The Double is an Italian movie that begins with a man getting shot in a parking lot. The rest of the film consists of flashbacks from the dying man’s life, trying to piece together how he got there. That’s an interesting idea. This is not a great movie. You can read all my thoughts over at Cinema Sentries.
The Island is so close to being a good movie. Or at least an interesting one. Michael Caine stars as a reporter investigating some disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, only to be captured by a gang of pirates. It is as silly as that sounds, but not quite as silly as it should have been. Or fun. There are several things they could have done to push it into “good” territory, but they never quite get there. It is worth a watch if you are bored, but there are plenty of other Michael Caine films that are more worth your time. You can read my full review over at Cinema Sentries.
I’ve become a big fan of 1970s Italian crime thrillers. Italy was going through what they now call the Years of Lead back then, which was a period of high crime and political turmoil. Their films often reflect that in the best possible way. This film pushes the politics more than the crime or the thrills, which makes it just a little bit dull. But there is still some good stuff, as you can tell from my review.
Follow Me Quietly is a terrific little low-budget thriller from the late 1940s. It follows a cop (and a reporter) as they try and catch a serial killer. It barely lasts an hour and it is full of thrillers, chills, and laughs. You can read my full review here.
One day I may stop singing the praises of Radiance Films, but today is not that day. I love, love, love the way they keep bringing to my attention films that I’d otherwise never hear of in nice sets, loaded with extras.
Solo is a terrific little French thriller about a couple of young revolutionaries in over their heads and how a jewel thief winds up lending them a hand. You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries.
Lino Ventura has become one of those actors I keep finding myself watching, almost by accident. He just keeps showing up in the films that I’m watching. I don’t know why. But he’s so good I never mind.
In Birds of Prey, he plays a killer hired to assassinate the president of some backwater South American country. Before he can do that, he is forced to wait in a tiny little village for several days, accompanied by a true revolutionary. A kid who will probably replace the president. The kid is idealistic while the killer is old and cynical. Their interactions make up most of the movie, and they are wonderfully played. The whole movie is great. You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries.
This French thriller is part film noir, part Hitchcockian suspense. Neither part is as good as that sounds, but it’s not bad either. I’m a sucker for this type of thing, as you can read in my full review over at Cinema Sentries.
Charles Bronson had such an interesting career. For a while, he was a terrific little character actor in films like The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven, and then he became a star and for a time he continued making interesting (if not great) films, and then he got stuck making dumb action films that wasted his talents as an actor.
Rider on the Rain is a very interesting film. It starts out like a rape revenge film, then turns into a thriller, but it turns into something far more interesting. You can read my full review over at Cinema Sentries.
Drop is the sort of those high-concept, utterly ridiculous thrillers they used to make a lot of in the 1990s. It is all kinds of dumb but still a lot of fun to watch.
Violet Gates (Meghann Fahy) is just beginning to get over the death of her abusive husband. Oh, she’s not sad he’s dead, for he was an awful piece of…but she survived years of abuse and nearly let him kill her baby boy, and that’s hard to get over. Even if you are a therapist.
She’s been talking to a handsome photographer named Henry (Brandon Sklenar) through one of those online dating apps, and tonight she’s finally agreed to meet him face-to-face for a dinner date at one of those fancy restaurants that sits atop a skyscraper, giving panoramic views of Chicago.
She leaves her sister June (Violett Beane) in charge of the boy (and her wardrobe) and nervously goes on the date. Before they can even order hors d’oeuvres, she starts receiving these strange airdropped digital messages. At first they are just sort of annoying, and the couple play a little game as to who it could be, but soon enough they become threatening.
Look at the video footage from her at-home security cameras, it says. They show a masked man in her home. Do what I say, or your family will be killed, it says. Tell no one what is happening. Do not call the cops. Do not let your dinner date leave.
The tormentor seems to know everything she is doing. He’s somehow got access to the restaurant’s internal camera system. He’s also placed cameras inside the bathroom and next to her table. He’s cloned her phone.
I won’t spoil exactly what he asks her to do except that it has to do with destroying some evidence and causing harm to someone. It makes very little sense as it is a dumb way to get what they want, but you just have to roll with it.
Director Christopher Landon keeps the tension high, and writers Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach find clever ways for Violet to solve her problem. Because those digital drops have to be sent from someone close they have a lot of fun hinting it might be this person or that one. I guessed correctly pretty quickly so it isn’t really that hard to figure out. It ends in a climactic battle that’s all sort of ridiculous, but I had a good time with it.
Landon directed both Happy Death Day films and Freaky, and I wish he’d leaned a little more heavily into the ridiculousness of this situation and made it a little funnier. But it’s still an entertaining little film. Like I said, they used to make this sort of film a lot in the 1990s, and I kind of miss them. Sometimes you want something ridiculous and not so serious.
Small housekeeping note. We are in May, and that means we’re geared up for mysteries. Crime stories often blend mystery, thriller, and horror together, but it is always difficult to find one that leans that mix a little more toward horror for Friday nights. I thought this one would do the trick, but it really is much more of a thriller than a horror film, but it is late and this is what you get.
When I was thinking of what theme I should do for January, my wife was the first to come up with the New Year concept. Originally she suggested road trip movies. New Year means trying to make changes in your life, and sometimes that means leaving the place you’ve been stuck in. I liked that idea but wasn’t sure I could do enough road trip movies to make it through the month.
But I do think you can encompass travel into my larger theme of New Year, New You. Now, we are going to stretch it a little further and suggest any movie where the people are traveling somewhere even if they don’t experience much growth along the way.
I love road trip movies. I love movies set on trains even more. I love train travel in general. I have ridden a lot of trains all over Europe and Asia; it is a wonderful way to travel. As much as I love to drive, it is very nice to ride the rails and not have to worry about anything. Trains are so much more enjoyable than planes. You have more legroom. You can get up and walk about. And the scenery is often much more beautiful.
There are lots of different types of movies set on and around trains. I love a good mystery or thriller set aboard a train. Trains are enclosed spaces, so the killer (or thief, or whatever) only has so many places to hide. But there are usually many cars so that you aren’t just stuck in one room. And the train is traveling, which allows for different scenery and different passengers to come and go, and the ever present possibility that someone could jump.
An important diary is stolen from the Paris Embassy by Zurta (Albert Lieven) and Valya (Jean Kent). They hand it to a man called Poole (Alan Wheatley) who is supposed to usher it to a designated rendezvous point. Instead, he runs to the Orient Express with intentions to sell it to the highest bidder. The diary is said to contain information that in the wrong hands would lead to yet another world war.
Zurta and Valya learn of Poole’s deception and board the train. It departs for Trieste. To complicate matters, Zurta is wanted by the authorities in Trieste and must depart before they arrive there.
They don’t exactly know where Poole is on the train; he’s doing a good job of staying low, and they can’t make a show of looking for him because they had every intention of using the diary themselves.
Mixed in with all of this espionage is a big bag of characters having their own side stories. Usually this kind of film has lots of these types of characters, but their screen time is minimized. They exist to give the film color, to give the setting some realism. But here they are given ample opportunity to be on screen. Numerous, what would normally be side characters, are given time to have fully drawn stories. Our leads often feel like supporting parts.
There is a young GI looking for some birds to chat up and winds up in a car with a British ornithologist. A boorish Brit spends all his time with the train’s renowned chef trying to teach him how to cook dull dishes. A businessman takes a woman with him who is decidedly not his wife in hopes of an affair, but fate keeps intervening and keeping them apart. Etc. and so forth.
Poole bribes a porter to get a private room where he hides the diary. But then he’s kicked out because that room was reserved by a very prominent and rich writer. He’s then sat with a French detective, Inspector Jolif (Paul Dupuis). Eventually, the diary will be found, and someone (or someones) will find themselves dead. It is Inspector Jolif who will have to put everything together. But even then the film doesn’t bother itself too much with that angle.
I sound like I’m complaining, but I’m absolutely not. I enjoyed this crazy cast of characters and each of their stories. I would have enjoyed it more if they’d spent just a little more time on the thriller aspects, but mostly this film is a lot of fun.
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