Here is a round up of new films seen at home this month, starting as usual with Amazon Prime:
The Devil’s Mouth
A group of college friends’ Thailand adventure turns deadly when they become trapped in submerged caves with oxygen running low and a dangerous predator hunting them. I will usually watch a new shark movie but this example from Jeff Wadlow has problems that often beset them. The characters are all so annoying that I am pleased when they are munched. Also, in what I imagine was because of budgetary issues, so much of the action happens in darkness.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10
Ballistic
Lena Headey stars as a mother who works in a munitions factory and discovers her son was killed in combat from a bullet made in her own factory. This was marketed as a revenge thriller but it is more of a study of grief and the extreme lengths that someone will go to combat it. Headey is very good and the film packs a punch.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10
On Netflix:
The Last House
A family of four is suddenly sealed inside their house with no way out and must work together to survive against both their dwindling resources and the mysterious, looming threat that is keeping them trapped. That seems like a decent pitch and having Wagner Moura and Greta Lee as leads should have helped. But this is a grindingly boring affair with a very silly ending.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Don’t Say Good Luck
Sophie (Sunny Sandler) is a theatre kid preparing for her leading role in her high school musical of Waitress, when suddenly a family crisis overtakes the drama on stage. As this is a young adult drama, it is no spoiler to say that the crisis is a terminal illness. Pepper that mawkishness with some awful musical numbers and even a talented cast that includes Melanie Lynskey, Steve Buscemi, Bebe Neuwirth and Jon Lovitz cannot save this mess.
Rating: 2.5 out of 10
Over on Sky, subscribers can see:
Seven Snipers
A retired elite sniper (Radha Mitchell) and her daughter (Annabel Wolfe) live a quiet life in the remote Australian countryside. That peace is shattered when a ruthless warlord (Tim Roth) from her past returns for retribution. Despite some absurd moments, this is a decent nuts and bolts action movie given a touch of class by Mitchell and Roth.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Signal One
Scientist Dr. Annika Kask (Isabelle Fuhrman) is recruited by a tech billionaire to join a secret research project aiming to communicate with extra-terrestrial intelligence. When contact is made, they realise that the incoming communication appears to have a potentially dangerous effect on the researchers and the facility they are in. Jonathan Sobol’s talky sci-fi is heavily influenced by Arrival but it has none of that film’s clever plotting or jaw dropping moments. It just plods through a fairly dull story.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10
Mortal Kombat 2
I have not seen the three previous films in the franchise or played the game but the plot of actor Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) being recruited to defeat the tyrannical emperor Shao Kahn is pure poppycock and is tonally all over the place. Urban is playing the whole thing for laughs but we lurch from him sarcastically pointing out how ludicrous everything is, to his co stars po faced pontificating. The CGI and fight scenes are also not impressive.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10
The following can be bought or rented on the usual services:
Moss & Freud
Supermodel Kate Moss (Ellie Bamber) embarks on a journey of self-discovery when acclaimed artist Lucian Freud (Derek Jacobi) offers to paint her portrait. I think we are meant to find Moss an interesting person but she clearly is not and I struggled to buy her continuous ‘poor me’ moaning. What saves this from being a complete dud are the performances of the leads, despite Moss’s shortcomings as a character, and their scenes together in his studio.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nino
Théodore Pellerin stars as Nino, a shy young man who has been surprisingly diagnosed with throat cancer on the eve of his 29th birthday. With his treatment due to start the following week, he needs to tell friends and family but he does not know how to do it. Additionally, having lost his flat keys, he is left to wander the streets of Paris. It is those scenes of Nino aimlessly navigating the city, unable to come to terms with his illness that work the best, We have all received devastating news of one sort or another and director Pauline Loquès captures that feeling of incomprehension quite brilliantly, with the help of the excellent Pellerin. Loquès screenplay, written in collaboration with Maud Ameline is very good at the minutiae of everyday life but Nino’s failed attempts to deliver his news eventually stretch credulity. It does though end with a lovely final scene.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Killer on the Air
Jessica Morris stars as Sarah Williams, the presenter a call in radio show and podcast in which she solves listeners’ emotional dilemmas. It is a popular programme and she is on the verge of signing a big contract in New York. when her phone lines are bombarded by Edward, an aggrieved and apparently abusive husband of a woman who Sarah had previously advised should leave him. I thought the set up had potential, with Sarah and Edward in a cat and mouse game. There is a little bit of this, but it barely raises above its made for TV origins, thanks to its flat direction, by Haylie Duff, and average performances.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10
Colours of Time
Abdelkrim (Zinedine Soualem), fashion photographer Seb (Abraham Wapler), executive Céline (Julia Piaton) and beekeeper Guy (Vincent Macaigne) are estranged cousins who inherit a house in rural Normandy. The government wants to buy it and knock it down to build a mall. They go to view the house together and find pictures of their ancestors and other intriguing items. As they try to retrace the steps of their ancestors, we see one of them, Adele (Suzanne Lindon), make her first trip to Paris in the late 19th century. Films with dual timelines rarely work, but director Cedric Klapisch pulls it off magnificently. Both stories are compelling and they mirror each other deftly. Klapisch and fellow screenwriter Santiago Amigorena skilfully weave in real people into the earlier story with the only misstep being a drug taking sequence. Lindon, Wapler, Piaton and Cecile de France, who plays an art historian, are all excellent.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
The last two films I rented this month provide me with the same conundrum. How to rate something that feels like a very accurate depiction of a subject matter, but, as a result are not entertaining?
In Familiar Touch the impressive Kathleen Chalfant stars as Ruth, an octogenarian woman dealing with cognitive decline. Sarah Friedland’s drama depicts Ruth’s life as she moves into an assisted living facility. It is a very well meaning film and the scenes with Ruth and her son, Steve (H. John Benjamin) are heart tugging but the life at the home is one of frightening boredom.
Two Prosecutors is set in the USSR in 1937. A newly appointed prosecutor, Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) discovers an undestroyed letter from a prisoner that reveals corruption in the secret police, the NKVD. His search for the truth becomes dangerous. Director Sergey Loznitsa painstakingly recreates the stifling bureaucracy at the heart of the regime and the banality of life in the sordid prison. He does a good job of that but it means that the film is painfully slow for a lot of its run time. Kornyev’s mixture of naivety and idealism is well brought to life by Kuznetsov and there is one brilliantly tense scene when he meets the Procurator General played with chilling false civility by Anatoliy Beliy. The last 20 minutes should have been really tense but the twist at the end can be seen a mile off.
Ratings out of 10:
Familiar Touch: 6
Two Prosecutors: 6.5
Finally, on Movies 24, Hallmark is continuing its world tour with diminishing returns.
In Toast to Italy
Jenny’s family traditionally toasts every marriage with a special bottle of wine. When Jenny and her sister realise they lack a bottle for their little sister’s upcoming wedding, Jenny heads to Italy to track the wine down. We get some beautiful scenery to look at, but with a by the numbers romance and the usual cultural stereotypes on display, there is little else to recommend.
Aussie at Heart sees Samara (Rhiannon Fish), a former lawyer now event planner in America travelling to Queensland. She re-unites with Nate (Daniel Lissing), her ex co-worker and rival, to plan a couple’s anniversary. And, do you know what? They begin to fall for each other! Yes, it is as predictable as that, and with the older couple mooning over each other, very sappy. Fish and Lissing lack chemistry but are not helped by the cliched dialogue.
Ratings out of 10:
Toast to Italy: 3
Aussie at Heart: 3.5