Suffragette (2015)

Directed by Sarah Gavron
Country: USA

Movie Review: Sarah Gavron’s “Suffragette” is a fact-based period drama, set in London, whose intention is to dramatize a notable span in the life of the 24-year-old laundress, Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), who joins a feminine movement to fight for the women’s rights in a society dominated by often abusive men who are not willing to give up their prolonged hegemony. Noble intentions aside, the film works very intermittently, only managing to escape the extreme banality due to the great performances of a cast that besides Mulligan also includes Anne Marie-Duff, Helena Bonham Carter, and the revered Meryl Streep, in the kind of a cameo appearance, as the movement’s fugitive leader. The intended riotous tones scarcely hit me, maybe because Ms. Gavron decided to include a lame musical score into a drama that proved problematic in terms of direction. Her sophomore feature exhibits annoying zooms and unsteady frames, and is more concerned with drawing some tears from the viewers rather than exhibiting these women's great deeds with vigor and straightforwardness. This way, what should have been a catching and powerful work, becomes a conventional, tepid melodrama.

Irrational Man (2015)

Directed by Woody Allen
Country: USA

Movie Review: “Irrational Man” is an existentialist trifle engendered by Woody Allen, likely the most prolific director in the active nowadays. Even counting on a talented cast, which includes Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, and Parker Posey, Mr. Allen was unable to put up his latest idea in a way we could easily remember it. And the reason is simple: “Irrational Man” blends romance devoid of chemistry with commonplace drama with a murder case that, in any occasion, feels gripping. Typically in Allen’s universes, the dialogues are abundant, only this time around, often vapid, relying on recurrent philosophical bullshit to mask its lack of ideas. The story revolves around a depressed, radical, alcoholic, and self-destructive professor called Abe Lucas (Phoenix) who gets infatuated with two women: Rita (Posey), a lonely fellow teacher who’s always ready for a few drinks, and Jill (Stone), his brightest student who dumps her boyfriend as she grows fatally attracted to Abe’s woe. All of a sudden, the romantic teacher abandons his gloomy state at the moment he decides to murder a local judge. The crime is perpetrated with no doubts or repent, but his sagacious lovers turned into investigators won’t let him get away with it. “Irrational Man” is another minor work by the old Woody, who insists on making a film per year, even if he has to often sacrifice quality. Lately, only “Blue Jasmine” escapes this reality. “To Rome with Love”, “Magic in the Moonlight”, and this very irrational sham, are the ones to confirm it.

1001 Grams (2014)

Directed by Bent Hamer
Country: Norway / Germany

Movie Review: “1001 Grams” is a low-key Norwegian drama written, produced, and directed by Bent Hamer and starring Ane Dahl Torp, Laurent Stocker, Stein Winge, and Hildegun Riise. If Mr. Hamer had caused a very positive impression by using an unconventional storytelling in his past dramatic comedies, “Kitchen Stories”, “Factotum” and “O’Horten”, now I must confess I was a bit disappointed with this cold pseudo-scientific experience. The story’s central character is Marie Ernst (Torp), a valuable element of the team that works at the Norwegian Metrology Center, which next goal is to present their kilogram prototype, which has to be handled with extreme care, at an important kilo seminar in Paris. The brain behind the experiments is her father, Ernst Ernst (Winge), an old-school investigator and widower who misses his wife more than anything else, lately spending his days drinking alone and sleeping on his farm’s hay. Weak, unmotivated to work, and consumed by guilt about how he put away his younger brother from the inherited family farm, Ernst ends up in the hospital with a heart attack, dying a few days after talking to Marie for the last time. Marie is not a happy person either. She’s still trying to cope with a recent divorce and practically only speaks with Wenche (Riise), a co-worker who plays the role of a confidante, even if the glacial Marie always enforces some distance between them. Marie starts traveling on a regular basis to Paris to attend the awaited seminar, in which the boring scientific discussions put a few participants asleep. There, she gets to know a French physician and professor, Pi (Stocker), also a part-time gardener, becoming very attached to him and eventually finding the love that had disappeared from her life for a while. Enjoying the company of each other, they form an efficient and helpful team in all circumstances. Marie helps Pi with his challenging research project about birds’ song and communication while Pi gets the right person to fix the kilo’s capsule when Marie has a car accident. The film is comforting in a certain way, but also too introspective and often inexpressive, moving at a snail-pace and being incapable of drawing any special vibrancy of the characters and situations. It’s a case to say that “1001 Grams” was much lighter than it promised, abandoning me dead cold on my seat. A word of appreciation to Mr. Hamer’s habitual cinematographer, John Christian Rosenlund, whose beautiful color palettes administer a pleasant warmness, a factor the story could never provide by itself.

Joy (2015)

Directed by David O. Russell
Country: USA

Movie Review: The magnificent, fruitful, and long-lasting collaboration between the American film director, David O. Russell, and the trendy actors, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, mirrored in “Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle”, was now shaken. I’m saying this because “Joy”, a semi-fictional comedy-drama inspired by the real life of Joy Mangano, a divorced mother turned into a respectful businesswoman after inventing the Miracle Mop, is a minor film whose story, narrated by her deceased grandmother, uses the same goofy tones of a soap-opera. Here, business and family play a strong role, but the story is deficiently constructed, wriggling and wriggling without finding solid ground to stabilize. The utterly banal storytelling and the ungracious humor, help to defraud my expectations, confirming this one as part of the disappointments of the year. Ms. Lawrence’s performance, not as bad as the film itself, still gives us some hope. However, she ultimately remains opaque in her trajectory, dragged by the superficiality and boredom that are mostly felt after the film’s first hour, time when Mr. Cooper, perhaps playing the worst role in his career, is elusively introduced as a highly patient and not less docile executive for the QVC, a multinational corporation specialized in televised home shopping. This time around, the versatility of Mr. Russell was meager, taking into account that the comedy was parched in humor, and the dramatic side presents tremulous emotions. He roundly misfires whenever attempting to create funny situations among Joy’s family members, relying on pointless details that have to do with the one-dimensional characters whose recurrent behaviors would have to be well designed not to feel washed-out. I’m talking about Joy’s father, played intermittently by Robert De Niro, an energetic man whose bad temper softens heavily after his first appearance, and also the affable ex-husband, Toni (Edgar Ramirez), a Venezuelan pop singer who still lives in her basement. “Joy” or ‘how to mop your house without spreading germs all over the place’, is an accidental misstep of a much-admired filmmaker, who hopefully, in his next move, will overcome this compromising mediocrity.

In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

Directed by: Ron Howard
Country: USA

Movie Review: Ron Howard’s new blockbuster, “In The Heart of The Sea”, equipped with the conventional strategies and artifacts that characterize Hollywood for the better and for the worst, brings us the tragedy involving the Essex, an American whaleship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, sunk in 1820 by the invincible power and resilient desire of vengeance of a sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean. Charles Leavitt’s script, drinking from the novel "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" by Nathaniel Philbrick, starts conveying the urgency of the celebrated writer, Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw), in knowing the facts that led to the wreck of Essex, told by the last survivor of its crew, Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), who at the time was only 14 when he was accepted as a cabin boy. Reluctantly, the still tormented and alcoholic, Thomas, agrees to tell the whole story in exchange of money, persuaded by his tactful wife. His recollections would become the inspiration for the fictional ‘Moby Dick’, an astoundingly descriptive classic book whose readers are more likely to classify this cinematic experience as an overambitious fiasco since its storytelling and imagery were insufficient to create an adventure of the same size of the whale it displays. According to the storyteller, this is a story of two men: Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker), who relies on his family name to adopt a superior attitude, and his first officer, Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth), a brave sailor who got his feelings hurt when he was denied the position of captain to embark this newly arrived ship. As expected, and before the violent attack by the monstrous whale that leaves the crew drifting at sea for 90 days on small boats, there’s a storm that slightly debilitates the ship and increases the antagonism between the two main leaders. Fairly acceptable until this moment, the film starts abruptly to sink more and more into the blurry waters of sluggishness and sentimental manipulation, without delivering truly exciting moments or adding relevant elements to pull us out of its insipid drama. Mr. Howard’s ample career, fluctuating between hits (“Frost/Nixon”, “Rush”) and misses (“Da Vinci Code”, “The Dilemma”), goes through another setback with this ocean-going misadventure. While the ambitions are wide, the results are embarrassingly narrow.

Assassination (2015)

Directed by: Choi Dong-hoon
Country: South Korea

Movie Review: Set in 1933, “Assassination” is a historical espionage thriller that focuses on the Korean resistance movement created in the aftermath of the Japanese invasion of Korea. Plotting against the Japanese leaders, a group of exiled rebels, operating from Manchuria, China, seek to avenge the fall of their country in the hands of the illegitimate occupiers and recover what was taken from them. The assassinations are planned to occur in Gyeongseong (Seoul), and the targets include the Japanese high-ranked commander, Kawaguchi, and a pro-Japanese Korean businessman, Kang In-gook. The only one capable of leading this mission is An Ok-yun (Jun Ji-hyun), an infallible sniper who has first to be released from a Shanghai prison, where she’s serving time with her dauntless mates: the guns' aficionado, Big Gun, and the expert in explosives, Hwang Deok-sam. In charge of taking them out of the prison is Yeom Seok-jin, an agent of the provisional Korean government who had managed to escape out of prison in 1911. Embracing the risky mission with all her strength, An Ok-yun will also have the chance to meet with her estranged twin sister, Mitsuko, who was separated from her when they were babies, and now is going to marry commander Kawaguchi. The mission becomes even more complicated when she finds out there’s an informer among her comrades. Moreover, two inexorable assassins, Hawaii Pistol and his follower, Old Man, were hired to destroy the team and stop the mission. Director and co-writer, Choi Dong-hoon, who had fairly entertained me in his previous “The Thieves”, could have done much better here. Sadly, the several conspiracies, ambushes, traps, and shootouts, are presented with a phoniness that pushed me away from the story in an early stage. Mr. Dong-hoon, regardless having recreated the period with nice looking images by the cinematographer, Kim Woo-hyung, assembled a cheap Hollywood imitation thwarted by a scattered narrative, convoluted plot, lack of conviction in choosing the direction to be taken, and indistinguishable characters that didn’t show sufficient arguments to make us care. In addition, the excessive duration of the movie increases the viewer’s discouragement in the face of an inept execution that never spoke with a voice of its own.

Man Up (2015)

Directed by: Ben Palmer
Country: UK / France

Movie Review: “Man Up”, Ben Palmer’s second comedy in four years after the humdrum “The Inbetweeners Movie”, starts feverishly interesting but eventually decreases in quality in the second half where the clichés and fabricated romantic situations take hold of the screwball scenario set in the modern London. The charismatic Lake Bell (“In a World…”) plays the unmarried 34-year-old Nancy, whose first appearance is in front of a hotel room’s mirror, talking to herself while trying to gain sufficient confidence to participate in her friends' themed wedding party. Even fed up of dating and having no high expectations on love, Nancy will become the protagonist of a mind-boggling situation when she mistakenly goes on a blind date with Jack, played by the great Simon Pegg (“Hot Fuzz”, “Shaun of the Dead”), an online marketing manager who’s about to divorce his wife. Nancy was simply taken by the odd circumstances of being in a train station, at the right time, with the book ‘Six billion people and you’ in her hand, the same book that Jessica (Ophelia Lovibond), the one Jack was initially to meet with, was supposed to carry to signalize her presence. Nancy decides to miss her family party, and totally embraces this unanticipated opportunity. Despite the mention of a huge jalapeño between her teeth, the couple has lots of fun and the conversation flows without embarrassments, only until Nancy bumps into Shaun (Rory Kinnear), a disturbing old school friend who happens to be the barman at the bowling pub where they were playing. Shaun demands to Nancy nothing else but a blowjob not to reveal her secret to Jack, who gets really upset when he finds them in the restroom. The truth is unveiled not without the indispensable arguments, and the things only calm down again when they decide to have a drink at the bar where Jack’s wife usually pops up. The film’s pose oscillates between casual and sassy while the dialogue, often peppered with unsuccessful sex jokes, was never too creative or smart to cheer me up. Unfortunately, the actors’ efforts weren’t enough to make us forget the constant ups and downs of Tess Morris’ screenwriting, which reaches its weaker point with the weary, ridiculous finale.

Nasty Baby (2015)

Directed by: Sebastian Silva
Country: USA / Chile

Movie Review: Chilean actor-director Sebastian Silva, who charmed the indie fans with a couple movies to be treasured such like “The Maid” and “Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus”, returns with a let-down right after the disappointing “Magic Magic” dated from two years ago. In his latest Chilean-American production, “Nasty Baby”, he plays Freddy, a homosexual artist, residing in New York, who wants to have a baby with his partner, Mo (Tunde Adebimpe). The vehicle for their intentions is Freddy’s best friend, Polly (Kristen Wiig), a nurse who agrees to function as a surrogate womb and shows to be as much excited as the couple. Despite the efforts, which lasted for six months with multiple artificial inseminations, Polly can’t get pregnant due to Freddy’s low sperm count. The solution for this problem is obviously Mo who would become the sperm donor, a serious call that he responds affirmatively with the advice of his beloved mother. This first part of the film is inconsistent and often drags with boredom. Despite the naturalistic performances, in which the sensational Wiig stands out, the drama’s expressiveness feels somehow parched both in depth and enthusiasm. Nevertheless, Mr. Silva’s screenplay manages to raise the levels of excitement when, in its second act, depicts the couple’s disputes with a crazy neighbor known as The Bishop (Reg E. Cathey), a situation that aggravates more and more, ending up in a sad tragedy and subsequent questionable behaviors. Throughout the film, we’re given the opportunity to observe Freddy’s witless artistic performance entitled ‘nasty baby’, which he’s trying to take into the gallery of a weird friend, Marcus (Neal Huff), who uses an oracle in his office to help him decide about the art. Visually unimpressive, “Nasty Baby” becomes a much stronger film when turns into a crime thriller, but even though, and despite how much genuine the scenes might look, its conclusion is not so complete or stirring as its creator definitely intended it to be. To put it clearer: the two distinct story fragments in the basis of this disjointed tale have trouble to stand by their own, making “Nasty Baby” nastier than it was supposed to, and consequently, materializing in a combination that collapses into forgettable.

Xenia (2015)

Directed by: Panos H. Koutras
Country: Greece / others

Movie Review: Panos H. Koutras’ “Xenia”, selected as the Greek entry for the best foreign-language film at the upcoming Academy Awards, is as much provocative as it is brittle. The story focuses on two drifting Greek brothers from Albanian descent whose mother died of too much drinking. Their father left home when the older one, Ody (Nikos Gelia), was two years old and the younger, Danny (Kostas Nikouli), was just a little baby. The latter, now a 16-year-old androgynous misfit with an atypical style of his own, is introduced to us in a scene that takes place in a medical office where he offers his body to a doctor who gives him money and asks if he feels better from his obsessions and hallucinations. Danny is about to leave Crete and adventure himself into Athens, where he will meet his brother. The death of their mother and the fact that their father doesn’t recognize them as his sons, let them in a situation of imminent deportation. Also, they are constantly victims of the provocation and protests, often accompanied with violence, of the fanatic nationalists who aspire to have a Greece for the Greek and the Christians. After an imprudent incident involving Danny, who shot one of those agitators in the leg, the brothers decide to meet with the former companion of their mother, the exuberant gay Tassos (Aggelos Papadimitriou) who reveals the whereabouts of their father, a candidate to the right-wing party who lives wealthily with his new family in Thessaloniki. This is exactly the city where the brothers are heading next in order to fulfill an old family dream that consists in Ody’s participation in a famous singing competition. However, the impulsive Danny takes the opportunity to visit his insensitive father, carrying a pistol in his backpack. Despite addressing the socio-political turmoil and pop-culture lived in the country, the film’s undertones oscillate unevenly between rebellious and pulpy. Sometimes it feels saccharine, losing robustness, and other times it gives false indications of wanting to go wild, which never works well when attempted. The plot, co-written by Mr. Koutras and his habitual associate Panagiotis Evangelidis, repeatedly deviates from its main course of events to indulge in long musical passages, a few forced feel-good moments, and overdramatic confrontations that seem to be taken from the Greek theater.

Every Thing Will Be Fine (2015)

Directed by: Wim Wenders
Country: Germany / Canada / others

Movie Review: After the masterpiece documentary “The Salt of the Earth” about the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, the extraordinary German director, Wim Wenders, stumbles in his most recent fictional drama, “Every Thing Will Be Fine”. Here, the iconic filmmaker works over a script by the Norwegian Bjorn Olaf Johannessen and entrusts to James Franco, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Rachel McAdams, the main roles. The story is based on Tomas Elden (Franco), a writer who’s making an effort to maintain in good terms the relationship with his girlfriend, Sara (McAdams). In the middle of that intricate process, he has a traumatic accident, in which a kid dies after recklessly crossing the street in front of his van. Tomas becomes so affected by the incident that he breaks up with Sara and tries to commit suicide. However, after recovering at the hospital, he gradually finds his inner peace, becoming more and more inspired and prolific in his writings. Two years after, he finds his novel critically acclaimed. This fact provokes a sort of exasperation in the victim’s mother, Kate (Gainsbourg), an illustrator who opens the door of her house to Tomas, in an ultimate attempt to ease her pain. Also, her eldest son, Christopher, who was with his brother when the accident occurred, can’t really live in peace with the consuming trauma. The story spans for more than a decade, and even starts with some significance, but falls in a troublesome passivity of processes along the way. The genius of Mr. Wenders, who plays safe this time, completely fades away in a shabby drama characterized by a dismayed atmosphere, monotonous pace, and lifeless interactions among the characters, which transport us to repeated rueful psychological scenarios and pushes us into long-awaited resolutions. By the end, it seemed that the drama would evolve to a sort of thriller, but instead, the painful torpor takes care of the remaining time. The film didn’t touch me, not even once, while the performances of Mr. Franco and Ms. Gainsbourg didn’t impress me either.

The Visit (2015)

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: USA

Movie Review: M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Visit” can be defined as a kids’ parody that eventually turns into a hysterical domestic horror adventure, never sufficiently scary to be recommended. If you want an idea of its tone and mood, think of the farcical ambiance of “Home Alone” added up to those pseudo-documentaries known as found footage films (“Rec”, “Paranormal Activity”) in which the characters narrate and record the events with a hand-held camera that is usually more agile than the developments of the plot itself. The film starts with a mother (Kathryn Hahn), explaining to the camera how she fell in love with an older man (who left her afterwards for another woman) with whom she had two children and escaped home against the will of her parents. The same parents, 15 years after she has left, discovered her through the Internet and arranged everything to host the two grandchildren they’ve never met in their isolated Pennsylvania farm. The teenagers Rebecca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) become enthusiastic about the visit and depart equipped with a camera in order to continue the documentary about the family, already started with an interview with their mom who, meanwhile, takes the opportunity to have some fun with her new boyfriend. However, what they find there, including the wintry landscapes that limit their hide-and-seek games, is not so cheerful. The scenario is intentionally clumsy since the beginning when they realize there’s something wrong with the grandmother (Deanna Dunagan) besides cooking and cleaning compulsively. Moreover, the granddad (Peter McRobbie) has inexplicable, abrupt changes in behavior, and together with his wife, is the center of the odd occurrences that lead to the flimsy final conclusions. The best in “The Visit” are its visuals, brilliantly adorned through an effective use of light and nicely mounted sets. Apart from this, most of the situations that come out of the lame script are pretty stupid, and the film never manages to succeed, whether in comedy or horror. Clearly, Mr. Shyamalan embraces a worthless phase as a filmmaker and screenwriter. For a few years now, I can’t find anything solid in his filmography to recommend, considering that “The Happening”, “The Last Airbender”, and “After Earth” are cinematic aberrations. Long are the glorious days of “The Sixth Sense”, “Unbreakable”, and “Signs”.

Labyrinth of Lies (2014)

Directed by: Giulio Ricciarelli
Country: Germany

Movie Review: “Labyrinth of Lies” is a German historical drama, set in 1958, that addresses the dignified endeavors of the young state prosecutor, Johan Radmann, who sets mind on taking to the justice the unpunished SS officials and doctors who still live freely after torturing and killing thousands of innocent people in the terrifying Auschwitz concentration camp during the world war. The shame of a complicated past of a powerful country seduced by Hitler’s Nazi regime, falls on Radmann, stiffly played by Alexander Fehling, who sees former Nazis everywhere. During the relentless investigation, a labyrinth that nobody wants to deal with, he unveils a few painful truths that devastate him inside, to the point of wanting to abandon the task. His best friend, the zealous journalist Thomas Gnielka (André Szymanski), was a member of the party when he was very young, as well as the father of his seductive girlfriend, Marlene (Friederike Becht), and his own father who's still missing since the end of the war. Radmann starts interviewing former victims of Auschwitz, while trying to capture the abominable, unrepentant culprits such as Schultz, who was teaching children at a school, and Dr. Josef Mengele, who is now living in Buenos Aires and was responsible for inhumane lab experiences that took the life of the twin little daughters of the artist Simon Kirsch (Johannes Krisch), a tormented soul who survived the camp and hardly agrees to collaborate. Radmann’s honorable cause, here depicted with no less estimable intentions by the Italian actor-turned-director, Giulio Ricciarelli (directorial debut), isn’t a synonym of an accomplished movie. Actually, an obstructive formalism in the approach and the rusty performances aggravate the issues of a post-holocaust account that struggles in a few instances to find cohesion and tightness. Adopting tidy visuals and swinging between Hollywood’s standard twitches and TV series’ monotone routines, “Labyrinth of Lies” lacks intrigue and never manages to really speak to the heart. Its artificial undertones were the main reason why Mr. Ricciarelli couldn’t extract more and better from a strong real story. And thus, the film instantly vanishes from our minds when the theater lights are turned on.

American Ultra (2015)

Directed by: Nima Nourizadeh
Country: USA / Switzerland

Movie Review: Despite the fondness I have for the solid work of Jesse Eisenberg, reinforced recently by his marvelous performance in “The End of the Tour”, the actor was relegated to a half-depressive, half-sensitive, programmed puppet in the action-comedy flick “American Ultra” by the Iranian-British filmmaker Nima Nourizadeh, who directed according to a script by Max Landis (“Chronicle”). The skilled Eisenberg plays Mike Howell, an apparently common American citizen who works as a clerk in a West Virginia convenience store, likes to smoke pot, struggles with common panic attacks, and loves his girlfriend, Phoebe (Kristen Stewart), more than anything in the world. But after all, nothing is so simple, and Mike is a highly trained CIA agent who is suddenly ‘activated’ by his former supervisor, Victoria (Connie Britton), when she learns that her ridiculous rival, Yates (Topher Grace), plans to destroy him - the one who she considers an asset of several past missions and whose memories were erased. His activation means that the confused Mike (‘am I real?’, he asks), who finds out that his beloved Phoebe is also a CIA agent, is turned into a killing machine that instantly and brutally responds to any attack or threat against him. Mike has to deal with Yates’ operatives, in particular, a psycho called Laugher (Walton Goggins), but counts on his dealer friend, Rose (John Leguizamo) - just another shallow character - to help him survive. Evincing a debilitated script, “American Ultra” promises gold, but delivers pinchbeck instead, shooting in every direction and struggling to find its own voice in the mix of genres embraced. Unfortunately, whether on comedy or action, the film is far from pleasing. Mr. Nourizadeh’s intentions to make the film look like wild and stirring, and at the same time sound funny, were thwarted by his own sense of urgency. He depicts chaos in a thin, occasionally extravagant way, also failing to reach the immediacy of a good joke. Everything seems hackneyed, from the protagonist to the side characters, and in the end, we may categorize this one as AUFF or an American Ultra Formulaic Film.

7 Chinese Brothers (2015)

Directed by: Bob Byington
Country: USA

Movie Review: “7 Chinese Brothers”, whose title wrongly suggests a gangster Asian movie or a martial arts adventure, is an insubstantial American indie comedy, containing a few good - if immature - ideas that drive us into a dead end. Jason Schwartzman, habitual presence in Wes Anderson’s comedies and the star in the astute comedy-drama ‘Listen Up Philip’ by Alex Ross Perry, who also appears briefly here as an actor, bestows odd movements, imbecilic facial expressions, and a reckless posture, in a performance that attempts to give shape to his character: Larry, the slacker. Fired from his job for stealing money from the tips jar, Larry, who often embarks in French monologues and nonreversible chats with his equally lazy dog, finds another job in the Quick-Lube garage where he is manipulated by the affronting co-worker, Jimmy (Jimmy Gonzales), and is attracted to his handsome boss, Lupe (Eleanore Pienta). Meanwhile, he keeps visiting his spirited grandma (Olympia Dukakis) at the nursing facility, especially when he’s broke and needs some easy cash. His best friend, Major Norwood (Tunde Adebimpe), is the one who takes care of her. After she dies, it’s with no surprise that her inheritance, of 1.3 million dollars, goes entirely to the likeable Major and not for the opportunist, indolent, and insensible grandson, whom she accused of wanting to patronize her. As the main character, director Bob Byington doesn’t put much effort on his filmmaking style, comprised of realistic but inelegant scenarios with an inclination for dereliction. Weird and not so funny, “7 Chinese Brothers” is short in duration (76 min.) but can get you pretty bored, especially if it gets you in one of those days that you’re not in the mood for this kind of pretentious quirkiness. In order to succeed, it relies on the inalterable acting of its cast and a bunch of incongruous situations that are presented with a false feel-good disposition. Sadly, not even the good ideas could be validated by an execution that, on no account, touched harmony. There are much better films about slackers out there that overwhelm Mr. Byington’s forgettable prank.

Z for Zachariah (2015)

Directed by: Craig Zobel
Country: Iceland / New Zealand / others

Movie Review: The post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel, “Z for Zachariah”, by Robert C. O'Brien, was the source material for the fourth feature-length from director Craig Zobel who gained some notoriety with his previous film “Compliance”. If Mr. Zobel was far from impressing me with the latter, he doesn’t do much better in this one. Instead of the teenage protagonist of the book, Zobel and his screenwriter, Nissar Modi, opt for an adult version of the character, played by the unrecognizable Margot Robbie, who has generated some buzz with her small but memorable part in “The Wolf of Wall Street”. In this brittle thriller, she’s Ann, the hypothetically unique survivor of a radioactive catastrophe that contaminated the Earth and destroyed the rest of the human race. Devoted to God, she’s immensely thankful for the ‘untouched’ piece of land (fertile soil and a pond with fish) that allows her to live healthily, and shows to be a tireless hard worker who accepts the fate of having to live alone with her dog for the rest of her days. A certain day, however, she bumps into a skittish man, John (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who rushes into contaminated waters. She gently takes care of him when he falls sick, praying fervently to God to save him. At a first glance, John seemed a tricky guy, acting suspiciously, sometimes bossy, and even aggressive when he gets drunk. Ann, in need of physical contact and considering the repopulation of the Earth, urges him into sex, but he disappoints her in that particular aspect. Ultimately, he falls in love with her, but what could have been a relaxing life in duo, is turned upside down when another stranger, Caleb (Chris Pine), arrives to compete for the last existing woman, bringing tiny portions of tension into their little paradise. Thrills are scarce, and every attempt to make them work out falls into dullness and conventional. This is aggravated by the fact that the film, beyond predictable, lingers on lukewarm situations for an eternity, where we never feel real empathy for the characters or perceive any sustainable passion sprouting from the love triangle. “Z for Zachariah” was more like “Z for Zzzz” to me. It’s another deceitful low-budget machination that leaves us lethargically dormant.

10,000 Saints (2015)

Directed by: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Country: USA

Movie Review: “10,000 Saints” is the fifth theatrical feature from the married filmmakers, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, whose major success was in 2003, with their unforgettable debut “American Splendor”. Since then, the pair has never overcome the challenges of presenting something fresh and interesting, failing to make the grade with unimpressive comedies such as “The Nanny Diaries” and “The Extra Man”. For their brand new coming-of-age dramedy, they bring together the actors Ethan Hawke, Asa Butterfield, and Hailee Steinfeld, who despite talented, nothing could do to bypass banality. Still, it happens to exhibit a strong start when introducing the young Jude witnessing the separation of their parents in 1980 Vermont. The motive was proudly explained by his imperturbable, large-minded father, Les (Hawke), who also took the opportunity to brusquely disclose that Jude was adopted when he was a child. Seven years later, the teenager Jude (Butterfield) hangs out with his best friend, Teddy, when they are asked to pick up Eliza (Hailee), Les’ girlfriend’s daughter, who arrives from Manhattan. A friendship solidifies among the three youngsters, but their nocturnal adventures mark a crucial turning point in their lives. While Teddy and Eliza were consuming cocaine and having sex in the bathroom of a bar, Jude was beaten up for stealing weed from a parked car. Later on, Eliza retreats home since she returns to NY the next day, leaving the two friends partying a little more. A tragedy occurs when they pass out in the middle of the snowy streets, a consequence of the drugs, and Teddy ends up freezing to death. Jude agrees to move to NY’s East Village with his cool-dude dad. Once there, he joins Teddy’s brother in his garage punk band and reconnects with his secret love, Eliza, who is pregnant from Teddy. This superfluously polished teen/family drama exhibits an edgeless benevolence at the heart while its emotional complexity is turned into an incautiously simplistic muddle.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Country: USA

Movie Review: Guy Ritchie’s “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” is an espionage action film with comedic touches based on the 1960’s TV series of the same name created by Sam Rolfe. Far from the congruous entertainment delivered in the beginning of his directorial career (“Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch”), Mr. Ritchie manifestly embarks here in an artful scheme of style over substance that keeps storming him for some time now. The story, revealing a disastrous ineptitude to captivate, describes a conjoint mission between the CIA and the KGB to dismantle a menacing Nazi operation. Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill), a former con turned agent spy, represents the CIA, while KGB relies on the robust Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer). Despite their divergences and not without some protests, both agents agree to track down a missing Nazi scientist who used to be an informer for the US Government. To accomplish the mission they will need the help of the scientist’s daughter, Gaby (Alicia Vikander), whose uncle, Rudi (Sylvester Groth), a scoundrel Nazi with a knack for torture, may be the answer. Rudi works for a shipping company owned by a couple, the Vinciguerras, whose past is also associated with evil Nazi maneuvers. With the intention of making it even more international, we also have the presence of a British agent, Waverly (Hugh Grant), who secretly gives a little hand in the case. The screenwriters, Lionel Wigram and Ritchie, inject a few bustling scenes that are nothing more than inconsequentially fabricated situations sprouting very limited fun. It’s all too obvious and jerky and considerably unfunny and familiar. The filmmaker should be aware that energy is vital, but not everything in the genre, when deciding for procedures that just make the film falling into a disoriented spin of mind-numbing boat and car chases, gunshots, and last-minute rescues. The performances are colorless and the score introduces an inauspicious variety of flavors that denigrate the scenes even more.

Beloved Sisters (2014)

Directed by: Dominik Graf
Country: Germany / others

Movie Review: “Beloved Sisters” is a biographical film that portrays the long-lasting love triangle lived in the 18th century between the German poet and philosopher, Friedrich Schiller, and the aristocratic von Lengefeld sisters, Charlotte and Caroline. The drama, written and directed by Dominik Graf, a filmmaker with a three-decade career of TV movies and series, was unable to hold my attention apart from the first half-hour. Despite handsomely crafted in its attempt to revive the period and attractively photographed by Michael Wiesweg, the film gradually loses impact and even drags itself on several occasions, during its protracted 138 minutes of the same cadenced maneuvers focusing on the noble German social and literary society. Faith has determined that the young Schiller (Florian Stetter), exiled from its country and lost in the streets of Weimar, will meet Charlotte (Henriette Confurius) in a time when she was preparing herself to get married with some illustrious, wealthy man, following the steps of her sister Caroline (Hannah Herzsprung), who had done it, not for love, but to guarantee financial stability for her family. Defying both society and family, both sisters fall in love with the amiable and yet revolutionary thinker, consciously assuming their affair and understanding whenever they need to get out of each other's way. Regardless the many obstacles, like looking like a beggar and being broke, Schiller ends up marrying Charlotte and having a child with her, but never ceases from seeing her unhappily married sister, who starts a successful literary career under the name of Agnes von Lilen. Resorting to close-ups of the protagonists in an attempt to draw the emotions that the plot couldn’t assure, the slightly staged “Beloved Sisters” is leisurely paced, never flowing conveniently to escape its shallowness. Here, we get more lethargic and bored than invigorated or excited, and the film leaves no positive memories.

Down, But Not Out! (2015)

Directed by: Miguel Gaudêncio
Country: Poland

Movie Review: This 71-minute small-scale Polish documentary, directed by the Portuguese, Miguel Gaudêncio, superficially gazes at feminine boxing in Poland. The director follows a team of four boxers and their trainer during 24 hours. Evincing pictorial qualities in its well-calibrated black-and-white images, “Down But Not Out!” doesn’t find much depth in the characters, failing to establish any exciting connection between the viewers and the protagonists. The film presents too much of unexciting fights, and too little about the brave Daria, Anna, Agnieszka, and Alicja, who keep being motivated by their talkative coach, Przemyslaw. The team spends one night in a small motel in the city of Poznan, where the next day they’re going to participate in a tournament. The pic deviates our attention from the women by also presenting men’s fights, more muscled and intense, but irrelevant to the story. After stepping into the ring for the first time, each pugilist shows more or less anxiety and eagerness to prove what they worth. But for me, these natural reactions weren’t enough to shape them accordingly because I still wanted to know more about their lives and personalities. There's a moment of frustration when an opponent decides not to fight Agnieszka due to health reasons, which is not particularly strong. An interesting aspect is when she makes reference to the diets and all the efforts put through, so they can be sufficiently prepared to compete. The combats are adorned with an often-intrusive synth score that projects the film more into a video clip rather than a real study. Boxing is not one my favorite sports, however, that fact wasn’t the motive for my detachment. I’ve found little substance here, and the only explanation is that Mr. Gaudêncio doesn’t have much of a story to consolidate his nice images.

Samba (2014)

Directed by: Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano
Country: France

Movie Review: Aiming to please the masses, “Samba” is brought from France by the team of directors, Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, who have made a smashing success four years ago with the enjoyable “The Intouchables”. As in the latter, Omar Sy is the main character, this time playing Samba Cissé, a Senegalese migrant who keeps trying to regularize his situation in France to avoid deportation, after ten years working as a dishwasher in Parisian restaurants. Therefore, and despite of the score featuring Gilberto Gil and Jorge Benjor, “Samba” the film, rather than enhancing the dance genre, tries to portray the sad reality of this man, even if using bland routines to do it. After being caught by the authorities, situation that requires a temporary detention and presence before a judge, Samba gets help from an NGO whose new volunteer, Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg), a sleepless senior executive under medical leave, feels sympathy for him and his case. Despite the warnings not to get too close to the undocumented people, Alice falls for Samba who, in the meantime, sleeps with the ‘vanished’ girlfriend of his friend Jonas. Facing difficult situations in the occasional jobs he accepts, and under the pressure of sending money to his unfeeling mother, Samba will rely on his ‘Brazilian’ friend, Wilson (Tahar Rahim), to give him a hand, while he begins a relationship of proximity with the anxious, and sometimes frenzied, Alice. Some of the little fun that arises from watching this too polished drama comes from the difficult communication among aid workers and migrants. As for the rest, the film slips in a few scenes, which sometimes are feel-good in the cheesiest way, sometimes are awfully unreasonable. All this is aggravated by the fact that the romance between Samba and Alice doesn’t spark good vibes. The film might draw some interest to viewers who are looking for dramas with warm stories and happy outcomes. For the ones looking for something original and solid, “Samba” doesn’t dance so well.