Movie Nation

An insanely violent C-movie thriller starring a guy in the headlines for divorcing Miley Cyrus?

A classic “late August movie,” that’s “Killerman.”

It’s about a money launderer (Liam Hemsworth) who rides around New York in a Lincoln Town Car, buying 25 pound (400 ounces at @$1500 per ounce, worth $600,000) gold bricks with a big sack of cash, reselling the gold, “laundering” the money into checks several times removed from drug cash.

He is…The Lincoln Launderer.

Hey, that’s a better title than “Killerman,” which when it’s explained in the movie, gave me the biggest laugh I’ve gotten out of a limited release thriller all year.

It’s a film with an intriguing plot, gripping bits of action, savage violence and good performances.

But man, that pacing. It comes to a dead stop for half an hour, drags out every third act stand-off, torture scene, and the finale. The producer who should have told writer-director Malik Bader to “Rename your movie, man” should have hired the director of “Ca$h Only” a better editor.

Moe Diamond (Hemsworth) has a partner. His nickname, “Skunk” (Emory Cohen) should tell you all you need to know about him. Skunk hooked up Moe with his Slavic mafia uncle (Zlatko Buric of “Teen Spirit,” outstanding), but he longs to make his own money.

Which is how Moe and Skunk get mixed up with the “Debo the Nigerian” (Coletrane Williams), punked by dirty cops (Nickola Shreli is feral and fierce as their leader) and in a car accident that takes away Moe’s memory.

He’s on the run — OK, on the WALK — from those dirty cops, is in trouble with Skunk’s uncle and has no idea who he is, or is supposed to be.

Drugs and a sack of cash don’t jar his memory. Well, he remembers he’s a lowlife and how to swear.

“I gotta see something other than money and drugs!”

Maybe a trip to the club will help, some sex, a little hang time with the old gang.

But we’ve seen Moe as a cool-headed mastermind. Now, he’s more violent, impulsive, desperate and enraged.

“I feel like I’m running…”

You ARE running, Skunk insists. Only he’s not. Because the pacing here won’t let him.

“Killerman” takes too long to set-in-motion. We see much of what we need to grasp in the opening credits, but Bader takes forever to get to the point where Moe loses his memory.

The picture stalls out for a solid half an hour before events, and a girlfriend (Diane Guerrero) Moe doesn’t remember, trigger the orgy of violence that points us toward the finish.

Bader plays the second-worst among the bad cops, and doesn’t trim the fat or the cruelty from a lengthy torture scene that he’s in. A lot of scenes carry on past their climax, even if the acting is memorably over-the-top.

The Croatian Buric (I remember him from the British thriller “Pusher”) is wild-haired and amped-up into spittle-slinging rage in many scenes.

“You DON’FIGHT DEARTY COPS! You BUY zem!”

Hemsworth holds his own in all this, giving us two distinct versions of Moe as the role requires, never hinting that this New York hustler is an actor from Australia. Cohen is a compelling sidekick presence, and the heavies here are HEAVY.

But damn, this movie staggers along. So many of its sins could be minimized by an unsentimental slashing of establishing shots and establishing scenes, a thinning out of that dead-zone in the middle and a vigorous pass at the nervy but too drawn-out finale.

Bader clutters the plot with peripheral characters who serve either no function at all, or a contrived one –the sniper (Richie Ng) who helps Moe and Skunk escape the drug bust, the “clean cop” who serves no function at all, played by actor who was Bruce Lee in “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” (Mike Moh), the club pick-up who sexes up Moe in a bathroom stall.

No, that doesn’t help his memory. And it does nothing for the movie, which lurches along, an 85 minute tale told in an agonizing hour and fifty-two.

MPAA Rating:R for violence, pervasive language, drug material and some sexuality

Cast: Liam Hemsworth, Diane Guerrero,Souleymane Sy Savane, Zlatko Buric, Mike Moh, Emory Cohen, Malik Bader

Credits: Written and directed by Malik Bader. A Blue Fox Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:52

Sounds like The American Dream. A lot of ill- gotten cash, and no memory of how you got it.

And being divorced from Miley? A price we all have to pay, eventually.

Details of the Mouse’s plans to build a “Star Wars” themed hotel have my attention.

Characters wandering the corridors. I pop assume vid screen “windows” into space at several points, a PA system of Brit accented villain’s doing announcements.

And the room service!

Of course, as any Orlandoan can tell you, what Disney World REALLY needs is a vastly expanded monorail or new light rail on property and a major buy in to Orlando’s growing rail system to get people from the airport and assorted rail hubs into the park. Our galaxy is overrun with tourist traffic.

At least the stockholders will be rich enough to afford the oxygen tanks we are all going to need when this more greedy than green company realizes how shortsighted standing in the way of transportation progress (Eisner’s Legacy) was.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/08/disney-world-star-wars-hotel.html

The third film in Gerard Butler’s Scots Secret Service Agent “Fallen” series, named for radio code speak for the White House under attack (“Olympus has Fallen”) concludes with what should be a weekend at the top of the box office pyramid.

Deadline.com is projecting a neck and neck race with “Good Boys” on its second weekend — both films tallying $14-15 million.

Box Office Mojo is saying $14.5 will win it for “Angel.”

I figure the Butler film’s branding is stronger and will push it into the $18+ range. Just spitballing here. Reviews weren’t awful for “Angel.”

“Ready or Not” opened wide Wed and managed under $2 million for the day. Not awful.

Reviews were unjustifiably rapturous for this middling horror/rich hunting the less blue-blooded satire. Didn’t quite come together for me, and audience exit polling, per Deadline, is quite underwhelming. The first ticket buyers aren’t recommending it unreservedly to their friends.

It should do under $10 between Wed and Sunday, just $5 mill for the weekend, but we will see.

The preaching/moviemaking Kendrick Brothers’ “Overcomer” opens wide and could easily best “Ready” with a $6 million+ projected opening, according to BO Mojo.

I will catch that one today, I figure.

https://deadline.com/2019/08/ready-or-not-angel-has-fallen-good-boys-box-office-weekend-1202701545/

Young Lexy Kolker looks so much like young Drew Barrymore that I had to double-check the credits to “Freaks” to make sure Stephen King wasn’t involved, that I wasn’t seeing a “Firestarter” sequel or remake.

And as this dark, hallucinatory vision from Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein unfolded, I had to check again.

It’s a paranoid fantasy about a little girl (Kolker, of TV’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Shooter”) locked in her house by her seemingly unhinged father.

Emile Hirsch would have been my first, or at least second best guess as to who they’d get to play Dad. He’s spot on.

The first words we hear from the father tell us Chloe has been sequestered, pretty much since birth.

“You’ve gotta be a good HIDER, otherwise the bad guys will find you!”

He drills her on her cover name, the answers she’s to give if “the bad guys” get their hands on her.

“I’m Eleanor Reed, age 7.”

She recites details about “Eleanor” from memory, daily exercises Dad tests her on constantly. Heaven help her if she gets one wrong.

“BANG! You’re dead…You don’t know the answer to something, you make something up. You need to lie to be normal.”

But who’s the abnormal one here?

Dad doesn’t sleep, because ” “I can only protect you when I’m awake.” He sometimes bleeds from his eyes. He watches old videos, duct-tapes windows so that no one can see in and fends off Chloe’s many demands to “play with Harper,” a child next door, or to have ice cream.

Hearing that vendor’s truck go by daily is torture to the child, even if she’s supposedly never been out.

And there’s another form of torture being exercised in this cluttered, child-drawing-decorated suburban home. When Chloe makes a big mistake, she’s locked in a closet.

“You opened the door. You almost got us killed!”

So what are we dealing with, here? Crazed survivalist? Man who lost his mind when he lost his wife (Amanda Crew), whom Chloe “sees” in another closet in her room, apparently demented? This much is certain, Dad has weaponized his paranoia.

“You know what’s in an ice cream truck? Frozen kids’ bodies!”

Or has Dad got his “reasons” for behaving this way, treating Chloe as he does?

We can ascertain from the script that the co-writers/directors, who have shared credits on episodic TV and TV movies (“Ingressed Obsessed”  the “Kim Possible” movie) is that double-checking that “Firestarter” connection isn’t unwarranted.

Like Mr. King, these two must have binged on “The Twilight Zone” — probably as they were writing “Freaks.” Perhaps that explains why the wind goes out of the picture’s sails once the obvious-as-you-reason-it-out “mystery” is solved. The script is structured to play towards a punchline, which “Freaks” hits at about the one hour mark — “Twilight Zone” (the longer seasons) length.

As to what happens after that punch line/revelation is that Chloe goes outside, and the guy driving that damned ice cream truck is none other than Bruce Dern.

“Freaks” is far more interesting when it’s not spelling itself out to us, just an adult and a child, trapped in a house together, paranoid and loving, nurturing and torturing, all at once.

The first two acts are where the “hallunicatory” comes from, time-and-space-warping effects that put Chloe into other rooms, with other people, the sense that this is a world post-apocalypse, which kind of explains Dad freaking out at every knock at the door.

The third act is a pull-out-all-the-stops data dump of delayed exposition — what actually is happening here — and the rising threat level facing Chloe, the threats coming from all sides, but with the fear we start to develop emanating from her.

The final act isn’t as interesting as the first two were to me. But Hirsch impresses, as usual, as a man losing his wits and Dern always gives fair value as a canny old coot who knows more than he’s letting on.

And young Ms. Kolker holds her own with the heavier weights (Grace Park shows up as a formidable cop), and suggests that yes, should the Great Stephen King Revival extend to remaking “Firestarter” (It’s in developement), there’s this little girl with a lot of TV credits who might be perfect for the part.

MPAA Rating: R for violence and some language

Cast: Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern, Lexy Kolker, Amanda Crew, Grace Park

Credits: Written and directed by Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 1:44

A 1950s private eye tale was director/star Norton’s aim in adapting Jontahan Lethem’s novel.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Willem Dafoe, Alec Baldwin, Michael Kenneth Williams and Bruce and Leslie signed on.

“Gangster with Tourette’s” is quite the hook.

It has 2:24 worth of gravitas and a Nov. 1 release date.

“Low Tide” is a “Bling Ring” variation of the well-worn “friends find treasure and turn on each other” story trope, one with just enough suspense, atmosphere and local color to come off.

Writer-director Kevin McMullin, making his first feature, leans on character “types” and familiar situations entirely too much. But leads Jaeden Martell and Keean Johnson, as burgling brothers, and Shea Whigham as the local law give it just enough pop to overcome its shortcomings.

Alan (Johnson), Smitty (Daniel Zolghadri)  and Red (Alex Neustaedter) are Jersey Shore teens who resent the “Bennies” who show up in their coastal town every summer season. How much? Enough to turn them into benefactors by motoring across the bay and robbing them when nobody’s home.

It’s about 1990 — Peak Bon Jovi — and they hunt for liquor, drugs and jewelry in their ransackings.

Smitty, their not-wholly-reliable “lookout,” busts his leg on one such foray. That’s when Alan decides to bring in his kid brother as a replacement.

Smitty is on the shifty and shady side. Red, the hotheaded son of a local developer, is the leader, a bully — violent. Alan and little brother Peter are just broke. Dad’s on a long haul, long-line fishing boat for the summer., Mom died years ago.

Jaeden Martell (“St. Vincent,” “Midnight Special”) plays Peter as sort of a variation of his character in “The Book of Henry.” He’s “the smart one,” into black and white horror movies and works on the docks, selling fish for the skippers there. He’s also “a Boy Scout,” literally and figuratively. He has no business getting mixed up in this.

That’s what the local cop (Whigham) says when Alan is caught on their very next outing. Red’s a sociopath in the making, Alan is at a crossroads in his “comic book…origin story.” But Peter? He’s an innocent, maybe with a future.

Nobody’s talking to the cops. Or maybe everybody is. And that last heist, which turned up some choice loot at a dead ship’s captain’s remote cabin, has everybody suspecting everybody else of betrayal.

Only Peter and Alan know the exact contents of the haul, and only Peter knows where he buried it.

Kristine Froseth plays Mary, the pretty “Benny” Alan so wants to impress that he starts flashing money around.

Mike Hodge plays the pawn broker, the one who lectures the kids on what is and isn’t “gold,” and the one who (pre-eBay) has no idea what gold Spanish Doubloons are actually worth, then or now.

It’s also eye-rolling that the “smart kid” asserts that vintage coin stashes are “always worth more together, as a collection.” Seriously, screenwriters, a little homework renders your world more real.

Would a 50ish police sergeant in 1990 use “comic book origin stories” as an analogy to an impressionable teen? Nope. Fanboy screenwriters would.

But there’s much more sharp dialogue than clunky, with the boys announcing their “code” of who they’ll rob, and who they  won’t — “No locals!”

And the cop’s lecture gets good the moment he drops his whole “origin story” analogy. “Bad guys never think they’re bad. They’ve got their reasons, and they do one thing which leads to two things which leads to a million.”

“Low Tide” — on DirectTV Sept. 5, in theaters Oct 4 — is on its surest ground when it deals with the real (not melodramatic) world of its day, sons of fishermen in a “Mystic Pizza/Breaking Away” town bonding over their contempt for wealthy vacationers, making idiots of themselves over girls on the boardwalk.

“She’s a countdown girl. Looks great from far away, 10. Then as she gets closer, 9, 8, 7…”

The cast is uniformly fine, with Neustaedter (of TV’s “The Colony”) throwing an evil Heath Ledger vibe and young Zolghadri born to play a prison “snitch.”

McMullin doesn’t reinvent the wheel here, and “types” and “tropes” only take “Low Tide” so far. But this one delivers just enough suspense, menace, violence and betrayal to never leave us high and dry.

MPAA Rating: R for language, some violence and teen drug use

Cast: Jaeden Martell, Keean Johnson, Shea Whigham, Kristine Froseth, Mike Hodge, Daniel Zolghadri and Alex Neustaedter

Credits: Written and directed by Kevin McMullin. An A24/DirectTV release.

Running time: 1:26

Post 9/11, Congressional investigators uncover some of the things the Bush Administration was covering up, “Rendition” things.

Amazon has this one slated for Nov. Release.

The Hollywood Reporter says that “tens of thousands” of customers credit card info was was stolen.

MoviePass, the bust that keeps on busting.

https://t.co/vSc6qUUf9p https://twitter.com/THR/status/1164542000714133504?s=17

A24 and Direct TV have this teen burglary drama. Jaeden Martell is one of the stars, Shea Whigham plays the law.