Crime
SXSW Film Review – Veronica Mars
In some ways my decision to see the Veronica Mars movie at SXSW was more than a bit unconventional, after all I have never seen more than a few episodes. And yet the premise of the show, the charismatic talent of Kristen Bell and the…
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Film Review – The Bag Man
The Bag Man (2014) starts out in midstream. A crime boss named Dragna (Robert De Niro) hires Jack (John Cusack) – one of his most trusted men – to carry out an important mission. Jack is to retrieve a black bag, take it to a…
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Film Review – Vic + Flo Saw A Bear
What a strange film this is. The French-Canadian Vic + Flo Saw A Bear (2013) is likely to draw responses from each end of the spectrum. I can’t say I loved it, but I can’t deny it stuck with me after it was over. Some…
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Film Review – The Wolf of Wall Street
Everything about Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) is excessive. The story, the acting, the run time – all bloated for a purpose. We’ve seen films dealing with the immoral practices of greedy stockbrokers before, but none have been as electrifying. Scorsese is…
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Film Review – American Hustle
Films dealing with con artists often fall into the same trap time travel films do: focusing entirely on the gimmick. Where some filmmakers highlight the paradoxes of the space-time continuum, others put too much emphasis on the “trick” with con films. They revel in fooling…
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Film Review – Homefront
Originally conceived as a starring vehicle for himself, Sylvester Stallone adapted Chuck Logan‘s novel Homefront into a screenplay that then promptly sat on a shelf to gather dust. By the time it was finally set to go into production, Sly deemed himself too old and…
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Film Review – The Counselor
In an early scene of The Counselor, Cormac McCarthy’s first work written directly for the screen, a diamond dealer informs the Counselor that the diamond he’s chosen for his fiancée is a cautionary stone. He might as well be describing the film he’s in, and…
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Film Review – Captain Phillips
The inherent challenge of a film like Captain Phillips is in telling a gripping story that many people already know the outcome of. I remember vividly Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama, a cargo ship that was taken by Somali pirates back in 2009.…
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