Thriller

The Invisible Man

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  • Title: The Invisible Man
  • IMDb: link

The Invisible Man Blu-ray reviewThere have been several versions of The Invisible Man over the years. The latest, from writer/director Leigh Whannell puts the focus on the victim of the title character rather than the Invisible Man himself offering a thriller about an abusive husband using advanced technology to gaslight the wife who has left him. Elisabeth Moss stars here as the terrified woman who even those closest to her believe is going insane.

When the film stays grounded (as grounded as a film about an invisible man driving his wife mad can be) it succeeds, leaving both Moss and the audience to question where the Invisible Man is in every scene (or if he’s even there at all). I think The Invisible Man would have made an excellent short film. As a feature, Whannell struggles to keep the suspense in place as the film gets increasingly goofy when our antagonist ups his game. The film’s unimaginative boilerplate ending also left me cold.

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Parasite

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  • Title: Parasite
  • IMDb: link

Parasite movie reviewA family of con artists living together a cramped semi-basement apartment set their sights on a wealthy and gullible family in writer/director Bong Joon Ho‘s Parasite. Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi) is the first through the door as a tutor for the teenage daughter Da-hye (Ji-so Jung). Next comes his sister Ki-jeong (So-dam Park), as an art teacher and art therapist for the couple’s son (Hyun-jun Jung). Together the pair are able to replace the family’s driver with their father Ki-taek (Kang-ho Song) and the housekeeper (Jeong-eun Lee) with their mother (Hye-jin Jang) all while hiding the familial relationship behind the Parks’ (Sun-kyun Lee and Yeo-jeong Jo) new employees.

The insidious nature of the clan and their slow takeover of the household is fascinating to watch. What’s interesting, despite their lies and deceptions, each proves fairly good at their jobs. I won’t get into the film’s dark turn or reveal what happens in the film’s second-half other than to say the house of cards is threatened by a discovery deep in the heart of the Parks’ home in the dead of night leading to a climactic sequence of events playing out in the middle of a family celebration.

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London Fields

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  • Title: London Fields
  • IMDb: link

London Fields DVD reviewLondon Fields is a flawed but ambitious film that struggles mightily with adapting the 1989 novel of the same name for the big screen. The film’s biggest strength is Amber Heard, cast in the role femme fatale Nicola Six who toys with men’s affections for her own selfish gratification and amusement. Despite the film’s many failings, Heard’s performance isn’t one of them nor is the cinematography of Guillermo Navarro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and Pacific Rim) who so lovingly frames the beautiful star on-screen. Semi-clairvoyant, Nicola knows the time and place of her death (but not the identity of her killer).

Our other main character is American novelist Samson Young (Billy Bob Thornton) in London attempting to find inspiration for one more novel. Immediately buying into her tale, Samson convinces Nicola to let the author tell her story. Like with Heard, Thornton is put to relatively good use (although the scripting of the noir voiceover fails him at times – but also provides one of the film’s more clever moments as the film pauses to allow Samson to rewrite a scene).

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Bikini Chain Gang

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  • Title: Bikini Chain Gang
  • IMDb: link

Bikini Chain Gang DVD review2004’s Bikini Chain Gang was a made-for-TV erotic thriller. It’s the kind of low-rent, poorly written and poorly acted, and highly sexualized movie you might find late night on Showtime or Cinemax. It appears this was made $12.50 on a lazy summer day by those with only a loose understanding of what a movie is.

We begin with a waitress (Beverly Lynne) unwilling to put out for her sleazy boss being framed as an accomplice to a robbery and sent to a Maximum Security Prison where she finds herself at the mercy of a sadistic prison guard (Nicole Sheridan).

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Red Sparrow

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  • Title: Red Sparrow
  • IMDb: link

Red Sparrow movie reviewAdapted from Jason Matthews‘ 2013 novel of the same name (which apparently “borrowed” heavily from Black Widow‘s comic history), and starring Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence, Red Sparrow is a disappointment in every since of the word. This movie is B-A-D. A slow burn spy thriller, with jolts of quick-cut stylized action, plot holes big enough to drive the Death Star through, and sex scenes so laughable only Showgirls fans can truly appreciate them, the film is a complete waste of time for everyone involved. For the audience, it’s an excruciating, although sometimes laughably bad, experience.

We open with a career-ending injury for Russian prima ballerina Dominika Egorova (Lawrence) leading her uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts) to ship her off to become a spy trained trained not in espionage, weapons, or spycraft, but only seduction. After a relatively short stay, Dominika is thrown into the field to seduce an American agent (Joel Edgerton) in hopes that he might give up the name of a mole within the Russian government. Of course our girl, with no real training, will out-fox both American and Russian spies to further her own agenda.

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