'Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F' A Review

 Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is an action/comedy, the 4th installment in the franchise. Axel Foley(Eddie Murphy) remains a Detroit detective, the movie opens on a Red Wings game where he is following some suspects which culminates in a high speed chase damaging a lot of private and public property. He is suspended and heads to Beverly Hills after his old friend Billy(Judge Reinhold) tells him his daughter Jane(Taylour Paige) is in over her head on a cop killing case.

Murphy deploys his wisecracking charm as if it hasn't been 30 years since he last revisited the role. Its great and a mix of nostalgia and an odd edge(even though the humor is in-line with the previous films). Its wonderful to see him here and his late career return starting with Dolemite Is My Name continues, maybe not with all unequivocal hits, but still he has been missed, he is a singular performer with a robust career and now, perhaps more than ever with all the mix up in show business, we need him. The returning cast are all great to see(although Reinhold has had some unfortunate plastic surgery) and new comers to the franchise fit right in and enhance- Paige plays it absolutely straight and almost single handedly grounds the film with necessary reality and stakes, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays off Murphy well, and Kevin Bacon is deliciously over-the-top as the heavy. All-in-all a stellar cast.

The production is shockingly practical and expansive. The action is visceral and Murphy is still able to execute it well and weave comedy throughout. The classic score fades in and out effectively and it mostly moves along at a decent clip(even if there's a moment or too where the plot becomes a bit heavy). It really works and it should have been released in theaters, this is an undisputable crowd pleaser with a large demographic reach(not to mention a large budget) so there is no possible benefit for Netflix to confine this to streaming. 

If Bad Boys: Ride Or Die(aka Bad Boys 4) was a moderate box office success Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F(aka Beverly Hills Cop 4) would have been a bona fide hit(particularly with the current malnourished release schedule). The original Bad Boys was an attempt to repurpose Beverly Hills Cop and for the talent that Will Smith and Martin Lawrence have in this particular genre niche(which I don't dispute) you could argue it was created by Eddie Murphy who is still the king.

Straight-up fun.

Currently streaming on Netflix.

See It.

Clarity, and perhaps, Contentment

Cut away all the fat
all the distraction

the expectation

what's left

is just living

and the body

does half the work

on its own

'A Quiet Place: Day One' A Review

A Quiet Place: Day One is a horror/drama, a prequel to A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place II. Sam(Lupita Nyong'o) is a terminally ill cancer patient convinced to go on a day trip to NYC by one of the nurses Reuban(Alex Wolff). In the city the "event" occurs and the monsters invade. Sam has to come to terms with the situation, what life she has left, and her death. Along the way she meets and befriends Eric(Joseph Quinn).

Nyong'o as always is magnetic and assured grounding, wholly, this monster movie in absolutely real and compelling human stakes. She is totally confident, totally present in her performance and be sheer force of talent elevates the material. Wolff and Quinn similarly give great turns, incredibly emotional and honest. Djimon Hounsou makes a brief appearance, the only disappointment in the casting is that he's not in it more. The surprise star is the cat Frodo, Sam's companion/service animal, who's presence again underscores the humanity involved.

Visually slick but in some ways perfunctory. If there is an issue here it is that writer/director Michael Sarnoski is not particularly interested in the franchise or its mythology so this is less a horror movie than it is a thoughtful exploration of mortality that happens to have huge bestial aliens in it rather than A Quiet Place installment. Not a surprise coming from the man behind Pig but given A Quiet Place II was an object lesson in diminishing returns its probably just as well. Sam's journey and Nyong'o's portrayal of it is compelling, deeply emotional, and satisfying. What happens on "day one" in John Krasinski's little monsterverse no one really cares about(nor should they).

Almost despite itself, an entertaining and moving piece of film.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

See It.

'Kinds Of Kindness' A Review

Kinds Of Kindness is an absurdist anthology movie about depraved sad people doing depraved sad things.

The cast are all talented but none are able to lock into the tone in a way that makes the film feel particularly watchable or coherent. Over his past several projects writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos has traded in his old ensemble mainstays for new and that trade has not benefited the results, if Colin Farrell and Angeliki Papoulia were in the Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone roles the film would be better. Not that Plemons or Stone are bad but they are miscast, they misunderstand or are unable to translate the tone, they don't have the necessary cunning to deliver. Perhaps this is a result of the film not having the flat affect used to great success in Lanthimos's earlier films. Maybe it's because the script as is feels like its trying too hard. Lanthimos and co-writer Efthimis Filippou trying to reclaim their avant garde bonafides after Lanthimos's back-to-back mainstream successes. And, like Austin Butler before her, its astonishing that Margaret Qualley's star has risen so far so fast. Its not that she lacks talent but her current ubiquitousness is baffling and her limited experience makes her presence here a waste. Equally frustrating is the under use of Hong Chau and Mamoudou Athie who are the only two that are able to convey anything like recognizable humanity.

What is this film even about? It appears nothing. The film has visual style and an infectious soundtrack but it has no meat, no life to it, so the excellent production design is mostly for naught. The sex stuff is gratuitous and seemingly without purpose, the violence boring and unaffecting as there is no discernable motivation behind literally anything. The Lobster works because the world it builds is rich and the actors within it carve out idiosyncratic yet emotionally truthful characters. The same is true of The Killing Of A Sacred Deer even if it is more brutal, it has ambition and it is confident in what it is. That balance is what is lacking here. Regardless of the trappings, the subculture, the bizarreness there is no truth. And the fault is both in the script and with the performances both of which fall into Lanthimos's lap. He seems to be falling prey, as many writer/directors do, to success. The Favourite is a good movie but it was the first of his film's that was digestible to a wider audience. And Poor Things, despite its critical acclaim, was an absolute mess. One hopes he can right the ship.

Inert.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

Don't See It.

Fireworks

On a night
when a sign is needed
lo, the City provides

a gift for the weary

a demonstration

of the Summer's promise

'The Bikeriders' A Review

The Bikeriders is a period drama about a Chicago motorcycle club in the late 60's/early 70's inspired by the photo-book of the same name.

Tom Hardy plays Johnny the founder of the club and is mostly adrift in the performance with a script that gives him little to do and little direction to pursue. He's a compelling actor(as always) but his accent choice isn't great and he relies on tics that we've seen him deploy in better movies. Austin Butler is Benny, the James Dean surrogate, and he simply does not measure up. On paper Benny is an idea not a character and Butler plays it that way, frequently just pensively starring off camera, there is no humanity present and as a result his screentime and arc are mostly a waste. Conversely, Jodie Comer as Kathy is excellent, the accent is perfect and she is able to convey actual emotion throughout(the only real heart involved in the whole picture). By an oddment of the screenplay, she serves basically as the narrator, nearly all her scenes are "interviews" where she is providing exposition, she only has a couple actual scenes with other actors. She executes it wonderfully but it is a terrible choice, a waste of her considerable talent. The supporting cast has little to do and make little impact aside from Boyd Holbrook, Norman Reedus, and Michael Shannon(the sole cast member with any ties to the actual city of Chicago).

The film is shot in suburban Cincinnati and it shows, nothing looks authentic, there is no sense of actual place and this is compounded by the fact that the three leads are British and aside from Shannon none of the actors are from Chicago let alone the Midwest. Its a baffling production choice compounded by the incomprehensible casting choices. Again, to give Comer her due, she is the only one that actually sounds midwestern and properly evokes its people. As a result of these choices the film feels like it has no identity, there is no truth to it, it is not evocative of place, culture, or people. To compound these mistakes even further the structure of the screenplay is too faithful to its source material, it feels like a sprawling piece of journalism not a narrative film. When you take a step back there is no actual story here only what Comer is able to inject by force of will.

A rare but extreme miss by writer/director Jeff Nichols. One of the big reasons Mud was so effective was that it was a film about Arkansas filmed in Arkansas starring actors, if not all from AK, at least from the South.

As my old man would say- that don't cut shit in Chicago.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

Don't See It.

'I Am: Celine Dion' A Review

I Am: Celine Dion is a documentary about the titular singer following her struggles with STS(Stiff-person Syndrome) with flashbacks to archival footage of her career and home movies and stills of her childhood.

Her career is impressive and its nice to revisit songs and triumphs from it. She allows relatively unrestricted access to her life in Las Vegas currently which is interesting, she's vulnerable and struggling, seeking a path forward with her art and diagnosis. Its brave. But ultimately there is very little insight about who she is and why she is the way she is. The retrospective element feels like a greatest hits or a video CV. Its watchable but there's very little depth to it. Dion is extremely circumspect about her family, the references to it, her marriage, and her children is all very glancing. She is very upfront about her struggles with STS to the point of uncomfortability, there are a couple extended sequences of her extremely painful episodes, which one can suppose will raise awareness about the condition. But beyond that there is a decided lack of context throughout, it seems clear Dion herself most likely doesn't think about that, doesn't really reflect, its not in her nature. And that's fine but as a film solely about Celine Dion we learn very little about Celine Dion. 

Director Irene Taylor is a talented filmmaker, it looks good, the soundtrack slaps, the film has movement and momentum but Taylor either doesn't really interrogate Dion or Dion was only willing to be personal on certain subjects and to a certain degree. That's all fine but the end result is thin and too polished.

Dion's talent and influence is undisputed, who she actually is is still in question.

Currently streaming on Prime.

Stream It.