Movie Nation

“Driven” is the sort of comic thriller you root for, but one you’re hoping turns out better than it does.

It’s “Collateral” in a ride-share, “Collateral” meets oh — “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” even though the supernatural menace isn’t vampires. They are “‘demons,’ for lack of a better term.”

That’s a running gag in a movie that has a few of those, a few passable jolts and a couple of decent laughs. It’s almost enjoyable enough on its own merits. But the slack pacing, general lack of urgency or any sense of suspense do it in.

Casey Dillard, who was in James Franco’s adaptation of Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying,” wrote and co-stars in this as Emerson, a broke would-be stand-up comic who tries out new material in the rear-view mirror between customers. She’s driving a Ferry ride-share car nights just to make ends meet.

We’re starting to figure out it’ll be a cold night in Tupelo (where they filmed this) before she ever gets a Comedy Central special when she picks up the customer from hell. Almost literally.

He (Richard Speight, Jr. of “Supernatural”) is menace incarnate, a testy customer of few words, in town to “visit a few old friends.”

He’s got assorted addresses, several stops. And Emerson, gay and fresh off a break up and trying to turn that into “material” (“Your hair is so beautiful…I want to RIP it out. Then it wouldn’t be YOUR hair anymore, would it?”) is oblivious as he makes his stops and awful shadow violence plays out behind the curtains of his “stops.”

She’s slow on the uptake. Then he gets into the car, bloodied. Then he shows her his big honking knife.

“Please don’t hurt me.”

“I’m not going to.”

“Please don’t hurt ANYbody.”

“I won’t…really.”

As “Roger” starts to speak, to explain himself and his errands, two things happen. One, we can’t help but notice that this scary guy is a lot less scary because he sounds just like funnyman Will Forte. And secondly, all this palaver about “demons, for lack of a better term” has just turned “Driven” into “Parked, and about to get towed away.”

Dillard’s written herself a colorful character to play, made her a comic and who loves language (“You have a LOT of ‘Word War’ notifications!”), a lovelorn lesbian obsessed with filling the air around her (in a CAR) with “essential oils.”

“What was that?”

“Mint.”

“Smells like Satan’s ANUS.”

There are a few funny lines.

“So, you’re a comic?”

“Not judging from your reactions.”

But as “Collateral” and assorted other thrillers confined to a car promise, the claustrophobia should make tension and suspense spike. And they don’t. We never fear for anybody’s safety, never connect with a single villain worth rooting against.

The more explaining that Roger does, the more flailing one-liners Emerson trots out, the duller “Driven” is. The stars are agreeable, even if they’re underplaying everything so much that they lower the stakes into “Who cares?” territory.

It’s likeable and worth rooting for. But in the end, it just isn’t all that.

Cast: Casey Dillard, Richard Speight Jr.

Credits: Directed by Glenn Payne, script by Casey Dillard. An Uncork’d release.

Running time: 1:30

Hard to believe Scott Derrickson got his start with “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.” I mean, it was a fine film, but who knew he’d be an effects driven blockbuster king?

This sequel idea has been around for years. Jim Henson’s movie came out 36 years ago, but in recent years talk of reviving it has grown louder.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/labyrinth-sequel-works-scott-derrickson-1295924

Here are the two jokes that work in “Rebelión de los Godínez (Mutiny of the Worker Bees),” an antic piñata colored-workplace farce from Mexico.

The hero, played by Gustavo Egelhaaf, has just asked a pretty office mate (Anna Carreiro) to the movies.

“What’s that one with the guy everybody loves?” he wonders (in Spanish with English subtitles).

“Eugenio Derbez?” she guesses.

“I said a GUY.”

The other gag involves a squeaky toy and its role in a riot.

Aside from those two giggles, a slap at the manhood of Mexico’s most popular comic export and a Picachu, “Rebelión/Mutiny” is a comedy that tries to make up for the lack of laughs with manic patter, mugging for the camera and quick cutting.

Not a bad instinct on writer-director Carlos Morett’s part. Comedy is close-up and quick, after all. But here, it’s no help. But he’s a veteran producer making his directing debut with a genre he has no feel for.

It’s about clever, ambitious Omar (Egelhaaf), something of a technology savant who shifts his dreams of making a costumed mascot he’s created for the family’s cell-phone repair business a viral sensation and joins the “white collar” world.

Whatever that phrase means in North America, in Mexico or in this film at least it’s treated as a term of derision – office drones, powerless in the face of bullying credit-thieves in mid-level management.

That’s Relo Tech, the place Omar finds work. Somehow, siblings Tania and Roberto (Bárbara de Regil, Mauricio Argüelles) rule two major departments there, lording it over the app makers, salespeople, accountants and clerical staff under them.

Omar is wised-up to the company’s soul-crushing ways by two colleagues, who teach him “the rules” which are hilarious only in how dull and generic they are.

“Rule #5, the less you work, the fewer mistakes…Rule #6, your boss is always ALWAYS right!”

Mischief is afoot at ReloTech, something Omar stumbles into as he’s binge-drinking with his podmates, prepping for the big karaoke-off with their rivals, KreaTech and dreaming up his “project,” an app idea to save them all.

Backs are stabbed, figuratively, and chests (literally, with scissors). Love is in the air, and treachery.

And the worker bees? They mutiny. It’s a riot. For real.

But the movie? You have your two laughs. I mentioned them at the top. Be content with them or find yourself something else to Netflix.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, violence, sex, innuendo, profanity

Cast: Gustavo Egelhaaf, Bárbara de Regil, Anna Carreiro, Mauricio Argüelles and Alejandro Suárez

Credits:Written and directed by Carlos Morett. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:34

Broadly-acted, brutally boring and downright bizarre, “The Accompanist” lands like a 7-chord pounded with a sledgehammer.

It’s a romantic mystery that ineptly blends ballet, an abusive relationship and the supernatural, often with groan-out-loud effect.

Writer-director and star Frederick Keeve is introduced to us, weeping at the keyboard in the opening scene. It won’t be long before he isn’t crying alone.

He plays Jason, the accomplished but grieving accompanist for an L.A. (Venice Beach) ballet school, a sad loner who has to be bullied into taking a goldfish a colleague at the office gives him to cheer him up.

Jason has a past. Jason has a secret. And the pushy-flirty dancer Brandon (Ricky Palomino) seems to know its existence, even as he arm-twists Jason into working nights so that Brandon can dazzle at an upcoming New York ballet audition.

“Will you trust me?” he pleads. “Whatever this big secret is, I can handle it!”

Him? Sure. Us? Not so much.

There’s an attraction, and complications. Brandon’s getting smacked around by his raging lover (Aaron Cavette). Jason’s “big secret” has something to do with all these car accident flashbacks and nightmares, the wife and kids in the car, and “the music of the spheres.”

Everything about this is just as clumsy as can be. Brandon’s instant belief “Did YOU do that?” after that an earthquake that interrupts a rehearsal, Jason’s cavalier way with his “gift,” even with the violent Adam, the long LONG rehearsal sequences (with the pianist off camera) interrupted by pretty scenic shots of the Hollywood Hills and the coast. Nothing blends together.

The mystery isn’t all that mysterious, the acting is borderline primitive with dialogue that suggests everybody just wants to rush through it in a monotone, with as little expression as possible.

Brandon: “What did you lie to me?”

Jason: “Lie to you I was trying to help you…”

Let me help you. Don’t bother with “The Accompanist.”

MPAA Rating: unrated, with violence, sex, nudity, profanity

Cast:  Frederick Keeve, Ricky Palomino, Aaron Cavette

Credits: Written and directed by  Frederick Keeve A Dark Star release.

Running time: 1:31

“Scheduling conflicts” forced the very busy Nicholas Hoult (“The Great”) to give up the bad guy lead in “MI:7.” Esai Morales, dazzling as the first heavy on Netflix’s “Ozark,” makes an apt replacement. https://t.co/4A8ouBqKAA https://twitter.com/THR/status/1265161264701083648?s=20

The only thing that’s “attack ad” in the Memorial Day offerings from Republican anti-Trump group is the glaring contrast thrown on the table when you start talking about honor, sacrifice, saving the republic, empathy and intelligence and imply those are traits the current occupant lacks.

This one reuses a Lincoln letter that was in Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” and possibly in Ken Burns’ episostlery doc series “The Civil War.” I think it was in there.

And using mournful fiddle music in the score reinforces that idea. I don’t think Spielberg recycled it for “Lincoln.”

The dirt, the cover-up, the conspircacy. This guy is going to be the subject of many docs. The first of many? Netflix has it, May 27

Chadwick Boseman stars, Jean Reno, Delroy Lindo and Isaiah Whitlock Jr. are in support, and the Spike Lee brand of mixing historical context news footage into the visuals returns for this tale of remembrance, loyalty, taking stock and reckoning. Oh, and smuggling out gold they hid In Country during the war.

It was supposed to open in June. We shall see.

Has it been banned in Russia, and uh Alabama yet?

Interesting topic for an animated short, ten years after “It gets better.”

Rewatching the Capra, Colbert and Clark classic I’m reminded of an old Frank story about the way the movie MIGHT have turned out.

The runaway heiress is thrown together with the dipsomaniacal reporter on the bus from Miami.

They get stranded in Jacksonville when she misses the last call for reboarding.

She is upset, because she has no idea what’s in store. He, on the other hand is familiar with the rougher side of things. He describes the charms of Jacksonville –“There AREN’T any” to the “brat.” He looks at the itinerary –“Savannah, Columbia, Charlotte, Greensboro, Richmond,” bleaker by the stop, and decides to end it all right there, a post Prohibition bender in the John on the St.John’s. She has to talk him out of it.

True story. Ever been to Jacksonville? Tell me I’m wrong.

Kidding aside, this is that rare early ’30s comedy that ages wonderfully, quaint and dated, cute, sexy and daring.