Review: The Retaliators

 

Opening with a sequence so generic it seems like it must be a fake-out - and it is, though not in the way you're probably expecting - The Retailators moves from zombie levels of gore to hard-boiled crime and back again with the kind of ease that films with five times its budget can only envy. It's a surprisingly sensitive look at grief and loss; there's also a woodchipper, and we all know what that means. 

Single dad John Bishop (Michael Lombardi, from Rescue Me) is the kind of cool pastor who'd be embarrassing if he wasn't so earnest... and even then he's still pretty embarrassing, especially when he gets pushed around while buying a Christmas tree by Dante from Clerks. Time to give a sermon about forgiveness, which includes the somewhat ominous line "when man's law fails, God's law prevails".

 

Bishop gets the chance to practice what he preaches when his teen daughter Rebecca (Abbey Hafer) bumps into the Scariest Man Alive, aka Ram Kady (Joseph Gatt) at a service station. She's going to a party; he's a bikie gang member just back from a drug deal that involved him beating up and robbing a man in a wheelchair. But it's when the still alive (just) wheelchair man starts bumping in Kady's trunk - and she notices - that her grim fate is sealed.

The arrival of seemingly stalwart cop Jed (Marc Menchaca) puts a twist on Bishop's grief, when he reveals that not only does he share Bishop's pain, but that he's figured out a way to do something about it. Unfortunately, Jed's scheme - which is well-established, long running, and involves a cavern-like basement full of cannibal lunatics - only really works if the target of his vengeance won't be missed. And thanks to screwing up the drug deal, Kady has his brother and a whole lot of bikies out looking for him.

Directors Samuel Gonzalez Jr and Bridget Smith keep a tight grip on material that tonally moves around a lot: this is a film that features both a realistic look at heart-rending anguish and a lot of raving maniacs trapped in a dungeon. But it's this constant switching things up - on top of everything else, both Robert Knepper and Robert John Burke get show-stopping single scenes as seen-it-all bosses (ones a cop, the other's a crim) - that keeps this so engaging.

Much of this works as straightforward drama; this is a solid crime film before it turns into gonzo horror. People have competing agendas that put them in conflict, while their behaviour always makes sense in terms of who they are - nobody goes nuts simply because the plot requires them to (even the murderous Kady has his own logic). But it definitely doesn't hurt that this also racks up an extremely substantial body count in the third act as our youth pastor hero has to go into murder mode to stay alive.

The Retaliators eventually pays off the cheesy yet bloody opening without sacrificing the drama that led it to such a demented point. It's everything you could want in an exploitation flick: it's even set during Christmas so you've got no excuse not to watch it every single year.

 

- Anthony Morris

 

Review: Orphan: First Kill

Orphan was one of the more gleefully demented horror films to make it to the big screen earlier this century, piling on a string of out-there-but-almost-logical twists that left audiences staggering out asking each other "what did we just watch?" It's the kind of experience that's almost impossible to replicate - but Orphan: First Kill has a few tricks of its own up its deceptively child-sized sleeve.

With the first film's twist well and truly out of the bag - that the seemingly pre-pubsecent and definitely deadly demon child Leena (Isabelle Fuhrman) is in fact a non-supernatural thirty year-old con artist with a side hustle in murder - this prequel begins with Leena seemingly safely locked away in an Eastern European asylum where everyone is as jumpy as hell and rightly so.

Before long she's escaped in ruthless fashion, and promptly decides it's time to flee the country. Her scheme is simple: adopt the identity of a missing US child and start a new life. Having never seen French doco The Imposter (or for that matter, last year's Titane), the parents of missing Esther, Allan Albright (Rossif Sutherland) and wife Tricia (Julia Styles) fall for her ruse and bring her back home to their mansion and a life of luxury.

It's soon clear that while Allan - who clearly fell apart after his daughter vanished - is uncritically happy to have her back and inspiring his artworks once more, Tricia is a little more skeptical and their louche douchebag son Gunnar (Matthew Finlan) seems almost annoyed to have his little sister hanging around. Esther is going to have to pull out all the stops to keep her scam going.

While at first this seems to be a solid but unsurprising retread of the original that's content to hit many of the same beats - especially Esther developing feelings for a man who sees her as a child - events rapidly spiral down a new and almost as deranged path. Sometimes a pint-sized serial killer just can't catch a break.

A solid supporting cast go a long way towards selling this, with Styles especially impressive as a mother firmly committed to keeping her family together. A pacy script doesn't hurt either, juggling suspense (just how long can Esther get away with it?) and slasher scenes for a roller coaster of thrills, kills, and the occasional rat corpse discovered in a smoothie.

But it's Fuhrman - plus a range of child body doubles and a load of other seamless camera trickery - who makes this so much fun. She's totally convincing in the role, presenting Esther as both an instant horror icon and a semi-believable human being forced into a life of crime and murder by a condition nobody around her seems in the slightest bit interested in helping her with.

Then again, most of them end up dead by her hand so it kind of evens out.

- Anthony Morris

Review: The Black Phone

The year is 1978, and teenage boys are disappearing from the quiet streets of a Denver suburb. Everyone knows they're being taken by "The Grabber"; almost nobody thinks they'll be found alive. 

High-schooler Finney (Mason Thames) has problems of his own, thanks to a frankly startling level of violent bullying at his school and a drunken, controlling father (Jeremy Davies) at home. His younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) is in the same boat, only with less bullying and more creepy dreams that sometimes come true.

The Black Phone is not a story that leans heavily on surprise. With its supernatural themes, psychic kids, insanely violent bullies, deeply flawed parents, small town vibe, and fondness for catchphrases ("your arm is mint"), this would almost count as Stephen King fanfic if it wasn't based on a short story by Joe Hill, who happens to be King's son.

Once Finney gets grabbed, what follows is basically a puzzle game where the spirits of the Grabber's previous victims provide advice on what escape options turn out to be dead ends. They do this via a disconnected phone on the wall of the basement where Finney is trapped, which is exactly the kind of creepy device we need more of in horror even if it does make you wonder if ghosts are behind all those mystery spam calls everyone gets today.

This is a lean storytelling machine, constantly moving forward in a way that isn't always as scary as it could be but is never less than firmly watchable. If characterisation can't be done in thirty seconds or less then it's not done at all; the ghosts can't remember their names because they don't matter any more.

The fast pace - we haven't even covered Gwen's street level search for Finney - helps skim past some serious questions, like "if everyone knows the teens are being grabbed off the streets because the kidnapper is literally called 'The Grabber' why aren't the police watching that sketchy dude who drives around in a black van?"

Another question is, what if the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) was right? All the teens here are brutally and casually violent, even by King family standards. Heads are bashed with rocks, knives are pulled at the convenience store, and pummeling a bully until your knuckles bleed for hours is a heroic deed. The main character arc of the story is "grow up and kill someone"... so yeah, maybe it's a good thing these kids are being killed before they get old enough to do some serious damage.

Slightly more seriously, Hill is a hardcore horror guy so even though the story itself is basically video game problem solving, he - and director Scott Derrickson - create a strong, dingy vibe to life above ground and below, while fitting in a decent amount of creepy stuff around the edges. At heart The Black Phone is a well-oiled suspense thriller where angry ghosts provide plot shortcuts, but the horror moments can be genuinely disturbing.

The idea of the dead kid's spirits crumbling away in the afterlife is unsettling, while Hawke's masked killer has a personal narrative we only get glimpses of. Hawke doesn't get a lot of screentime, but his off-kilter performance speaks volumes (or at least enough to make him chillingly memorable). He's unknowable while being all-too-human; his biggest mistake might have been keeping decent steaks in the fridge.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Men

 

Alex Garland's latest feature heads out into rural England (the Cotswolds to be exact), and we all know what that means: it's folk horror time. But Garland is a director with more on his mind than just spooky shots of the forest - though this feels at time like he might not have fully worked out how everything on his mind fits into this particular film.

Firstly, Harper (Jessie Buckley) is haunted by the death of her husband James (Paapa Essiedu), the exact circumstances of which are spelt out in a series of flashbacks across the course of the film. All we know starting out is that he died by falling, he fell past their apartment window, and she was looking out as he dropped past. 

Second, she's now taking a break at a slightly too fancy - or at least, very large - rural rental, where the owner (Rory Kinnear) seems decent enough but, as she tells a friend, "very country". There's plenty of nice countryside to wander around in too... or at least, it seems nice until a creepy naked man (Kinnear again) starts turning up in the distance. And why does he - and every other man in the area, and there only seems to be men in the area - have the same face?

Third, there's a very sinister font in the local church (or maybe just a font with a sinister soundtrack) with a depiction of the "green man" on it, suggesting some kind of pagan past the area hasn't quite left behind. 

This seems like it should be the thread that ties everything together, but Garland isn't all that interested in explaining much of anything that's going on here, at least not on any kind of logical level. It's a horror movie titled Men: that's pretty much all you need to know to get the gist.

"Elevated horror" has a bit of a bad rep at the moment: whatever happened to just being scary? (like there aren't plenty of those movies still being made too) Men doesn't care about that - though it is scary, especially early on. It has a point to make and it's going to make it, and if it turns out that a lot of the other questions his film seems to raise are beside the point, that's your problem.

While over-explaining things is the death of creepy horror, under-explaining doesn't always work either. Taken on their own, most of the scenes here work well; the first third or so features some very tense film-making indeed. And the sense of annoyance that slowly builds is most definitely part of the point - it just means this goes from a traditional (and often very unsettling) horror movie to something a little blunter.

Men comes to a head with an extremely weird and extremely graphic - yet so surreal it hardly counts as gore - sequence that recaps the emotional thrust of the film in a handful of minutes. It's a brilliant and unforgettable ending that ends up undermining the film as a whole even as it underlines the point of it; everything leads up to this apocalyptic moment, and yet it's barely related to anything in the story beyond making the same point as everything else.

Being repetitive is at the heart of Men, and the point being made is an astute one; it just might not be one that required a 90-odd minute horror film to express.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Top Gun: Maverick

It’s been a long time since Tom Cruise had a hit that didn’t have Mission: Impossible in the title. The less said about 2017’s The Mummy the better: the follow-up to his 2012 hit Jack Reacher was average at best. Add in that his last film was 2018’s Mission: Impossible: Fallout, and you suspect Hollywood is hoping there’s a lot of pent-up demand out there for Cruise – one of the last remaining old-fashioned movie stars - to do something different that’s also decent. Does a sequel to a 35 year-old film fit the bill? Somewhat surprisingly, it does.

 

Usually this kind of film would be about handing the torch over to a new generation, and for a while that seems the case. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise) has spent the last few decades stubbornly refusing promotion – his one-time rival Iceman (Val Kilmer) is now the Admiral in charge of the Pacific Fleet – so he can keep flying. Turns out that’s not a career path with much of a future in an age of drones, so when he’s ordered back to the Navy’s top flight school (that’s “Top Gun” to you and me), it’s made very clear to him that this is his final stop.

 

There he’s given details of a top secret, highly dangerous mission to take out a secret nuclear enriching plant that “the enemy” (never named) is using to make weapons-grade plutonium. The deadline to destroy it is only weeks away; fortunately Maverick has decades of experience… that he now has to teach to a bunch of young guns. They’re the ones who’ll be flying it, not him.

 

Yeah, right: one of the more entertaining aspects of this very entertaining film is the way the usual Hollywood conventions around this kind of story (remember, old guy passing on the torch) are gleefully ignored. This is a Tom Cruise movie: the man might be pushing 60, but he doesn’t make movies where anything slows him down.

 

So while he trains the kids – including the perpetually smirking Hangman (Glen Powell) and Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller, in a rare likable role), son of Goose from the first film – it’s clear to everyone but commanding officer Beau “Cyclone” Simpson (Jon Hamm, in a rare serious role) that there’s only one man for a mission this impossible.

 

Hang on, where’s the drama if Maverick’s the most brilliant pilot alive? Turns out that Maverick is a bit of a failure as a human being outside a cockpit. His relationship with bar owner Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly) is more about her deciding to give him one more try, as a parental figure to Rooster he’s a dud, and it’s not like he’d even have a career if not for Iceman covering his back.

 

Meanwhile up in the sky, there’s a lot of crazy flying going on. Cruise is notorious for pushing himself to the limit – yes, that’s him in the cockpit – and director Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy) takes full advantage to go for broke in the extremely impressive aerial combat scenes. Seeing actual planes flinging themselves around the sky remains a very different experience from watching CGI action. This is the rare recent blockbuster that needs to be seen on the biggest screen you can find.

 

Honestly, none of this is even remotely realistic. Well, maybe the late appearance of an F-14 (the now obsolete plane that was the centrepiece of the first film) is; turns out Iran is still flying them. But as a glossy, fast-moving fantasy this hits all the right notes, serving up cliches with a smile and fan service with a wink while still delivering plenty of thrills. It’s a story where good looking people who are great at their job do impossibly exciting things and save the day. What more do you want from Hollywood?

(this review originally appeared on the Forte website)

- Anthony Morris

Review: How to Please a Woman

 

Gina (Sally Phillips) is in a bit of a rut. Her husband (Cameron Daddo) seems to have largely checked out of their marriage: being good at her job at an insolvency agency seems to be a career drawback. Then she's sacked in a company-wide downsizing that seems to just involve her, and before you know it she's running a male escort agency disguised as a cleaning service. Wait, what?

What actually happens is a little more complicated, but the end result is the same: she turns a struggling removalist company into a cleaning firm, only to discover that one of her staff - former stripper and all round hot guy Tom (Alexander England) - has been providing sex on the side. Word gets round, the clients want more, bingo bango Gina's a pimp.

Not that How to Please a Woman is anywhere near that crude. This is a surprisingly sensitive (considering the set-up could have come from a 70s sex comedy) look at what it is that women want, and it turns out it's a man who's good at cleaning and good in bed. The only thing that makes you a bad guy in this world is not being open and accepting, and even then the only punishment is missing out on all the fun.

There's not a lot of room for broad comedy here; a few mid sexual mix-ups is pretty much the limit, while a scene involving a remote-controlled vibrator and an exercise bike ends up being more about people connecting than getting laughs. 

As far as drama goes, there's not a whole lot happening there either. You'd think running an unlicensed sex service would provide plenty of scope for brushes with both criminals and the law - but again, this isn't that kind of movie. 

Don't expect any of the men involved to have any real problems with becoming male prostitutes either; their only concern is how to be the best possible lover (and cleaner) for their clients. Having Gina develop a relationship with the only employee who doesn't go out on call (Erik Thompson) seems like a bit of a cheat, but it's all part of the fantasy; it's a world where sex and love are two distinct things.

What this does offer is a fun, sunny vibe, as Gina gets her life together, her staff learn to be better lovers (and men in general), the local ladies (including Roz Hammond, Tasma Walton, and Hayley McElhinney) get their various needs taken care of, and the importance of knowing what you want and knowing how to get it - both in the bedroom and in life - is celebrated. 

It's a worthy moral; it just doesn't make for a particularly memorable film. 

- Anthony Morris

 

Review: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Movie stars playing themselves is nothing new. At least when Nicolas Cage does it, you know he's going to go all in. And so it proves to be in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, in which he plays a struggling actor with almost the same name (he's "Nick Cage") and a similar past who's occasionally haunted by a younger version of himself ("Nicky") who likes to shout and say weirdly compelling things. You know, like Nicolas Cage.

When a comeback role falls through and the hotel he's been living at since he separated from his wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan) hands over a hefty bill, Nick reluctantly decides to take the advice of his agent (Neil Patrick Harris, no stranger himself to playing "himself" in the Harold & Kumar films) and accept a million dollar offer to appear at a wealthy fan's birthday party. 

Exactly how Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal) made his money remains a mystery - well, it does until Nick touches down in Spain, where a CIA agent (Tiffany Haddish) pulls him aside, lets him know Javi is actually a ruthless killer and arms dealer, and they need him to help find a teen he's supposedly kidnapped to throw an upcoming election. 

Nick, who has his own issues with his own teen daughter (Lily No Sheen) - it seems she doesn't enjoy German expressionistic film-making of the 1920s anywhere near as much as her dad - reluctantly says yes. Two things complicate matters: Javi turns out to be not just a devoted fan but a nice guy (with a screenplay in his back pocket), and Nick is nowhere near as good at this spy stuff as he thought he'd be.

While the "Cage plays Cage" angle makes for a good hook and a lot of amusing references, the real meat here is the double act between Nick (burnt out, not sure about acting, feeling adrift) and Javi (enthusiastic but still grounded, an adoring fan but also someone willing to try for a real connection). The middle stretch of the film, where they're basically just doing a buddy act - occasionally and hilariously on acid - is the strongest part: team these guys up again soon.

Fortunately, even the parts that aren't amazing are still solidly entertaining, and when the film takes a third-act swerve into more straightforward action territory complete with car chases and shoot-outs, it's still always decent action. Nick is above all a likable (if eccentric, and somewhat worn down early on) character, and Cage gives a warm-hearted performance that makes him the kind of guy you really want to succeed.

The meta-textural comedy promised early on never quite materialises, but references to the emotional power of Paddington 2 almost make up for it. This isn't an interrogation of Cage's career, or even a celebration of it; it's just a fun romp about a struggling movie star who just happens to look exactly like Nicolas Cage, a man who after almost 40 years in Hollywood has nothing - not even his performance in 1993's Deadfall, which once seen can never be forgotten - to apologise for. 

- Anthony Morris