I’m often a victim of expectations. If I were a “real critic” I would keep an open mind going into any movie, but often I expect a lot and am let down, or, as in the case of Happy Gilmore 2, think it’s going to suck and am pleasantly surprised. I really only watched this movie because my wife wanted to (sorry babe) but I’m glad I did. A child of the 90s, I was as big of a fan of the original as anyone, but I thought I’d outgrown dick and fart jokes (of which there are both in this movie). Apparently not. The film picks up in present day. After becoming a successful golfer and winning multiple championships over a decade, Happy accidentally killed his wife with an errant golf drive in 2014 and subsequently gave up the game. Now broke and with 5 teenage-to-young adult children, the youngest of which has aspirations of going to Paris to pursue ballet, Happy is pulled back into the sport that made him a star but which brought so much pain later. If you were a fan of the original, you’ll most likely enjoy the sequel, as it’s more of the same, and even carries over a lot of the same recycled jokes. Adam Sandler doesn’t really act here (though we all know that he is capable, if you’ve seen Punchdrunk Love or Uncut Gems), but he doesn’t need to. He just relies on those good ol’ dick and fart jokes. ★★★½
His straight-to-Netflix film Henry Sugar notwithstanding, it’s been awhile since Wes Anderson wowed me. His last couple theatrical films emphasized style over substance and were big bores, but he has righted the ship with The Phoenician Scheme. It stars Benicio del Toro (with a page-long list of A-list supporting actors) as Zsa Zsa Korda, an international arms dealer in the 1950s who has already survived a half a dozen assassination attempts, and who does so again at the start of the movie. His latest business venture is a risky one in which he wants to overhaul the economy of the small country of Phoenicia. The US government gets wind of it and drives up the prices of his building materials, forcing Zsa Zsa to meet with each of his (illicit) investors one-on-one in an attempt to renegotiate terms. Traveling with him while he meets them is his estranged daughter Liesl, who is in training to become a nun, and the family tutor Bjørn, who may have an ulterior motive. The movie is hilarious, with Anderson’s trademark deadpan delivery that hits time and again (when Zsa Zsa laments his 9 adopted sons (“Why so many? Because I’m playing the odds. Some of them have to turn out ok.) or Liesl’s constant religious reactions to Zsa Zsa’s illegal activities). My problem with his last couple movies is they felt aimless, but there’s a clear story and plot this time. We know it from the beginning, and that makes all the difference. ★★★★
The Amateur has been on my radar since I first saw its trailer. It stars Rami Malek as Charlie Heller, a socially awkward techie who works at the CIA headquarters in Langley. His wife leaves one morning for a business trip to London, where she is the victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and is killed by terrorists during a botched transaction there. With his connections at the CIA, Charlie goes to his bosses, not to ask for vengeance, but for them to train him up so that he can seek revenge on his own. They balk at the idea, but Charlie, with his computer know-how, digs up dirt on his boss and blackmails him for what he needs. A handler (played by Laurence Fishburne) is assigned to give Charlie a crash course in combat, shooting, and being elusive to enemies and authorities alike, but before Charlie’s bosses can turn the tables on him, he’s in the wind and off to complete his objective. Charlie knows the identities of the 4 terrorists and where to find 3 of them, but the fourth, the mastermind and the person who pulled the trigger killing his wife, remains hidden. As Charlie goes from country to country, taking out each progressive bad guy in increasingly complex ways, he gets closer to his ultimate goal. Very good action/thriller with some science built in to make it interesting, and Malek is always good. Small but important part for Jon Bernthal too, who seems to be in everything these days. ★★★½
Josh Hartnett isn’t the teen idol he once was and he’ll never win a serious acting award, but he has always been entertaining, and that’s true again with Fight or Flight. A government agency’s latest op goes sideways, and it seems to be due to a notorious hacker who goes by the moniker Ghost. Ghost has long been able to stay in the shadows, and even their image on security cams is blurred out due to some tech they carry on their person. But they messed up this time, because their blurry image is spotted and tagged heading towards an airport. The agency wants to nab them, but doesn’t have any operatives in the area. Thus, the director reaches out to disgraced former secret service agent Lucas Reyes (Hartnett). Lucas has been in hiding too, after the bounty the government put on his head awhile ago, but with the promise to be let back into the country and given a life again, he agrees to catch that flight and find and subdue the Ghost. Unfortunately, somehow word leaks that the Ghost is on the plane, and plenty of bounty hunters, hired by all the groups the Ghost has wronged over the years, show up for a piece of the pie too. What follows is bloody battles in the sky. The movie is part comedy and part action/thriller, and while the laughs don’t always hit, the fist fights most definitely do, and get more and more ridiculous as the film goes along. Certainly not great cinema, but it’s a fun diversion for less than 2 hours. ★★★
Warfare is the latest from writer/director Alex Garland (who also wrote 28 Years Later, released this summer), and he co-did this movie with Ray Mendoza, based on Mendoza’s experiences in the Iraq War. A tidy film at just about 90 minutes, it is show in real time and follows an op in Ramadi in 2006. A Navy SEAL team takes over a house, basically booting the families that live there down to one room on the ground floor, so that they can provide eyes on a couple houses down the street, noting its comings and goings for other troops in the area. Of course, at some point during their stay, shit goes sideways. They are discovered, and are attacked by insurgents. Gun fights, grenades, and IED explosions ensue. The film is about as authentic as I imagine an operation can be. For a long time in the beginning, there’s a whole lot of silence, while the team is hunkering down, watching, and waiting. Lots of the “hurry up and wait” mentality. And when the fighting starts, since it is presented in real time, we see a lot of the little things that aren’t shown in other military films, like soldiers taking the time to gather all their gear in an effort to leave nothing behind for the enemy. I liked the movie, but it was almost too technical for me. The tension before the battle is great, the battle itself is great, but there’s a lot of down time here and there where nothing is going on. Probably my least favorite Garland film yet, but considering how high a bar he’s set for himself, that’s not hard to do. ★★★½
- TV series recently watched: Duster (series), Mobland (season 1), The Defenders (series), Cheers (seasons 9-11)
- Book currently reading: Aftermath: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Jons Movie Takes 