All of the films reviewed here can be found exclusively on Amazon Prime.
Shotgun Wedding
Darcy Rivera (Jennifer Lopez) and Tom Fowler (Josh Duhamel) are meant to be getting married on a private island in The Philippines. But the couple are having issues and just as they are about to cancel, the entire wedding party is taken hostage by pirates. Coming so soon after Plane, this is a bad year for the Filipino tourist board and like that film this is a lot of fun.
The action and comedy is mixed well by writer Mark Hammer and director Jason Moore. Lopez and Duhamel make a believable couple and there is amusing support from Lenny Kravitz, Sonia Braga, Jennifer Coolidge, and Cheech Marin.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Devotion
The Korean War seems to be featured in far fewer films than either World War 2 or the Vietnam War. The fact this is a story of two naval officers who become heroes in that conflict and one of those, Jesse Brown, was the first African-American aviator for the US Navy, should have made this a lot more compelling than it was. Jonathan Majors is pretty good as Brown but pace is plodding and the script fails to grip.
Rating: 4 out of 10
On The Line
After a brief career resurgence, Mel Gibson seems to be back firmly into straight to streaming territory. However, On The Line stands out from most of his recent output. He plays the boorish radio presenter Elvis Cooney who presents a show starting at midnight each night. One night, he receives a call from Gary (Paul Spera) who claims to have broken into Elvis’ house and is holding his wife and daughter hostage in revenge for Elvis bullying Gary’s fiancée when she worked on his show.
Elvis faces a race against time to save his loved ones. Set almost entirely in the radio station and over the course of just a few hours, this is tense, claustrophobic stuff for most of the running time, with Gibson fitting easily into the role. Unfortunately there are a couple of twists towards the end that let the film down. The first is unexpected but does not really work and the second is very obvious once you know the first!
Rating: 7 out of 10
Somebody I Used to Know
(Alison Brie) co writes, with director Dave Franco, and stars in this romantic drama as Ally. She is a workaholic TV producer who makes a trip back to her hometown. There she meets up with her ex boyfriend Sean (Jay Ellis) and begins to wonder about the choices she has made. This indie drama feels very familiar both in terms of the story and the characters but Brie does a great job making a not completely likeable character one to root for.
Rating: 6 out of 10