Film Review: "Another Round" ("Druk") (2020).

From the director of The Celebration (Festen) and The Hunt (Jagten) comes Another Round (Druk). This Danish comedy drama film, directed by Thomas Vinterberg and written by Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm. Four friends, all teachers at various stages of middle age, are stuck in a rut. Unable to share their passions either at school or at home, they embark on an audacious experiment from an obscure philosopher: to see if a constant level of alcohol in their blood will help them find greater freedom and happiness. At first they each find a new- found zest, but as the gang pushes their experiment further, issues that have been simmering for years come to a head and the men are faced with a choice: reckon with their behavior or continue on the same course.

The film is based on a play Vinterberg had written while working at Burgtheater, Vienna. Additional inspiration came from Vinterberg's own daughter, Ida, who had told stories of the drinking culture within the Danish youth. Denmark has some of the highest rates of teenage drinking in the world; a World Health Organization report released earlier in 2020 found that Danish fifteen-year-olds consumed alcohol at nearly double the European average. Recent efforts to raise the minimum age for purchasing alcohol to eighteen from sixteen have met with resistance, in part because older adults recall their own youthful intoxications so fondly. Ida had originally pressed Vinterberg to adopt the play into a movie, and was slated to play the daughter of Martin. The story was originally "A celebration of alcohol based on the thesis that world history would have been different without alcohol". However, four days into filming, Ida was killed in a car accident. Following the tragedy, the script was reworked to become more life affirming. Lindholm served as director in the week following the accident. The film was dedicated to her, and was partially filmed in her classroom with her classmates. During production, Vinterberg, Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Lars Ranthe, Magnus Millang would meet to drink just enough to let go of the embarrassment in front of each other. They would also watch drunk people on YouTube to better understand how completely inebriated people would act.

The film stars Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Lars Ranthe, Magnus Millang, Maria Bonnevie and Susse Wold. Mikkelsen and cast makes this personal absurdist show their own with powerful and remarkably controlled performance.

It is not exactly date movie. In fact, unless you enjoy the feeling of absurdly unrestrained intoxication, things are going to get uncomfortable. Gripping and observant, the film is a absurdist adventure for a group of uninspired men suffering from mid-life crisis who lose themselves in pure unrestrained and 'harmless' intoxication. The film continually highlights how easily the seemingly civilised, rational inhabitants of the small town lose themselves in unrestrained drinking - and how irrational, or rational, their behaviour is. The film is an extremely effective, skilfully put together comedy drama, whose only tools are human character flaws.

Simon says Another Round (Druk) receives:

Also, see my review for The Command (Kursk).

Film Review: "The White Tiger" (2021).

"Eat or get eaten up" in The White Tiger. This Indian drama film adapted and directed by Ramin Bahrani and based on the novel of the same name by Arvind Adiga. Balram Halwai narrates his epic and darkly humorous rise from poor villager to successful entrepreneur in modern India. Cunning and ambitious, our young hero jockeys his way into becoming a driver for Ashok and Pinky, who have just returned from America. Society has trained Balram to be one thing - a servant - so he makes himself indispensable to his rich masters. But after a night of betrayal, he realizes the corrupt lengths they will go to trap him and save themselves. On the verge of losing everything, Balram rebels against a rigged and unequal system to rise up and become a new kind of master.

Before the novel's publication in 2008, producer Mukul Deora bought the film rights to Adiga's novel and chose his college-friend Bahrani to pen and direct the adaptation. Eventually Bahrani, read the rough drafts of the novel years before it was published. Deora then sold the distribution rights to Netflix. While Bahrani added and deleted a few sequences and adapted the character for the screen, the story stays largely faithful to the novel. Initially, he considered updating the story, set in 2005, to a more recent setting, before abandoning the idea, as it is a period film. When Priyanka Chopra scrolled through Twitter, she saw a headline that a film adaptation of the novel was in the works. She called her agent about the film to offer her involvement. Thus, on top of being cast, Chopra would serve as one of the executive producers. Bahrani turned down some established stars for the part of Balram. Before filming, Bahrani spent months in India, riding local buses, visiting the places Adiga had written about, and meeting scores of people, before eventually meeting Adarsh Gourav. Gourav prepared for his role by living anonymously in a remote village in Jharkhand and working for twelve hours a day, washing plates. By October 2019, Rajkummar Rao, Mahesh Manjrekar, Vijay Maurya and Kamlesh Gill rounded out the film's cast. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in mid December. Filming took place throughout Delhi. The cast began a script reading session before the start of filming. While shooting, Priyanka posted her picture on Instagram, with a caption stating that "it is too hard to shoot here", citing the climatic conditions and air pollution prevailing in the city.

The film stars Gourav, Chopra Jonas, Rao, Manjrekar, Maurya and Gill. The film features award-worthy performances, an original premise that speaks so much truth, but contains a climax that is hard to like, leaving you with a bad taste in your mouth.

As comes as no surprise that Bahrani breaks down the door of our collective moral compass with this cat and mouse thriller of corruption versus conscience. Bahrani's most effective film to date, the film features a particularly vibrant cast engaged in a modern perversion of Indian greed.

Simon says The White Tiger receives:

Also, see my review for Fahrenheit 451 (2018).

Film Review: "Locked Down" (2020).

"Some people unravel faster than others" in Locked Down. This romantic comedy heist film directed by Doug Liman and written by Steven Knight. Just as they decide to separate, Linda and Paxton find life has other plans when they are stuck at home in a mandatory lockdown. Co-habitation is proving to be a challenge, but fueled by poetry and copious amounts of wine, it will bring them closer together in the most surprising way.

In September 2020, the film, originally entitled Lockdown, was announced with Liman as director and penned by Knight, who had wrote the script over a dare. Anne Hathaway, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Stephen Merchant, Mindy Kaling, Lucy Boynton, Dulé Hill, Ben Stiller, Ben Kingsley, Mark Gatiss and Katie Leung were cast. Lily James was originally cast but had to drop out and was eventually replaced with Boynton. Principal photography took place over the course of eighteen days during the during the COVID-19 pandemic in London, England. Due to the limited resources and short production window the order of several scenes needed to be adjusted, forcing Hathaway and Ejiofor to tape their un-memorized lines around set. Despite initial reports it had a budget of $10 million, Liman insisted the actual cost of the film "started with a three."

The film stars Hathaway, Ejiofor, Merchant, Kaling, Boynton, Hill, Stiller, Kingsley, Gatiss and Leung. Hathaway and Ejiofor shine in this interesting COVID heist movie. It's brought to life by the two performances from Hathaway and Ejiofor that are both hilarious and emotional.

Ridiculous as it is, this protracted setup gets at an essential truth of an amateur movie heist: The plan is a flirtation, loaded with both the promise and the threat of consummation. The film is a fun escapist flick for the pandemic, examining life under quarantine, and the reflections that come with living during an era of incredible uncertainty. The film's uneven tone, lack of dramatic urgency, uninteresting characters, and lackluster heist drag it down. A sluggish heist comedy set in times of COVID that spends its premise and confinement clichés in its first few minutes. As much as I thought the film's heist element was unnecessary, which it is, Liman sure knows how to make it exciting and even in a pandemic. As a writer, Knight needs his tendency to sprawl reined in. Liman, one of the best action directors today, is not the person to do it. The film is inevitably, and intentionally, of the moment. But I hope some of its off-the-cuff spirit lasts after the pandemic. The film does a fairly convoluted job at trying to turn its earnest domestic drama into a snappy heist, but it more or less succeeds. While the film is an undoubtedly fascinating pop-culture curio, it's also sloppy and cringe-inducing, and feels like it was made in a hurry. The film suffers from wanting to do too much despite myriad internal and external limitations. Sometimes, less is more and this probably would have been one of those times.

Simon says Locked Down receives:

Also, see my review for American Made.

Series Review: "Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer" (2021).

"Lock. Your. Doors." Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. This is This crime documentary series directed by James Carroll and Tiller Russell. Beneath the sunlit glamour of 1985 LA lurks a relentlessly evil serial killer. This limited docu-series tells the true story of how two detectives didn't rest to catch one of the most notorious serial killers in American history was hunted down and brought to justice.

On February 29, 1960, American serial killer, serial rapist, kidnapper, pedophile, and burglar, Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramírez (also known as Richard Ramirez), was born. His highly publicized home invasion and murder crime spree terrorized the residents of the Greater Los Angeles area and later the residents of the San Francisco Bay Area from June 1984 until August 1985. Prior to his capture, Ramirez was dubbed the "Valley Intruder" (as his attacks were first clustered in the San Gabriel Valley) and the "Night Stalker" by the news media. Ramírez used a wide variety of weapons, including handguns, knives, a machete, a tire iron, and a hammer, as well as Satanic imagery. Ramirez never expressed any remorse for his crimes. The judge who upheld Ramirez's nineteen death sentences remarked that his deeds exhibited "cruelty, callousness, and viciousness beyond any human understanding". Ramirez was convicted in 1989 of thirteen counts of murder, five attempted murders, eleven sexual assaults, and fourteen burglaries. On June 7, 2013, he died of complications from B-cell lymphoma while awaiting execution on California's death row.

Fascinating true-crime fanatics all over social media, but the new docuseries makes me want to look over my shoulder like I did during Ramírez's reign of terror. The series draws its strength precisely from what many have misunderstood as an error that serial killers are perfectly capable of integrating as anyone amongst society. The experience of watching the series is characterized by prurience, self-obsession, and, ultimately, a failure to hold to account the men who should have investigated these crimes properly. Carroll and Russell handle the material with the significance it deserved. Their use of archival footage, images, and interviews paint a full and complete picture of the events. Carroll and Russell bring new facts to light here including new details and expert witness interviews with people speaking out for the first time. The series, though, is far from a passionate crusade against capital punishment; featuring hours of Ramírez's unimaginable crimes, the movie makes death seem like the only fitting option. If we are judging the series on just the merits of where it stands with its true crime brethren, the best thing to say is it's enjoyably familiar. And yes, that is a compliment. Perhaps the most ridiculously infuriating part of this story is that nobody listened to or believed people throughout the whole effing thing. The project gives relatively short shrift to one of the creepier aspects of Ramírez's story -- namely, the spectators, many of them young women, who were drawn to the case -- a fascination, clearly, that continues.

Simon says Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer receives:

Also, see my reviews for The Last Narc and Westside.

Film Review: "One Night in Miami..." (2020).

"Four legends. One legendary night." This is One Night in Miami... This drama film directed by Regina King, her feature film directorial debut, adapted by Kemp Powers and based on his stage play of the same name. The film is a fictional account of one incredible night where icons Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown gathered discussing their roles in the civil rights movement and cultural upheaval of the 60s.

In July 2019, Deadline Hollywood reported King would direct and executive produce Powers' screenplay of his play. By January 2020, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, Leslie Odom Jr., Lance Reddick, Michael Imperioli, and Beau Bridges. At the same time, principal photography commenced and took place in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The film stars Ben-Adir, Goree, Hodge, Odom Jr., Reddick, Imperioli, and Bridges. The cast gave incredible performances, which is reason enough to forgive the film's cinematic shortcomings. The four leads' work in tandem and it's a wonder that any other actors would have room to breathe with those four taking up so much of the emotional space. The four tear into their roles with what might be career-best and definitely Oscar-worthy performances.

The film is about as good as it gets though, with two of the best acting performances of the year, and a lot of material to chew on long after the final scene. That's the beauty about the film. It encapsulates a plethora of challenging subjects in a tightly constructed film. Everyone has a balanced viewpoint in their decisions and the film doesn't try to judge. While the film is essentially a series of conversations, there's movement, drama, character development and tension at every turn. The film doesn't take the opportunity to do anything cinematic with Powers' classic source material, however, it does boast career-best performances by the four leads. This isn't a showy film with a lot of excitement but this is a masterclass in acting from one of the stage's fiercest writers. As purely a thespian venture, the Regina King directed film is an applaudable homer. The film is a powerful piece of work, and the cast channels that power mostly effectively. Viewers may have questions about some of the interpretation, but we come out moved all the same. Simple yet passionate adaptation of Powers' masterpiece that is respectful to its source material providing incredible performances and great dialogue throughout. Powers' dialogue is superlative -- soulful, authentic and timely and almost musical, sharing a cadence that's part of most urban cities. Under King's direction, there is no wasted moment, no empty frame. Everyone delivers the letter above A game. Every micro expression feels thought out, and as big of a presence the cast has. On a stage, dialogue as symbol can work. Movies require something more natural for audiences to lose themselves in -- something the film doesn't manage. The performances by each of its four main characters... combined with King's gripping direction, the film is simply extraordinary. It is not to be missed.

Simon says One Night in Miami... receives:

Film Review: "Run" (2020).

"You Can't Escape a Mother's Love" in Run. This thriller film directed by Aneesh Chaganty and written by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian. There’s something unnatural about the relationship between Chloe and her mom, Diane. Diane has raised her daughter in isolation, controlling every move since birth, and there are secrets that Chloe's only starting to grasp.

In June 2018, it was announced Lionsgate would produce, distribute, and finance the film with Chaganty as director and penned by Chaganty and Ohanian. By late October, Sarah Paulson, Kiera Allen and Pat Healy were cast. Allen has used a wheelchair since 2014. The filmmakers wanted to cast a disabled actress, stating that Hollywood rarely casts disabled actors for disabled roles. This the first major thriller to star a wheelchair user since The Sign of the Ram (1948). At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in late December. Filming took place in Winnipeg, Canada. The film was originally scheduled for a January 24, 2020 release date. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was pulled from the schedule. Lionsgate intended to announce a new release date "once there is more clarity on when movie theaters" will reopen. However, in August 2020, Hulu acquired American distribution rights to the film, and released on their service on November 20, 2020. However, the film would debut in some international theaters.

The film stars Paulson, Allen and Healy. All the psychological, emotional, and visceral angles of the horror are anchored to the performances of Paulson and Allen. Where it is significantly elevated is in the terrifyingly convincing performance by Paulson as a loving but suspicious mother.

One of those rare films capable of spending the entire running time focusing on the cat-and-mouse suspense between a superbly cinematic duo, without ever slowing down. Chaganty's tense thriller yarn is superbly paced, chock full of devilish plot twists and capable of lifting audiences inches off their seats. Chaganty's film is an absolutely harrowing tale of motherly love gone wrong and the damage that it can cause the child. There's no evil, no zombies, no cursed MacGuffins, no serial killers-just a suspicious mother and an unsuspecting daughter. Together, they make terror. Chaganty creates an atmosphere of tense horror wrapped around strong dialogue, and in the process, he gets sterling performances from Paulson and Allen. Except for the flat, compromised finale, the smooth direction and the nicely structured script make this film enjoyable as a horror flick and psychological thriller, not to mention Paulson's superb turn as a loving mother harbouring a dark secret. Chaganty captures just the right level of physical tension, but for the most part wisely emphasises the mental duels. Part of the startling horror of Diane is that she is just about the last person in the world from whom you'd expect to be harbouring a dark secret. The result is arguably one of the best thrillers in years, a tense character study that grows and builds and has plenty of humor, both light and dark, along the way. 

Simon says Run receives:

Also, see my review for Searching.