Ed's Review Dot Com

Boies / Schiller Film Group, Wrigley Pictures,

Elizabeth Lail, Jordan Calloway, Talitha Eliana Bateman, Peter Facinelli, Dillon Lane, Tichina Arnold, Tom Segura, Lana McKissack, Anne Winters, Matt Letscher, P.J. Byrne, Valente Rodriguez, Louisa Abernathy, Charlie McDermott, Jonny Berryman

A Nurse, Quinn Harris (Elizabeth Lail}, downloads a popular new app that tells you exactly when you are going to die. The other nurses are having fun looking at the 70 years or so they have left, while Quinn’s shows she only has a few days. Thinking it’s just a harmless joke app, she suddenly starts seeing mysterious hidden figures following her, and she quickly learns that the clock is ticking and as she finds other folks with time running out, she realizes that she has to figure out how to beat this thing before the clock runs out.

This is a rather unique concept for a horror film, and it is mildly horrific and suspenseful, but it’s not all that overly scary, and isn’t all that original. Just the same, it is a decent horror film and it has it’s moments. Elizabeth Lail does a really good job in the lead role, and does a decent job carrying the film. The movie obviously owes a great debt of gratitude to the Final Destination series, as they truly stole a great deal of the format and ideas from that source! Final Destination was a ground-breaking film with the format of unusual deaths and the formula for breaking the chain and trying to beat the system, but quite a few original ideas have been added to make it more interesting in Countdown. All in all it was an enjoyable film, decently suspenseful, and fun to watch, but hardly worth your hard earned bucks on the big screen. I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to see this in the theaters, but if you have the chance to watch this sometime on video, give it a shot. It was an enjoyable time, and isn’t bad.

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Black Bear Pictures, Boies / Schiller Film Group, Hwy61,

Matthew McConaughey, Édgar Ramírez , Bryce Dallas Howard, Corey Stoll, Toby Kebbell, Craig T. Nelson, Stacy Keach, Bruce Greenwood

Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey) is a ne’er do well prospector with the dream of hitting it rich. With the help of his friend, the locate property in Indonesia and stake out a claim which looks like a really big deal. This looks like the big break he’s been looking for. But it’s complicated as the lies, secrets, double-crosses, and more pile up as everyone is out to take advantage of everyone else in this story based on real events.

The closest thing I can think of to McConaughey’s performance in this docudrama is Michael Keaton’s performance in The Founder. There are a lot of similarities in the stories, at least as far as the performances of the two actors. This is a very different story though, and I think Matthew did a good job transferring this character to the screen. This is one of those stories that is like a snowball rolling down a hillside that keeps growing bigger and rolling faster until it is able to flatten everyone. We’re not sure right up to the very last second who is the good guy and who is the sucker. It’s got twists and turns just like “The Sting”. It’s a roller coaster ride, that’s for sure, and a decent little film. It didn’t blow me away, but it sure kept interested throughout the whole film, and it surprised me after all in the end. This is a crime story most of all, but with lots of secrets. A serious game of one-ups pulled one after another. It’s a good enough movie if you’re interested in how NOT to make a million dollars.

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1821 Pictures, Boies / Schiller Film Group, Handsomecharlie Films,

Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Noah Emmerich, Ewan McGregor, Rodrigo Santoro, Boyd Holbrook

Jane Hammond (Natalie Portman) is a frontier woman trying her best to make a home for her husband, Billy (Noah Emmerich) and child. But Jane has a past. A gang of outlaws is chasing after them, and when her husband returns home badly injured by being shot, he tells her the gang is on the way to get them and to get away. But Jane does not back down, so she heads into town to find a former lover Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton) who is not very happy to see her, and she asks him for help to stand up to the gang.

Westerns are rare these days, and there’s nothing better than a good western. I was delighted to see this one come out. There have been a few lately (I’m thinking of The Hateful 8, for example) and I anxiously dug into this one. It is quite raw. The violence is real, and the story is the king in this film, as Natalie Portman pulls out an awesome performance. I was not expecting her to pull off a role like this that would appear out of her wheelhouse, but she played the wild west housewife who ain’t going to take crap from anybody very, very well. Joel Edgerton as Dan Frost is also a very good performance and brings all the different emotions and feelings out very well to. But this is also a very nice script. Just a simple story of danger and revenge and self defense, but it all comes together very chillingly. The violence is harsh, and we witness the cruelty of this battle, and like the great westerns of old, the suspense and the waiting keeps us on the edge of our seats. An excellent performance by all, and kudos for a tremendous screenplay that the director and the actors pulled off in a good show. If you love Westerns and don’t mind the R rating, this is a shocking thriller of a western that ought to be well worth seeing.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog