This is my monthly round up of films seen at home on services other than Netflix.
Starting with films I saw on Amazon but can be rented on all the usual services:
Somewhere in Queens
This popped up on Amazon with no fanfare, but I was attracted to it by its cast that includes Ray Romano, Laurie Metcalfe and Jennifer Esposito. Romano (who also co-writes and directs) and Metcalfe play Leo and Angelo Russo. Leo has an unfulfilling life working in his Dad’s construction business, but when his otherwise withdrawn son Matthew (Jacob Ward) becomes the star player in his school basketball, Leo takes unusual measures to try to secure Matthew a college place, as much for him as for his son.
Leo’s extended family are drawn with very broad strokes giving some scenes a sitcom feel, especially with the cast on display. However, there is a lot of genuine emotion in the dramatic scenes with all three main performers excelling.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Moving On
Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin star as Claire and Evelyn, two old friends who have drifted apart but who reconnect at a funeral of their old friend. Claire tells her deceased friend’s husband, Howard (Malcom McDowell) that she will kill him. I don’t think Fonda has ever been busier, this is her 4th release of the year, and despite being the only one not to get a cinema run, it is both her best performance and the best of those four films. Writer/director Paul Weitz blends a mixture of comedy and quite dark drama really well. As well as Fonda, both Tomlin and Sarah Burns, as Howard’s daughter, impress.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Over on Sky Movies for subscribers:
All My Puny Sorrows
When Elf von Riesan (Sarah Gadon) feels suicidal, her sister Yoli (Alison Pill) becomes determined to find her a reason to live. This is based on a popular book and it feels very reverential to it, down to the inevitable voice over. Despite Pill’s best efforts, this is very dreary and predictable.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
A cash-strapped documentary maker decides to make his newest documentary about a mollusk shell he finds living in his Airbnb. This animated tale has had fawning reviews but the cloying trailer made me want to vomit so I avoided it in the cinema. Now it is free on Sky, I thought I would take a look. My fears were realised. I found Marcel’s cutesy voice – provided by Jenny Slate, someone I usually like – extremely irritating and the whole film trying way too hard to be sweet.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10
Swallowed
In this horror film written and directed by Carter Smith, two friends living in Maine, who, on their final night out before one of them moves to Los Angeles, end up smuggling drugs via swallowing the sacks. That decision has alarming consequences. I had to sit through a stultifying first half before anything horrific happens to characters I had no interest in.
Rating: 3 out of 10
God is a Bullet
Cop Bob Hightower (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) ignores orders and investigates when his ex-wife is murdered and his daughter is kidnapped. A lot of the behaviour by the kidnappers seems unrealistic, even though this is based on a true story. Also the pace really plods when it should have been a gripping race against time.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Shrapnel
A former Marine and his old war buddy face off against the Mexican cartel behind the disappearance of his daughter. A grim subject matter delivered in a dull way.
Rating: 3 out of 10
Mob Land
A sheriff tries to keep the peace when a desperate family man violently robs a pill mill with his brother-in-law, alerting an enforcer for the New Orleans mafia. John Travolta is top billed as the sheriff though he disappears for large parts of the film. There is nothing at all that you would not have seen before in this crime drama but is efficiently enough done.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
The following can be seen on My5:
The Man With My Husband’s Face
When on a kayaking holiday, a woman spots what looks like her husband. However, he had previously disappeared and presumed drowned. This film has a very predictable plot but also bigger problems. It feels very amateurishly shot and has stilted performances.
Rating: 1.5 out of 10
Look Who’s Stalking
After the death of her stalker, a mother tries to piece her life back together with the help of her new personal assistant. However, she realises she’s being targeted again. Very cheesy, cheap looking and badly acted.
Rating: 2 out of 10
Murders To Die For
When Lacey, a true crime podcaster discovers an unsolved local murder, she finds herself entangled in a deadly game of cat and mouse that exposes the horrible truth behind the killings. This is a cut above most Lifetime movies, with a decent performance by Kate Miner as Lacey, and, apart from a couple of clunky moments, it is well directed by Nicholas Humphries. Seasoned mystery watchers may guess the killer early on, though!
Rating: 6 out of 10
Finally, on Amazon Prime:
Ripper’s Revenge
A year after the Jack the Ripper killings end, they start up again and reporter Sebastian Stubb (Chris Bell) decides to investigate. This sequel to 2021’s Ripper Untold shares all the same problems. The low budget is all too obvious, the acting is patchy, the story simplistic and everyone supposedly living in squalor look far too clean and well groomed! However, it does hold together slightly better than the previous film.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10
Wolf Garden
Wayne David, who also wrote and directed this chiller plays William, who goes into isolated hiding and is haunted by visions of the woman he loves as well as a mysterious creature in the nearby woods. This is a very deliberately paced film, and David shows promise as a director, but the story is very thin.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Cocaine Cougar
In this Cocaine Bear cash in, a black cougar high on cocaine escapes an animal testing facility and wrecks havoc on Los Angeles. This is utterly dreadful, directed in an embarrassingly ham fisted way and replete with painfully mannered performances. Amazingly it took three people to direct this rubbish – Dustin Ferguson, Andy Qualtrough and Erik Anthony Russo! Ferguson has to shoulder most of the blame as he wrote the screenplay and stars as well. At least the run time is less than an hour.
Rating: 1 out of 10
The Burial
In this story, inspired by true events, a lawyer, Willie Gary, helps a funeral home owner, Jeremiah O’Keefe, save his family business from a giant corporation who try to drive him to bankruptcy when pulling out of a deal he has with them. This is an old fashioned courtroom drama, that gives Jamie Foxx gets to give a grandstanding performance as Gary, with Tommy Lee Jones in more restrained form as O’Keefe.
Those courtroom scenes are entertaining though they probably do not resemble the truth too much. However, this classy entertainment with Jurnee Smollett giving a great turn as opposing council and Bill Camp at his sleazy best as the man being sued.
Rating: 7 out of 10