'The Return' A Review

The Return is a historical drama an adaptation of the final part of Homer's Odyssey. Odysseus(Ralph Finnes) washes up on the shores of his homeland to discover it in ruins and his wife Penelope(Juliette Binoche) beset by leering, reprobate suitors and his ineffectual son Telemachus(Charlie Plummer) under threat.

Finnes and Binoche are consummate talents and make something mildly diverting out of this mostly boring, misguided, pedantic script. Plummer is borderline unwatchable and seems wildly uncomfortable, whether a result of the period setting or the clunky script, who's to say, regardless he's bad. The rest of the supporting cast don't make much of an impression and they're given no assistance by the script or direction.

The locations are beautiful and appropriate, the costuming period, but the real issue is the adaptation of the source material. In the first, the end of Odysseus's journey simply doesn't have the same impact having not experienced it, the movie, kind of from conception, is destined to come up short. In the second, the Odyssey is an epic with magic and gods and monsters and adventure and here there is a baffling attempt to make it realistic. Like, director Uberto Pasolini seems to be focused on genuinely investigating Odysseus's PTSD, which I guess fair, but the execution just clearly misses the point entirely. None of the grandness of Odysseus's experience is conveyed, there's no sense of its depth or texture, no sense of its otherworldlyness. Which may be unfair, criticizing it for what its not so taking it on its own merits as a grounded ancient Greek period piece about the cost of war it just never really comes together, never delivers fully on action or emotion.

Two of our greatest actors make something watchable out of something that otherwise wouldn't be.

Currently available to rent on most VOD platforms.

Stream It.

'Wolfs' A Review

Wolfs is an action comedy about two loner fixers(George Clooney and Brad Pitt) forced to work together for a night to cover up an indiscretion by a politician that is more complicated than it first appears.

Both Clooney and Pitt bring their breezy charm and movie star solidity to their parts and it works, they have good chemistry as they have proven multiple times before, and both have some decent comedic chops. This isn't something we haven't seen them do before nor is the story particularly original but its entertaining and fills a particular genre void in the current release schedule. The talented supporting cast is limited namely Amy Ryan and Poorna Jagannathan, who are each in it for basically one scene, and then Austin Abrams who gives an effective and surprisingly bizarre turn as the object of the leads mission.

The film looks decent, shot on location in NYC, a good soundtrack/score, its effective, workmanlike, without much pretention and that's OK. This is an old school piece of adult entertainment and it is a solid example of such. 

A quality popcorn flick.

Currently streaming on Apple TV+.

Rent It.