[7] Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, and Ian McShane star in this stylish and darkly comic story about a retired safecracker (Winstone) whose former mentor (Kingsley) shows up demanding that they team up for one more hit. Kingsley steals the show here in a role that earned him an Oscar nomination. His character is manic, alternating between threatening calm and almost laughable violent energy. Since I …
[6] Melissa McCarthy shifts gears with a dramatic turn in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, the true story of celebrity biographer Lee Israel, who after decades of success writing best-selling books about the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Estee Lauder, and Tallulah Bankhead, found herself in a desperate dry spell in the early ’90s. She turned to forgery to make ends meet, selling fake private letters …
[8] Isabelle Huppert stars as a woman trying to learn the identity of the man who raped her. Based on that description, I pegged Elle for a revenge story, but it’s much more complicated and interesting than that. As the film unfolds, we learn Huppert is the producer of sexually violent video games. Then we learn she’s the daughter of a mass-murderer. It’s indicated that …
[7] Clint Eastwood directs and stars in The Mule, the story of a 90-year-old man who becomes a drug runner for a dangerous Mexican cartel. The money keeps Eastwood’s character motivated. Meanwhile, his ex-wife and daughter express disappointment with his continuing absence in their lives and the feds start closing in on his illegal activity. Eastwood is playing a character more naive and corny than …
[7] Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck star in Andrew Dominik’s dramatization of the last months of famous outlaw Jesse James’ life. Pitt plays James and Affleck plays his admirer-turned-assassin, Robert Ford. The young Ford character is smitten from the outset, but ridicule from James and the other gang members slowly hardens his heart. Jealousy eventually turns him against his idol. As James, Pitt is unstable …
[7] Melissa Leo turns in a fierce, memorable performance in writer/director Courtney Hunt’s story of two women who strike up an unlikely partnership smuggling illegal immigrants to make ends meet. After a Mohawk woman from a nearby reservation steals her car to make a smuggling run, Leo decides to join the woman on her next trip. Both women hate what they’re doing, but the Mohawk …
[7] Steve McQueen (Shame, 12 Years a Slave) brings Lynda La Plante’s novel to the screen. Widows is about a woman who rallies the girlfriends and wives of her deceased husband’s gang of robbers, all of whom died in a botched robbery with her husband, to execute plans for what would have been their next heist. They all need to do this because their dead lovers …
[8] I very much enjoyed Drew Goddard’s previous work on Cloverfield and The Cabin in the Woods, and I’m a big fan of single-location ensemble stories, so I was excited to see what Goddard had in store with Bad Times at the El Royale. Bad Times features about seven characters — the titular hotel’s front desk boy and six guests — who each have a …
[7] Lee Daniels (Precious, The Butler) directs this moody piece about a college dropout who helps his older brother investigate the murder of a police officer. The convicted killer’s girlfriend joins the investigation to help prove his innocence. Zac Efron and Matthew McConnaughey play the brothers and Nicole Kidman plays the girlfriend — each of them showing range and abilities you haven’t seen from them …
[7] Director Justin Kurzel tells the true story of Australia’s most notorious serial killer through the eyes of his teenaged accomplice. Teenager Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) falls in with his mother’s new boyfriend, John Bunting (Daniel Henshall). Bunting becomes a father figure to Jamie and preys on the boy’s feelings of insecurity, transforming him into his own private henchman. First, they scare a molester out of …
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