MESSAGE FROM THE KING (FABRICE DU WELZ)
I feel there’s a small population of the world that feels like small dumb revenge films aren’t around anymore. Not the kind of revenge films that feels like the ones Roger Corman made or the ones that starred Charles Bronson (in his later years). However, with the likes of John Wick around to keep this genre from dying alone in it’s sleep we are treated to another sincere attempt to keep films simple with enigmatic and interesting protagonists just having a run of a town after discovering that revenging is needed.
Chadwick Bosman (Black Panter in Captain America: Civil War) touches down in Los Angeles from Cape Town, South Africa, in search of his sister who has been out of touch for a while. The film plays everything with a sense in sincerity that’s hard to ignore as we watch on as our protagonists asks questions with no response until he begins to ask questions with a bike chain in hand and many bloody knuckles to pair with it.
This film won’t light up your life, but will definitely keep the popcorn chugging.
THINGS TO COME (MIA-HANSEN LOVE)
Isabelle Hubert (In Another World) stars in this film about a woman who loses everything and finds that life moves on in its own way. She loses her marraige; her book will no longer be renewed; her mother dies; her children grow up and leave her; and her famed student becomes too radical for her to truly engage with. The only thing she has left is a cat, from her mother, and while she continuall chastises it you can sense that she wants to hold on to it as long as is possible.
The film wallows is a quiet sense of grief without ever dwelling on it too long. It’s as if the character feels this deep inside and barely ever lets it penetrate outside for us to actually see in an effort for her to keep moving forward in life and also so that we wont pity her for too long.
Regardless this film remains a lost effort as when all is said and done it feels very empty inside. As if I can rattle off a series things that happens to her, but with the exception of generic laughter at a cat’s disdain for people the film failed to genuinely engage the audience’s emotions.
FREE FIRE (BEN WHEATLEY)
A gun sale gone wrong, as a set of American’s set up to sell some Irish a set of rifles, that will eventually be sent back home in the fight, and all hell breaks loose.
This is The Green Room meets every bottle episode of telivision with a lot of guns going off and it is marvelous. With the likes of Sharlto Copley (District 9), Armie Hammer (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), Brie Larson (Room), Michael Smiley (SPACED), Cillian Murphy (Sunshine) and a few others this film is comedic and lovely in the right ways.
Everything about this movie feels real and just about people who get over their head and emotional about a misunderstanding, and a lot of bullets. We watch on as people miss a lot, get tips on how not to miss, and a lot of dumb jokes get thrown out as it takes our characters nearing an hour and forty-five minutes to actually get everyone killed off and throughout that time people die, are wounded, come back to life, grieve, complain about suits being too fly, get concerned about infections, get high, and just mess about. There are times in this film where we wonder if anyone was going to call a generic truce. But the film commits to it’s dumb concept and it rewards those willing to dive in head first.