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LeeVanQueef
Reviews
Hightown (2020)
Passable enough filler content.
There's a lot of potential in this show, particularly where the casting and story is concerned. The location is captured well, there's enough violence and action to keep you awake, and the pacing is pretty slim on lag which is always a joy.
However too much of this is muffled by the directorial style, which seems to veer awkwardly between soap opera and YA, straying a bit too far from reality in the process.
It feels very much like the FOX show Graceland in this respect, which is another cops n' drugs show with potential that feels too much like a teen drama starring adults.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the younger demographic having stuff made for them, it just taints the immersion when applied to a show that sells itself as MA.
The Old Guard (2020)
Poorly Written, Poorly Acted, Generic YA Garbage.
One of a depressingly increasing number of uninspired Netflix ventures that feels like it was written by AI software and made by an actual production line.
There is so little sincerity or originality to this it's painful to watch, the plot is 100% spoonfed, and the main cast aren't so much phoning it in as they are ignoring calls late at night.
If you're 13 years old, and haven't seen any action films before, I guess you might like it.
The two stars I've given are for the the camera crew and photographer, whose contributions to this uninspired heap at least made it visually tolerable, and Harry Melling, who puts in a credible performance as the cartoon baddie.
Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Small town settlers go up against a terrifying clan of cave-dwelling cannibals.
Western horrors are few and far between. They really don't come along often, and it's such a pleasurable meshing of genres when they do that nailing it only serves to heighten the experience. This one was a real curve-ball of a surprise, I have to admit. Starts out with a brief but creepy introduction to our lethally predatory antagonists before ruggedly commencing into a sawdust-on- the-floor-western, which gradually descends into gruesome horror towards the final act. Patrick Wilson pulls out all the stops as the crippled hubby looking to rescue his wife, whose stubborn determination to locate and recover his beloved, and keep up with the more able-bodied rescue party despite his afflictions is heart- rendingly portrayed, utilising a nifty twist towards the end to give him an unexpected and much needed upper hand. Kurt Russell is as ever is on form as the sheriff leading the search and rescue mission, with the almost useless but loyal assistance of a nearly unrecognisable Richard Jenkins as his doddery old deputy. As I mentioned earlier, the horror takes a while to turn up, but the journey there is a real authentically period treat of character acting, and when the darkness does arrive it brings with it a particularly gruesome death, and without giving too much away, there's an astoundingly well written heroic final line that almost brings tears to your eyes, if not at least an approving air-punch. Each person cast is a joy to watch, bringing their own eccentricities, pretensions, and reliability to the table. Hell even Sean Young holds her own in her brief appearance. I thoroughly enjoyed this. It does what films are ultimately meant to do: Tell a cracker of a story.
Hackney's Finest (2014)
One Night In Smackney
Normally I wouldn't stoop to reviewing or even watching one of the endless glut of embarrassingly poor mockney gangster romps that have tainted the British film industry ever since Guy Ritchie decided to give birth to said genre, but in this case, given the believable authenticity and blindingly scripted nature of said venture; I'll make an exception. Smack is the drug of choice in this tale, and likable user Cyrus plays the doped up protagonist finding himself on the receiving end of a particularly vicious and shamelessly corrupt detective looking to manipulate him into delivering a mammoth stash of brown. Fortunately Cyrus has sterling backup in the form of a pair of welsh gangsters who provide a wealth of snappy dialogue and brutish ballistics. Adding to the comedic energy are an equally deranged mob of Russians who the detective calls in to balance the odds. Every other character has their own podium of eccentricity on which to shine, and grimily they do. Naturally, there is foul language aplenty, but deployed in all the right places for a change, and the frequent incidents of gunplay are air- punchingly superb.
Beneath (2013)
Dig It
A likable bunch of hardworking hard drinking miners, are accompanied by their manager's daughter, on his last day before retirement, who wants to see where daddy works before she loses the chance. Of course, her timing couldn't be worse, as they unknowingly breach an unmarked cavity, triggering a cave-in that seals them all deep beneath the rocky earth. This of course is only the start of their problems, and things go rapidly and gorily downhill from there By now there's been a fair number of horrors that involve people being trapped underground, and conceptually, it doesn't offer a lot of story lines beyond panicking protagonists, flooded tunnels, falling rocks, monsters, and claustrophobia. Unless, I don't know, somebody does one where they find a fairground run by history teachers, or starts a progressive jazz band with a drum playing bear or some groundbreaking sh*t. Neil Marshall's iconic The Descent is probably the standout movie in this field for most of us, and Beneath draws more than a few parallels to it, although without directly ripping it off.. There aren't any monsters, but plenty of horribly creepy psychological/supernatural scares, ghastly make-up FX, and a cool reference to a morbid tale of olden day miners, whose true story forms the inspirational basis for this film. What's best about it though, is the rock solid production and granite performances from each and every cast member. All the characters are believable, and play their parts to perfection with some quality dialog to chew and even some brilliantly dry humor, at the start anyway . You really feel sorry for them when it all starts going south. Lighting and score work together effortlessly to create a desperate atmosphere of constant dread and unease, also of note is the use of sound, namely the eerie rumbles and strange noises emanating from the earth above, distant screams, and general audio ambiance that lends to a thoroughly convincing sense of being trapped down there with them. Those of you with decent systems will want to crank it up a little for perfect viewing. And of course, kill the lights. I heartily recommend it for anyone seeking an evening of professionally engineered scares.
Welp (2014)
Badge Of Horror
Few and far between are the effective Horrors featuring a predominately child cast. Often this shows in the acting talent, but here the performances are convincingly on form for a change. The plot follows a group of cub scouts on a weekend exercise, camping out in remote woods rumored to harbor a feral kid who becomes a werewolf every full moon. And although these kids inevitably find out the hard way whether or not this is true, there is an inventive twist on the proceedings that fulfills the tale in a far more ghastly fashion. Much focus is on the protagonist, an outcast routinely mocked by fellow cubs and scoutmasters alike, whose self-appointed task it is to find out the truth behind the mystery in the woods. As with many other Belgian films, there is a quirky sense of abstract humor prevalent from the start that buoys an increasingly bleak outlook for all involved. Points also for the devious ingenuity put to good effect in a series of savagely SAW-like traps.
Black Sea (2014)
Das Booty
As far back as I can remember, I've not been a Jude Law fan. Not sure why. Maybe it's his face. But he's getting old and filling out these days, and as a result has had to break out the acting big guns, which he does with aplomb in this well written old school undersea thriller, penned by the guy behind Channel 4's cult favorite Utopia, and brought rivettingly to life by the same guy who gave us Last King Of Scotland. Seriously, I've not enjoyed this much deep sea tension since The Abyss. Several submarine contractors, having recently been tossed on the penniless pub-bound redundancy scrapheap, find themselves given the offer of a lifetime by a shady corporate investor to retrieve a sizable stash of Nazi gold from a long since scuppered u-boat resting on the icy bed of the Russian-patrolled black sea. Needless to say their sponsors budget kits them out with a terrifyingly run-down rust bucket of a sub with which to do this, and a crew that is half English-speaking and half Russian but almost entirely mistrustful of each other. Like many other fine vehicles about greed overtaking common sense, fatalities aren't far away, and it's down to Law's skilled but desperate captain to hold it all together in the face of increasingly deadly odds (and a Scottish accent that admittedly seems to skip regions between scenes.) Backing up his adequate performance though, among others, are the reliably jovial Michael Smiley, and the ever quietly psychotic Ben Mendelsohn, as well as a thoroughly believable crew of roughnecks, and of course the dilapidated character of the submarine itself, which throws explosive fault after groaning instability into the mix throughout. Edge-of-the-seat thrillers like this don't come along often, and it's a joy to see a director and cast deliver in such a relentless series of knife-edge plot twists, culminating ultimately in body-counts, betrayal, tragedy, and redemption.
Carrie (2013)
Generic cash-in remake
Jesus, I've sat through some lackluster attempts to reap coin from hauling iconic classics to the modern age in my time but this....this is literally downloading malaysian shareware that directs a film for you. Not one second of this embarrassment has anything approaching sincerity. You can almost feel the frustration of the producer as he fails for the umpteenth time to unlock the next level of candy crush. Credit to Chloe Moretz for putting in a good performance, and Julianne Moore for phoning it in, but otherwise, I'd rather re-watch the god-awful Evil Dead remake than endure this unimaginative forced dross again. Can't wait to see a CGI Cujo prancing it's way through another predictable summer of brain farts.