At this point, could we all just say that Liam Neeson is the higher quality Chuck Norris? I’m frankly surprised their are not as many Neeson jokes/memes/gifs as there are Norris by now. Not counting A Walk Among The Tombstones, Mark Felt, and The Grey, you pretty much know what to expect when walking into a Liam Neeson high-octane action pic. You have your high end ones, like Taken, you have your low end ones, like the Taken sequels, and then you have your very enjoyable turn off your brain middle fare, such as Unknown, Non-Stop and Run All Night. Thankfully, THE COMMUTER is in that latter category.  What is a little funny about this movie pun wise, is that the movie is actually two thirds really really strong before….derailing into lunacy in its final act. But even the derailment is fun and combined with the entire journey, I had a pretty good Neeson of a time.

This honestly could’ve been a sequel to Non-Stop, and I don’t understand why it wasn’t. If you don’t know what Non-Stop was, it was basically Liam Neeson as a air marshal trying to find a potential terrorist on a airplane. The entire movie took place on said airplane, and spoiler alert, Neeson survives the movie. In The Commuter he plays an ex-cop that just got fired from his insurance sales gig he had for ten years, only to be offered by a mystery woman (played by Bates Hotel’s Vera Farmiga) who offers him $100,000 to find a person on a train before a certain stop and tag his/her luggage with a GPS device. So why couldn’t they have said he was an ex-air marshal and just make this a cool little sequel to Non-Stop, ten years later? Who knows, and I guess who cares? I mean, with Liam Neeson’s good but very typecast acting, he basically plays the same character in all these movies (with the except of the three non-actioner movies I mentioned in the first paragraph).

But the movie is fun. It’s fun to watch Neeson using his authority cop like special skills to try and find this specific passenger and I did enjoy several of the mid act twists that I didn’t see coming. The acting and some of the situations with the other passengers get to be a little on the ridiculous side with some of the “secrets” they are hiding, especially in the third act, but all is forgiven because the movie is a solid entertaining 1 hr and 44 minutes that doesn’t let up. And the third act does get a little Looney Tune-y action wise and a couple of more plot twists are thrown at you that I saw coming from minute one, but as that stuff usually bothers me with other films, there is just something about a Liam Neeson actioner where I just put my hands behind my head, relax, and just say, “I’m smiling, I’m having fun, I just don’t give a fuck.”

I mentioned that Vera Farmiga is in this movie above, but if you are going to see the movie because you are a fan of her, word of warning. She is only physically present in two scenes and then is a voice on the phone the rest of the movie. It screams paycheck and that she was on a lot filming something else close by. Sam Neil is relegated to a shock cameo status and Patrick Wilson has a bit more to do but seems like he was on autopilot, phoning it in. But Liam Neeson actually looks like he wants to be there this time. He does his Neeson thing but everything about his performance, while typecast, was enjoyable and believable.

So if you want a good time at the movies for a January, which is usually a dump month studio movie ground for shitty films (except for the ones released limited in December and expand in January), this film is for you. For its bug fuck nuts craziness and fun factor, I would compare this film to the third XXX feature with Vin Diesel that we got last January. To enjoy these kinds of films, you just have to turn your brain off and try not to decipher and pick apart everything for one time out of the year. 2017 was XXX The Return of Xander Cage, 2018 is The Commuter.

 

HOSTILES is easily the best Western since Dances With Wolves. It also ranks as one of my favorite westerns of all time, including other films such as 3:10 To Yuma (the remake), True Grit (the remake & original), The Outlaw Josey Wales, Django Unchained, The Quick and The Dead and Unforgiven. While there are hundreds of movies of what is right and what is wrong, this film takes it to the next level by also exploring the deep darkness of grey in between. Christian Bale also gives his best performance since The Figher and may I even say it is up there as maybe his best performance ever for me. This western tale is gritty, its unpredictable, its journey is dark and takes you places you didn’t think you would go, it tugs at your heart strings and won’t let go, and the final shot left me with some choked back tears. It not just making me have to revise my top ten of 2017 list yet again, but it is also making me revise my western masterpiece list.

Since you most likely haven’t seen any promotional material for this film since it was picked up by a distributor so late and at the last minute to qualify for this year’s Academy Awards, let me give you a non spoiler-y run down: All you need to know is that its about a Army captain (Christian Bale) in 1892, that has had the job for the last little while, tracking down rogue Native Americans and jailing them in some fort stronghold.  One of these is a Cheyenne war chief (Wes Studi) that has been jailed for 7 years and by the decree of the President of the United States, as a sort of public relations good faith sort of gesture, orders his release, and for Bale’s Army captain to escort him back to his original native land. Bale is reluctant to do it because this certain Cheyenne war chief and his tribe has killed many of his friends, but for the sake of his pension and future retirement, he does it anyway. He leads a group of troops to get the chief and his family back to his land and along the way picks up a woman who’s family was just slaughter by a rogue batch of Native Americans that show no mercy.

The movie is called Hostiles because mainly the dark path it takes is to show that hostility can come from anyone. Christian Bale’s character, although a good man, is deeply flawed, and his arc in this 2 hour and 15 minute film is not as predictable and you might imagine. Not everything is clear cut. His feelings for certain aspects of what is is doing changes, but he still remembers and respects his original intuitions. It’s not a full 180 character moral flip. His character is fully enveloped in that dark grey between right and wrong and Bale’s way of portraying this character as one trying to sort that grey out into something coherent is astonishingly masterful. Rosamund Pike also delivers one of her career best performances right alongside Gone Girl as that woman with PTSD the entire film of seeing her entire family slaughtered right before her eyes. All of her actions and reactions are painstakingly realistic.

This film is actually a pretty star studded affair. Ben Foster plays another devilish role that basically flashes a “HEY LOOK EVERYONE, WE WERE BOTH IN THAT AWESOME REMAKE 3:10 TO YUMA!” sign but not really as his role, while brief, is a little more complicated than that role in that other fantastic western. Jesse Plemons, Adam Beach, Rory Chochran, Call Me By Your Name’s and Lady Bird’s Timothy Chalamet, Scott Wilson, and Stephen Lang round up the cast. And they all give fantastic performances. The cinematography in this western is amazing as well. The valleys, the mountains, the forests, the landscapes, all captured perfectly on camera to give you that feel you are out in the wilderness in 1892. Every single shot is breathtakingly beautiful to look at.

I love that this film is not just one plot, but multiple B, C, and even D plots as it goes. All of them tie in together quite harmoniously and bring the film to a brutal, calculated, yet unpredictable journey. The film is brutal when it needs to be and doesn’t over complicate or over saturate the plot with needless shots of blood, guts, or other cheap ways to make your stomach churn. Writer and Director Scott Cooper does a fantastic job to relay the right message about humanity without any cheap one-two punches that feel inauthentic to the audience. For example, there is some scalping in the film, but unlike Quentin Tarantino in Inglourious Basterds where it does a long close up take of the scalping to try and for a wince like emotion, here it is fast, to the point, and on to the next scene to show you why some men are savages and hostile.

I just love Hostiles. I was in love with it about 10 minutes in and was crossing my fingers that nothing else let me down. Thank goodness it didn’t. It’s unpredictability floored me to no end. Even though it is a slow boiler it kept my attention aptly for the entire run time. One think to know about me is I love Westerns. LOVE Westerns. Just something about that old time, with cowboys, native americans, shootouts, the vast valley of endless land, the setting that just keeps my attention and absorbs everything it has to offer. I know a lot of people out there that don’t like Westerns, and that is fine. But I encourage you to let go of your hostility and maybe give it a chance even though it isn’t your taste. But if you are like me and appreciate the once in a blue moon fantastic one like this, you are in for a treat.

 

Writer/directors James Wan and Leigh Whannell are responsible for creating two key horror franchises in the past decade: the Saw series, and the Insidious series. While the Saw series I could honestly watch endlessly, where every new installment I graciously look forward to, the Insidious series unfortunately goes the opposite way, along the likes of the Paranormal Activity series, in that I kind of wish it were to stop now before it really really overstays its welcome. It’s not that INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY is horrible. No, it’s actually not bad for a January release and there are some general frightening moments, it more than likely that for me all the tension is taken out of the film, due to the fact that it is a prequel and I know certain characters will make it out alive so when they are in danger I really don’t give a shit.

What is this trend that we are getting into with horror movies? We have one or two original films, the sequel taking place after the first one, but then we get into prequel territory (sometimes right away with installment 2) because the filmmakers think the audience will give them several pats on the back if they completely connect to the original film in the end. While it was cool for Ouija 2, then shrug worthy with Annabelle 2, it has now become groan inducing. We get it, “ohhhhhhhhhh this shit is so cool it literally picks up where the first one starts!!!” Ummmm….to quote myself, “who fucking cares?” I don’t like prequels in general. Prequels take all the fun out of everything because there are literally no stakes; with the plot or the characters, etc.  We know what eventually happens to the characters. There is the one in ten film prequel journey that makes up for the lost tension, but it is very, very rare.

Ouija: Origin of Evil is one of those. Ouija 2 (but really a prequel) only worked because that it was so good it made the shitty first film look like Gigli. Annabelle kind of works because again, the first film was really shitty and the 2nd film is a minor improvement. Insidious The Last Key is not even close to an improvement over any of the previous films. In fact, after the first film, all the films deteriorate one after the other in terms of quality. Yes, we know that Lin Shaye is usually a good actress, and she was the highlight of the first movie and the only thing redeemable about #3, but in this one, to see her origin story, ehhhh…I didn’t really care. Her origin story is unfortunately relegated to the fact that her daddy is an abusive asshole and doesn’t believe in ghosts so he beats his daughter whenever she says she sees them or talks about her gift or whatever. Certainly writer Leigh Whannell could come up with something better than that.

The film does manage to come up with a couple of twists that I didn’t quite see coming although many of you probably could. And I did jump several times…although I am getting sick of that spirit villain that looks like the arch nemesis of the Powerpuff Girls. And another part of the movie I don’t like is that I just don’t care about The Further anymore. Although the Further came first, it is basically just a rich man’s Stranger Things’ Upside Down with rooms. And while the Upside Down in Stranger Things has established rules, it seems like anything can happen in The Further if it is a plot convenience to get the characters from point A to point B and then they think they are safe at point C. So to some up everything I’m saying in a nice little bow here, the movie is okay, not terrible, not great, I’m just sick of the prequel story nonsense, want a sequel and want more genuine scares.

I still do kind of like Lin Shaye’s sidekicks in the film, played by Angus Sampson and Leigh Whannell himself, they are given more to do here, but a lot of their jokes fall completely flat, their charm being the only thing that keeps them memorable. If they make a 5th movie, if the charm goes away, so does my affection for the characters. And the probably will make a 5th movie, seeing that this new one, in one weekend, made back 3 to 5 times it’s budget already. The only way I would care about a 5th movie, is if it is a sequel to part 2. I’m tired of the prequels. I know what Lin Shaye’s character can do, I now know how she started the Spectral Sightings business with her two sidekicks and now I know her origin story as a child. That is enough. Lin Shaye’s story is over, let’s go further into the dark side of The Further and bring about true nightmares again. We should all go by the wise recent words of Kylo Ren, “Let the past die, kill it if you have to.” Time to kill the prequels to Insidious and movie on to true sequels. Otherwise I will not longer go into The Further with the rest of you.

Rank of Insidious Movies:

1. Insidious
2. Insidious Chapter 2
3. Insidious Chapter 3
4. Insidious The Last Key

Timeline wise how to watch them:

Insidious Chapter 3

Insidious The Last Key

Insidious

Insidious Chapter 2

(stupid right?)

 

I had so much fun doing my Worst List rhymes,

I’ll do it again, but instead ring this films’ chimes,

THE POST is incredible, there is no doubt about that,

Assume at this point, Spielberg can direct at the drop of a hat,

But little did I know it would be his best since Munich,

He has had some films where he was wearing his ‘meh’ tunic,

For this one, all his incredible talent shows up on the screen,

His signature moves, his crystal clear movie magic sheen,

This true story is set during the Nixon/Vietnam era in 1971,

The Pentagon Papers about to set the world to stun,

The New York Times technically printed about it first,

But the government tried to stop it, politics at its worst,

Enter The Washington Post, who ended up with the papers as well,

Head honchos Kay Graham and Ben Bradlee, needing a story to tell,

They defied all odds because the freedom of the press was at stake,

1st Amendment rights had to be protected, shake the world awake,

This film is so well made, the story spectacularly told,

Tom Hands and Meryl Streep brought in to add to the mold,

Their acting here is top notch, some of the best in their careers,

They deserve to be nominated, deserving of all the critic’s cheers,

The supporting actors were great here too, everyone on the ball,

Standout being Bob Odenkirk, who you know from Better Call Saul,

But the real stars here are Spielberg and the fantastic script,

The dialogue fast and edgy, all quip and nothing clipped,

Spielberg’s camera shots are a sight to behold,

When he did his famous ‘circle shot’, I was perfectly sold,

That this is easily one of the years’ ten best, a movie for our time,

Donald Trump will hate this film, and with that I’m more than fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that is the absolute last time I finish and publish my Worst of List before it hits 12:01 am on 1/1/whateverthefuck. Because if I could go and re do it, HANDSOME: A NETFLIX MYSTERY MOVIE would be close to the top of my worst of 2017 list and maybe even given mother! a run for its money. This film is probably the worst thing Netflix Original Programming has ever put out. I have seen worse things on Netflix, however they didn’t produce the worse stuff that I’ve seen, just some old “catalogue straight to video along time ago movies” that Netflix probably got cheap to put on their platform. This film ultimately just baffles me. It baffles me how Jeff Garlin, a comedian I love on The Goldbergs and Curb Your Enthusiasm, co-wrote, directed, and starred in this piece of shit. It baffles me how I was bored on a short hour and 21 minute run time. It baffles me how the movie isn’t even a mystery at all because of some stupid thing the movie does right before it goes to opening credits. It’s the most baffling piece of shit film of 2017 (not 2018).

The film, in its very first scene before the official credits roll, has one of the actors of the film introduce himself, and he says that he plays the killer in the movie. What I thought of as a nice little rouse and what may have been a joke to lure the audience off track…turns out…nope. That guy is the killer, he’s telling the truth. Was it supposed to be funny? The point of a fucking mystery/detective movie is for the audience to guess who, what, where, when, and why. If you reveal it at the beginning, you are showing the audience all of your cards, so why do you expect them to care about the rest of the film. Usually when a film reveals the killer, it still may offer some nice twists and turns and ultimately gives you a reason why they didn’t keep the killer a mystery. Not here. There isn’t anything else offered. No twists, turns, or laughs.

The film is about a detective that tries to make sense of his life and those around him while trying to solve crimes. A chopped up woman corpse ends up in the front yard of a celebrity, and he’s on the case. It sounds generic right? Well it is. The film tries to go for awkward, weird, dead-pan comedy, and it just doesn’t work. I didn’t laugh once. Did Jeff Garlin feel like this was funny when he was writing this? He must’ve been the only one, I don’t even think Netflix read the script, just green lit it because they got original programming from the guy that is always fantastic on The Goldbergs and Curb Your Enthusiasm. I mean they basically follow the go to book of detective comedy that has been done too many times before. Detectives having sex with suspects jokes, cops are fat jokes, red herring jokes, cops boss being mean but really being sexually attracted to them jokes, the works. None of it works, and even though I have a stop button on my controller, I decided to stick it to the end to write this review.

What disappoints me is that I saw several ways the mystery could go to make it a little bit interesting and I could partially forgive the stupid comedy. But it doesn’t take any. It takes that scene from the very beginning of the actor that says he is the killer in the movie, and makes it so, rendering the whole experience absolutely pointless. The direction is boring point and shoot drivel. The acting sucks, with Natasha Lyonne as Jeff Garlin’s partner not giving a shit anymore. Only Garlin’s next door neighbor Christine Woods brings any type of humanity to the film. Usually I write about six paragraphs per movie review, but I’m so fed up with this movie that I’m stopping right about…now.

So I watched a film the other day that was released really limited in November, hence no theatres were showing it nearby, hence didn’t get around to it till now thats its out on home disc. MAYHEM is basically Office Space meets  Battle Royale meets The Walking Dead meets The Belko Experiment, which is funny because it stars Steven Yeun, who played Glenn on The Walking Dead. It’s about a virus that spreads throughout this office complex that causes the employees there to act out their wildest impules…which namely means violence and beating and killing the utter shit out of each other. It’s a pretty cool, violent, entertaining as hell, funny, and a tight 90 minutes you are likely to even enjoy on repeat viewings. It rings in the new year with a bloody bang.

Steven Yeun stars as a elite executive who works in this law office complex, and he is fired for something he didn’t do. Right before security is about to boot his ass out, a quarantine by the government hits the building, and he has 8 hours before the cure can be fully pumped into the buildings systems and take effect on people to go all the way up to the top and place revenge on the people that were sending him to the unemployment line. The plot isn’t complicated for this film, and it isn’t meant to be complicated. It sets everything up to make a plausible and fun way to watch people beat and kill each other in interesting fashion.

The villains are cookie cutter here, but in a good way. They are introduced quickly and efficiently with only one real personality: for the audience to hate them so much that you cannot wait for them to be butchered and maimed for the masses. The movie even takes some cool approaches, having part of the film be what Molly’s Game is the entire time, being a narrator “show and tell” type of experience. Yeun is almost in every frame, he tells the audience how it is in the building and who does what, and you feel for him, so by the time he goes bug nuts crazy for revenge, you want him to have it and it puts a smile on your face when you get it.

Steven Yeun has never been better. He had acting chops on The Walking Dead, but this film really tests his range, and he passes with flying colors. The true though standout in this film though, an actress that is going to have a huge career based off of this and The Babysitter (check it out on Netflix, it is great and she is the best part of it), would be Samara Waving (niece of Hugo Weaving, who plays Agent Smith in The Matrix films). She steals every scene she is in. She plays a client that Steven Yeun has to reject from keeping her house after the inability to pay. When her and Yeun join forces is when the movie really picks up and is utterly fantastic. She has that range of crazy that you would think she couldn’t up the ante of it in each and every following scene, but she does it effortlessly. She’s worth the price of a rental alone.

The whole movie is worth the price of a rental. The kills are awesome and the revenge is a great cold dish. It’s even worth the $8 buy I got for it on a daily deal on Amazon. I would totally watch this film again and again. It is just bloody fun, even more so than The Belko Experiment was. I think these films are made because everybody in a office setting has probably imagined beating the shit out of one of their annoying co-workers. This movie lets you escape reality without committing a utterly horrible and terrible crime. We can enjoy it while breathing a sigh of relief that we get to avoid utter mayhem in real life.

 

I only have 3 movies left to see to finalize my top 20 list: The Post, Phantom Thread, and Hostiles. I have a pretty damn good feeling none of them will end up on my worst list. So I present to you, with a little rhyme poem for each one, my Top Ten Shittiest Films of 2017.

TURTLE HEAD THAT WON’T QUITE COME OUT:

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT

Ever tried to squeeze a turd, 5th time so hard your vision’s blurred? Transformers 5 is that little stinker that just won’t drop, only reason it didn’t place is these next ten stunk so bad I just couldn’t crop, they need to stop.

10. A DOG’S PURPOSE

This movie made Sarah Sides cry, although it did not leave any tears in my eye, the treatment of animals is insanely rude, and the plot so bad and predictable I nearly booed.

9. THE BYE BYE MAN

This movie made no fucking sense, was this supposed to be a horror film because I didn’t once tense, acting so bad, made you wince, don’t even remember this film, had to look up that it even came out since.

8. UNFORGETTABLE

Ever have that unforgettable shit, so God damn messy, an extra flush to try and make it split? Katherine Heigl can’t find a film to get back in the game, still on the hunt. Why she can’t find one? Well probably because she acts like a…

7. SNATCHED

Amy Schumer finally found her real trainwreck, so obnoxious in this film, I’d rather be near the donkey to Shrek. Goldie Hawn was dragged into this to try and make the film a sell, writer Kate Dippold already ruined The Heat and Ghostbusters (2017), she honestly just needs to go to…

6. 47 METERS DOWN

This film creates the ultimate cinematic crime, you can’t do dream sequences anymore at the drop of a dime. It cheats the audience, brings fake tension to thee, to find the perfect shark film, just watch Jaws or Deep Blue Sea.

5. FIFTY SHADES DARKER

I’ll admit, I go to these movies to see the Dakota Johnson’s breasts, other than that these films fail multiple cinematic tests, it’s fan fiction for women that don’t know any better, name one good thing about this film, while I go sit on the shitter.

4. SUBURBICON

Dear God, did George Clooney’s twins completely numb his brain, to think he was making even a decent film, he must’ve been insane. This is easily the most tone deaf film of the year, if you think Donald Trump is worse, let me hand you this films beer.

3. THE SNOWMAN

They say that 15% of this film wasn’t even shot, and you can tell, trying to figure out what happened in between will give you a blood clot. Hollywood needs to take the time to bring its audience a finished vision, otherwise you have two trains, same track, opposite directions, ready for a collision.

2. THE EMOJI MOVIE

I proclaim this the worst children’s film in ages, it basically calls out dumb millenials from the deep dark depths of its really shitty script pages. Patrick Stewart plays a talking poop emoji for laughs, that’s all you need to know, the movie shows you its dick, asking desperately for you to blow.

1. MOTHER!

I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE this film so much, it plays the “do you get it?” game a bunch, and it made me really want to fly Darren Arnonofsky down to me to show him my hard right punch. This is student film bukkake, the F cinema score made him sob, this feature is nothing more than him giving us a terrible egotistical hand job.

Thank the Movie Gods for Aaron Sorkin. He is one of the best writers in movies/television right now and probably one of the best writers in the history of man, along with David Mamet and Quentin Tarantino. He makes dialogue role off of actors/characters tongue so gracefully that you sit there slack jawed by how wonderful it is. Here is some of his written projects to remind you how good he is: The Social Network, Steve Jobs, The West Wing, A Few Good Men, The Newsroom (remember Jeff Daniel’s speech in the first episode about how America isn’t the greatest country in the world anymore? That went viral and yeah, Sorkin wrote that shit). So it isn’t a surprise for me to tell you that MOLLY’S GAME is one of my favorite films of the year, high up on my list with John Wick Chapter 2 and IT. Two hours and 20 minutes felt like less than 90. Not only is the dialogue sharp and quick witted, the story is actually very interesting and entertaining. The acting is also phenomenal. Not only all of the above, but this is Sorkin’s directorial film debut, and he did a fine job in his new role as well.

The movie, which could stand as a true story spiritual successor to Rounders (but on the other side of the table), stars Jessica Chastain and her cleavage as Molly Bloom, who got in trouble with the FBI for running high stakes exclusives poker games after getting hurt as an Olympic class skier. Sorkin’s dialogue effortlessly takes the astonishing journey about how a small frozen tree branch on a slope became that one in a billion chance accident to turn her into a FBI target. The movie brings to the table if you will, one of my favorite things that movies do. Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) narrarates throughout the entire film. It tells you along with showing you what is going on at the same time. The same exact thing that movies like Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street and Casino do. I know, I know, those are all Scorcese films, but you get my point. I love when movies talk to the audience. She doesn’t break the fourth wall to look at the camera here, but she might as well have.

The movie switches back between the past and the present and does so seamlessly with hardly any title cards explaining where they are in time now. Idris Elba also does a fantastic job as her lawyer trying to get her out of jail. He has another fantastic Aaron Sorkin speech near the end of the film defending Chastain that any other year he’d probably be nominated for supporting. But this is entirely Chastain’s show, and she will likely be nominated for Best Actress when Oscar time comes around. She is fantastic is anything she does, whether its solid films like The Help, or meh ones like Mama. I have never seen Chastain phone in a role, so I’ll be interested to see how she does as the villain in X-Men Dark Phoenix next year.

If you are looking for a poker movie like Rounders, be warned, while there are several hands that they show you in poker, the movie is more about who runs the games, who shows up at the games, who controls the money and debt for the games, and so on. But just like Rounders, every part about it is fascinating. And again, it is because of the dialogue. Dialogue films can make or break your attention, and only the best can keep your eyes and ears glued to the screen at all times. This is one of those films. There is not a lagging part in it. Michael Cera and Kevin Costner get small supporting roles in this, and I haven’t seen Costner this good in a long time and I’ve never seen Michael Cera this good since…well ever to be honest.

I could get into specifics, but I don’t want to spoil the many fun and interesting surprises the movie has in store. Let’s just say if you don’t know anything about Molly Bloom, the “Princess of Poker,” don’t look up anything on Wikipedia, because you might be spoiled on some of the outcomes and interesting scenarios she has to pull herself through. My wife usually does not enjoy long movies. But she loved this one, and she had to go to the bathroom during it but was having a hard time trying to find a spot where which she could go. That says something. The movie was on its game and will still be on multiple viewings.

 

Christopher Plummer is so fantastic in ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD that there is absolutely no way Kevin Spacey had given even a tenth as of a great performance in the cut of the film with him as J. Paul Getty that is buried under some deep dark film archive somewhere. The reshoots to replace Spacey, because of the sexual shit he was accused of, took nine days, and you can’t even tell. It is seamless (except for maybe one shot where Plummer was superimposed of Spacey and one or two shots of the back of his head where it might’ve been Spacey too). And I am even more amazed because Plummer is probably at least in the film a good solid 45 minutes. Plummer will probably get a nomination for supporting and it will be well deserved, not just because he did all of this very quickly and efficiently. That being said, when he is not in the movie, the movie isn’t that good. In fact, it is boring, not interesting, and very bland. I have never seen a kidnapping plot/story be so boring. All the money in the world can buy you quick reshoots, but apparently it can’t make your movie fantastic.

The movie is inspired by the real life kidnapping of J. Paul Getty the third, J. Paul Getty’s grandson, and J. Paul Getty making waves because he refuses to pay the kidnappers ransom. Meanwhile his mother is hysterical and she is being helped by J. Paul Getty’s advisor and he is a former CIA operative. The film shows the kidnapping right off the bat, shows a quick way of how Getty made his fortune as the richest man in the world at that time and then dives into trying to get the son back. The film then dives into several kidnapping cliches and tropes, and a few twists that can be seen miles and miles away.

All of the acting in this movie is spades, and might be the only reason for even considering to watch the movie. Mark Whalberg redeems himself from the Transformers disaster earlier this year, and while Michelle Williams is again, really good as she is a really good actress, this film won’t win her any awards. She has had better roles and has been in better films than this. This film is directed by Ridley Scott, who could direct with a paper bag over his head, which is kind of the problem. His style seems to be on autopilot here, like he was more focused on making Alien: Covenant being his 2017 coupe de gras. Scott usually can inject tension into anything, but he left all of it at home with this one.

At two hours and 5 minutes, it really really drags. The only scenes that inject a giant spark into the movie is whenever Christopher Plummer is on screen. He is electrifying here and I think even better than his role in Beginners which he won an Oscar for. If only the movie were better would I be cheering for him to win again this year, but my bets are on Willem Dafoe or Sam Rockwell. I do want to shake Plummer’s hand for coming forward and helping the film get out of a serious jam.

Thankfully it didn’t cost me all the money in the world to see this film, just $5.50. If you are really wanting to see Plummer do his thing, that’s the only way I’ll give this film a recommendation, and I suggest to wait till its on a streaming service you already happen to be subscribed too. I probably won’t have any time in the world to ever want to watch this film again though.