One thing is pretty clear in The Infiltrator: bankers are boring. Directed by Brad Furman, from a screenplay by Ellen Brown Furman, it is based on a true story. Bryan Cranston plays Robert Mazur, an undercover federal agent with financial expertise. Mazur is set up as a businessman seeking to launder the Columbian drug profits […]
Nicolas Winding Refn’s Neon Demon follows a well-worn path to its bloody conclusion, relying on an audience’s tolerance for empty female characters in order to see them murder each other as a career move. In this case, they are gorgeous models seething with jealousy over Elle Fanning’s sudden dominance of the fashion scene in Los […]
Johnnie To likes to keep it simple. It’s about a cop, a criminal and a doctor: three. Each lives by a code of conduct, and the film depicts how each member tries, imperfectly, to live by his/her code when forced to relate to someone who lives by different rules. Dr. Tong, a woman, is a brain […]
Expectations were high for this festival, now in its sixth year, which is why increased attention is being paid by the public and distributors. It doesn’t hurt that Ethan Hawke is one of the judges this year. Running from June 9th through the 16th, it showcased 5 features, 16 short films, and a special midnight […]
In its first scenes, this Korean occult-horror film sets up a familiar situation. Sergeant Jong-goo (Do Won Kwak), a cop in the village, is called in to investigate a murder. He is a devoted family man, married, with a young daughter, Hyo-jin (Kim Hwan-hee), he is devoted to. Jong-goo’s mother, watchful and protective, also […]
More than halfway through this odd, fascinating “documentary,” the filmmaker abandons the people that had been its subjects – Mark and his girlfriend, Lisa, both meth and heroin addicts in rural Louisiana – and follows a group of their neighbors, a self-styled militia who are convinced President Obama will impose martial law, and are ready […]
I’m not familiar with Jane Austen’s posthumously published novel, Lady Susan, retitled here as Love and Friendship, but the film is enjoyable enough for me to want to read it. Still, despite a powerhouse performance from Kate Beckinsale – as gorgeous as ever, especially in that purple gown – there is an “unfinished” quality to […]
British writer-director Christopher Smith knows his noir. He knows that when you watch his film, you will also be reminded of other movies when you see: a cop order the (anti)hero to open the trunk of his car: a hooker who is frantically packing to get out of Vegas before her pimp kills her, when there’s a […]
In The Loner, his first feature, director Daniel Grove follows the story of Behrouz, starting with his forced service as a child soldier – a “Basiji” – fighting for Iran in the war with Iraq. The story then advances to his life as an adult immigrant in the underworld of Los Angeles, specifically the Persian […]
Simon Dixon sees nothing wrong with starting at the top, and he makes a good case for that with his first film as a director, Tiger Raid, which had its world premiere at Tribeca on April 17th. I interviewed him and his producer, Gareth Evans, soon after the premiere, and it was obvious they were […]
