Home Team
Most years, there will be a Kevin James comedy pop up on Netflix. This one is a little more serious than most, telling the true story of New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton who was suspended from his team ion 2012 after being suspected of instructing his players to deliberately hurt the opposition. He takes a trip to Texas to see his teenage son who lives with Sean’s ex-wife and ends up coaching his American Football team.
This story is probably not familiar to most UK viewers, but most people will see exactly where it is going, as he turns around the team that always loses, bonds with his son and learns something along the way. Pretty watchable but I think James works best in sitcoms.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
My Best Friend Anne Frank
There have been many films and books about the tragic young girl. This is different as it is based on the recollections of her best friend, Hannah Goslar who co-operated in the production. It goes out of the way to show that Anne and Hannah were normal young girls before the war, but does it to the point that the film becomes quite dull. As the girls’ situation become desperate, the film picks up, but, and it feels bad in saying this about such a well intentioned movie, there is nothing new.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
The Tinder Swindler
The last film I watched before The Tinder Swindler was an old British B Movie called The Embezzler in which a smooth talking conman sweet talked a lady into giving him her jewellery. These days such cons are done online, as demonstrated by Simon Leviev in this slick documentary. Posing as a billionaire playboy, he meets women on the dating app and takes huge amounts of money from them in a Ponzi scheme.
This unfolds like a thriller but does sag a little once his crimes are fully explained. Also the victims who claim they are looking for a sweet man with a sense of humour unfortunately don’t come out of this well either, as they all fall in love with an arrogant supposedly mega-rich guy after one date!
Rating: 6.5 out of 10
Through the Window
This strange Spanish drama has a plot seemingly aimed at teens – a young woman, Racquel, falls for Ares, her handsome mysterious neighbour and sets about winning his affections – but with nudity and quite graphic sex.
Clara Galle provides a sparky presence as Racquel but as Ares treats her really badly, I am not sure of the message of the film as she continues to pursue him, and not her sweet best friend who loves her, despite his unpleasant behaviour.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Looop Lapeta
A woman tries to save her boyfriend when he loses a mobster’s money in this dismal Indian crime movie. Frantically incoherent, badly acted and Aakash Bhatia directs using a series of annoying visual ticks that even Guy Ritchie would baulk at.
Rating: 2 out of 10
The Privilege
The start of The Privilege did not bode well. The plot involving weird supernatural events and a possible conspiracy seemed very muddled and I struggled to care about the usual bunch of rich kids at a public school. However, as things settled down, I did become curious about what was going on in this mixture of thriller, horror and sci-fi, that had a few neat touches and some good performances.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Into the Wind
An alleged romantic comedy from Poland populated by boring characters and made even more tedious by extended kite surfing sequences.
Rating: 3 out of 10
The Tall Girl 2
If you have not see 2019’s Tall Girl, you can still watch this sequel as they provide a handy summary of the first film at the start. I suppose it must have had sufficient appeal in the teen market to warrant this follow-up, but the pains and triumphs of the unusually tall Jodi continue to leave me cold.
Rating: 3 out of 10
Love Tactics
The plot outline – an ad executive and a fashion designer don’t believe in love, so they place a bet to make the other fall head over heels – sounds like it has been ripped out of the Hallmark play book. But, whilst those films are usually blandly tolerable, Love tactics is plain horrible. The use of sweeping clichés manages to be offensive to both men and women, and the acting is universally bad.
Rating: 1 out of 10
Bigbug
Set during an android uprising in 2045, this tedious sci-fi movie looks great but the story drags badly. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet used to be a significant film maker, but his hey day is a long way in the past,
Rating: 2.5 out of 10
Downfall: The Case Against Boeing
In 1997, Boeing merged with rival McDonnell Douglas. In the process, it ditched its stringent safety protocols and reduced its pilot training, in an attempt to maximise profits for the new partnership. The result of that decision was 2 hideous crashes of their 737 Max jet and the loss of 346 lives.
I was aware of those disasters but not of the back story and for those in a similar position, this is eye opening stuff. The sheer greed, arrogance and lack of real remorse of the company management is shocking but not surprising. Neither is the $60 million dollar plus payoff for the CEO sacked once the company failings become known.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Last Man Down
I guess we need to get used to Covid inspired post-pandemic apocalyptic dramas like this turgid effort from Fansu Njie. The formulaic film is only notable for a terrible lead performance from Daniel Stisen. He is haunted by his past and living on his wits, off grid, so he has to look surly and communicate only in a gruff whisper. Tedious.
Rating: 2 out of 10
Fistful of Vengeance
Plunged straight into a story of the Chinese Triads in San Francisco, I was left completely baffled. A little research, and I discovered that this is a sequel to a Netflix series Wu Assassin. Fans of that may enjoy this, but for me it was a confusing hectic mix of bad dialogue and badly staged fight scenes.
Rating: 2 out of 10
Anne +
This film about a gay Dutch woman navigating a complicated love life is also based on a TV series, This does not require the viewer to have seen the show in order to follow the plot, but having done so may mean that they are more interested in the characters than I was.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Don’t Kill Me
A dim-witted teen girl takes a drug overdose with her idiot boyfriend. He dies but she comes back to life though, in order to survive, must feed on living humans. I really did not care about her or the people she was munching on.
Rating: 2.5 out of 10
13 Minutes
There has been a resurgence in disaster movies in recent years, which can only be a good thing. 13 Minutes separates itself from the crowd by taking time to invest in the lives of the characters of a small American town who are about to be hit by a tornado. When the storm does hit, the limited budget becomes pretty apparent but this still packs a punch.
The impressive cast includes Thora Birch, Anne Heche, and Peter Facinelli, with Amy Smart and Paz Vega doing really good work, but it is Travis Farncombe and Lindsay Gossling’s screenplay that is the star of the show.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Even I am not old enough to have seen the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on its initial release in 1974! I did see a battered print on a re-release in the 1990s and the quality of it added to the scary, almost documentary-like feel of the movie. This 9th film in the franchise is set in the present day but as a direct sequel to that first film, the same trick as used in the Halloween series recently.
A group of young people turn up in a near deserted town with the idea of re-generating it, but they run into Leatherface instead. This works much better than you might expect. With the protagonists billed as ‘influencers’ I was ready to will them to their deaths but they turn out to be not that awful. This is much slicker than the original and more gory but David Blue Garcia marshals things well, and it benefits from having the brilliant Elsie Fisher in the cast.
Rating: 7 out of 10
11M: Terror in Madrid
Finally for this month, another hard hitting documentary, The subject is the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which is the worst terrorist attack in European history. The events of the day are covered but the focus is on the aftermath and the corrupt government’s failed attempt to pin the blame on ETA in order to boost their election chances. Shocking and quite depressing.
Rating: 8 out of 10