greengrass
CAST: Matt Damon, Alicia Vikander, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel, Julia Stiles
REVIEW:
WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL REVEAL “SPOILERS”
With the total box office gross for Universal’s Bourne trilogy reaching nearly $1 billion, it was inevitable that the studio would want more, even when director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon were uninterested in returning, but their misfired attempt at expanding the Bourne “universe”, 2012’s The Bourne Legacy (starring Jeremy Renner as someone not named Jason Bourne), was a superfluous side tangent to nowhere. A Matt Damon-sized hole was left in the franchise, a hole that has finally been filled, nearly a decade after he last played the part, with he and Greengrass returning to the popular action series. Was it worth the wait (and the undoubtedly hefty paychecks involved in drawing both men back into the fold)? Questionable. Among long-awaited sequels to popular franchises, the simply-titled Jason Bourne is better than this summer’s unneeded sequels London Has Fallen or Independence Day: Resurgence, but it feels like a “greatest hits” cover of the original series, reheated and served for leftovers. It doesn’t break any new ground; in fact, it rehashes various plot elements, to the extent that it comes across as an adequately engaging but ultimately superfluous sequel whose existence is unessential. Continue reading
Spectre (2015)
DIRECTOR: Sam Mendes
CAST: Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Dave Bautista, Andrew Scott, Monica Bellucci, Rory Kinnear, Jesper Christensen
REVIEW:
After taking iconic super spy James Bond back to the nitty, gritty basics in 2006’s Casino Royale and 2008’s Quantum of Solace, the “new” rebooted 007 film series slowly worked familiar Bond ingredients (Q, Moneypenney, the Aston Martin, more liberal use of the Bond theme) back into the mix with 2012’s Skyfall, and now with Spectre, director Sam Mendes and star Daniel Craig, reuniting from Skyfall, have brought Craig’s Bond full circle with his most “traditional” outing yet. Of Craig’s four Bond films, Spectre has the most “classic Bond” feel, but admittedly part of the strength of Casino Royale and Skyfall was that they eschewed the conventional Bond formula, or at least used it with restraint. Spectre is entertaining, but it lacks the freshness of Casino Royale and the emotional depth of Skyfall. In resurrecting the shadowy global domination organization Spectre, last seen as a recurring villain in Sean Connery’s Bond films of the ’60s, the “classic Bond” pieces have nearly all clicked into place, but the movie lacks a certain spark. There’s a by-the-numbers feel here that makes Spectre an entertaining Bond adventure but, unlike Casino Royale and Skyfall, not one that transcends the genre. Continue reading
Brooklyn (2015)
DIRECTOR: John Crowley
CAST: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters
REVIEW:
Brooklyn is a handsomely-crafted, old-fashioned, nostalgic period drama of the type we could have imagined being made in the 1950s (it’s not quite wholesome; there’s a small smattering of profanity and a not particularly graphic sex scene, but it’s close). Based on the book by Irish author Colm Toibin and adapted from page to screenplay by Nick Hornby (About a Boy, High Fidelity), it’s both a romance and a character study of a 1950s Irish immigrant leaving behind everything she knows for an uncertain future in America. Continue reading
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)
DIRECTOR: John Madden
CAST: Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Dev Patel, Ronald Pickup, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Diana Hardcastle, Tina Desai, Lillete Dubey, Richard Gere, David Strathairn
REVIEW:
2012’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was a pleasant, unchallenging little morsel, but nothing about its modest charms cried out for a sequel, yet here we are. Unsurprisingly, like many an unnecessary sequel, the follow-up wears out the original’s limited welcome and, despite writer-director John Madden returning, hackneyed try-hard attempts at stirring up contrived plot complications and overly frantic wannabe comedy replaces the first movie’s gentle simple charms. It’s not worth checking back into the hotel to watch the somewhat sad sight of a cast of distinguished elder British thespians gamely going through the motions of material that’s beneath them.
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