Category Archives: Mystery

Blink Twice

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Blink Twice         3 ½ stars

Actress Zoe Kravitz of Big Little Lies enters the writer/director role with her directorial debut in Blink Twice, a thriller/mystery that will really grab your attention and keep you guessing for much of the movie. The lead character, Frida (Naomie Ackie of I Wanna Dance with Somebody as Whitney Houston) should take a lesson from The Menu and Glass Onion. That is, if a billionaire tycoon invites you to his own private island, you should take a pass. I will try not to give away too many spoilers, but I will compare the movie to Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Midsommar as it involves a deadly trap for the welcome guests and to Promising Young Woman for its indictment of toxic masculinity in misogynistic white men. Frida and her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat of Arrested Development) are cocktail waitresses at a gala for a foundation put on by tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum of Magic Mike and 21 Jump Street). King says he is making amends for his past bad behavior, thus the foundation. Frida and Jess decide to crash the party as guests in evening gowns and soon Frida finds herself noticed by said billionaire and the two friends are invited to his private island for a lavish vacation with several of his rich friends. These include Vic (Christian Slater) who repeatedly takes Polaroid photos of the guests, a professional chef (Simon Rex), an actor (Haley Joel Osment in a beard), a tech wiz (Levon Hawke), a bodyguard and an assistant (Geena Davis) who seems very confused. Besides Frida and Jess, there are several other women guests who spend their time lounging at the pool, running across the immense property, having top rated meals prepared by the chef and consuming hallucinogenic drugs. Also, they are all dressed in the same white bikini outfits provided in their rooms and strangely enough, do not already know one another. (This should be a clue about their situation.) Kravitz takes her time in the early part of the movie focusing on the narcissistic behavior of the various guests inserting many humorous moments including a few well-placed pranks. (You could say that Haley Joel Osment’s character is a real dickhead.) Eventually, Frida and Jess get the sense that something is not right, and they start to realize what Slater King is really all about. I’ll leave it there for you to decide if the movie is for you. There is a warning on the screen at the start saying that there are some disturbing, graphic scenes in the movie. That is accurate as the violence and blood is comparable to that in Halloween. It becomes a revenge movie much like Promising Young Woman and Revenge. While the scenes are well put together and the characters are well acted, I couldn’t help but feel it has all been done before. We have had so many condemn the rich movies, that it is getting a bit tiresome.

The Last Hand

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The Last Hand                    ½ star

This week I went back in time to 1995 to find an old DVD release called The Last Hand. This is a dreadful film noir movie with cheap sets, convoluted writing and bad acting. It is set in a small Nevada town where some locals get together for a regular Friday night high stakes poker game. On one particular night, the usual loser Benny, hits it big and wins around $30,000 only to be killed by a gunman while driving home. Benny’s son, Clyde shows up the next day to find out what happened to Benny, but the cops are uncooperative, being controlled by one of the casino owners. As Clyde follows the path of Benny’s last hours he finds a maze of bad debts and mistrust among the card players and two of their lady friends that leads to more murders. There is also the matter of Benny’s will and the deed to his ranch that may reveal the motive of the killer. By the time I got to the end most everybody was dead and I didn’t care how it was going to turn out anyway. Then the filmmaker slapped on an ending that didn’t make sense to say nothing of the plot holes and seeming coincidences in the story. One notable point is that Benny is played by Batman’s Frank Gorshin. There is also a young woman, Grace played by Hudson Leick in her second film appearance, before she got the role of Callisto in Xena, Warrior Princess. Stay away from The Last Hand. As I say, I watch these movies so you don’t have to.

I Think We’re Alone Now

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I Think We’re Alone Now              2 ½ stars

I Think We’re Alone Now is yet another movie about the end of the world, a common theme nowadays. I finally got around to seeing this film that premiered at Sundance in 2018. Peter Dinklage is Del, the seeming lone survivor of the apocalypse, who spends his days gathering and burying the bodies of the dead and cleaning the houses in his neighborhood. As an introvert, Del seems perfectly fine with this new reality spending time in a library reading and sipping wine until his world is interrupted by the arrival of Grace (Elle Fanning), a loud and talkative teenage girl who is the opposite of Del. At first Del is annoyed by the girl but gradually accepts her and her assistance in cleaning up this world. Both actors are excellent and very well suited to their roles. Dinklage is exceptional at conveying emotions without speaking. The movie is more about a developing relationship than anything about the end of the world. In fact we never find out what the cause is, only that it happened very suddenly. Then the movie takes an abrupt turn revealing that things are not at all what they seem. It turns into something out of The Twilight Zone leaving us to think, “But how did that happen?” The movie is trying to deliver a message that we can grow through pain and sadness, but does it with a plot twist that didn’t seem all that genuine. I have a hard time with movies that have this much of a change in its reality.

Death on the Nile

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Death on the Nile             3 stars

In Death on the Nile, Kenneth Branagh makes his second outing as the famous detective, Hercule Poirot, having previously solved a killing in 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express. This time the Agatha Christie hero is isolated on another means of transportation, a river boat on the Nile River in 1937 Egypt, where while on vacation a dead body is discovered among the many passengers on board. But before all this we first are introduced to some of Poirot’s backstory where we learn of his experiences in battle in the Great War and how he came to wear that unmistakably large mustache. This is followed by his encounters with many of the characters at a London night club that include Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer), a masculine playboy who steams up the dance floor with his fiancé Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey). He meets ultra-rich heiress Linett Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) there who is also Jacqueline’s best friend. Fast forward to the previously mentioned scene in Egypt at a high class hotel, we find that Simon has ditched his girlfriend and is now on his honeymoon with his new love, Linett. There are many other associated individuals at the hotel all with connections to Linett, but the shocker is when Jacqueline shows up to the party, uninvited. It is in these circumstances that our detective, Poirot, must interrupt his vacation and join the guests on the Nile riverboat, in order to keep the newlywed couple safe. It is only then that the first of the dead bodies appears, against the backdrop of the spectacular desert scenery of Egypt that could be from a movie of the forties or fifties. This being a movie based on an Agatha Christie novel, there are many suspects all with a possible motive for murder that must be investigated. Most of them are destined to stand around a lot until they are interrogated by Poirot while the viewer puzzles over who the killer could be, or yet another murder happens. While the production quality is high and we are treated to some very interesting cast members (including Annette Bening and Russel Brand) some of the social interactions seem more appropriate to our present than the 1930’s that the movie is set in. Of the two Poirot movies of Branagh, I liked this one better than Murder on the Orient Express. But for a superb murder mystery, you would do even better with 2019’s Knives Out.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

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The Tragedy of Macbeth               4 stars

Joel Coen does his take on Shakespeare’s play Macbeth in an unusual style. Oscar winner Denzel Washington is excellent as the power hungry Macbeth who is driven to be the king of Scotland by the combination of his wife, Lady Macbeth (Francis McDormand) and the three witches who help him hatch his murderous plan. Of special note is Kathryn Hunter who portrays the three witches in a scene where she seems not human as she contorts her body into odd shapes and utters the scheming words of all three parts. Brendan Gleeson is very appropriately cast as the loved king who is doomed to die by the hand of Macbeth. The scenery is very stark and minimal with the filming all done in black and white. It serves to bring all the viewer’s attention to the performances on the screen by the very talented actors. Some parts of the film have a fantasy like quality to show how Macbeth seems to be losing his mind as his mad plans fall apart. It has been a while since I heard the story of Macbeth, that is, when I was a senior in high school so I confess I could not follow the whole story. The movie uses the Shakespearean manner of speaking so it will be tough to get used to. If that doesn’t turn you off you would be well advised to see The Tragedy of Macbeth. I have to agree that Washington is deserving of his Oscar nomination for this role.

The Outfit

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The Outfit           4 stars

Writer-director Graham Moore of The Imitation Game has created a tense well-crafted crime drama in The Outfit, starring Academy Award winner Mark Rylance as Leonard, a soft spoken tailor who operates a tailor shop in 1958 Chicago where he makes finely crafted suits. That is, a shop that is also frequented by shady gang figures who use a drop box inside to pass thick envelopes with mysterious markings and who also will have Leonard make new suits for them. Rylance is very low-key as Leonard who stays intensely focused on his craft and only wants to be able to survive the night when the mobsters become aware that there is a “rat” in their midst who is informing a rival gang of their comings and goings. The movie is unique in that the entire story takes place within the rooms of the shop, most of it in a single night filled with suspicion and murder. Two of the gangsters are played by Dylan O’Brien and Johnny Flynn who speak with convincing Chicago mobster accents. Simon Russell Beale is equally effective as the mob father figure, Roy Boyle, who wants to get to the bottom of the evening’s events, even if he has to kill someone. Zoey Deutch appears glamorous in 1950’s wardrobe as Mable, the receptionist, who is treated like a daughter by Leonard. (Deutch is the daughter of actress Lea Thompson.) The show really belongs to Rylance who gives a fascinating performance of a man who must always keep his wits about him even with a gun pointed at him. There are many lies and misleading stories being told so, the audience too must stay focused on who said what to who and who really knows the truth. I chose to see the movie based solely on seeing the trailer and am glad I made that choice.

Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing                             2 stars

I have not read the book that Where the Crawdads Sing is based on, but judging by the talk about it the book by Delia Shannon it must be a real page turner. It’s too bad that the feel of the book did not translate very well in Olivia Newman’s on-screen adaptation. The movie follows the life of young Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones of Normal People) who must live on her own in the swamps of North Carolina after suffering the abuse of her father and being abandoned by her entire family. Kya is considered a pariah by the local people and is referred to as swamp-girl. She has few friends as she must fend for herself starting at age seven. The story involves a possible murder when a body is found at the bottom of a fire tower so naturally it is assumed that the loner Kya must have been the murderer despite a total lack of evidence. Enter retired lawyer Tom Milton (a very lawyerly David Strathairn) who volunteers to defend the accused Kya for no pay. One should not think of this movie as a murder mystery as doing so will leave them disappointed. The less said about that the better. Rather it should be viewed as a story about surviving against all odds and as a love story. Even so the story was not all that convincing perhaps because of some of the supporting performances or not taking full advantage of the southern setting of the movie. The abusive Chase (Harris Dickenson) who Kya initially falls for is very two dimensional. I saw it as so much melodrama that did not grab my full attention. None of this is the fault of the lead actress, Edgar-Jones who gives a creditable performance as Kya.

Nope

Nope                     4 ½ stars

Nope is Jordan Peele’s the third horror production and this one brings all the classic aspects of traditional Hollywood monster movies together, only set against a wide-open western frontier. Like his previous movies Get Out and Us, Peele tells his stories from a uniquely black perspective. In Nope, early on we are introduced by Keke Palmer’s Emerald Haywood to a story about the first “moving picture” which featured a two second clip of a galloping horse with a black rider, whose name is missing from history. Emerald claims that the man was her ancestor and in a way this reminds us of the role that Black Americans played in taming the West and in the early days of moviemaking. Emerald’s brother is OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) who runs the family ranch in the foothills of northern California that they inherited from their father who dies mysteriously early in the movie. Eventually OJ becomes aware that there is something strange going on as mysterious lights appear in the sky and the horses have a tendency to get spooked and run away. With the help of a tech store clerk, (Brandon Perea) the team puts together a video surveillance system in order to capture the alien visitors on film. Before we get a good look at the aliens there is a good indication of the level of horror we are in for when in a flashback we see an especially troubling incident involving one of the characters that occurs on live TV. (We learn there is a reason that chimpanzees do not appear in commercial TV shows.) Midway through the movie Peele takes us from glimpses of the threat, ala Jaws, to the full-on terror of facing the enemy. He gives us a cacophony of voices and noise and blood-soaked terrain as our heroes struggle to get the images recorded while at the same time surviving the assault. Through it all, the quiet OJ is amazingly cool and calm as he plans what his next move should be, (sort of a Clint Eastwood character in a classic western). Palmer, though much more vocal shows how resourceful her character can be. Peele’s hit blockbuster of the summer expands his story telling skills beyond what we have seen before. You will have to go see it in the theater to really get the full experience of this horror movie.

Bodies Bodies Bodies

Bodies Bodies Bodies     4 stars

Bodies Bodies Bodies by director Halina Reijn is billed as the slasher movie of the summer. This hip comedy horror features a young Gen Z cast full of digital social media references and a hip hop soundtrack so it is obviously meant for a younger audience. That said, the script is surprisingly smarter than one would think. The premise is that a group of young people of privilege gather for a night of partying at one of the member’s father’s house in the path of a hurricane because that is a thing that people do. The young cast includes Amandla Stenberg (star of The Hate U Give) as Sophie who is just out of rehab and Maria Bakalova (from Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) as young immigrant Bee who is in a romantic relationship with Sophie. (Don’t worry if you don’t remember Maria Bakalova because Rudi Giuliani will.) The pair arrive at the house where the rest of the partiers have already gathered. There is a history of relationships among the group that will become apparent as the night progresses. As the storm approaches the group plays a game called Bodies Bodies Bodies, a sort of role-playing murder game that serves as a precursor of what is to come. Among the group is David whose father is the owner of the afore-mentioned house. As played by SNL’s Pete Davidson, David is a first class dick and really gets on the nerves of some of the partiers as he ridicules some of the jargon they use. Inevitably one of the members turns up dead from horrible injuries which leads to the chaos of the rest of the movie. Waves of suspicion and accusations emerge among the group as they try to cope with this rapidly changing situation. Conflicts based on relative wealth and race emerge as the arguments rage. Much of this is filmed with low lighting and hand-held cameras which lends itself well to the confusion among these Gen Z children of privilege. The intelligently written movie is not so much a slasher film, but more of a lesson in the consequences of a breakdown in trust and understanding. Of course there is more than enough blood and mayhem to satisfy the true horror fans out there.

See How They Run

See How They Run           4 stars

For a fun time you won’t be disappointed with the new whodunit “See How They Run” by director Tom George and writer Mark Chappell. The comedy mystery does a variation of the play within a play theme, using Agatha Christie’s popular stage play “The Mousetrap” that has reached its one hundredth performance in 1953 London’s West End. There is a plan to turn the hit play into a film version to be directed by Hollywood director Leo Kopernick (Adrien Brody who I have not seen in ages) and written by Mervyn Cocker-Norris (David Ayelowo). Early on in the movie one of the film crew turns up dead at the play’s after party, done in by a mysterious dark figure in a coat and hat. In steps Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell of Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) of Scotland Yard to be aided by rookie officer Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan of Brooklyn and Lady Bird) who are tasked with identifying the murderer. Stoppard sets about interviewing the myriad of suspects all of whom seem to have a possible motive while the enthusiastic Stalker tries to help in amusing fashion. (She writes everything down in her notebook including Stoppard’s advice of Do not jump to conclusions.) The suspects even include famous actor Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson) who stars in the play. The movie features multiple flashbacks and on screen titles to show the passage of time that all serve to fill in the details. Especially entertaining are the interactions between the experienced but put upon Stoppard and the rookie Stalker who proves to be somewhat annoying, but observant. Of course, we eventually reach the inevitable gathering of the suspects in a room that even includes the famed Miss Christie where the murderer is to be revealed. For Agatha Christie enthusiasts there are many references to her works and characters that I will not go into. The movie is a good time with a story containing many red herrings and a few twists as a good murder mystery should. The advice “Do not Jump to Conclusions” is a very good rule to follow.