Ed's Review Dot Com

Steel Mill Pictures, Logie Pictures, Altitude Film Entertainment,

James McAvoy, Imogen Poots, Jamie Bell, Joanne Froggatt, Eddie Marsan, Jim Broadbent, Shirley Henderson, Emun Elliott, Iain De Caestecker, Pollyanna McIntosh

Bruce Robertson (James McAvoy) is a rude, obnoxious, racist, cop who is in line for promotion. He’s set his mind on getting it at all costs. He sets his partners against each other and plays one against the other. When a major murder case comes along, he sees it as his chance to seal the promotion. He uses every trick in the book, setting up his fellow officers at every turn. But Bruce has some serious demons, among them, alcohol, drugs, and kinky sex. But he’s obviously quickly losing his sanity and his whole purpose it to try to reunite his family, but it’s obvious that things run a lot deeper than that as he descends into madness.

James McAvoy does an awesome job in this extremely difficult role. This film is very disjointed, giving us a feeling of the madness that Bruce is getting deeper and deeper sucked into. For that reason, a lot of people looking for a light comedy are turned off completely. This is a very dark movie, and I am not sure how it’s billed as a comedy, as there is very little funny going on here. The last five minutes of the film bring it all home with an unexpected ending, and it’s probably worth sitting through this just for the ending. Basically it’s a movie about insanity and as such it’s very hard to follow. Obviously some of the characters and situations are easily identified as something going on in his mind, but at the same time, all the way through we’re not really sure what’s real and what’s insanity. Bruce actually is a nice guy caught up in the mistakes he’s made and the inner demons he’s nursing his way through. Many people have stated that they absolutely hated this film, and I can understand that. I read a review where a guy suggested if after 20 minutes you hate this movie, don’t hang in there waiting for it to get better, as it’s very similar all the way through. Don’t expect laughs and light banter. This is one of the darkest films I’ve seen in a long time. Yet I am not disappointed that I watched it, as I felt I got a lot out of it, mostly due to James McAvoy’s awesome acting ability. This is not mainstream movie for sure, but it’s a fringe feature with a lot of interesting stuff going on.

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Benaroya Pictures, Miscellaneous Entertainment, PalmStar Entertainment,

Josh Hartnett, Rosario Dawson, Teresa Palmer, Alexis Bledel, Penn Badgley, Frank Langella, Gena Rowlands, Conor Leslie

The apocalypse is coming, and this is the story of how three couples deal with it. This film tells the story of how individuals deal with the uncertainty of the future. Each of them deal with it in their own way, and as the time is coming when everyone will be gone, do you surrender to your fate, or do you fight the slightest chance you might be able to beat the odds.

It is hard to review this film. They start out with a good premise, but this movie is not about the disaster that is wiping out humanity. There’s no scientific explanation for why or how this is happening, (although if you pay attention, I thought it is pretty clear and I’m confused as to why so many people have missed the point altogether), but this is about the people. Instead of looking at the masses of people who are affected, we peek in on the last days of the three couples. We’re not going to get all the answers, and we’re not supposed to. We’re supposed to feel the emotions of these people in the last days of Earth, and feel what they feel. That means we have to be subjected to a lot of background information and character building so that we can understand where these people are coming from. That makes a disaster movie with lots of slow dialog, lots of dragged out scenes that are necessary to accomplish the goal of letting us see where they are at, and how they are dealing with it. As a result, a LOT of people hated this movie. If you go in expecting a disaster thriller like the many stories out there, that’s not at all what this film is about. This is a character film, and a people movie. The background of the end of man is in your mind, but we’re not going to really get to see the coming disaster. But this movie made me think a lot, and I found myself interested in the story all the way through. I can see how many people would rate this boring to the max, but I really didn’t mind watching it. It’s not a great film, but it’s one of those that I was glad I saw. Give it a shot if you’re into character studies. Not a feel good movie at all, but it is an interesting look into the lives of the characters.

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Legendary Pictures,

Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge, François Civil,

Scarlet (Perdita Weeks) is following in her father’s footsteps searching out relics of ancient human history. In the middle east she finds a key piece of information to lead her to a precious stone in the catacombs under the streets of Paris. She meets up with her friend George (Ben Feldman) and connives to bring him along with some local guys she finds who know they way into the catacombs. Papillon (François Civil) is the leader of a group who have been down in the catacombs many times before. But things get very complicated as an ancient evil is present in this undiscovered are of the ruins that is the gateway between earth and hell.

This was a scary movie. But I do have to admit that the times I jumped were from the soundtrack and the sound system, not from the suspense of this kind of silly horror fest. Granted it has lots of scary scenes….in a world full of bones, but as they go through the same corridors time and time again, it starts to look really familiar. Truthfully, it was kind of fun to get the adrenaline rush of loud sounds making you jump, and people pay huge prices to walk through the haunted mazes this time of year for that, and this is full of that kind of jump in your face scares. But the story is pretty weak and falls into silliness time and time again. After an hour and a half of struggling through the maze of this underground horror tunnel we are hit with a sudden and quite unfulfilled ending that makes us wonder what just happened. The cast is likeable enough, but they don’t have enough experience to pull this off, and it shows. Additionally, there’s not much of a budget going, and this is another example of a film that was released to theaters prior to being shown to the critics which is always a bad sign. I expect the audience here is the teen set who like the easy jumps and screams and doesn’t mind the lack of substance to the story. They took on a really deep and difficult subject and blew it off with trivial explanations of what is going on. It’s just not that great of a film to deserve your big bucks at the theater, and I was really happy I took this in at the matinee to save myself a few bills. I can’t highly recommend this except for the exact audience for which this is intended. Otherwise, wait for it on video.

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Merchant Films,

Shantel VanSanten, John Robinson, Julian Morris, Brittany Murphy, James Patrick Stuart, Robert Blanche, Betty Moyer, Lance Rosen, Angelique Perrin

Christine (Shantel VanSanten) is a high school graduate, heading off for college but at her graduation dinner with her parents her boyfriend James (John Robinson) informs her parents that they want to get married. The parents disagree, and as they head home on a very rainy night a horrible accident occurs leaving Christine orphaned. Flash forward and she’s now in college and ready to marry James with the objections of her parents out of the way, but she lives with her brother, Bill, a state policeman and his wife, Sally (Brittany Murphy), a psychologist. But strange things are happening all around, and when the two decide to spend their honeymoon in a secluded cabin in the woods, it’s doubtful anyone will come out alive.

This was Brittany Murphy’s last film and has been on the shelf for 5 years which is usually a death knell for this kind of film. Brittany is not the lead, but she is the star of the film and does a wonderful job. In fact, everyone in this movie could be the crazy one and therefore could be the killer. But it takes until the last moments to figure it out. I expected this to be a “direct to DVD” movie that got released due to the resurgence in popularity from the recent “The Brittany Murphy Story” biopic on Lifetime. I was not expecting much, and I was really blown away at how good this film was. It’s not really a horror film, per se, but it is probably more of a psychological thriller. It was a beautiful film, though dark and dreary, the Pacific Northwest is a beautiful place and it really shows in the wonderful scenery in this movie. The script was excellently done, with tons of red herrings and twists and turns all along the way. The characters are excellently developed and everyone has a reason to be the one, so good luck in trying to figure this out. My wife and I both had it figured out half way through and we were so WRONG it isn’t funny! It’s extremely suspenseful, and was a wonderful experience to see on the big screen. I was really sucked into the story, which doesn’t happen that much to me, and I was sad when it was over. This was excellently done, and I really enjoyed it. If you’re fond of thrillers, give this one a chance. It’s an independent film, with not much money to spend, but it was spent wisely on good acting and great photography. I highly recommend this “hidden gem” of a movie.

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Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday September 16, 2014

• The Fault in Our Stars (PG-13)
• Godzilla [Click Here for Ed’s Review]
• Think Like a Man Too