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ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS 2020Posted on 09 Feb 2020 |
Genre: Action
Director: York Alec Shackleton
Cast: Guy Pearce, Devon Sawa, Michael Bellisario, Barbie Blank, Kelly Greyson, Branscombe Richmond
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Rating: NC16 (Some Coarse Language and Violence)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 13 February 2020
Synopsis: Jim Dillon (Golden Globes nominee Guy Pearce) is a former Texas Ranger with a checkered past. Now a washed-up marshall in the dying town of Silver Rock, he refuses to carry a gun ten years after one of his bullets left his partner paralysed during a shootout on the Mexican border. Jim is forced to take action when a ruthless biker gang rolls into Silver Rock looking to raise hell. Led by the psychotic Diablo (Devon Sawa), the gang invades Main Street, cuts the phone lines, and takes the entire town hostage. Refusing to touch his gun, Jim is left to use his fists to defend the townspeople against the well-armed bikers. Once a U.S. Marine boxing champ, he picks off the gang one-by-one with the help of his young part-time deputy, Matt. When it becomes clear that Diablo intends to leave no witnesses, Jim is left with no choice but to pick up the gun he hasn’t touched in a decade and to become the hero he was always meant to be.
Movie Review:
Most people known him as the villain in Iron Man 3 but Guy Pearce is more reputable for his appearances in acclaimed movies liked Memento and L.A. Confidential. In recent times, he also appeared as Peter Weyland in Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant. As to why a reputable actor liked him appearing in this cheap direct-to-video actioner, Disturbing the Peace is a mystery worth pursuing.
Pearce plays small-town U.S. marshal Jim Dillon, probably the only enforcer in the country who refuses to carry a gun after he accidentally shot his partner a decade ago. The story by retired federal agent Chuck Hustmyre has no time for Dillon to dwell on his guilt for long as minutes later, a gang of ruthless bikers led by Diablo (Devon Sawa) is seen riding into town and plans to rob the local bank and an armoured truck packed with $15 million.
Diablo and gang however have no plans to make a quiet entrance and exit. They went on a rampage by killing a cop, two civilians and held the entire town hostage in a church. An excellent plan indeed. And now it’s up to guilt-ridden, depressed Jim Dillon to save the day if he manages to find the courage to pick up a firearm again.
Disturbing the Peace would have been a guilty pleasure to watch if director York Alec Shackleton has made a few creative decisions regarding the action sequences. The under-appreciated Kim Jee-woon’s actioner, The Last Stand (2013) which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and mostly set in a small-town entertained audience with its stylish shoot-outs, car stunts and fist fights. Disturbing the Peace however delivers a few miserly amateur shoot-outs, a couple of booby traps set by Dillon although it did try to introduce a strong female character in the form of café waitress, part-time pastor Catie (Kelly Greyson) whom evidently is also a mean fighter.
The talents of Guy Pearce apparently are wasted in this movie as he is frequently seen dashing from point to point, shouting orders to his second-in-command and has a few sullen moments to showcase his character’s angst and remorse. The main antagonist Diablo is a man with a checkered history who once lived in the town. As to why he hates this town so much is entirely omitted from the script. He is just a dumb jock grabbing some fast cash I guess.
With a runtime of less than 80 minutes (excluding the credits), the production values on the whole is horrible, the acting even worse. The best scene in the entire movie is watching Jim Dillon riding a horse chasing down Diablo and even then, Rick Grimes did it way better in the Walking Dead. Mr. Pearce deserved better material because right here, he is simply disturbing the peace.
Movie Rating:
(A poorly staged actioner and even weaker story about redemption)
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Drama/ Horror/ Thriller
Director: Lisa Takeba
Cast: Kanna Hashimoto, Shido Nakamura, Yuta Koseki, Toshiki Seto, Shoma Kai, Masaki Nakao, Shodai Fukuyama
Runtime: 1 hr 28 mins
Rating: R21 (Violence and Gore)
Released By: GV
Official Website:
Opening Day: 6 August 2020
Synopsis: WELCOME TO THE WORLD’S MOST LUNATIC GAME OF DEATH
YOU SURVIVE IF YOUR CLASSMATES DON’T
It’s another busy morning of seniors from Class C at the Seishin Academy excitedly preparing for their upcoming school festival. Their teacher, Mr. Shimobe (Shido Nakamura) gathers them all together in the audio-visual room where he suddenly shows his 36 students, including Reina Kashimura, a disturbingly creepy short film. Little do the students know that hidden in the film are hypnotic suggestions that compel them to suicide.
The trigger for the suicidal hypnotic suggestions number 100 in total, and include: “being late for class,” “using one’s phone”, and “crying.” Suddenly, everyday behavior morphs into triggers toward a violent self-inflicted death. Other fatal triggers include trying to leave the school ground or seeking help from others. The only means for breaking the spell comes from the death of classmates and learning how not to die. Then they are told that the only way to survive the spell is to be the last student standing.
As students take their own lives in horrifyingly grotesque and violent fashion, their sadistic teacher, Shimobe, takes his own life, falling from a classroom window. Under such desperate circumstances, human nature and survival instincts take over turning the students against each other in a chilling competition of survival only to be broken by the arrival of dawn. Kashimura struggles to find a way for everyone to survive with intrepid resolve. But can she break the hypnotic spell before every one of her classmates dies?.
Movie Review:
Comparisons with ‘Battle Royale’ are inevitable, especially since ‘Signal 100’ also features a group of high-school students pitted against one another in a game of life-and-death. That said, those looking for this latest gory thriller to have the same visceral impact will probably be disappointed, for director Lisa Takeba falls short of delivering the same emotional gut punch with its characters or kills.
The premise is simple to the point of being simplistic: fed up with having his classroom rules ignored by the students of Class C at Seishin Academy, their teacher Mr. Shimobe (Shido Nakamura) shows them a short film that hypnotises an individual to commit suicide if and when he or she engages in a certain behaviour. There are 100 of these behaviours, which the class of 36 will have to discover on their own in order to stay alive.
Among the triggers are “trying to leave the school compound”, “seeking help from others” and “crying”, which are responsible for some of the earlier deaths. The discovery of a book in the school library which explains the origins of the short film reveals at least half of the 100 triggers, but the rest have been devised by none other than Mr. Shimobe himself, leaving those left standing racing to uncover the rest of the deadly triggers.
As with ‘Battle Royale’, writer Yusuke Watanabe zeroes in on a number of decent characters to sympathise with, as well as a number of abhorrent ones to detest. Chief among the former is Reina (Kanna Hashimoto), a gentle, kind-hearted budding law student who pleads with the rest of her classmates to work together to break the spell. Joining her is baseball player Yotaro (Keisuke Higashi), who used to be childhood pals with the principal villain of the story.
That honour belongs to Shinichiro (Riku Ichikawa), a selfish loner who desperately wants to be the last student standing. Not only is he willing to connive and cheat, Shinichiro goes to the extent of exploiting the feelings of a fellow female classmate in order to whittle the competition. You’ll loathe him all right, even with a late backstory of his childhood that tries to fill in just how he became that way.
But even so, there is not nearly enough plotting to make us root for Reina. Despite clocking in at slightly under one and a half hours, the story is not only paper-thin but haphazardly drawn, lurching from scene to scene without much continuity. Indeed, its preoccupation seems to be to register a bloody suicide of any one of the forgettable characters every few minutes, and as well-executed as these are, they are only as good as sadistic relief without the benefit of well-sketched character arcs.
By failing to get its audience invested in the fate of its characters, ‘Signal 100’ ultimately fails to be anything compelling. Other than depicting high-school students taking their lives in creatively grotesque fashion – whether stabbing oneself in the stomach with a broken beaker in the school laboratory or putting a live bulb into one’s mouth – there is hardly any thrill to be found in this pointless display of violence. As much as its title claims to be cranked to 100, you'll won't find it difficult to ignore such a feeble signal.
Movie Rating:
(Not nearly quite cranked to 100, this gory 'Battle Royale' wannabe falls short of delivering any visceral gut punch)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: CG Animation
Director: Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson, Jonathan del Val
Cast: Steve Carell, Taraji P. Henson, Michelle Yeoh, RZA, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lucy Lawless, Dolph Lundgren, Danny Trejo, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, Alan Arkin
Runtime: 1 hr 28 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: UIP
Official Website: https://uni.pictures/MinionsSite
Opening Day: 30 June 2022
Synopsis: In the heart of the 1970s, amid a flurry of feathered hair and flared jeans, Gru (Oscar® nominee Steve Carell) is growing up in the suburbs. A fanboy of a supervillain supergroup known as the Vicious 6, Gru hatches a plan to become evil enough to join them. Luckily, he gets some mayhem-making backup from his loyal followers, the Minions. Together, Kevin, Stuart, Bob, and Otto—a new Minion sporting braces and a desperate need to please—deploy their skills as they and Gru build their first lair, experiment with their first weapons and pull off their first missions. When the Vicious 6 oust their leader, legendary fighter Wild Knuckles (Oscar® winner Alan Arkin), Gru interviews to become their newest member. It doesn’t go well (to say the least), and only gets worse after Gru outsmarts them and suddenly finds himself the mortal enemy of the apex of evil. On the run, Gru will turn to an unlikely source for guidance, Wild Knuckles himself, and discover that even bad guys need a little help from their friends.
Movie Review:
Whereas the ‘Despicable Me’ trilogy was about the exploits of a reformed super-villain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), the ‘Minions’ spinoff was really about the adventures of Gru’s irresistibly adorable yellow sidekicks. Indeed, even as Gru is in the subtitle, this is ultimately still a ‘Minions’ spinoff, so it is befitting that the emphasis is on them than on Gru himself.
That said, it is Gru who sets in motion the events of this 1970s-set animation: not only is it the then 11-year-old’s decision to apply to join the world’s premier supervillain team, the Vicious 6, it is also the pre-teen Gru’s call to steal their most treasured loot when he is humiliated by them during the audition due to his age.
That sets off not just the members of the Vicious 6 after him – among them, an evil Viking known as Svengeance (Dolph Lundgren), a spooky nun called Nun-chuck (Lucy Lawless) and a lobster-limbed baddie named Jean Clawed (Jean-Claude Van Damme) – Gru also becomes the target of their former betrayed leader, Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin).
No thanks to one of the bumbling Minions whom he handed the precious Zodiac Stone to while fleeing from the Vicious 6, Gru has to set off almost immediately after escaping from them to retrieve the Stone that the said Minion Otto had traded for a pet rock with a child at his birthday party.
Unfortunately for Gru, he is kidnapped by Wild Knuckles soon after stepping out of his house, setting the stage therefore for a relentless series of misadventures as the three chief Minions – Kevin, Stuart and Bob (all voiced by creator Pierre Coffin) - head to San Francisco to rescue him.
It should be apparent that the plot here is simply a device to string together the series of gags involving the Minions, many of which have been teased in the trailers. Among the funniest is one where Kevin, Stuart and Bob disguise themselves as pilots and cabin crew in order to fly themselves to San Francisco.
Just as hilarious is their kung-fu training with martial artist-turned acupuncturist Master Chow (Michelle Yeoh), especially when she teaches them how to ‘find their inner beast’. And then there is the climax, which sees Kevin, Stuart and Bob transformed into a bunny, goat and rooster respectively with the power of the Zodiac Stone, pitted against the Vicious 6’s more intimidating animal forms, including dragon, monkey, snake and tiger.
Given how the storytelling pretty much lurches from gag to gag, it should not be surprising that the movie feels scattershot. Thankfully, at just under one and a half hours, it doesn’t overstay its welcome; instead, director Kyle Balda, who was also at the helm of the last ‘Minions’ movie and ‘Despicable Me 3’ keeps the pace fast, furious and even frenetic, such that any joke which fails to hit its mark (and there are quite a number) is quickly replaced by the next.
Balda also has much fun with the retro setting, from the needle-drops such as Linda Rondstadt’s ‘You’re No Good’ to The Carpenters’ ‘Goodbye to Love’, to the hairdos and costumes, and even to the re-creation of San Francisco, especially the streets of Chinatown where the finale unfolds against.
Yet ultimately, this is still a Minions movie, and to its credit, ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’ further reinforces just why these little yellow weirdos have such popular appeal to kids and adults alike. So as familiar as it has become, there’s no denying the fun and glee they offer with their brand of nutty humour. As long as you’re prepared to indulge in exactly the same formula as before, you’ll find this latest chapter a breezy delight, with the colourful vintage backdrop an pleasurable throwback.
Movie Rating:
(Bright, breezy and delightful, this latest 'Minions' chapter is stuffed with looney gags of the irresistibly adorable yellow kind, with a colourful 1970s setting to boot)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Drama/Romance
Director: Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit
Cast: Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, Sunny Suwanmethanont
Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 13 February 2020
Synopsis: A love story for those who want to move on but find it hard letting go. Jean wants to convert her house into a home office and needs to majorly declutter and reorganise the entire house. Anything that has been lying around unused, she just simply throws away. However, Jean faces a great challenge when she comes across some items that belonged to Aim, her ex-boyfriend. Although she has no use for the items, each one reminds her of a story that brings back memories, along with unresolved feelings that cannot be easily discarded by just throwing them into the garbage bag. Jean has to decide what to do with Aim’s stuff. Should she just throw everything, keep everything, or return the items to their rightful owner to clear them completely from her house and her heart?
Movie Review:
A radical home makeover modelled after Marie Kondo’s minimalist style prompts a series of dilemmas about what to do with the stuff from the past in writer-director Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit’s well-intentioned but ultimately muddled drama ‘Happy Old Year’.
The twenty-something year old Jean (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, whom you’ll recognise from ‘Bad Genius’) is behind the decluttering effort, after moving back to Bangkok following her studies in Sweden and eager to convert her house into a home office.
Her mother (Apasiri Nitibhon) is stubbornly resistant to simply clearing the house out, and is particularly adamant about keeping the piano which her father had used to play before he walked out of them. Should Jean indulge her mother by keeping the piano, or force her mother to let go of anything and everything associated with her father?
That dilemma unfolds alongside her own closure with her ex-boyfriend Aim (Sunny Suwanmethanont), which she had put off for the last three years after walking out abruptly on him. After discovering among her things an old camera which belonged to Aim, Jean proceeds to return it to him, even going to the extent of showing up at his place after a failed postal delivery.
Needless to say, Jean’s reappearance in Aim’s life disrupts his relationship with his current girlfriend (Sarika Sathsilpsupa) – not only does the latter have to bear with Aim picking up the pieces with Jean after a three-year moratorium, she comes to realise how much of Jean is still left in Aim’s life, e.g. a T-shirt she wears casually in Aim’s house actually belongs to Jean.
Those expecting a glossy romance will no doubt be disappointed by Thamrongrattanarit’s treatment of what happens between Jean and Aim. Suffice to say that there is no happy ending in store for both of them; in fact, neither they or Aim’s girlfriend is better off with Jean’s return. But more than the outcome itself, Thamrongrattanarit has written this as essentially a character study of Jean.
Did she return the camera for Aim’s sake or hers, especially since it wasn’t Aim who had been bugging her to return it in the first place? What did she intend to achieve by doing so? Was it in fact fair for her to do so, especially given how it would likely upend Aim’s existing life? As simple as the act of returning the camera might seem, it is the ensuing repercussions which Jean is forced to contend with.
And in the same way, Jean is forced to re-examine if she was being fair to her mother by robbing the latter of the memories she is just as entitled to preserve should she choose to. Where is the line between protecting a person from his or her past and being selfish to that same person? It isn’t an easy question to answer, and unfortunately Thamrongrattanarit seems equally torn.
As difficult as the questions he raises in the film are, Thamrongrattanarit is a lot better at highlighting the moral quandaries than he is at coming to a compelling conclusion on them. In both Aim and Jean’s mother’s stories, Thamrongrattanarit leaves his audience hanging whether Jean’s actions were borne out of her own selfish desire to move on or to help those around her find closure.
Worse, the storytelling moves at such a glacial pace it is almost vexing, and certainly left unsatisfied when it comes to an ambiguous close. Chuengcharoensukying is always pleasing to watch, and admirably handles the emotionally delicate scenes in the movie with adroitness, but her presence alone is not enough to perk up the deliberately paced proceedings.
We’d loved to embrace ‘Happy Old Year’, but we ended up befuddled at what the movie was truly getting at. Is its message one of caution for us to think about the possible consequences of what it would take for one to move on from the past, because they have present-day implications? Or is it about helping those who refuse to move on, because it is ultimately better for them? It isn’t clear what ‘Happy Old Year’ wants to say, and while intriguing to watch, leaves us wanting more.
Movie Rating:
(To cling onto the past or to let it go, and whether we should make that choice for ourselves or on behalf of others too - 'Happy Old Year' has intriguing themes but a less than compelling conclusion)
Review by Gabriel Chong
SYNOPSIS: From acclaimed filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie comes an electrifying crime thriller about Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), a charismatic New York City jeweler always on the lookout for the next big score. When he makes a series of high-stakes bets that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime, Howard must perform a precarious high-wire act, balancing business, family, and encroaching adversaries on all sides, in his relentless pursuit of the ultimate win.
MOVIE REVIEW:
If you think this is a typical Adam Sandler movie, don’t. This is a serious movie where everyone seems to be screaming at the top of their lungs in New York city. Everyone seems edgy, everyone seems easily agitated and angry. So don’t watch Uncut Gems if you are not in that kind of mood.
Gorgeously shot by Darius Khondji (The Beach, The Lost City of Z) and written, directed by indie filmmakers, Josh and Benny Safdie, Uncut Gems takes audience on a two hours journey with shady jeweller Howard Ratner (Sandler). Unlike any other Hollywood offerings out there, it is indeed a nerve-wracking experience watching the fast-talking, compulsive gambler heading towards his downfall and self-dig grave.
But before you feel sympathetic towards his plight, Howard in short is actually quite a sleazebag. He runs a small-jewellery business, is married with kids, has a live-in girlfriend, Julia (newcomer Julia Fox) in his apartment and worst of all, he is in lots of debts and one of his debtors happened to be his brother-in-law Arno who is also a loan shark. Howard wiggles his way day in and out to get more loan and money just to make bigger bets which explains why his debts snowballed. But now, Howard is betting on an opal that could perhaps turn his fortune around.
Although Uncut Gems is an interesting watch, it can also be exhausting. As mentioned earlier, it’s a movie that is overwhelmingly filled with too much noise and wisecrack. Complicating matters is the repetitive ongoing saga between real-life NBA player Kevin Garnett’s penchant for the opal and Howard. At the same time, Arno and his trusty henchmen, Phil and Nico keeps appearing at every corner to bounce on Howard. Is Howard able to get out of this evil cycle using his magic gem?
All thanks to his on point dramatic performance, Sandler is amazing as Howard Ratner. He is longer Billy Madison, the wedding singer or the man-child from Grown Ups, Sandler is a tour de force in Uncut Gems and he very much at least deserve an Oscar acting nomination which he is sadly omitted.
For cinephiles who loved anything by Martin Scorsese (he is listed as executive producer here) and Quentin Tarantino will love the Safdie brothers’ second full-length feature after Good Time. Again, this is definitely not a title for longtime fans of Happy Madison stuff. For those however who stick with Howard Ratner till the end will find it a worthy journey to embark on especially the last sweaty 20 minutes which is both thrilling and surreal to watch.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Horror/ Thriller
Director: William Brent Bell
Cast: Katie Holmes, Christopher Convery, Owain Yeoman, Ralph Ineson
Runtime: 1 hr 27 mins
Rating: TBA
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 20 February 2020
Synopsis: Unaware of the terrifying history of Heelshire Mansion, a young family moves into a guest house on the estate where their young son soon makes an unsettling new friend, an eerily life-like doll he calls Brahms.
Movie Review:
If you’ve seen ‘The Boy’, you’ll know why the young boy Jude (Christopher Covery) should never have picked up the life-like porcelain doll he had found buried in the ground in the woods. The said doll’s name is Brahms, which in the earlier 2016 film had terrorised his young nanny hired to be his mate. That movie had also deliberately left the door open for his return despite him being shattered, and this sequel makes it clear that old habits die hard.
Though intended as a standalone movie, there are obvious links between this film and its predecessor. Those who remember the latter will be familiar with the set of rules which Brahms insists are to be adhered to strictly – e.g. no guests, never to leave him alone etc. Disobedience would inevitably earn his wrath, and that is what his new family – comprising Jude, his mom Liza (Katie Holmes) and his dad Sean (Owain Yeoman) – is about to find out.
As is typical of such narratives, the family had recently encountered a traumatic episode it is trying to recover from, and Brahms’ appearance would only make things worse. While he may seem at first a fitting companion for Jude who has chosen to communicate only in writing, Brahms will turn out to be a much more sinister presence, Not only does he exert possessive control over Jude, Brahms would show no remorse hurting those who stand in his way, whether is it by venting his anger at them or making sure that they need to be sent away in an ambulance.
Compared to the first movie, the plotting is a lot more straightforward this time round, even with the introduction of a mysterious stranger named Joseph (Ralph Ineson) who guards the grounds of the larger estate whose guest house Sean, Liza and Jude have moved into. Oh yes, it isn’t difficult to guess that Joseph is somehow connected to the previous Heelshire family that Brahms had previously terrorised, so those looking for the same sort of twist ending as the first movie would undoubtedly be disappointed.
In fact, though ‘Brahms: The Boy II” returns both director William Brent Bell and writer Stacey Menear, the modest success of their earlier film seems less to have emboldened them than lulled them into complacency, resulting in a story that simply lacks any element of surprise. Neither is there much suspense, except for some jump scares here and there, given how Bell seems oddly reluctant to fully unleash the extent of Brahms’ fury on our protagonists.
So even though it runs at an economical 87 minutes, ‘Brahms: The Boy II” is ultimately a dull affair that fails to jolt you or truly engage you with its story of a family in psychological and physical peril. Holmes tries earnestly to win your sympathy towards Liza’s predicament as a mother and victim of the situation, but is sadly undermined by a thin script which hardly gives her character any proper development. Ditto for Yeoman and Covery, both of whom get short shrift with underwritten characters.
On a final note, those who have seen the last movie should know that, while the supernatural element about Brahms turned out to be a red herring earlier, it is indeed at the very core of the strange happenings here. And yet, it is also why this sequel turns out a lot less satisfying, because it is at the end of the day yet another standard-issue horror about an evil soul who resides in the body of a doll (Chucky, anyone?). Even if you might be starved for a horror outing, you’d be well-advised to avoid this generic, and even middling, follow-up to what was a significantly more intriguing entry to the horror genre..
Movie Rating:
(A sequel even less intriguing than its predecessor, this standard-issue horror about a possessive and possessed doll will leave you indifferent)
Review by Gabriel Chong
SYNOPSIS: A veteran D.C. journalist (Academy Award® winner Anne Hathaway) loses the thread of her own narrative when a guilt-propelled errand for her father (Oscar® nominee Willem Dafoe) thrusts her from byline to unwitting subject in the very story she’s trying to break. Academy Award® nominee Dee Rees directs her adaptation of Joan Didion's namesake novel, co-starring Oscar® winner Ben Affleck.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Headlined by Anne Hathaway, The Last Thing He Wanted is a complex political thriller skilfully designed to confuse and bore everyone. Nevermind the fact that the movie revolved around the US intervention in Central America during the Cold War era. So unless you are a history buff or keen observer of American politics, you probably won’t care much about the civil war in El Salvador and Nicaragua either.
The story starts with Elena McMahon (Hathaway), a reporter covering the Salvadoran Civil War who is keen to expose the United States government’s so-called military aid to the El Salvador government. But before she could do anything further, Elena is assigned by her editor to cover the Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign instead. Frustrated by this arrangement and at the same time, her long estranged sick dad, Dick (Willem Dafoe) needs her help in closing one of his last shady deals. So Elena strangely (and obediently) flies to Costa Rica with a planeload of weapons and ammunition in order to close his dad’s deal. But things went south and Elena ended up receiving a case of drugs rather than the promised million dollar traveller cheque.
Before we continue, let’s pause for a while to take a deep breath. Isn’t The Last Thing He Wanted about war journalism? A promising adventure of the overachiever, righteous journalist Elena McMahon? Why is it turning into weapon smuggling territory and subsequently a love affair between Elena and a shady government agent, Treat (you guessed it, he is played by Ben Affleck).
We do not know much about the source material which was written by Joan Didion and adapted to the screen by director Dee Rees. On the whole, it’s a disaster for audience to buy into the whole concept and Elena’s world. Pretty much every character except Elena come and go as they pleased. Treat is practically non-existent. Dick apparently left Elena and her mom when she was young and Dick sadly abandoned the audience midway as well. Edi Gathegi’s French agent, Jones is woefully denied a chance to shine onscreen. Toby Jones plays a very convincing gay motel operator and Rosie Perez has a few screen moments as Elena’s lesbian colleague. And we have yet mentioned the other countless vague characters or missing backstories.
It’s so nice of Dee Rees to keep the audience guessing what is Elena’s next move and who in this chaotic world is trustworthy. Who actually wanted her dead anyway? Of all places, Elena is once again dropped into the place where civil wars are happening. How convenient. Despite Hathaway’s best attempts to portray a tortured character with lots of incomprehensible monologue, The Last Thing He Wanted marks her second onscreen disaster after Serenity. There’s so much potential right here but the number of talents involved seem to be forgetting about coming up with a more coherent story.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Drama/War
Director: Todd Robinson
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Sebastian Stan, Diane Ladd, Ed Harris, Bradley Whitford, Peter Fonda, William Hurt, Christopher Plummer, Jeremy Irvine, Linus Roache, Michael Imperioli
Runtime: 1 hr 56 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 13 February 2020
Synopsis: THE LAST FULL MEASURE is the touching story of Pitsenbarger’s father who together with all survivors of the Vietnam battle petitioned the government to give this fallen war hero the medal he so well deserved. Investigator Scott Huffman is assigned to the case to investigate the reason for this grave injustice. During his research, Scott begins to discover the private and political reasons why certain corrupt politicians denied Pitsenbarger’s medal. Scott personally visits a number of the survivors of that terrible battle, all of whom unite for a march on Washington to give back to William Pitsenbarger the honor that has been so ingloriously taken from him. Driven by their conviction, Huffman and Pitsenbarger’s friends and family reclaim his well-deserved award in an emotional outpouring that honored this truly great man. To this day, he remains only of 1 of 2 enlisted airmen to ever receive such an honor.
Movie Review:
There is no shortage of good intention in writer-director Todd Robinson’s fact-based tale of Vietnam War hero William Pitsenbarger, a 21-year-old U.S. Air Force Pararescue medic who was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross and saw that recognition upgraded to a Medal of Honour some thirty years later. Yet you’d wish this tribute to Pitsenbarger’s bravery were a lot more poignant than Robinson’s treatment, which retells his subject’s heroic deeds during Operation Abilene amidst a present-day procedural of Pentagon staffer Scott Huffman’s (Sebastian Stan) investigation of what went down that fateful day.
While initially inclined to do the bare minimum, Huffman becomes intrigued as he speaks to the survivors – including Pits’ best friend and fellow pararescueman Sgt. Thomas Tulley (William Hurt), the reclusive Ray Mott (Ed Harris), the guilt-ridden Billy Takoda (Samuel L. Jackson), and the PTSD-afflicted vet Jimmy Burr (Peter Fonda) – and eventually becomes convicted of seeing that Pitsenbarger is duly recognised for his selfless acts. Each of these interviews is accompanied with a point-of-view flashback to the jungle battleground, and with these memories, an opportunity to reconcile with a past some of them have buried in the deepest recesses of their minds for good reason.
Like we said, Robinson’s sincerity is without doubt, not just in how he cares to detail each of these supporting characters but also in assembling an A-list cast of Oscar winners and nominees to play them. Besides the aforementioned, other notables which Robinson has brought on board his labour of love include John Savage and Peter Fonda, both of whose cinematic associations with Vietnam make their participation especially significant. They are complemented in the present-day by Hurt, Christopher Plummer and Diane Ladd, the latter two playing Pitsenbarger’s parents who have spent decades trying to win their son the public honour he so deserves.
Alas, for all that he does right, Robinson ultimately undermines his own storytelling by robbing it of any subtlety and complexity. Than trust his viewers to come around to empathising with his characters, Robinson overdoses on sentimentality almost every step of the way. It doesn’t help that his theatre of events remains confined narrowly to certain moments on the ground that ill-begotten day, without ever telling us the larger backdrop against which the joint US-Australian operation unfolded. The only conflict here is bureaucratic, as Huffman uncovers why his government had wanted to sweep Pitsenbarger’s accomplishment under the carpet all those years ago.
Indeed, Robinson’s technique fails his own ambition. Best known for writing Ridley Scott’s 1996 thriller ‘White Squall’, Robinson hasn’t had much output since then, and the inexperience shows. Going back and forth between present-day and past ends up being less enlightening than enervating, robbing either of the full emotional impact each should command. Robinson’s re-enaction of the battle sequences is handicapped not just by his own skill but also by the budget he has been given, which makes the footage look like something out of a TV movie.
Yet not all is lost in ‘The Last Full Measure’, thanks to the sheer acting talent involved; in particular, Hurt, Plummer and Harris deliver some of the finest work we’ve seen them in years, portraying real-life people whose grief, guilt and pain have come to define them. There is no denying too the valour that Pitsenbarger had displayed in the heat of war, and the earnestness with which Robinson tells the story at least ensures that it is not entirely lost. Had Robinson’s method been more deft, this Vietnam War tale could have been a lot more powerful; but as it stands, it is competent without exactly being compelling.
Movie Rating:
(Earnest but heavy-handed, this fact-based retelling of a Vietnam War hero is redeemed from its storytelling shortcomings by a stellar A-list cast of Oscar winners and nominees)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Thriller
Director: Midi Z
Cast: Wu Ke-xi, Sung Yu-hua, Hsia Yu-chiao, Shih Ming-shuai
Runtime: 1 hr 43 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Violence and Some Homosexual Content)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 20 February 2020
Synopsis: After eight years toiling in bit-parts, aspiring actress Nina Wu finally gets her big break with a leading role in a spy thriller set in the 1960s. The part is challenging, not least because it calls for full nudity and explicit sex scenes, and the film’s director is often hard on her. But both the industry and the press are confident that the results are sensationally good. On the brink of triumph, though, Nina’s psychological resolve begins to crack. She rushes back to her family home to deal with two crises: her father’s business has gone bankrupt and her mother has suffered a heart attack. She dreams of rekindling a close relationship with her childhood friend Kiki but is haunted by paranoid fantasies that a mysterious woman is stalking and attacking her. As Nina clings to memories of happier times, it seems that there is one crucial memory that she is repressing…
Movie Review:
If you’re familiar with Midi Z, you’ll know that ‘Nina Wu’ is an uncharacteristic movie from the Myanmar-born and Taiwanese-based filmmaker. Better known for his features and documentaries about the rural poor of Chinese ancestry in his birth country, Z has taken on the challenging task of translating his frequent leading lady Wu Ke-xi’s screenplay for the big screen. We say challenging, because it is neither a comfortable or comforting story at all.
Drawing quite certainly from her own personal experience, Wu stars in the titular role as a bit-actress who lands a big role in an espionage drama set in the 1960s. The catch is that it requires that she appear in an explicit threesome with full-frontal nudity, a proposition which she is inherently uncomfortable with; notwithstanding, following some persuasion from her manager, she accepts the role, though the process soon takes its toll on her psyche.
Part of that psychological fracture arises from an exacting director, who verbally and even physically abuses her on the set; and yet part of that also comes from her background, for which the second act devotes a good amount of time to. It turns out that Nina had left behind a former flame (Vivian Sung) to pursue an acting career in Taipei, a choice which not only left her feeling lonely and depressed after struggling for eight years but also removed from her ailing mother and financially reckless father.
As much as Wu intends for her movie to be a reflection of the sacrifices that many young girls like her make in order to get into the filmmaking industry, it is also clearly meant as criticism for the industry itself. Oh yes, it is no coincidence that Wu has penned this in the throes of the #metoo movement, and an extended sequence which closes the film is clearly designed to elicit the sort of indignance which you would have felt reading what Harvey Weinstein did behind many hotel rooms with young aspiring female actresses.
Besides referencing the events of the day, Wu has also taken obvious inspiration from Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Black Swan’ in depicting her onscreen character’s meltdown. In addition to seeing things that ain’t there (like an iguana on a lampshade), Nina gets paranoid thinking that another fellow aspirant (Hsia Yu-Chiao) which she had barely edged out for her part in the movie is after her. Nina’s delusions also result in outbursts for which she has no recollection of afterwards, and if it all sounds overdramatic, the final scene explains why she had been left in such a fragile state of mind.
Much of the film rests on Wu, and to her credit, the actress gives her all to present her character’s angst, fear, helplessness, humiliation and pain. Like we said, Wu obviously had drawn on her own sentiments to pen the role, and it feels just as personal as she had no doubt intended. On Z’s part, he gives the movie a highly stylised polish not unlike that which Aronofsky had, but the striking visuals are undeniably successful in drawing you into an intriguing psychodrama.
Mind you though, ‘Nina Wu’ will not be a easy watch, not only because of its themes but also because it is not afraid to portray its derogatory parts within in full naked fashion. It is to Wu’s credit that the gamble pays off in a gripping watch which will have you thinking about the less-than glamorous side of the filmmaking industry, that is apparently not only confined to Hollywood. And seen in that light, Nina is not too different from the usual characters in Z’s movie – despite their status, they too are struggling to escape dire conditions both political and financial.
Movie Rating:
(An uncomfortable look at the less-than glamorous side of the filmmaking industry that is worth the discomfort)
Review by Gabriel Chong
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