Thriller

How to Kill Your Wife and Get Away With It

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

Fracture movie reviewWhile Fracture isn’t a great film it is a compelling and fun ride including good performances and a script which will keep you guessing similar to 2003’s Runaway Jury.  Featuring a pair of great actors in plum roles it’s the type of film you enjoy watching, even if you can punch holes in some of the plot points later on.

On discovering his wife (Embeth Davidtz) is having an affair with a police detective (Billy Burke) Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) coldly plans her murder.  But instead of an intricate plan or an ironclad alibi he simply walks up to her at home, shoots her in the head, and then waits for the police to arrive.

Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling), a young Assistant District Attorney with one foot out the door for a new cushy corporate job working under a beautiful woman (Rosamund Pike), is assigned the case.  There’s evidence, a confession, and Stevens even plans on defending himself.  Slamdunk.

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Smokin’ Aces

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Smokin’ Aces
  • IMDb: link

smokin-aces-poster

Smokin’ Aces wasn’t the total disaster I was dreading, but it is certainly far from the fun thrill ride I’d been overly hopeful for.  The pace and look of the film work, so does the cast, but when you rely on plot points that would look silly in the most amateurish comic book by depicting them as true in a real world setting, well that’s a problem – a big one.  It’s not a complete waste of time, the film has a pace and energy that serves it well, but it’s far too flawed for my tastes.

Buddy “Aces” Isreal (Jeremy Piven) is a magician and wannabe gangster who has slowly managed to weasel himself into the uper echelon of the last great mob family.  As the head of the crime syndicate (Joseph Rushkin) begins fade in his old age he puts out word he wants Israel’s heart.  A million dollar hit is put out on the magician who then contemplates giving up everything and becoming a snitch to the F.B.I., if he can live long enough.

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Too Quiet

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Quiet
  • IMDb: link

the-quietThrillers work on keeping the audience on the edge of your seat.  This film isn’t a thriller.  Character studies work by examining individuals and relationships, bringing truths and secrets out, and making resolutions.  This isn’t a character study.  In fact, I’m not sure what it is.  I know what it wants to be, but it just doesn’t know how to get there.

Dot (Camilla Belle) is a miserable and lonely young deaf high school student.  After the death of her father she moves in with a family whose own troubles make hers seem bearable.  Nina (Elisha Cuthbert) is the spoiled cheerleader who doesn’t appreciate being associated with a school outcast.  Paul Deer (Martin Donovan) is a successful father who loves his daughter a little too much, and his wife Olivia (Edie Falco) is a pill-popping addict that was last sober sometime in the 90’s.

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The Ninth Gate

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Ninth Gate
  • IMDb: link

The Ninth Gate

Roman Polanski at his best gave us Chinatown and at his worst gave us Pirates.  The Ninth Gate is a great suspenseful mystery as Johnny Depp is thrust into the world of the occult and dark knowledge.  One of Polanski’s, and Depp’s, best films.

The film opens with an older gentleman, Andrew Telfer (Willy Holt), just finishing his affairs one evening.  He then gets up from his desk and very matter of fact manner hangs himself from the chandelier of his study.  The camera pans to the books of his study for in this film knowledge can bring both power and death.

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De Plane, De Plane!

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

Flightplan

Flightplan is one of those movies with way too many Hollywood fingerprints all over it. What can you say about a movie that sets up a wonderful tense thriller for an hour and fifteen minutes and then chucks it all out the window for a farfetched Hollywood twist ending?  Although I enjoyed much of the film, in the end I left the theater disappointed.

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