MrHlad

Two good actresses in a woefully predictable story. I'm quite surprised that Aneesh Chaganty made such a useless film after the brilliant and original Searching.

An old-school thriller about a tough guy who has to figure out how to survive in prison as a snitch who's been thrown under the bus by his bosses. Joel Kinnaman tries hard, and there are a few excellently shot and suspenseful scenes, it's just that the whole of The Informer kind of unnecessarily steamrolls forward without giving the side characters the attention they deserve and that the makers probably would have wanted. It's quite a shame, because all it would hae taken was a little and this good movie could have been a great one.

A gang war is raging in Marseilles and the local cops are right in the middle of it. But not everyone is kicking for the good guys, and the head of the local special unit has to figure out how to save his colleagues when those who should be fighting with them are also on the side of the enemy. Rogue City is a proper cop drama that can be pretty tough, too. Too bad director and writer Olivier Marchal felt he had to surprise the viewer with a twist every ten minutes. Less is sometimes more, and this is an example where it would have been worth stepping on the brakes a bit, because at times Rough City becomes slightly laughable.

I enjoyed the first Borat back in the day. It was my first encounter with Sacha Baron Cohen, and I roared with laughter at it because his ability to hide clever satire behind extremely vulgar jokes simply amused me. I'm all the more fascinated that in Borat 2 this is not only practically non-existent, but downright absent. Instead of more caustic savagery, Cohen made a pretty OK, if not actually very interesting, comedy about a Central Asian douchebag bonding with his daughter. It's not particularly interesting because Borat as such was never really a classic character and now Cohen would like me to approach him that way as a viewer. Only that I can't when there aren't even the foundations for something that would like to be a touching comedy and is largely a normal feature film. And then there are the Borat scenes. Michael Pence must have been very upset, and Robert Giuliani and his PR department must be having a hard time sleeping right now, but otherwise? Borat tries to shock, trick or fool a candy maker, a phone salesman, a printer and fax machine salesman and a few well-meaning (if a bit dim) rednecks, and they all more or less don't care. And me too, actually. As a Borat comedy, it's practically all over the place, and if I accept the idea that Cohen actually wanted to make a slightly different film with a slightly different theme, I have to wonder why the hell he did it with Borat in to begin with.

The likeable Dylan O'Brien embarks on a long journey across America, where mankind has lost the war against giant monsters, and he wants to find his lost girlfriend. Only he's kind of an incompetent dork. Love and Monsters initially looks like a very cheesy rip-off of Zombieland, whose creators had perhaps not a single idea of their own, but somewhere in the middle it breaks and this adventure romance with a bunch of monsters finds its own style and starts to deftly balance between humour, action, romance and more dramatic moments. It's a good watch. Too bad the film doesn't find its own face until so late. The rip-off of Zombieland was almost embarrassing at times.

Adam Sandler and perhaps the worst movie of his career. And he clearly doesn't care. But the worst thing about this story of a moron who gets on everyone's nerves by trying to ensure safety during Halloween is his apparent unwillingness to try to do anything. Just a blathering Sandler, a few cameos from his buddies, and another night of Netflix killed. Even Sandler himself can't enjoy doing this anymore.

David is a 16-year-old goalkeeper who just transferred to a new team, and it's not going to be easy. His teammates are tough and they've sensed the perfect target for bullying. The ambitious father is doing everything he can to help his son succeed, but what he doesn't see is that he's doing more harm than good, and diabetes is also a problem. It's a bit much for David, and it's only a matter of time before things get overwhelming for him. The Pack is an accomplished and believable drama with a good cast, natural dialogue and brisk direction. Its only significant problem is the fact that debutant Tomas Polensky bites into a lot of interesting themes and subplots that eventually fizzle out a bit. Still, a pleasant surprise.

What I enjoyed most about Unhinged out was watching Russell Crowe and his attempt to not overact, lest the rest of the film suck. He mostly succeeds, although in a few scenes it's obvious he has to hold back a lot. Otherwise, though, I really struggle to find anything here that would make me recommend this generic thriller to anyone. The action scenes and chases are shot without any ideas, the supporting characters are only lightly sketched, and the ninety minutes damn near drag on. Moreover, thanks to the montage of real events that they drop on us along with the opening credits, it's obvious that Unhinged would dearly love to be not only a thriller, but a commentary on the current stress-ridden America. Unfortunately, however, it's too simple and unentertaining for that. In fact, if Russell Crowe wasn't in it, I don't believe the film would have made it into theaters. In fact, I don't think anyone would have been interested. There's nothing to it.

Mulan lost its fairytale quality while failing to turn into an epic adventure for the whole family. A lot of scenes are completely unrelated to each other, the characters' motivations and goals change depending on how the film needs it, the action scenes are lousy, and the spectacular battle is downright ridiculous. Yifei Liu isn't charismatic or particularly convincing, Jet Li clearly would have liked to be somewhere else entirely, and Donnie Yen practically doesn't need to be here. And as a bonus, the typically ridiculous Asian pathos. Bad film. And if it really cost $200 million, they should hire some handy auditors at Disney, because it's actually pretty ugly too. The star is for the costumes.

A little bit of Cyrano, a dash of John Hughes, a lot of classic coming of age story from small town America, all wrapped up in a classic indie package. Very nice.