If anyone is cheering the regime change in Iran, it is Jafar Panahi. It Was Just an Accident is his newest film, and the most directly outspoken against the evils going on in his country. It begins simple enough: a man, his pregnant wife, and their daughter are driving home when they run over and kill a dog, resulting in car damage. The man, who has a prosthetic leg, takes it to a repair shop where one of the workers freezes up, visibly shaken, when he hears the man’s squeaky steps on his fake leg. The shop worker, Vahid, follows the man, and the next day, kidnaps him in broad daylight and drives him out to the desert. He digs a shallow grave and begins to bury the man alive, despite the man’s protestations. Turns out Vahid recognized that squeaky noise from the man’s prosthetic from his days of being tortured in Iran’s prisons. The lead torturer was a man named Eghbal, and the sound of his squeaky leg has haunted Vahid’s nightmares ever since. The man being buried, though, says he is not Eghbal, vehemently enough that Vahid starts to doubt himself. Vahid was always blindfolded, so he never saw Eghbal. Vahid knocks Eghbal out and puts him in the back of the truck, and spends the rest of the movie finding others who were tortured by him. All of them were always blindfolded, but a photographer, Shiva, recognizes Eghbal’s sweat scent, and a bride-to-be, Goli, Eghbal’s voice, while another man, Hamid, is convinced from when Eghbal forced Hamid to feel the scars on his leg stump. Still, Vahid is unsure, as he doesn’t want to murder an innocent man, and even if it is Eghbal, do they want to resort to the same methods that were forced on them by Iran’s government? So much to delve into here. There’s a great video online where Jafar Panahi visits the Criterion Closet and talks about the film Bicycle Thieves, and how in Iran, society is similar to that movie in that it is impossible to escape from your circumstances, that it repeats in a circular fashion. This film is about breaking out of that circle. With the current ending of the regime in Iran, hopefully a brighter future is on the horizon. ★★★★★
Nuremberg is based on the Nuremberg trials, when the surviving high profile Nazi commanders were tried for their crimes against humanity after World War II. The four superpowers after the war, USA, UK, France, and USSR, each want to deal with the criminals in different ways, whether it be summary execution or show trial and execution, but the USA is determined to give the men a true trial by tribunal, not so much because they want to make sure the men are truly guilty, but to show the world (and in particular the citizens of Germany) what really happened, so that it never happens again (and not to make martyrs out of them). However, when you have a real (and not show/fake) trial, there’s always the possibility that someone is found innocent, so the governments want to build their case and get this right. They bring in experts from all fields, including a young hotshot psychologist to get to know the criminals and see what makes them tick. There’s an all-star cast including Michael Shannon as lead prosecutor Robert Jackson, Rami Malek as psychologist Douglas Kelley, and Russell Crowe as the head bad guy, Hermann Göring, who was second-in-command to Hitler. Stellar performances across the board, and obviously the subject matter is emotionally charged, especially when the world is shown what really was going on in the labor and death camps, but it didn’t all come together for me. Worth watching for the acting (especially Crowe, who makes a great bad guy), and maybe for the younger generation who might not be as up on the evils of World War II, but I didn’t glean anything new and it came off as pretty matter-of-fact. ★★★
When Sisu surprised everyone and made a lot of money, you knew a sequel would be coming. I enjoyed the first one despite it being kind of silly, and the sequel, Sisu: Road to Revenge, is more of the same. Aatami Korpi returns home after the war, but with his wife and child killed, and his home now behind the moved border between USSR and Finland, Aatami is forced to move. However, he wants to take his house with him, as the only reminder of his family, so he tears down the house board by board, loads it onto a huge truck, and heads for the new border to his native Finland. USSR isn’t ready let him go so easily. The powers-at-be pull Draganov out of prison, the man who killed Aatami’s family, and task him with finishing the job in exchange for his freedom. Draganov has all the resources of the red army at his beck and call. What follows is even more ridiculous than the first movie, with tanks, trains, and planes all trying to kill “the man who refuses to die.” In typical sequel fashion, it turns up the gore level, and bad guys fall in increasingly absurd ways. Should have stopped at one film, but if you go in knowing what you are getting, it is entertaining enough. Not sure I want to see a third though… ★★½
War Machine is your typical straight-to-streaming (the “new” straight-to-DVD) war movie, and basically a new take on Predator. I only watched it because I like Alan Ritchson from his Reacher show, but I should have passed. After a (very long, like half the movie) introduction when we see an unnamed army sergeant lose his brother to a Taliban strike in Afghanistan, and then the survivor’s attempt to join the Rangers (his dead brother’s last wish), we finally get into the action. The sergeant makes it through training with a handful of others, and they are given one last exercise out in the field. However, they stumble upon an alien killing machine, something from outer space, which kills with ruthless precision. Sergeant and the new ranger team, those that survive the initial strike, run for the hills, while the alien machine pursues. Lots of explosions, lots of frightened looks, lots of hiding in the trees (only to be found seconds later), all as you’d expect from this kind of movie. And of course, the machine is taken out in the end, but with the ominous “more machines spotted” tag to set up a sequel. God, I hope it isn’t made. ★½
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is now the second sequel (and a fourth film already announced!) in the magician/heist series, though it has been nearly a decade since the last. I really liked the first, didn’t think much of the second, but this newest brings in the director from the Zombieland and Venom movies, so I was hoping for a good one. It opens (we think) on the original Four Horsemen: Daniel Atlas, Merritt, Jack, and Henley (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, and Isla Fisher, returning after being absent from Part 2 during a real-life pregnancy). They put on an underground show and steal a bunch of money from a rich asshole, before Robin Hood-ing it to the average Joes in the audience. Turns out it wasn’t the horsemen though, it was 3 new, younger magicians named Charlie, Bosco, and June, masquerading as the famed Horsemen team. They are soon after visited by the real Daniel Atlas, who says he’s been told to recruit them all for a super-secret, super-big heist by the mysterious mystical society known as The Eye. Their goal, it seems, is to steal the large and valuable Heart Diamond from Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike), whose mining company launders money from some of the world’s worst people. Atlas and his new proteges meet up with the rest of the Horsemen, also recruited by The Eye, and set out to fool Veronika and the world at large, with more guest appearances from the first two movies (including Morgan Freeman and Lizzy Caplan, who filled in during Fisher’s absence). Lots of magical hijinks. The movie starts off rocky, and I had the same general complaints as I did from the last film, but it ends much better, with a grander “tada!” moment in the finale. However, with another film coming, I think it’s time I get off this roller coaster. ★★½
Jons Movie Takes 