Thriller

Split

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  • Title: Split
  • IMDb: link

Split Blu-ray reviewWhen all is said and done I’m less interested in Split than the movie it may eventually lead to (a true sequel to the writer/director’s best film). That said, M. Night Shyamalan‘s film is easily the best thing he’s created in more than a decade (although given the level of crap he’s put out over that time period that’s hardly a high bar to clear).

Set in an universe Shyamalan once said he had no interest in returning to, James McAvoy stars as a schizophrenic with at least 24 distinct personalities who kidnaps three teenage girls (Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, and Jessica Sula) to feed the darkest of his personalities referred to only as “The Beast.” For at least three-fourths of its running time the movie lacks the tension it should, partially because we’re unsure how seriously to take McAvoy’s character, partially because Shyamalan wants to hide aspects of the man for as long as possible, and partially because the script jumps around a bit too much rather than staying focused on the girls’ dilemma.

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The Accountant

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  • Title: The Accountant
  • IMDb: link

The Accountant Blu-ray reviewThe Accountant is your basic action-thriller with the twist being our main character is an autistic accountant who turns out o be a genius both with math and guns. Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is targeted not by any one of his any number of dangerous clients but by a robotics company for confirming embezzling found by one of the firm’s junior accountants (Anna Kendrick). The story also features a subplot involving a retiring agent (J.K. Simmons) of the Treasury Department and his protege of sorts (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) who are hunting the forensic accountant whose client list includes some of the world most dangerous criminal organizations.

The script by Bill Dubuque gets a little too cute for its own good tying in Christian’s past, but the movie works better than I expected. Affleck is put to good use here as the autistic character I wouldn’t mind seeing more of, and the pairing with Kendrick is refreshingly not by-the-book.

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Elle

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Elle
  • IMDb: link

Elle movie review

Isabelle Huppert is marvelous as the sixty-something head of a successful video game company who is raped in her apartment by a stranger in a ski mask. Refusing to tell the police, Michèle instead continues on as if nothing happened even as she begins to suspect that one of her resentful employees may be her attacker. Filled with mostly depressed and confused characters, somehow the film is never as bleak as its subject matter might lead you to believe.

Despite being raped in the movie’s opening scene, Michèle is anything but a victim; she’s smart, successful, and in complete control of both her company and libido. Elle isn’t a revenge fantasy or a drama focused on our protagonist coming to terms with the attack. Director Paul Verhoeven, no stranger to erotic or psychological thrillers, has something much different in mind in screenwriter David Birke‘s adaptation of Philippe Djian‘s novel. And Michèle is no angel, sleeping with the husband (Christian Berkel) of her best friend (Anne Consigny), and lusting after her neighbor (Laurent Lafitte) despite their age difference and his wife (Virginie Efira).

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Nocturnal Animals

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  • Title: Nocturnal Animals
  • IMDb: link

Nocturnal AnimalsFrom the unconventional opening credits to the crushing final scene, Nocturnal Animals is a tour-de-force you won’t be able to take you eyes off of. Using a story within a story to reveal the truth about his characters, writer/director Tom Ford delivers a taut psychological thriller involving art gallery owner Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) whose blasé hoity-toity life is shaken by the arrival of a manuscript by her ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal). Shown in three interlocking tales, we are witness to Susan’s current timeline and marriage to husband number two (Armie Hammer), flashbacks of her marriage to Edward (Gyllenhaal), and the fictional tale which unfolds in brighter tones and more visceral glee than anything in her current life, rocking Susan to her core.

Of the three, it’s Edward’s manuscript which turns out to be the most impressive on film. Also casting Gyllenhaal as a husband and father whose family (Isla Fisher, Ellie Bamber) is harassed and attacked late one night on a empty stretch of road in west Texas by a group of hoodlums (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Karl Glusman, Robert Aramayo), we’re given a front-row seat to the tragic consequences of that night.

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Green Room

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  • Title: Green Room
  • IMDb: link

Green RoomNotable mainly for its cast including a pair of Star Trek actors (Anton Yelchin and Patrick Stewart), Green Room is your basic wrong place, wrong time thriller when a broke band stumbles on a murder in the green room of a remote Neo-Nazi bar in the Northwest. With the help of a witness (Imogen Poots) to the murder, the band (Yelchin, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, and Callum Turner) barricade themselves in the green room in an attempt to hold off the inevitable as the club’s owner (Stewart) rounds up some of the gang’s less-savory types to clean-up the situation.

Writer/director Jeremy Saulnier delivers a fairly tense thriller featuring a cast of damaged individuals fighting for their lives against some pissed off Neo-Nazis. Other than Yelchin’s bassist, I’m not sure there’s a good person on-screen which means we’re interested to see what happens to the dickish rockers but not necessarily invested in rooting for or against them making it out alive. Stweart’s casting is intriguing as brains behind the outfit (although it’s fair to say he’s slumming it here).

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