The better Smashing Machine. Her traditionalist family doesn’t approve of Christy’s love life, but they do follow her talent for boxing. However, when they start taking a shine to Jim, her trainer, Christy finds herself trapped and isolated. Directed by David Michôd, and starring Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster, Merritt Wever, Katy O’Brian, and James Self,…
Tag: thriller
Review: Wake Up Dead Man – A Knives Out Mystery
The Knives Out anthology continues with excellence. A young, optimistic priest is the top murder suspect in a small rural town, after its aggressive head priest is found dead. Only detective Benoit Blanc can possibly solve this “locked room” mystery. Director Rian Johnson appears to have found his calling, alongside star Daniel Craig. The 2019…
Review: Bugonia
Crazy diamond Lanthimos shines again. Bugonia is as weird as it is thought-provoking. Two cousins agree to kidnap a high-value pharmaceutical company CEO believing her to be an alien. Their plan: to have her confess, then contact her Emperor with demands to stop her species from destroying the Earth by systemic means. Director Yorgos Lanthimos…
Review: One Battle After Another
A modern day classic, perhaps? The explosives expert in a modern revolutionary militia finds himself and his daughter hunted by American military police. One Battle After Another is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. No, not the one who makes the symmetrical movies, nor the one who made the Resident Evil movies. This Anderson brought us…
Review: The Long Walk
Your mileage may vary. In a post economic apocalypse America, groups of teenage boys are forced to walk over 300 miles for the chance of riches. The Long Walk is an adaptation of the Stephen King book of the same name, published in 1979. It sees a troop of young boys (one from each state)…
Review: Flight Risk
Writing film scripts must be hard. A targeted witness is transported in a small plane across Alaska. The marshal in charge of his safety doesn’t check the identification on their pilot however, and some shenanigans takes place. Flight Risk released late 2024 in the US, and early 2025 in the UK. Notedly directed by the…
Review: Weapons
A very effective horror thriller. With some concessions. When an entire classroom of children disappear one night, all blame is focussed onto their teacher, Justine. Director Zach Cregger wow’ed critics with Barbarian in 2022, and has returned with the mysteriously titled Weapons. Starring Julia Garner (recently performed in The Wolf Man) and Josh Brolin (Dune),…
Review: Ballerina (2025)
This movie dances with joy in the established John Wick universe. A young girl is brought into an assassin syndicate after her father is killed. Now she willing to defy everyone around her for revenge. Ballerina, also known as the mouthful “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” is a blast. Directed by Len Wiseman,…
Review: The Killer
A neat, dark, little thriller. A professional assassin takes things into his own hands when a mistake turns his retainers against him. Directed by legendary director David Fincher, and starring Michael Fassbender, The Killer is a short and understated thriller. It would seem I am not the only one who sees huge similarities to the…
Review: Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning
And so it all comes to an end. Quite a disappointing end. Following the events from Dead Reckoning, Ethan Hunt finds himself as the only hope for planet Earth. The Entity, a malignant digital menace, is quickly taking control of nuclear silos everywhere, and Ethan is the only one it is afraid of. But can…