The Girl in the Book (2015)

Directed by Marya Cohn
Country: USA

Movie Review: “The Girl in the Book”, the directorial debut feature from writer/director Marya Cohn, had everything to be successful, but failed to catch a fresher breath due to a continued sluggishness in its routines, in addition to a disappointing predictability. Emily VanCamp plays Alice Harvey, a hesitant editorial assistant for a Manhattan firm, whose life becomes precarious when Milan Daneker (Michael Nyqvist), a distinguished writer who had worked with her father - a former literary agent – appears again in her life after 15 years. Through an array of flashbacks, we start figuring out why the past keeps haunting Alice, who suddenly is turned into a pile of nerves when she was assigned to promote Milan’s book. It was obvious since the beginning that Alice, who dreams to be a writer since her teenage years, was seduced by Milan, an intrusive, experienced man and respected author who gladly became available to help and encourage, but instead took advantage of her innocence and insolently stole her writing material. This brittle woman bears everything on her shoulders and has never opened up about the trauma. We promptly realize she can’t count with her heedless father (Michael Cristofer), who always pretends not to know what’s going on, and truly thinks she doesn’t know what she wants from life. However, she’s not completely alone because there’s Emmet (David Call), a community organizer who really loves and respects her, and is seen as the unique hope for her to overcome the turbulent emotional situation that precipitously awoke. Unfortunately, a foolish misstep, involving a young boy who works as a babysitter for her best friend, puts this potential relationship at stake, as well as the friendship itself. I felt that an intensified subtleness was applied in occasions that were requiring a more unnerving disposition in order to energize the story a bit more. Despite some positive aspects in the direction, Ms. Cohn could have set a more dashing pace to move between Alice’s past and present. In terms of romance, the film also neglects a solid chemistry, preferring to rely on the conventional storytelling while failing to extract anything exceptional from the performances. “The Girl in the Book” is a rational exercise brought down by its apathetic languor.

Night Owls (2015)

Directed by: Charles Hood
Country: USA

Movie Review: This newly discovered indie romantic drama is the second feature-length from Charles Hood, whose directorial debut happened in 2007, with the practically unknown “Freezer Burn”. The schematic script, co-written by Mr. Hood and Seth Goldsmith, obeys to a very known structure, focusing on a couple confined to a house after a one-night stand that brings more complications than it was supposed to. Essentially, the film falls in the category of ‘two-actors-one-location’ that lives mostly from changing moods, fluid conversations, casual tones, and eventually an openness that leads to true romance. Adam Pally and Rosa Salazar work diligently with the director to assure that everything seems real. He’s Kevin, a hard-working guy who’s more than pleased to spend the night in the company of Madeline, a sexy young woman who takes him to a splendid villa and acts wildly under the effect of alcohol. There was nothing wrong with that if in the next morning he wouldn’t find out that the house belongs to his boss and mentor, the acclaimed football coach, Will Campbell, and learn from his co-worker, Pete, that the woman he just slept with, is Will’s obsessive ex-lover. To worsen his jittery state, he finds Madeline lying unconscious on the floor of the bathroom after taking a whole bottle of Xanax. The quick visit of a friend doctor elucidates him how to deal with the situation – first take a cold shower, then drink a cup of strong coffee, and afterwards start making questions and engage in a continuous conversation, just not to let her fall asleep. By turns aggressive and tender, the rest of the narrative is nothing we haven’t seen before, gradually evolving into a mutual understanding when the characters open up in respect to plans for the future, disillusions, what they’re good at, how many persons have they slept with, and how they feel about life in general. While drinking wine, the woman shows a lively enthusiasm in playing games, while the man's eyes sparkle when he talks about football. The pace shows some fluidity and a few funny lines are thrown in, however, I didn’t feel too much involved, despite the chemistry felt between the actors. For its own impairment, the finale was shaped in the most obvious manner, what defrauded my expectations of connecting with something unique, or at least, a bit more creative.

Chi-Raq (2015)

Directed by: Spike Lee
Country: USA

Movie Review: Spike Lee goes histrionic in “Chi-Raq”, a modern adaptation of the Aristophanes’ Greek play, ‘Lysistrata’, here transferred to a problematic Chicago. It seems that the film didn’t please the Chicagoans who, during two hours, had to watch the women from their city going into a sex strike that aims to stop the local gangsters from shooting one another and kill innocent people in the streets. Through the lame slogan ‘No peace, No pussy!’, a group of women, led by the activist Miss Helen (Angela Bassett), decide to punish the dopey thugs and bring justice to the killing of a little girl who was playing in the surroundings of her home. This cowardly act shocked the neighborhood, including the lively Lysterata (Teyonah Parris), who becomes a fierce booster of the movement despite being the girlfriend of Demetrius (Nick Cannon), a rapper and violent gang leader, who carries a difficult childhood on his shoulders. Funny here and there, the film carries a strong message and empowers a feminist facet that is much welcomed, but not everything runs smoothly in Mr. Lee’s manifesto. There’s an annoying cheesiness and a tricky coziness in this approach that feel so intense that is what we most remember after the credits roll rather than the favorable moments. “Chi-Raq” is a volatile, dramatic comedy that manages to be classified as watchable only because of the pacifist banner it holds. Mr. Lee, who co-wrote with Kevin Willmott, doesn’t convince me since “Inside Man” and keeps stumbling in the execution regardless the potentiality of the plots. It happened with “Red Hook Summer” and “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus”, not to speak of the unnecessary American remake of the memorable Korean version of “Old Boy”. Failing to properly amuse, the film still takes some time to show off Dolmedes, played by an expansive Samuel L. Jackson, exhibiting different fancy suits while commenting on the problems that daily fustigate the city. The speech lines took the form of rhymes, which despite adding some more rhythm didn’t save the film from being a flamboyant caprice. My favorite scene was a delirious sermon given by John Cusack, who plays a fervent preacher fed up of burying innocent victims. It’s a pity that Chi-Raq’s urgent message, even if sometimes strident and loud, is turned into an unruly satire.

Spectre (2015)

Directed by: Sam Mendes
Country: USA / UK

Movie Review: “Spectre” is a quite unproductive installment (the 25th!) of the James Bond/007 franchise. For the second time in a row, director Sam Mendes guides Daniel Craig, who together with the voluptuous French actress Léa Seydoux, disseminate charm without particularly delivering anything worthy along its overextended 148 minutes. The film opens energetically active in Mexico in the Day of the Dead, with Bond jumping from building to building until he reaches the skies in a rampant helicopter where his main target, Marco Sciarra, who was plotting to blow up a stadium, is finally killed. Before Sciarra's fatal fall, the secret agent managed to pull out of his finger a ring with an octopus engraved. Then he flies to Italy, disobeying his boss’ orders, to attend the victim’s funeral, where he feels dangerously attracted to Sciarra’s beautiful wife and also learns about Spectre, a global criminal organization that operates in the shadow. By making use of the ring, he’ll try to infiltrate himself in a meeting of the organization that, after all, divides itself into another sub-organization with multiple connections to different possible targets. Encounter after encounter, all of them with some friction associated, Bond will bump into a dissident Spectre member who before killing himself, asks our hero to find and protect his precious, intelligent daughter, Dr. Madeleine Swann (Seydoux). After the usually difficult first contact, Bond saves her in a ridiculous way, using a jet plane, when a few thugs were taking her hostage in a jeep. The couple, far from incendiary, confronts the man behind Spectre, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, an inadequate villain unimpressively embodied by the gifted Christoph Waltz.  More boisterous than intriguing, “Spectre” only sporadically amuses, relying on a collection of messy action episodes that have nothing to add to the previous installments. The four screenwriters - John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Jez Butterworth – have much to be blamed for the story’s lack of grip, but the truth is that the execution also didn’t appeal to me with its super-exaggerated scenarios and the excess of confidence of a more and more decaying super agent that once made my youth days merrier.

Glassland (2014)

Directed by: Gerard Barrett
Country: Ireland

Movie Review: Simultaneously plaintive and modest, “Glassland” is an Irish independent drama written, directed, and co-produced by Gerard Barrett, and starring Jack Reynor, Toni Collette, and Will Poulter. The story is set in a cheerless little Irish town where John (Reynor), a good-hearted taxi driver spends most of his time running after his desolated alcoholic mother, Jean (Collette), whose life is in danger due to serious liver damages. In the first scene, John arrives at home after work just to find Jean in her bed, vomited and in an alcoholic coma. He was able to save her at the last minute, a story that repeats itself for a long time. Extremely tired of the situation, John almost doesn’t believe in a different scenario anymore. Mother and son behave furiously by turns - at first it was Jean who loses control when she doesn’t find booze at home after returning from the hospital; and then was John who gets pissed off when Jean misses work and vanishes one more time, what means another long sleepless night looking for her. Next day he shouts angrily: ‘my mother smiles and loves. This is not my mother. This is an animal, and you’re breaking my heart every single day!’ John still finds the strength to visit his 18-year-old brother who was born with Dawn syndrome and was early abandoned by Jean in a care facility, right after her companion has turned his back on her when he found out about the child’s condition. In one of the saddest scenes of the film, the powerless John joins his mother in a drink at home, and the little party ends up in an extended, dispirited monologue, in which Jane clarifies some aspects of her life. A gleam of hope still burns in their hearts, but the financial means to maintain Jean under treatment is another issue that pushes John into obscure solutions. In parallel, we vaguely follow the path of John’s unmotivated best friend, Shane (Poulter), who gets more than happy to leave the lugubrious town. A few scenes are emotionally strong, but Mr. Barrett, more lucidly than boldly, arranged everything too easily in one direction (Jean’s recovery) and too vague in the other (the obscure side of John’s life). Accordingly, I got slightly disappointed when the final credits rolled, meaning that I expected something deeper from the ending and something that was less basic as the whole picture.

White Gate (2014)

Directed by: Nicolae Margineanu
Country: Romania

Movie Review: The mischaracterized “White Gate”, directed by the veteran Nicolae Margineanu, was supported by true events in order to examine the fates of three Romanian youngsters who, in a desperate attempt to flee the communist regime of their country, resolve to swim across the Danube. The year is 1949, and the unhesitating carpenter, Ninel, was the one who came up with the idea, persuading the siblings Adrian and Anuca to follow him. On the shore, behind tall vegetation, ravenous mosquitoes bite them while they wait for the dusk to sneak into the water. Halfway, they were spotted by a patrol boat and told to surrender, facing the possibility of being shot dead. Adrian and Ninel are captured and taken to Poarta Alba (White Gate), a forced labor camp where they’re assigned to work in the construction of the Danube-Black Sea Canal, while Anuca disappears in the waters. The harsh working conditions of the camp supervised by ruthless criminals who had been promoted to brigadiers, drive them close to insanity. The film takes most of its time building the usual sadistic tortures inflicted to the undisciplined workers, together with the negligence of the communist authorities in regard to illness and exhaustion. Margineanu presents all of this in a classic black-and-white that tries to recreate the period when the events took place. At the beginning, a briefly colored scene introduces religious components into the story, when we are told that a fresco, exhibiting Baby Jesus wearing a typical labor-camp vestment, was found in a Bucharest church. This aspect is reinforced, but not totally succeeded, with the presence of an inscrutable monk among the inmates. Another character that is given prominence but fails to engage is Petre, a poet who can’t refrain himself from writing ‘forbidden’ poetry. This historical illustration assuredly condemns the vile regime and honors its victims, however, the trite approach, elementary production values, and impersonal execution, shove it into delicate territory.

The Walk (2015)

Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Country: USA

Movie Review: “The Walk” wasn’t so vertiginous as I wanted it to be. Director Robert Zemeckis whose name is immediately associated with other successful blockbusters such as “Back to the Future”, “Forrest Gump”, “Cast Away”, and “Flight”, didn’t impress me much with this real story focused on the remarkable achievement by the obsessive, temperamental, and courageous Philippe Petit, here played earnestly by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Petit got famous for walking over the Manhattan’s skies when he crossed the 42 meters that separated the extinct World Trade center towers on a wire. The French artist narrates his own story from the top of the Statute of Liberty, taking us to 1973, the very beginning of his Parisian career as a small crowd entertainer – juggling while high-wire walking. There, he meets a sweet street musician, Annie (Charlotte Le Bon), who at first felt annoyed with his presence since he was stealing all the audience. After conquering Annie’s heart, he fails his first public presentation, but redeems himself accomplishing the following mission of walking on the Notre Dame cathedral and consequently gaining a few devoted accomplices who offer themselves to help him fulfilling his big dream. His riskiest task ever is going to take place in New York and requires a careful and meticulous preparation that is given by Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), a circus owner and old expert in the high-wire art, who teaches him a few precious secrets. Sometimes accused of being selfish and arrogant, Petit was able to join an efficient, friendly team that includes the ‘anarchist’ photographer Jean-Louis (Clément Sibomy) who will cover the grandiose expedition. Perhaps because I still have so clearly in my head the magnificent documentary “Man on Wire”, superbly directed by James Marsh in 2008, which addresses Petit and his deed with precision and vitality, “The Walk” feels a bit too much pretentious in its somewhat irritating approach. The dazzling visuals aren’t devoid of disquietude, but the film only provides regular entertainment without agitating us in any occasion with surprises or giving another concept to a form that was nothing more than banally standardized. Mr. Zemeckis, whose filmography comprehends fantasy, animation, and real drama, never made me feel the creeps or soar over the slightly misty blue skies of Manhattan.

Partisan (2015)

Directed by: Ariel Kleiman
Country: Australia

Movie Review: Charismatic French actor, Vincent Cassel, who continues very active during this year in “Tale of Tales”, “Child 44”, “Mon Roi” and “One Wild Moment”, sturdily plays Gregori, a commune's polygamous leader whose occupation consists in training his children so they can become remorseless assassins. The Australian “Partisan”, despite vacillatingly opaque in its developments, was a good vehicle for Mr. Cassel reassure his performing capabilities, this time as a controlling, egocentric villain with low moral values and an evil scheme carried out with the children’s mothers’ consent. The 11-year-old Alex (newcomer Jeremy Chabriel) is his brightest son, being always the first in the general knowledge tests, very precise in the shooting sessions, and coldly efficacious in the exterminating missions. Gregori is so proud of him that he constantly forgives the minor disobediences Alex is up to – he collects stuff from the outside world, deliberately interacts with strangers, buys meat for his unstable mother (newcomer Florence Mezzara), besides all the mischief associated with the kids in his age. However, Alex always showed a great respect for his protective, and simultaneously abusive father. On the contrary, Leo (Alex Balaganskiy), another sensitive kid who keeps disarming Gregori with wise words and antagonistic behaviors, doesn’t share this respect. When he fiercely holds onto a chicken in order to protect it from death and avoid its extinction, Gregori manages to punish him in his own guileful way. This is the moment when Alex, who swears to protect his newborn baby brother, starts acting in accordance to his own thoughts and not driven by his untrustworthy father. First-time director and co-writer, Ariel Kleiman, was able to set an appropriate moody atmosphere and also drawing unadulterated cold looks from the father and son. Yet, and without prejudice of what he did well, some secondary scenes are not so natural (Alex’s mother crisis is a good example) while we’re left a bit empty in regard to the motives and beliefs of the intriguing Gregori. Moreover, The film’s disconsolate climax, despite clear and transparent, felt somewhat hasty, triggering those typical bothersome sensations that arise from an undercooked plot.

Mia Madre (2015)

Directed by: Nanni Moretti
Country: Italy / France

Movie Review: I’ve been following Nanni Moretti’s versatile filmmaking career throughout all these years, and he has gained my appreciation by giving a very particular vision about himself and the world that surrounds him. His work ranges from satirical autobiographical essays (“Dear Diary”, “April”), to incisive dramas (the Palm D’Or “The Son’s Room”), to entertaining comedies (“We Have a Pope”) and even political provocations (”The Caiman”). This time around, Moretti’s approach is slightly different, introducing a few new elements to a drama that tries to mirror the real life of a filmmaker who is experiencing great distress. The restless Margherita (Margherita Buy) struggles to shoot her new film about the laborers of an Italian factory demanding their rights, according to her own concept. Inflexible and difficult to get along with, she has trouble to clearly convey her confusing ideas to the actors – ‘you should play the character but also stand next to the character’, she says. The film becomes even more complicated to finish with the arrival of the American actor, Barry Huggins (John Turturro), a sort of ardent, eccentric dreamer who freaks out whenever he gets blocked in his acting. He’s by far the most interesting character of the film. Even sharing some sympathy for each other, director and actor, enter in a, sometimes freeing, course of collision. Besides work, there’s also Margherita’s personal life, which has been turned into hell since her mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness and now lives permanently at the hospital against her will. Margherita and her dedicated brother, Giovanni (Moretti), who doesn’t bring much to the story, were the ones making the decision. Also her daughter, Livia, and a former lover and actor, Vittorio, contribute to the stress, occasionally expressed through unclear dreams and futile flashbacks. “Mia Madre” advances unevenly, at a vapid pace, and only intermittently was able to enforce some emotional weight. Mr. Moretti has seen better days before, but just as his character’s mom, we’re already thinking in tomorrow because this one is middling.

A Brilliant Young Mind (2014)

Directed by: Morgan Matthews
Country: UK

Movie review: Morgan Matthews is an English documentarian whose latest, “A Brilliant Young Mind”, marks his fictional debut feature. The fact-based drama, written by James Graham, arises as a consequence of his own TV documentary from 2007, “Beautiful Young Minds”, so he never really moves out his comfort zone. The actual prodigious, Daniel Lightwing, was the one who served as inspiration. In the film, he was given the name, Nathan Ellis (Asa Butterfield), a 9-year-old boy who always had a knack for patterns, a fact that turned him into a math genius. The bashful Ellis also had a traumatic past since he was seated next to his father when he died in a terrible car accident. On that same day, he had been diagnosed with a form of autism and was being given all the support from his father who encouraged him saying: ‘don’t be afraid of what you have. It’s like having special powers.’ His understanding and super-devoted mother, Julie (Sally Hawkins), decides to enroll him in a school where the unorthodox professor, Martin Humphries (Rafe Spall), who often abuses of his medication for multiple sclerosis, will take the responsibility to prepare him the best he can to represent Great Britain in the International Mathematical Olympiad that’s about to happen in Taiwan. Not only Nathan feels and understands love for the first time, but also his mother starts a relationship with the insecure Martin. The young Asa Butterfield gives a valid performance as the introverted, picky, frank, and yet bright student, but overall the film is conducted in conventional tones, bringing immediately into mind other math-related movies such as “A Beautiful Mind”, “The Theory of Everything”, and “Good Will Hunting”. It’s indeed a heartwarming drama spurred by feel-good attitudes and honorable intentions, but I must object that there are no effective surprises in the story, as well as nothing fresh in the way it’s told. You may find yourself wishing the things were handled distinctively since the film shatters our highest expectations, becoming nearly a disappointment.

Listening (2015)

Directed by: Khalil Sullins
Country: USA / Cambodia

Movie Review: “Listening”, legitimately cooked by debutant writer-director, Khalil Sullins, is a sci-fi thriller with little dramatic impact and espionage innuendo. The film follows David Thorogood (Thomas Stroppel) and Ryan Cates (Artie Ahr), two penniless grad students who are capable of outline the most brilliant tech ideas and execute them, but are powerless when it comes to the expensive equipment for the experiments. However, their keenness and the excitement that comes from the possibility of being recognized by a great invention, dare them to steal the hardware pieces from the university lab. Their unauthorized experimentation, consisting in a mind-reading system in which one brain deciphers another brain, is carried out in the congested garage of David, who is so committed to it, that he easily forgets his family. This provokes the discontentment of his wife, Mel (Christine Haeberman), whose understanding and cooperation come to an end when they receive a note of eviction due to lack of payment. Moreover, a sense of mistrust had arisen when David asks her to connect her mind to his. The reason is that the images she sees, pulled out of his brain, are strictly sexual and involves a previous session with Jordan (Amber Marie Bollinger), an expedient tech expert who had joined them. The two sagacious friends, amidst renouncements and misfortunes, are lead to a stupendous opportunity in a governmental organization called Darkbird II, which is narrowly controlled by the austere, Matthews (Steve Hanks). The tempting high salary paid by the organization makes the aspiring Ryan, who couldn’t even afford his grandmother’s casket, to forget morals, ethics, and privacy, aspects that David is not willing to be deprived of. “Listening”, which was no more than rudimentary in its presentation and no less than feisty in terms of plot, was able to infuse a flickering tension that wasn’t enough to secure it tightly. Eminently perceptible in its looks, was the mutable saturated color tones used to represent the exterior (yellow), home (blue), garage (green), and the Darkbird premises (white).

In the Name of My Daughter (2014)

Directed by: Andre Techine
Country: France

Movie Review: Apart from André Techiné’s “In the Name of My Daughter”, I’ve no memory of another recent film that had seduced me so much in the first two-thirds and then completely let me down in its conclusions. The film charmingly captivates at first, retrieving that old virtual French cinema that he created in the 90’s with “Wild Reeds”, “Thieves”, and “Alice and Martin”. Co-written by Téchiné and Cedric Anger, this is a fictional account of the true story of Agnes Le Roux, and was based on the memoir from her mother and casino’s heiress, Renée Le Roux. Counting on the incontestably talented trio of actors - Catherine Deneuve, Adele Haenel, and Guillaume Canet - the 72-year-old filmmaker was unable to finish strong what he had started, rushing the story into something faint, somewhat hazy, and consequently unsatisfying. The narrative begins in 1976 with the arrival of Agnes le Roux (Haenel) to France. She returns to Nice with no bags and a failed marriage, being welcomed by Maurice Agnelet (Canet), an ambitious divorced lawyer and father, who works as a business advisor for her mother, Renée (Deneuve). Struggling against financial decline, the latter soon becomes the president of the Palais de la Mediterranée, one of the fanciest casinos on the French Riviera. This is a crucial time for the scheming Maurice, who tries to persuade Renée to give him the position of assistant director. Simultaneously, he gets closer and closer to her daughter whose impatience grows broodingly due to her mother’s decision to momentarily retain her share of the inheritance left by her late father. In love, the candidly naive, Agnés, shows a dangerous availability to a man who transparently assumes other lovers and a cunning posture that only envisions wealth and power. When Renée ignores Maurice request, he unites forces with a mobster, and one of her strongest rivals, Fratoni. It doesn’t take too long for Agnés to join them in their destructive plan. Sadly, the final 30 minutes are feeble, an uncontrollable narrative calamity that blurs the, until then, absorbing portrait.

Prince (2015)

Directed by: Sam de Jong
Country: Netherlands

Movie Review: “Prince” starts staunchly as an expressive coming-of-age tale, but finishes as a forgettable, self-content phony. Set in a small neighborhood located in the suburbs of Amsterdam, the drama follows the complicated life of the 17-year-old Dutch-Moroccan, Ayoub (Ayoub Elasri), who lives with his depressed mother and easygoing half-sister. He occasionally meets with his homeless, drug-addicted father, a helpless Moroccan who religiously expects him to bring money for the ‘stuff’. Assuming himself as the man of the house, Ayoun acts sweetly and supportively toward his fragile mom, who never asks questions and keeps looking for the perfect man, and super protective toward his handsome sis, whose excessive freedom leads her to hang out with a trio of bad guys. One of these thugs is Ronny, a violent boaster whose little brother, Franky, is best friends with Ayoub. Despite of participating in some of their dirty work, Ayoub gives rise to mistrust and is treated with contempt; firstly, because he’s seen as an inferior due to his descent, and secondly, because he has a crush on Laura, the girlfriend of one of the bullies. Often humiliated by this small group of gangsters, Ayoub’s best wish would be rapidly building muscles out of his skinny body. As he knows this won’t come true, he comes to the conclusion that his only chance of gaining their respect and conquer Laura’s heart is through the ‘king’ of the thugs, Kalpa (the musician Freddy Tratlehner), a creepy, uncontrolled freak who whimsically runs a sausage factory in his own house and exhibits his over-the-top Lamborghini throughout the streets. One tempestuous night will be enough for the ascension and glorification of Ayoub, crowned ‘prince’ on the first call to work for the untouchable Kalpa. The first-time director, Sam de Jong, has a knack for setting up maniacal moments, combining them with a vigorous score in order to establish stylishly frenzied scenes. The main frustration comes from the film's script, in particular the final act, which abruptly changes the tones from chaotic to cheesy, and the scenarios from rowdy to lenient.

Cop Car (2015)

Directed by: Jon Watts
Country: USA

Movie Review: I wonder how great could “Cop Car” have been if thoroughly put together and well concluded. Director Jon Watts, who co-wrote with Christopher D. Ford, didn’t know how to give the best sequence to a riveting first part where the film straddles between a rebellious teen misadventure and a sort of cat-and-mouse road thriller. The story focuses on two 10-year-old kids who set off for a walk throughout the immense surrounding fields of a small city, just to find a tempting and yet hazardous plaything: an abandoned police car with the key and guns inside, and a beaten guy stuck in the trunk. The car belonged to the disreputable sheriff Kretzer, played with a distinguished firmness by Kavin Bacon, who only wants to retrieve his car. For that, he will have to chase down the kids, now turned into reckless speed drivers, wherever they go. Regardless the trivial plot, which in any occasion satisfies completely, Mr.Watts was able to gear an attractive pace boosted by the energy of the two promising young actors, James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Wellford. Even enriching a few passages with refreshing doses of black humor, the film’s issues are maintained along the fabricated excesses of its plot, aggravated with a despicable finale that makes us think about the absurdity of the whole situation. This leaves us destitute of something palpable at the end of the overfamiliar third act, time for the usual shootouts and car chases. The tensest moments were designed when the kids play with the guns, putting us in an incessant state of alert. As for the rest, “Cop Car” brings nothing new, consisting in a mediocre course of events that keeps oscillating between favorable and fatal. With this being said, the last thing I want is to discourage Mr. Watts, who showed capabilities as a filmmaker. Maybe with a tight screenwriting, he might conquer something more than a few grins when presenting some of his strenuous scenes.

They Returned (2015)

Directed by: Ivan Noel
Country: Argentina

Movie Review: From Argentina, country that usually spits out a lot of interesting dramas, comedies, and thrillers, comes “They Returned”, a part crime, part horror film that is nothing else than a spectral revenge tale set in a small Argentine town. The sixth feature by Ivan Noel starts with considerable mystery and was decently mounted, showcasing solid performances by Jorge Booth and Romina Pinto, joined by the newcomers Julio Mendez, Camila Cruz, Rosana Rossotti, and Edmee Aran. However, the film's finale demonstrates to be the main setback of a story that involves the murder of three kids in ‘The Shame’, an abandoned hospital that is the refuge of a secluded former Nazi known as ‘the lunatic’, the last of a known German family, the Himmels. The kids eventually return home, naked and sexually mutilated, drawing the attention of the country’s authorities that send an experienced inspector to clarify and solve the puzzle. The Jew inspector Cohen (Booth) reunites with the passive mayor, the arrogant local judge (Aran), a concerned psychologist (Pinto), and the school’s headmistress (Rossotti). All of them have their own secrets, but the suspicions fall on Sergio (Mendez), an ‘illuminated’ schoolteacher who keeps talking about an evil chain, with origin in the past, that he considers responsible for the occurrences. It’s him who brings the theory that the kids are already dead, the reason why they act so apathetic and unresponsive. Some of the kids’ parents might have something to reveal too. It’s the case of Paola (Cruz) who lives haunted by a sad past and resentful with her vague boyfriend. The filmmaker Ivan Noel has a strong sense of aesthetics, slyly bringing in spooky atmospheres created through the score that he composed. It was a pity that the finale let down the little quiet chaos he was able to immerse this little town in. Working more at the psychological level, “They Returned” was never creepy enough to make us forget its progressive quibbles and plot failures.

Unexpected (2015)

Directed by: Kris Swanberg
Country: USA

Movie Review: “Unexpected” is a drama of circumstances, set in an inner city of Chicago. It stars Cobie Smulders and Gain Bean, respectively as a high school teacher and student, who coincidentally find out they’re pregnant during critical phases of their lives. The third feature film from Kris Swanberg, wife of the film director Joe Swanberg (“Drinking Buddies”), is fictional, despite the filmmaker is living in Chicago and formerly had been a schoolteacher. The film starts with Sam (Smulders), reading online the top ten symptoms of pregnancy and the description for a job as coordinator in a museum. It’s not difficult to guess that she was pregnant indeed, and the museum was nothing less than her dream job, which she applied without high hopes. More difficult to guess was that one of her most liveliest and promising students, Jasmine (Bean), was also pregnant. Clearly, these women have different realities and options, and in both cases something in their actual lives has to be sacrificed for the sake of the new ones that are coming. Sam has all the support of her boyfriend, John (Anders Holm), and the couple doesn’t hide the happiness when they get married in secret; the only factor still in discussion is if Sam agrees on being a stay-at-home mother. In turn, Jasmine, carrying a tough past on her shoulders, breaks up with her immature boyfriend and ponders giving up college. A true friendship is established between Sam and Jasmine as they offer each other help and support while learning from their differences. “Unexpected” is evenly loaded with realism and familiarity, which are the best and the worst in the film. The direction of Ms. Swanberg is earnest and avoids fluctuations, but the material, treated with indelible comfort, blocked my true emotions, reason why I never felt anxious or worried for the protagonists’ future. The most memorable scene, also nominated as the nastiest of the year, has to do with 'drinking' Cheetos.

Who Am I (2014)

Directed by: Baran Bo Odar
Country: Germany

Movie Review: Bustling enough to cause some apprehension, but unoriginal in approach and storytelling, “Who Am I” is a German cybernetic thriller directed by Baran Bo Odar whose previous “The Silence” had given positive indications about his filmmaking aptitudes. The film stars Tom Schilling as Benjamin, an uncommunicative young man who, since childhood, has a crush on Marie, and wishes to have superpowers and invisibility. Being an outsider in the real world, he gains some self-respect on the Internet, as he becomes one of the most wanted hackers in Germany. Benjamin, seated on a chair with his hands tied, and bent over a table, tells to the suspended female inspector, Hanne Lindberg, how he was sentenced to 50 hours of community work for breaking into the university servers in order to help Marie. While carrying out this light sentence, he bumps into his dissimilar, Max (Elyas M’Barek), an insubordinate impostor who introduces him to Stefan, the one who can find any bug in any system, and Paul, a hardware expert, with whom they create a computer hacker group baptized as ‘CLAY’ that stands for ‘clowns laughing at you’. Mostly aiming at wealthy corporations and governmental services, which includes the foreign intelligence agency of Germany (BDN), the reserved and yet bright Benjamin will have to fight the most venerated online pirate, MRX, who allegedly belongs to the Russian mafia hacking group known as ‘Fr13nds’ and is implicated in a crime. The film can be described as “The Social Network” meets “The Prestige”, but still using familiar tones and well-worn narrative timbres, setting a bunch of clichéd situations that spin around with consecutive twists and turns without creating a beneficial impact. The score by Michael Kamm often transmits a sensation of more danger than what the film actually gives. I still have faith in Mr. Odar’s films, only this one didn’t work so well for me.

Danny Collins (2015)

Directed by: Dan Fogelman
Country: USA

Movie Review: “Danny Collins” starts by saying that what we’re going to watch is ‘kind of based on a true story a little bit’. Dan Fogelman, known for writing screenplays for animated movies (“Bolt”, “Tangled”) and expendable comedies (“Crazy, Stupid, Love”, “Last Vegas”), directs for the first time, inspired by the life of folk singer Steve Tilston and relying on experienced actors such as Al Pacino, Anette Benning and Christopher Plummer, who were joined by Jennifer Garner and Bobby Cannavale. Mr. Pacino plays the title character with geniality, modeling an aging pop-rock singer who was predestinated to be rich and famous, but whose career is stagnant and life has degenerated into a spiral of drugs and alcohol abuse for more than 30 years. Although Collins admires himself, enjoying his popularity, he’s not completely fulfilled. When his best friend and longtime manager, Frank (Plummer), uncovers a letter written many years ago by John Lennon, Danny gets deeply touched and decides to change his way of living. Entrusting his unfaithful young fiancé to her lover, he travels to New Jersey to find Tom (Cannavale), the son he had never met, who pushes him away. However, the support of Tom’s wife and the help he provides to his hyperactive granddaughter by enrolling her in a special school, will bring the opportunity of reconciliation that he was wishing for. Simultaneously, the musician uses his charm and spirited lines to seduce Mary (Benning), the manager of the Hilton hotel where he’s staying, who keeps resisting to his invitation to dinner despite the chemistry that protrudes between them. The direction by Mr. Fogelman wasn’t ideal, transforming the story into a mushy drama that feels flat for most of the time. Nonetheless, he was able to set up one of the greatest humane finales I’ve seen lately. After “Stand Up Guys” and “The Humbling”, “Danny Collins” reinforces the aging theme as a persistent constituent of Al Pacino’s agenda.

Tomorrowland (2015)

Directed by: Brad Bird
Country: USA

Movie Review: George Clooney stars in “Tomorrowland”, a futuristic Walt Disney Studios saga that didn’t show sufficient motives for being considered remarkable despite its well-intentioned message. This is the second participation of Clooney in a sci-fi in two years, after the stunning “Gravity”, but the renowned actor didn’t exceed the expectations here, likely due to a discouraging plot packed with too many dimensions and time travels, assembled without a solid structural dorsal spine. The animator Brad Bird, author of “Ratatouille” and “The Incredibles”, directed the film. Only this time, on the contrary of the mentioned movies, he was very far from triumph. What went wrong? The performances? The special-effects? The plot? Well, I would say a bit of all these aspects, aggravated with the use of an intrusive, old-fashioned score, and a structure that jolts intermittently. The movie starts with the inventor Frank Walker (Clooney) talking about the future to an indistinct audience, being constantly interrupted by the voice of a woman. Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) is her name - an optimistic young tech-savvy who played a key role in the past when she received a time-shifting pin that took her straight into the future. During that time, she was protected by Athena (Raffey Cassidy), a self-conscious girl-shaped animatronic robot whose mission was to recruit the ‘special ones’ in order to recover a condemned world. Combating against evil robots, the three of them will try to reach their final destination: a mysterious place known as Tomorrowland whose ruler is David Nix (Hugh Laurie), an old acquaintance of Frank and Athena, who failed to be the heinous villain the story required. “Tomorrowland” is noble in its efforts and morals, but lacked spontaneity in the acting, nerve in its visuals, and strength in the narrative. Inauspiciously familiar, this is just another sci-fi that promises more than it gives.

Testament of Youth (2014)

Directed by: James Kent
Country: UK

Movie Review: “Testament of Youth” is a biographical drama based on the World War I memoir by the English writer and pacifist, Vera Brittain, played here with perseverance by Alicia Vikander, the one who gained our attention some weeks ago as Ava, the robot, in the commendable sci-fi “Ex Machina”. Despite Vikander’s endeavor to get everything right, properly shaping Vera’s personality, the drama, adapted by Juliette Towhidi and directed by James Kent, never took the bull by the horns, conveying the sensation that much better should have been done. I had difficulty finding a strong emotional link with the main character. Even completely identifying and understanding her condition, I simply resigned myself to her grief in a state of indifference. Both director and screenwriter share responsibilities in the case, first because the awkward camera work didn’t win me over, and second because the story lingers more than it should in certain scenes and details, which once absorbed, should have progressed in a more straightforward way. Almost every affective connection created between the viewer and the character, at a certain point, is dissolved in the following scene, time when a new effort is required to reestablish the connection. The viewers should be spared to these relapses to avoid falling into monotony. The misty cinematography by Rob Harden, who had showed aptitude in “Ex Machina” and “Boy A”, was perfectly suitable for the time and place, and his sporadic unfocused images didn’t bother me at all. In the end, “Testament of Youth” is not so strong when intersects the anguish of loss in wartime with the pacifism that, in a noble way, started gaining life. Obviously, this point of view only applies to the film itself and not to the respectful principles and deeds of Vera Brittain.