Popcorn Movies. Films reviewed: Cold Pursuit, What Men Want, The Prodigy
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s the middle of winter, and all the highbrow pics have been released. So this week I’m looking at regular, popcorn movies – a comedy, a revenge thriller and a horror movie. There’s a psychic sports agent looking to land a killer client, a man out to find his son’s killers… and a young couple worried their 8-year-old son might be a killer himself.
Cold Pursuit
Dir: Hans Petter Moland
It’s winter at a ski resort in Colorado. Nels Coxman (Liam Neeson) is the town snowplow driver, clearing the roads for drivers from nearby Denver. He lives a respectable unremarkable life with his wife Grace (Laura Dern) and his snowplows. But his life turns sideways when their only son turns up dead from a drug overdose. At least that’s what the police detective (Emily Rossum) says. But his son doesn’t do drugs. Turns out he accidentally disrupted a drug deal involving lots of cocaine. 
Nels decides to take the law into his own hands, work his way up the chain of command and get revenge on the criminal ultimately responsible for his son’s death. On the way Nels kills and disposes of each man he meets. The head gangster is Viking (Tom Bateman) a detestable, effete millionaire whose lackies all look like models in fine suits. His territory is split with an aboriginal Chief named White Bull (Tom Jackson) of the Ute Nation. But when dead bodies show up, Viking thinks 
his indigenous rivals, starting a major drug war. With a kidnapped boy, the local police, the Feds, and Nels himself all converging on a single spot, who will survive the ultimate showdown?
Cold Pursuit is an exact, scene-by-scene remake of the 2016 Norwegian film In Order of Disappearance. Same director, same stunning snow scenes, but this time shot in Canada, not Norway, and the script is in English. I’m not a big fan of Liam Neesen action movies, but he plays this part perfectly: the single-minded revenge killer out for blood. It’s bloody, it’s violent and while somewhat comic, it seems to be missing the sardonic, Norwegian irony of the original.
But I still liked it.
What Men Want
Dir: Adam Shankman
It’s present day Atlanta.
Ali Davis (Taraji P. Henson) is a manager at Summit Worldwide a highly competitive pro-sports management agency. She’s an alpha dog in an all-male office. Her dad (Richard Roundtree), a former boxer, raised her to be a winner in both her work and her private life. When she takes men home for the night she’s always on top. She’s ambitious and self-centred. And with her gay personal assistant Brandon’s help (Josh Brenner) she’s close to landing a huge client – Jamal a star college basketball player. But 
she still can’t break through the glass ceiling and make full partner.
Until… her life changes after a party with her closest girlfriends when a psychic gives her a secret potion, and later that night she gets bonked on the head by a huge inflatable penis. When she comes to, she realizes she has a new secret power: she can read men’s 
minds. Suddenly a whole world is open to her, with all its potential benefits. Like finding out if a guy she’s crushing on has a thing for her. Or what men say to each other when women aren’t around. And where those men-only poker games are taking place. Is this new power the key to her success? Can she penetrate the locker-room bro culture that is holding her back? Can she turn a one night stand with single-dad bartender Will (Aldis Hodge) into a real relationship? Or is all this ESP stuff less of a blessing than a curse?
What Men Want is a remake of Mel Gibson’s comedy from 20 years ago, but with a role reversal. If you’re into pro sports and TV comedies there are tons of celebrity cameos to keep you happy, from Shaquille O’Neal, Jason Jones, Tracy Morgan, Pete Davidson, Mark Cuban, and many, many others. Eryka Badu is great as the psychic, and Taraji P. Henson – who starred in Hidden Figures – carries the show as Ali. But is it funny?
It’s OK, but not that funny. It’s disturbingly full of product placements in almost every scene. They could have done so much more, but in this movie a black woman who reads minds finds out white men may be sex obsessed, devious, condescending and insecure, but none of them are actually racist. (“Yay! — no one’s racist!“) It does talk about the problems inherent in pro sports, but steers away from bigger issues just begging to be addressed. This movie may be facile, safe and predictable, but I enjoyed it anyway.
The Prodigy
Dir: Nicolas McCarthy
Sarah and John (Taylor Schilling, Peter Mooney) are a young married couple in suburban Pennsylvania with a gifted son. Miles (Jackson Robert Scott) seems older than his years. He spoke his first words after just a few months, and at age eight is excelling at a school for exceptional students. And he has an angelic smile he shows his mom and dad. But there’s something not quite right about him. He seems to speak an exotic language in his sleep. And people nearby keep having strange accidents, which Miles claims he knows nothing about.
But when he violently attacks another boy in science class, his parents are 
disturbed. A specialist named Arthur (Colm Feore) says there might be someone else controlling Miles from somewhere deep inside him. Is he possessed by Satan? Does he have a split personality? Or is it something else? And what is little Miles’s connection to a notorious serial killer with a fetish for cutting of women’s hands? Sarah doesn’t know exactly what’s behind Miles strange behaviour but decides it’s time to act… before it’s too late!
If you like extremely scary horror movies, this is one to
see. A disturbing Bad Seed-style story of a parent’s worst nightmare: that their nice kid might actually be evil. Taylor Schilling (Orange is the New Black) is totally believeable as the mother, and young Jackson Robert Scott is extremely creepy as Miles – watch out for him. I still have shivers in my gut.
The Prodigy is classic horror.
Prodigy, Cold Pursuit and What Men Want all open today in Toronto. Check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Sand and snow. Films reviewed: A Tale of Love and Darkness, In Order of Disappearance
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF is just around the corner with big stars, public events and even some free screenings. And there are tickets still available, especially daytime screenings. But I’d hate to see other film festivals lost around its hugeness. Look out for Caribbean Tales for world premiers from Canada and the Caribean beginning before TIFF, and immediately after
TIFF is the Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) showing features and docs by and about Palestinians.
This week, I’m looking at two watchable foreign films. There’s a literary drama shrowded in darkness and shadow, and an action/thriller covered in bright, white snow.
A Tale of Love and Darkness
Dir: Natalie Portman (based on the autobiographical novel by Amos Oz)
It’s 1945 in British Mandate Palestine. Noah is a little boy living in Jerusalem with his mother Fania and his father Arieh. Amos (Amir Tessler) likes books about Tarzan and cowboys and “Indians”. But the stories he likes the best are the ones his mother (Natalie Portman) tells him. Fania is a born storyteller but the tales she tells are fantastically 
ghoulish and obsessed with death. She was born in Poland, and tells him about escaping into the woods, which probably saved her life. She talks about a self-immolating woman, a handsome polish soldier, and a pair of monks on a long journey. When Amos hears her stories he pictures himself and his mother as the main characters.
Arieh (Gilad Kahana), Amos’ dad, is a published author himself. But his books are academic, not popular bestsellers. He was beat up as a kid in Lithuania and tells Amos he immigrated to Palestine so his son would never have to face bullying because of his background. (Amos ends up bullied anyway.) Fania had great expectations and still fantasizes about muscular, intellectual farmers replacing her scrawny but loving husband.
But as her dreams and fantasies fade away, she slips into a deep depression.
A Tale of Love and Darkness is a fictional memoir by Israeli novelist Amos Oz, set in the post-Holocaust, pre-independence years of his childhood. The movie consists of a series of linked short stories, each ending with a silent dark screen. The film doesn’t bonk you on the head about the big issues; rather it subtly shows short scenes hinting at the bigger picture.
One crucial scene has Amos visiting an Arab family, where he meets a girl his age, a budding poet, like him. He shows off his Tarzan skills by climbing a tree and shaking the chains of a swing set. He pictures himself as Samson, escaping the chains that bind him. But with his thoughtless bravado he breaks the swing, sending the girl’s little brother to hospital. (Metaphor anyone?)
I was impressed that this is actress Natalie Portman’s first feature as a director. (She also wrote the screenplay and plays a central character.) A Tale of Love and Darkness is a beautifully-shot period piece, with wonderful music, camerawork and costumes. This is definitely worth seeing.
In Order of Disappearance (Kraftidioten)
Dir: Hans Petter Moland
It’s a snowy winter night in Tyos, Norway. And heavy snow means good business for Nils Dickman (Stellan Skarsgård). He’s a professional snowplow driver who all the nearby country roads with his enormous metal machines. And he’s excellent at it. So good, he’s getting the award for good Citizenship. Pretty 
impressive for an “immigrant”. (He was born in Sweden.) But on the same night something terrible happens: his only son, who works at a nearby airport, is found dead. Police say he’s a drug addict who OD’ed, but Nils insists his son never does drugs. Nils is devastated, suicidal until he discovers the boy was murdered.
Turns out he was mistakenly held responsible for disrupting the local drug lord’s cocaine shipment, and killed in retribution. They faked an OD to stop the police from investigating. Now it’s up to Nils to find the killers and avenge his son’s death. He embarks on a series of attacks on the local cocaine dealers, gradually working his way up the chain. He wants to find the kingpin, a man from a very rich Norwegian family. Known as The Count (Pål Sverre Hagen) he is a second-generation, right wing racist. He lives in a beautiful home and he and his lackeys dress in expensive suits with perfect hairstyles. He has the coke market tied up between his gang and a Serbian gangster known as Papa (Bruno Ganz).
And when his dealers start disappearing, he assumes it’s other gangsters – he kills a rival in retaliation. This is Papa’s son, who aims to retaliate by kidnapping the Count’s little boy. This sparks a gang war, with Nils’s home ending up as the target for both gangs. Can Nils defeat two teams of professional killers using only his wits and his huge snow-blowing machines?
This is an extremely bloody, and sometimes funny, gangster thriller. It’s all shot against pristine snowdrifts, bespoiled only by blood. It’s called In Order of Disappearance as it briefly memorializes each character when he dies. It’s enjoyable, with lots of interesting side characters, though it’s hard to feel great sympathy for a serial killer, whatever his reasons. Warning: you have to have a high tolerance for violence to watch this movie.
In Order of Disappearance and Tales of Love and Darkness both open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
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