Rush Hour - 3/5

This movie is one of the better examples of Jackie Chan’s foray into western moviemaking. It directly addresses the east-meets-west nature of the film and makes it the central narrative conceit. As always the martial arts is great and Jackie gets several scenes in which to show off his moves and it’s filmed well enough to give the audience a good view of the action, unlike many of his other western films. Chris Tucker’s humor is annoying to me, but if you enjoy him you should definitely check out this movie.

Closest comparison: It’s like Shanghai Knights with cops instead of cowboys.

Setting: Buddy Cop
Plot: Police Procedural
Tone: Action Comedy

Invincible (Amazon, 2021) - 3/5

This show takes the Spider-Man high school drama, combines it with a broader Avengers-style narrative, and wraps it all up in the gore that is much more realistic to the physics at work. The story isn’t as clever as it thinks it is, but it keeps the audience sufficiently curious and pays it off decently well in the end. It certainly lags in the middle and a few of the main side characters are insufferable, but they’re not a big enough part to ruin it completely. If you can stomach the extreme gore, it’s a fascinating watch.

Content warning: extreme violence, extreme blood, extreme gore

Closest comparison: It’s like Spider-Man by way of Kick-Ass with a Dexter (2006) plot woven in.

Setting: Marvel-Adjacent Super Heroes
Plot: Super Hero Origin
Tone: Brutal Action

Blind Fury (1989) - 3/5

This movie starts off with high-competence action and ends off with a little too much goofy slapstick. The premise is solid and it’s ultimately a fun ‘80s action romp, though some of the blind swordsman antics are somewhat less than believable. It’s a mishmash of genres which may put some people off, but it manages to tie it together pretty well in the end.

Closest comparison: It’s walking the line between Lethal Weapon and Three Ninjas.

Setting: Road Trip
Plot: On-The-Run
Tone: Action

The Man from Nowhere (2010) - 3/5

This movie is extremely dark and upsetting. It doesn’t shy away from any subject matter, but often has the decency to keep it just off-screen. Instead of an action-packed thrill ride like many of its peers this film has only a couple of fight scenes, preferring instead to dwell on the menace arising from the main character’s inability to act in the face of depravity. The sparse action scenes are choppily constructed, making them hard to follow and exchange enjoyment of form for expression of tone. Still, it’s coherent and well-told overall, so if you have no content aversion you may enjoy the meager, eventual catharsis.

Content warning: child abuse, organ trafficking

Closest comparison: It’s like You Were Never Really Here by way of Oldboy.

Setting: Crime
Plot: Action
Tone: Horrific Tragedy

The Tomorrow War - 2/5

This movie’s visuals are as amazing as the plot is baffling. The monsters look great and the action is well choreographed for the most part, but the film undercuts the tension by setting up rules about the monsters and then completely ignoring them. There’s no angle from which you can think about the time travel that makes sense, but if you can turn your brain off completely and manage to not think about how or why anything is happening this could be a pretty fun movie.

Closest comparison: It’s like reverse Terminator with monster vibes from Pitch Black.

Setting: Sci-Fi
Plot: Action
Tone: Action

The Maltese Falcon (1941) - 4/5

This movie hits all the film noir staples, from the world-weary private eye hired by a dame at the end of her rope, to the twisting larger-than-life narrative. It stays very close to the source material, which portrays its protagonist as if Dashiell Hammett had Humphrey Bogart in mind. Its characters are complex and subtle, so casual viewers will be easily lost, but a more attentive audience will be rewarded with an intricate web of lies and deceit. There’s no substitute for the golden dialogue delivery and pre-war era style that easily cements itself as a time-tested classic.

Closest comparison: It’s like a less sleazy Chinatown by way of The Big Sleep (1946).

Setting: Drama
Plot: Detective
Tone: Noir

Dial M for Murder - 4/5

This film is a deft illustration of the Hitchcockian principle of letting the audience in on a dastardly secret, rendering the ensuing mundane scenes rivetingly tense. The most simple and natural occurrences become plot twists and Alfred Hitchcock effortlessly ushers the story along to its nail-biting conclusion. By beginning with letting the audience know that a man wants to kill his wife, he imparts a morbid curiosity and sense of impending doom into every word and gesture. It’s standard Hitchcock fare, and as such it’s superb.

Closest comparison: It’s like an episode of Columbo as told by Alfred Hitchcock.

Setting: Drama
Plot: Mystery
Tone: Suspense

The Frame (2014) - 3/5

This is an uneven slow drama with some good ideas and several good attempts at acting. After a bit of action in the beginning, most of its runtime mills around the same intellectual ground without attempting any progress until the last 20 minutes. There are some great camera tricks that convey not a whole lot, though the film seems to think it’s profound. Still, it’s much better indie film making than most, and it neither comes together nor falls apart completely.

Closest comparison: It’s like Frequency by way of Ink.

Setting: Crime
Plot: Sci-Fi
Tone: Drama

Scorched Earth (2018) - 2/5

This is a lackluster, low budget, post-apocalyptic attempt at cool action that almost becomes decent. The acting is stage quality for the most part, and while the story has good bones it doesn’t have the writing to carry it through. The film plays fast and loose with the rules of its world and doesn’t rely on them to drive the story or play heavily into its characters, which makes impotent one of its stronger points — the setting. There are enough good bones to this movie, however, that I would be very interested in seeing a big budget remake.

Closest comparison: It’s like Domino (2005) by way of The Book of Eli, but with a much smaller budget.

Setting: Western
Plot: Sci-Fi
Tone: Action

Death Becomes Her - 1/5

This is a self-aware black comedy that tries to ham it up but fails miserably. I usually enjoy macabre humor but this was too cheesy, too plastic, too over-the-top corny for me to enjoy. Instead of making jokes about death, it uses uncanny body disfigurement as the punchline without bothering to provide humor to go along with it. None of the actors are making an effort to be charismatic, but instead feel like they’re relying on their fame to carry their performance and expecting the audience to be won over by their mere presence. This is a dud that has rightfully faded into obscurity.

Content warning: partial female nudity

Closest comparison: It’s like Bruce Willis at the height of his narcissistic hubris trying to imitate Tim Burton’s style and failing.

Setting: Tawdry Drama
Plot: Comedy Horror
Tone: Black Comedy

Risen (2016) - 4/5

This is an unusual film, taking the story of Christ’s resurrection from the perspective of a roman soldier investigating “the case of the missing Jew”. It’s very grounded in its presentation and has excellent production values, unlike almost any other Christian movies. It doesn’t contradict any of the historical accounts but fills in the gaps with practical speculation to tell a story. If you haven’t seen it and you’re even a little bit interested it’s definitely worth a watch.

Closest comparison: It’s like The Passion of the Christ by way of The Eagle (2011).

Setting: Sword and Sandal Epic
Plot: Investigation
Tone: Action/Drama

Kickboxer (1989) - 1/5

This movie is a failure on every level. It sacrifices its acting, plot, and all but the most contrived character motivation in favor of its fight scenes, but even those are hot garbage. The camera edits remove all sense of skill and it cuts around almost every hit so all that’s left are vapid muscle-flexing, body-oiled shots of Van Damme posing. It’s not worth your time.

Content warning: female nudity

Closest comparison: It’s like Street Fighter (1994) by way of Bloodsport.

Setting: Sports
Plot: Revenge
Tone: Action

Mortal Kombat (2021) - 4/5

This is a love letter to fans of the video game, and delivers in a long, long string of mostly one-on-one fights with just enough plot in between to give us an idea of the character motivations in play. Instead of completely neglecting substance in favor of style, it settles for nuggets of hard-hitting character motivation that doesn’t get in the way of what the audience is there to see: awesome action. A few of the fights are a bit too dark or overly edited, but that still leaves a good dozen or so great fights. Not that it’s a high bar, but this is the best video game movie to date.

Content warning: some gore, some language

Closest comparison: It the visual sensibilities The Great Wall with the non-stop fight scenes of The Raid.

Setting: Action
Plot: Action
Tone: Action

The Long Goodbye (1973) - 3/5

This is a sleazy ‘70s version of a ‘40s noir detective thriller, and it works out for the most part. Elliott Gould gives the performance of his career in his own take on the legendary Bogart character, chewing the scenery and irresistibly becoming the best thing about this movie by far. The plot meanders to its passable destination by a workable route, building the world more than the suspense and delivering neither more nor less than it promises. Your enjoyment of this film will vary directly by how much you enjoy or are bothered by its sleaze.

Content warning: female nudity

Closest comparison: It’s like The Big Sleep (1946) by way of Chinatown (1974).

Setting: Noir
Plot: Detective
Tone: Crime

The Big Sleep (1946) - 4/5

This is a detective film noir classic, complete with downtrodden detective and a sense of smoky mystique hanging in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife and it would stay cut. The story strolls along while the actors chew the scenery and the audience forgets itself for the duration. It manages to tackle the tawdry subsurface dealings of the rich and famous with dignity, without stooping to the sleaze of its ‘70s counterparts. The dialogue, acting, and overall filmmaking here is good, but the main draw here is the atmosphere that mesmerizes as only the noir genre can.

Closest comparison: It’s like The Maltese Falcon (1941) by way of Dark Passage (1947).

Setting: Noir
Plot: Detective
Tone: Noir

Detour (1945) - 3/5

This is a solid, small-scale film noir with real stakes to make the best use of its low budget. The slippery slope story is a bit too ‘couldn’t he just’ to truly sell its tension, though, and if it weren’t for a great ending this film would have been lost to time. As it is, it’s a solid entry in the film noir genre and an interesting 68 minute diversion.

Closest comparison: It’s like a cross between The Petrified Forest (1936) and The Woman in the Window (1944).

Setting: Drama
Plot: Man on the Run
Tone: Noir

The Night of the Hunter (1955) - 4/5

This movie’s insidious antagonist is so iconic he’s been mimicked in everything from Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing to The Punisher (Netflix, Season 2). It’s tense and terrifying, and elicits a palpable sense of Hitchcockian suspense. At times it seems to buck the three act narrative structure which lends it a sense of fear of the unknown, keeping the audience in the dark about where the story is going. For those who enjoy the existential dread of dark secrets in members of their community, this is a must-watch.

Content warning: marital abuse

Closest comparison: It’s like Parasite (2019) by way of Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Setting: Western Drama
Plot: Thriller Noir
Tone: Family In Peril

In a Lonely Place (1950) - 4/5

This is a classic film noir that overemphasizes the self-destruction of its protagonist without providing much impetus for it. There are setups and payoffs, but disconnected from one another so they seem to come a bit out of nowhere. Now that we have that out of the way, of course it’s always a treat to see the legendary Humphrey Bogart plying his trade. The story is a good, well-conceived tragedy that holds up over time and delivers on its unsettling slow-build tension. If tragedy noir is your jam, this is a must-see.

Closest comparison: It’s the self-destruction of Raging Bull in the garb of The Maltese Falcon.

Setting: Drama
Plot: Tragedy
Tone: Noir

The Cassandra Crossing - 3/5

This is a competent disaster movie, incorporating vehicle, disease, and political corruption in a well-balanced combo. Unfortunately much of the drama is moot. We know what the problems are that the characters are trying to figure out for much of the time, but it’s still played for suspense without realizing it’s undercut its own tension. There’s a good bait-and-switch mini-mystery and several exciting sequences that keep the film from going under, and at the end of the day it still lands on its feet.

Closest comparison: It’s like Unstoppable by way of Murder on the Orient Express (1974).

Setting: Disaster
Plot: Political Thriller
Tone: Thriller

Hot Shots! (1991) - 2/5

This is a tired product of the Jim Abrahams machine, cranked out after all-time comedy greats Airplane! and Police Squad! generated the interest. Most of the jokes are non-sequitur visual gags like the ‘instruments’ joke in Airplane!, which work for sparse surprise comedy but here get redundant with overuse. Many of the jokes will elicit a chuckle, but none really merit the gut-busting laughs like previous films did. It’s worth watching for fans of Jim Abrahams, but everyone else can give it a miss.

Closest comparison: It’s Top Gun getting the Airplane! treatment.

Setting: Action
Plot: Action
Tone: Screwball Comedy