Cultural Mining

Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

This week, I’m looking at three new American movies: a horror, an action pic and a comedy. There’s a couple fighting ectoplasm in their haunted van, a former spook fighting a ghost war in the Persian Gulf, and a gang of shoplifters learning about dialectical materialism in a fast fashion boutique.

Passenger

Dir: André Øvredal (The Last Voyage of the Demeter)

Maddie (Lou Llobell) and Tyler (Jacob Scipio) are a young couple, professionals both, who live in a spacious apartment in Brooklyn, NY. But one day, the two of them decide to give it all up, quit their jobs, get rid of their possessions, and start a new life on the open road. They’re going to live, eat and sleep in their new red van, as they explore the back roads of America. And with Mads’ bobble head Bob Ross on the dashboard and Ty’s St Christopher medal on the rearview mirror, nothing can stop them… Until they investigate a terrible accident by the side of the road, where the driver seems to be dying from fright! That’s when things start to go wrong. A mysterious man keeps appearing just out of the corner of Maddie’s eye followed by rattling noise and strange sensations, along with ominous scratches appearing in their red van.

After six weeks on the road, they join an open-air get-together called Burning Van. And after reaching their fill of line dancing to their favourite C&W hits, they meet an old-timer named Diana. (Melissa Leo). Maddie wants to know what to do if their van is haunted. Diana tells her the rules: never ride at night, never stop on a back road, and learn to read the hobo code. But the demon who is haunting them is getting more and more dangerous. Can Ty and Maddie survive this horrifying demon?

Passenger is a pretty good thriller-horror movie in the obscure sub-genre of haunted cars. (Not many of those.) The first half hour his loaded with terrifying jump scares, but it slows down to a steady, even scare for the rest of the movie. Maybe I’m jaded from seeing way too many horror movies, but I didn’t find most of this movie heart-poundingly terrifying, just scary. This is definitely  a B movie, but it did keep me interested all the way through. The cinematography, on the other hand, is outstanding especially its use of light and shadow. Like when Ty and Maddie use a video-projector to watch Roman Holiday on a sheet at their campsite, but it becomes their only source of light to look for the ghoul; so we see and Cary Grant’s face morphing into the evil Passenger in then woods. Whoa…!

Passenger is a nice and scary flick.  

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War

Dir: Andrew Bernstein

Jack Ryan (John Krasinski) is a former military officer and CIA agent who now works for a private corporation in New York. He is heading to Dubai for a conference, when, out of the blue, unmarked vans start chasing him through the city’s streets. He manages to evade them, but it turns out it’s just the CIA trying to get his attention. Greer (Wendell Pierce) is the CIA’s deputy director and Jack’s ex-boss. Greer headed a black site during the War on Terror, and his past deeds are coming back to haunt him, in the form of a “ghost war”, headed by a rogue agent working out of Dubai who is threatening both the Agency and MI6. Greer wants Jack to do a simple mission — just pick something up from a guy there. And he’ll be accompanied by his sidekick, Mike November (Mike Kelly), a goofy, jack-of-all-trades who never takes off his zippered jumpsuit, even flying first class. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems. He narrowly avoids death at the hands of an unknown agent… but it turns out the Emma Marlow (Sienna Miller) is on his side; they’re both looking for the same person. Once back in London, they grudgingly work together to expose a mole and catch the rogue agent. But can they successfully capture a man who holds all the keys and can disappear like a ghost?

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War is an action movie about Anglo-American secret agents operating out of the Persian Gulf. It has lots of cool locations, in the flashy Emirates, and London ridge. Unfortunately it’s muddy and confusing with a senseless plot and no real motivation for any of the characters — they’re just sleepwalking through their roles. I was expecting another dark, action-thriller like previous Jack Ryan movies: Harrison Ford in Patriot Games or Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October. Silly me. This one is actually an extended episode of an ongoing TV series (which, to my embarrassment, I had never heard of).

That said, John Krasinski is good — he has just the right amount of chill to play a secret agent. But the hardware and explosions — half-finished skyscrapers, speedboat chase scenes, helicopters appearing out of nowhere like deus ex machina — are boring and unoriginal. And, seriously, is this really the best time to release a movie about American surveillance and military might in the Persian Gulf? 

I found Ghost Wars unimpressive.

I Love Boosters

Wri/Dir: Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You)

Corvette (Keke Palmer) is a fashion designer who has a small boutique operating out of her home in Oakland, California. She works with her friends Mariah (Taylour Paige) and Sade (Naomi Ackie) to keep her stock of clothing, shoes and accessories up to date. But she doesn’t deal in normal business channels. She and her friends are boosters, organized shoplifters who raid clothing stores, distract the staff and resell their booty for profit. Their ultimate goal? To locate and steal the legendary $100,000 suits. But the queen of fast fashion, Christie Smith (Demi Moore) vows to stop those boosters in their tracks — that is, if she can ever find out who they are.

Meanwhile Corvette and her friends decides to fight back at ground zero — they get minimum-wage jobs at Christie’s Metro Designers chain of monochrome fashions (Each store only sells one colour of clothing). That’s where Corvette learns Christie has been stealing her fashion designs! But when she discovers another boosters operating on an epic scale, she decides this means war. Who will win — the CEO or the shoplifters — or is there a third way?

I Love Boosters is an indie comedy filled with strong political content and social satire. It’s brilliant, shocking and hilarious. Topics covered include union organizing, Ponzi schemes, Chinese sweatshops, fast fashion, false preachers, and crooked media lobbyists to name just a few. Some sight-gags are drop-dead hilarious, because he pulls out all stops, introducing totally whack concepts where you least expect them. Cinematic references abound, from Jean-Luc Godard to Jacques Tati. With not a peep of product placement to be seen, anywhere. 

The acting is great, especially Keke Palmer, Naomi Akie and Taylour Paige, but also Will Poulter, Don Cheadle, Poppy Liu as a Chinese factory worker, and LaKeith Stanfield as Corvette’s possible love interest. I saw a screening with Boots Riley in the hall, the only director I’ve ever seen willing to give a lecture on the history of American Communism at a movie Q&A!

If you like highly original comedy, you have to see I Love Boosters.

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War is now streaming on Prime Video; Passenger and I Love Boosters both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. 

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website  culturalmining.com.