Those with a cursory interest in movies may only know him from his gangster pictures or perhaps even in caricature as that New Yorker with the bushy eyebrows and rapid speech. For those people, Rebecca Miller’s five-part Apple TV+ docuseries “Mr. Scorsese” will be a revelation, a way of expanding an understanding of this filmmaker and why his movies have had such an enduring impact even if some of his pictures weren’t fully embraced in their own time. For those who are already fans of Scorsese, there’s still plenty to enjoy, but we’re left with the question of why Miller took this particular approach, and if simply going through the filmography of his narrative features is the way to probe deeper into such a prolific artist.

What elevates “Mr. Scorsese” from being merely a Wikipedia entry is the involvement of Scorsese and his close collaborators, who can speak as primary sources on his life and works. The first two episodes are the best part as we see Scorsese chat with childhood friends and speak about growing up in a rough neighborhood around mobbed-up guys. On the one hand, all of this material–his asthma pushing him towards movies rather than sports, the influence of the Catholic Church, attending NYU–is known, but it’s great to see it rendered not only with old photos and home movies, but in Scorsese’s own words. It’s one thing to say “Oh, Johnny Boy from ‘Mean Streets’ is partially based on this guy from the neighborhood, ‘Sally Gaga,’” but it’s a complete delight to then have an old friend of Scorsese call up Sally and ask if he wants to come by and be in the documentary. That’s where “Mr. Scorsese” comes alive in a way that feels distinct and special from all the profiles that have been done before.

It’s also great to see Miller probe deeper into earlier works and how those both crafted Scorsese as a professional filmmaker as well as fed into his personal turmoil like his drug addiction and failed marriages. When you take the time to explore “Boxcar Bertha,” then you can dig into the influence of people like Roger Corman and John Cassavettes. Corman gave Scorsese a shot to make a feature and the demands of a professional (albeit knock-off, B-movie) outfit while Cassavettes was essential as a guiding voice of independent cinema pushing the young filmmaker to tell a personal story with “Mean Streets.” From there, you can really get rolling into seeing Scorsese’s development for a movie like “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” and the drive for personal expression in movies like “Taxi Driver” or even flops like “New York, New York.” 

Since the docuseries largely spends its time exploring Scorsese through his features with occasional offshoots regarding his personal life (his marriages, his celebrity, etc.), “Mr. Scorsese” is mostly successful at recontextualizing the filmmaker before he became a legend. We can see that for decades, Scorsese, despite his acclaim, always had a tumultuous relationship with Hollywood, a town that didn’t always know what to do with someone who never had the populist touch of contemporaries like Spielberg or even De Palma. His violence was deemed too aggressive and his movies were unafraid of ambiguous conclusions. That was never going to fit into a post-70s Hollywood, and it’s fascinating to see movies like “The Color of Money” and “After Hours” as a way of Scorsese fighting his way back in only to invite controversy once again with “The Last Temptation of Christ.” 

As the docuseries moves into its fourth episode, you can see what Miller is up against as each Scorsese movie or project could conceivably be worthy of its own documentary. “Mr. Scorsese” sets “Last Temptation” up to be a major battle and turning point, but it’s resolved in about five minutes so the episode can get to “Goodfellas,” which is understandably a bigger and more influential work in Scorsese’s oeuvre. Once the series reaches the ‘90s, it feels like it’s on fast-forward a bit, trying to get to all of the director’s narrative features even if only for a minute (there’s hardly any time spent on “Cape Fear” or “Bringing Out the Dead” and “Hugo” gets skipped entirely), and starts to miss what makes Scorsese a transcendent force worthy of a five-episode docuseries.

Consider that other directors receive this kind of glowing documentary treatment (the series is dubbed a “film portrait,” which I feel is accurate), but even Spielberg and De Palma only got features. Scorsese is worth this long-form exploration, but not because he’s made so many movies or lived such a rich life. The biggest element that Miller opts to largely omit is his contribution to cinema as an artform beyond himself. We all know that Scorsese has made so many incredible movies, and credit to “Mr. Scorsese” for likely leading viewers to check-out some of his less-appreciated work like “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and”Age of Innocence.” But to only include about a minute or so on The Film Foundation and the World Cinema Project in the docuseries’ final 20 minutes feels like misunderstanding why Scorsese is a unique force in film history.

Miller fully grasps Scorsese’s ongoing outsider status (after watching this, I now have no problem understanding why it took until “The Departed” for him to win Best Director and why “Killers of the Flower Moon” received 10 Oscar nominations and zero wins), but what elevates him as a rare figure are his larger contributions to restoring and supporting the art of cinema. I can understand not making time for his TV work like “Vinyl” and even skipping his music documentaries outside of “The Last Waltz.” But Scorsese, unlike almost any other major filmmaker, has used his power and influence to uplift cinema as an artform. No other mainstream director spends their time trying to figure out how to restore a movie like “Touki Bouki” and get it to a wider audience. Few other major directors make classic cinema such an ongoing cornerstone of their work and then, as in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” question how it crafted their flawed understanding of America. 

Perhaps that’s why the end of “Mr. Scorsese” can’t help but feel a little underwhelming. It’s certainly interesting that Scorsese felt dour and depressed while making “Shutter Island” and then upbeat and energetic during “Wolf of Wall Street,” but it would be a stretch to say this is unique to this one director. Exploring his movies does provide some insight to his character, beliefs and the way he has, for lack of a better word, mellowed over the course of his life to where he seems fairly settled and happy in his life with wife Helen and daughter Francesa in a way that eluded him in his relationships as a younger man.

It is, again, a portrait, and an essential one if only because it allows Scorsese to reflect on his life and work at length. But for a five-hour look at a master filmmaker, “Mr. Scorsese” still feels like it’s missing the bigger picture.

“Mr. Scorsese” premieres on Apple TV+ on Oct. 17.

The post ‘Mr. Scorsese’ Review: Apple Docuseries Is a Useful — if Not Overly Insightful — Chronicle of a Cinematic Titan appeared first on TheWrap.

Many names have been used to refer to small-town Wisconsin serial killer and farmer Ed Gein in the 20th century, but the one that has seemed to stick since his crimes were discovered in 1957 is that of “monster.” A fitting moniker given that Gein killed at least two women, enjoyed digging up dead bodies at local cemeteries, wearing their skin and bones as a way of sexual gratification, until he graduated to necrophilia. His felonies and cognitive disturbances were the building blocks that inspired director Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic character Norman Bates and the quintessential horror film “Psycho.”

“Psycho” might be best remembered as Hitchcock’s masterpiece, complete with vivid black-and-white imagery of a seemingly mild-mannered man who slices his way through unwitting female victims at the motel he owns in the middle of nowhere. But that film’s theme of underlying psychosis due to loneliness and grief is famously manifested in the lead character Norman Bates’s devotion to his tyrannical mother. A mother who, spoiler alert, is dead before the film begins.

“Monster: The Ed Gein Story,” the latest offering from Ryan Murphy and frequent collaborator Ian Brennan, is the third installment in their series that highlights the effects of pure evil. Similar to their explorations into serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and the brotherly love between Erik and Lyle Menendez, Ed Gein’s life is brought to the small screen through factual accounts and a heavy dose of cinematic exaggeration. The result is a season full of ups and downs, illustrious performances from its lead cast, and unfortunate filler episodes that provide little additional context to Gein’s state of mind.

British actor Charlie Hunnam stars as the titular Ed Gein, a massive shift for a performer best known as the protagonist Jax Teller in the drama series “Sons of Anarchy.” Here, Hunnam shares scenes with Laurie Metcalf as Gein’s mother, an overbearing and religious woman eerily similar to the backstory given to Mrs. Bates in “Psycho.”

The two have a contentious dynamic. Mrs. Gein prides herself on being a fire-breathing Christian woman who enjoys referring to the girls of their small town as harlots and whores. At the same time, Eddie explores autoerotic asphyxia while wearing his mother’s undergarments. It’s a problematic relationship, to say the least.

When his mother dies, Ed Gein is left alone to tend to their farm and to his sexual urges and intrusive thoughts that manifest into vile crimes. His mother’s voice lingers in his head much like Dexter Morgan’s Dark Passenger in “Dexter,” ordering him what to do and encouraging misbehavior. Before Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and the BTK Killer, Gein’s crimes were viewed as unspeakable for years.

Instead of what would be considered time jumps and flashbacks, creator Ian Brennan and director Max Winkler cleverly weave Ed Gein’s murderous and sexual journey into the making of “Psycho” and the forever link between the two’s legacy. Anthony Perkins (Joey Pollari) is presented similarly to Gein in this series, attempting to connect Perkins’ closeted secret sexuality to the repressed nature of Gein’s sexual manifestation. The unfortunate outcome for Perkins is that he’s always linked to his iconic performance of Norman Bates, and therefore, the source itself: Ed Gein.

The first half of the season is as much about Alfred Hitchcock (Tom Hollander, fresh from playing Truman Capote in Murphy’s “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans”) and his film as it is about Ed Gein. Hitchcock is ambitious and believes audiences want more than the monsters they’re accustomed to seeing on movie screens, such as Frankenstein and Dracula. He considers a new kind of monster, one far more psychological and terrifying in a real way, would be what audiences are clamoring for. 

He delights in watching his audience squirm and leave the theater in anguish at the premiere of “Psycho” in 1960. Winkler utilizes this connection to create space for Hunnam to portray Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s movie. Down to an almost shot-for-shot, more gratuitous shower scene to emphasize the film’s link to Gein’s story, using his love interest Adeline (Suzanna Son) as a stand-in for Janet Leigh.

The second half of the season morphs into what that movie and Gein’s real-life story inspired in Hollywood: slasher flicks of the 1970s, such as “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” The first half’s connection to Hollywood and the inspiration of fictional characters is much stronger than the second half, where the season attempts to elicit shock and disgust from its viewers with graphic violence and shocking sex without adding anything new to the sinister dealings of Ed Gein and those in Wisconsin. Suzanna Son’s Adelina, as a prime example, receives considerable screen time in the latter half of the season, even though the character never existed in real life.

Hunnam’s soft-spoken yet sinister portrayal of Gein is a welcome surprise, as the actor demonstrates range within a character unlike anything he has attempted before. Lesley Manville, as Gein murder victim Bernice Warden, is a nice addition that doesn’t receive nearly as much screen time as the character deserves (although her portrayal would seem to skirt the facts of Warden and Gen’s real-life relationship). Metcalf, as always, provides enough ammunition to keep the story moving at a maniacal pace, even when her character is only heard or manifested through Gein’s mental state.

“Monster: The Ed Gein Story” strives to tell this monster’s story, but fails to deliver eight episodes worthy of a binge watch. Fantastic performances are diluted with exaggerated B-stories that go nowhere at a slow pace.

When news of the slanted-eyed Gein’s crimes comes to light, the media and world don’t know how to classify him. Was he a cross-dresser? Was he trans? Did he have schizophrenia? Or was he just a mama’s boy with a predilection for the macabre?

The Netflix series doesn’t quite have an answer beyond that he was, and still is, a monster.

“Monster: The Ed Gein Story” is now streaming on Netflix.

The post ‘Monster: The Ed Gein Story’ Review: Charlie Hunnam Impresses, but Serial Killer Story Gets Bogged Down in Shock Value appeared first on TheWrap.

It’s been eight years since Daniel Day-Lewis claimed, for the umpteenth time, he was taking his talent and going home. But now he’s back for more in “Anemone,” a film he co-wrote with his own son, Ronan Day-Lewis. The younger Day-Lewis also directed the film, so it’s tempting to read this as a generational supra-narrative. Especially since “Anemone” is about trying to drag a reclusive man back into the world he rejected, and for his son’s benefit no less. If these parallels between real life and the movie aren’t intentional, then what can we say, except the human subconscious strikes again.

“Anemone” stars Sean Bean as Jem Stoker, who leaves his home, his beleaguered wife, and his troubled teenage son to venture into the woods of Ireland. He’s tracking down his brother, Ray, who abandoned his family after a terrible tragedy. Maybe Ray is a murderer. Maybe he’s just a bad dad. “Anemone” doesn’t tip its hand too early, leaving Jem and Ray alone in an arboreal negative space for days, barely speaking except to avoid speaking, and occasionally getting drunk and letting all their baggage spill out.

Jem, we soon learn, has been raising Ray’s son Brian (Samuel Bottomley), who is in serious trouble. Jem married Ray’s old flame, Nessa (Samantha Morton), but Ray’s legacy is suffocating Brian, and Jem believes only Ray can clear the air. But to do that he needs Ray to leave his self-imposed exile, and that’s not something Ray can do.

Ronan Day-Lewis directs “Anemone” with a strange disinterest in narrative drive. It’s not that the film is mostly a two-hander in a cabin in the woods, giving the production an intimate, black box theater personality. It’s that he’s weirdly disinterested in watching these two characters talk, when that’s all the audience wants. We’ve got Daniel Day-Lewis back in theaters, acting opposite the excellent, often-underrated Sean Bean, in a familial drama about shame and regret, and yet these two men are laconic, and willing (if not eager) to belabor the point. Jem has an almost profound patience with Ray, since this whole weeklong sojourn down miserable memory lane could, if you think about it, have been 30 seconds long, if Ray wasn’t as stubborn as a mule.

When they do talk, Jem and Ray think back to their abusive father, their horrific experiences in the Catholic church and their harrowing memories of The Troubles. Ray has isolated himself because he cannot live in the present, and the past often comes to haunt him. Ronan Day-Lewis has a flare for moody hallucinations, which threaten to derail the film with their eerie suddenness, but it’s clear what we’re really seeing here. The uncontrollable urge to stay put, to live in the past, to avoid the present and deny the future. “Anemone” is a film about purgatory, maybe even literally. Ray is trapped between worlds and Jem has come to pull him out or, if need be, give him a heavy, bruising push. It’s not boring and slow. It’s mesmerizing and, fittingly for depressive episodes, it feels overwhelming and infinite.

I’m sure the distributor of “Anemone” would love to be able to declare “Daniel Day-Lewis is back, baby!” with fanfare and fireworks but this is a film about why he stays gone, and while he’ll probably leave us again. Living in the real world takes a lot out of Ray, and acting seems to take a lot out of this particular actor, so when we watch him give long, theatrical monologues about death and child abuse, it feels like we’re watching him torture himself. We’re all Jem, dragging a man out of limbo. Maybe we have good reasons but that doesn’t make it any easier for this poor, fascinating soul who keeps running through a ringer.

Then again, perhaps it’s impossible to understand the depths of “Anemone” without a comprehensive knowledge, or even firsthand experience with the Northern Ireland conflict. I am in no position to lecture, I admit it, but the humanity of “Anemone” is on full display in any context. Sean Bean and Samantha Morton have their own struggling souls, and their inexorable connection to a man who wants to sever all ties is a tragedy by any measure. It’s an impressive acting showcase for everyone involved, not just the actor whose appearance warrants headlines all by itself.

So Daniel Day-Lewis can cry “wolf” all he wants. We never believe him, except when he’s acting. And he’s acting his head off in “Anemone.” It may be odd and insular, but it’s very much intentional. Even the heavy-handedness feels genuine. He really is heavy. He’s our brother.

The post ‘Anemone’ Review: The Only Thing Daniel Day-Lewis Can’t Do Is Retire appeared first on TheWrap.

Turns out, he’s bringing to theatergoers one of the best new plays to open this year. Preston Max Allen’s “Caroline” had its world premiere Monday at the MCC Theater and we know we’re in a  fine storyteller’s hands as soon as a mother, Maddie (Chloë Grace Moretz), and her very young child (River Lipe-Smith) sit down in a greasy spoon for a breakfast of french toast and mac ‘n’ cheese. There’s the child’s broken arm, the mother’s request for a bag of ice and the two suitcases, all of which come into stark focus the moment the two of them discuss what the kid’s name will be. Clearly, as the cover of the Playbill tells us, the name chosen is Caroline.

This mother-child team brings to mind a similar family of two, in Martin Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” where Monterey, California, emerges as the dream destination. Maddie and Caroline have a far greater need to dream of a better place to live since they’re presently stuck in West Virginia. They’re soon on the road to see Maddie’s mother (Amy Landecker), and her home in Evanston, Illinois, looms as a safe legal haven for Caroline.

But is it?

Allen’s play could well be a screenplay, and the set design by Lee Jellinek provides the restaurant, two very different bedrooms, an upscale kitchen and a comfy living room for the characters to move across. The nicer environs belong to Maddie’s own mother, who hasn’t seen her daughter for a few years even though Maddie is now only 25 years old. It is not a happy homecoming, and Landecker is superb at making us feel everything that went down a decade ago between this daughter and mother. With a lesser actor, Maddie’s mother could come off as a stereotypical villain. The character’s judgment of her daughter and grandchild provoked audible gasps of outrage from the MCC audience. Landecker’s nuanced performance, however, actually makes a valid case for this character’s apparent rigidity. We should not forget that grandmother and Caroline are meeting for the first time, and the granddaughter sports an injured arm.

Moretz has the far showier role. Unlike Landecker, she’s given big emotional scenes that show off her acting chops, which are considerable. But most remarkable is a scene late in the play where Moretz must submerge all those feelings to explain calmly a most difficult decision to Caroline.

Which brings this review to River Lipe-Smith. If I’ve ever seen a more accomplished performance from a  child actor on stage, I can’t think of it. Over and over again, this young actor delivers a zinger with the comic timing of a veteran stand-up comic. It’s one of the great things about Allen’s writing and Cromer’s direction: They know how to win an audience’s sympathy not through tears but laughter.

The post ‘Caroline’ Off Broadway Review: Chloë Grace Moretz Delivers as a Single Mom in Crisis appeared first on TheWrap.

That said man is slipping away gives the film a bit more emotional bite. Even as the story gets rather tangled up in itself, this may still resonate with the dog owners who’ve pondered what would happen to their pup if something were to befall them. Apologies to cat lovers, but this is one film that could only work with a canine at its center as felines would likely just leave you to die. 

Built around a scruffy dog trying to protect his troubled human from haunting forces that go bump in the night, “Good Boy” is an engaging little experiment that thrives in its technical approach. It’s a textbook example of where less can often be more, as the most effective moments come in just observing a dog roam about a house where every shadow may contain something more sinister and each creak of a floorboard could signal something creeping up on him. That the film’s lead (expressive newcomer Indy, playing himself) is so authentic and fun to watch makes you willing to overlook the way some of the other pieces of the production don’t come together nearly as compellingly as you’d hope for.

This all begins with an unsettling opening scene of us observing Indy as he discovers one night that his owner, Todd (Shane Jensen), is not in a good way and needs serious medical attention. We don’t fully understand what is wrong with him, with most of the information being limited to what Indy himself would know, though we’ll soon get glimpses into the life that lead him up to this point. A recovering addict whose sister, Vera (Arielle Friedman), is concerned about him relapsing, he’ll soon up and move to his remote rural family home.

This move, something that feels believably rash yet also a little vaguely sketched, is mostly driven by a logistical need to get us to a place where there is no help coming when something begins to haunt Todd and Indy. As we see in a smattering of home videos, their late grandfather (Larry Fessenden) also began to struggle living alone in the house. As the past begins to repeat itself, it’s left to Indy to try to protect Todd from both the forces within the house and also, in the film’s more murky bits, potentially even himself.  

Directed by Ben Leonberg from a script he wrote with Alex Cannon, “Good Boy” is not the scariest of films. Instead, it’s more creepy, where the subtle moments of candles going out as something approaches grab you far more than the louder grasps for scares and excitement that work about half the time. Though it gets plenty of points for creativity in how it utilizes Indy, who is actually Leonberg’s own dog, the way it increasingly falls into repetition grows tiresome.

Recurring nightmares, while interesting in that they’re from the perspective of a dog, often undercut moments of tension or what could be genuine fear at critical turning points. After a few instances of it doing this, things start to feel like we’re blinking in the face of something more abjectly terrifying. There is a darkness to “Good Boy,” but it often feels held at arm’s length, as if Leonberg was concerned about us being too worried about our shared pet. Save for a few moments of potential peril, it ends up playing things surprisingly safe and down the middle.  

This is a bit of a shame as, for some stretches early on, the film that oddly kept coming to mind was the shattering, upcoming “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” This is not because either is similar in story or ambition. Rather, it was because there was initially a similarly refreshing restraint in how Leonberg hardly ever shows the faces of the human characters and takes his time in teasing out the terror, making what is withheld feel more disquieting than anything we do see. The dread comes from the uncertainty and the sense that disaster is waiting just out of frame.

“Good Boy” is still nowhere near as interesting the longer it goes on, but there remain enough inventively staged and shot sequences to make it worth taking in. Even as it increasingly stumbles and goes in circles as it nears the end, with one visual effects shot that would have been better left offscreen nearly taking you out of the whole thing, there are just enough strengths to hold it together. Namely, Indy is a delight who can do no wrong. Though the film around him is not always as assured, he is a star who has earned all the pets and treats a dog could dream of. After all the nightmares he had to endure this film, he more than deserves it.

“Good Boy” opens in theaters on Oct. 3.

The post ‘Good Boy’ Review: This Doggone Creepy Canine Horror Deserves a Little Treat appeared first on TheWrap.

Anyway, that’s the fundamental allure of Parker, the antihero protagonist who starred in 24 novels by Donald E. Westlake, under the pen name “Richard Stark.” Parker is not a good person. He’s also not a particularly wicked person. What he is, at his core, is a professional. He’s damn good at his job. He takes his job very seriously. All he cares about is doing his job well. So we like and respect him for it, even though his job is committing violent crimes.

There’s a scene in Shane Black’s new movie “Play Dirty,” where the writer/director of “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “The Nice Guys” proves that he understands what Parker’s all about. A criminal kingpin named Lozini, played by Tony Shalhoub, hates Parker’s guts and he laments that Parker succeeds at everything he does because he’s a criminal, and he acts like it. He doesn’t pretend to be anything else. He doesn’t get distracted by foibles like lust, shame or greed. He’s the ultimate tough guy, a villain if you cross him, an ally if you follow his lead and do your damn job. Either way, never screw with him.

That’s why the biggest problem with “Play Dirty,” an otherwise slick and enjoyable caper flick, is how it handles Parker. Shane Black gets this character. So do his co-writers Charles Mondry and Anthony Bagarozzi. But for some reason, the film stars Mark Wahlberg as fiction’s toughest tough guy… and Mark Wahlberg can’t pull that off. The script makes Parker out to be effortlessly dangerous, whose reputation doesn’t just precede him, it gets bolstered every time he says or does literally anything. Yet every time Mark Wahlberg tries to act tough, he looks like he’s acting. Wahlberg has a skillset, but “Play Dirty” doesn’t play to his strengths. Ironically, it’s Wahlberg’s star power that robs this movie of its sparkle.

Wahlberg doesn’t sink “Play Dirty,” but he makes it list. Otherwise the film is a pulpy treat. It starts with Parker pulling a heist, but he’s betrayed by a team member named Zen, played by Rosa Salazar. Parker survives their shootout and returns weeks later to take his share of the money and hold Zen accountable for her unprofessionalism, which led to the death of one of Parker’s few friends. When Parker discovers she already spent the money to set up an even bigger heist, he gets mixed up in that, too, and before long everyone’s trying to rob and/or kill everybody else.

LaKeith Stanfield, Alejandro Edda, Keegan-Michael Key and Claire Lovering are on Parker’s team. They plan a heist, their plans go wrong, so they plan another heist. If you don’t like heist movies, you’re watching the wrong heist movie. It’s very heisty. If you like movies where Mark Wahlberg is perfectly cast, you’re also watching the wrong movie. But apart from that, “Play Dirty” delivers. It’s breezy, it’s witty, it’s fast-paced and packed with light subversions of common crime tropes. It’s even got old-fashioned spectacle, in the form of a train wreck and a car chase in the middle of a horse race — although both sequences have underwhelming visual effects.

Alan Silvestri composed the score for “Parker,” and while his music sometimes fades into the background, his main theme is his best work in over a decade. It’s a throwback piece, a little playful and a little romantic, thickened with personality. It sounds like the overture that would have played 60 years ago in a classic Parker movie starring Steve McQueen or Clint Eastwood. It’s a memorable composition that sells Black’s vision for this film better than the generic cinematography, which gets the job done — so Parker wouldn’t be mad — even though it lacks finesse.

The point is, in “Play Dirty” and the process of its production, the people who understand the assignment and did the homework are the real heroes. Meanwhile, Mark Wahlberg Mark Wahlbergs, all Mark Wahlbergily. He’s a comforting presence in a movie where his job was to intimidate. He’s believable when he banters with LaKeith Stanfield, but not when he (allegedly) strikes terror into the hearts of fellow criminals just because of his confidence and intelligence and willingness to kill. It’s easy to imagine LaKeith Stanfield as Parker. It’s easy to imagine Rosa Salazar as Parker. It’s hard to imagine Mark Wahlberg as Parker, even after you just watched him play Parker for two hours.

You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, but you have to know how to crack them, or you could end up with a bowl full of shells. And you have to know how to cook them, or else they lose their texture. “Play Dirty” makes for a decent omelette, but the recipe is a little off, and that’s annoying because we’re hungry for a great Parker movie. We’ve had a lot of adaptations, actually, but only a few did the job right (John Boorman’s “Point Blank” remains the gold standard). But if you’re starving for caper flicks, “Play Dirty” is just hard-boiled enough to satisfy. It just isn’t up to Parker’s own high, and highly professional, professional standards.

“Play Dirty” hits streaming Wednesday on Prime Video.

The post ‘Play Dirty’ Review: Mark Wahlberg Misses the Mark in Prime Video’s Otherwise Solid ‘Parker’ Flick appeared first on TheWrap.

In “Punch,” it’s not really a therapy session so much as it is a “restorative justice” meeting between two parents, (Victoria Clark and Sam Robards), and the young man (Will Harrison) who killed their son with just one lethal blow during a pub brawl. The 19-year-old is named Jacob because he is the author, Jacob Dunne, who was convicted of manslaughter for killing Joan and David’s son James Hodgkinson and went on to write “Right From Wrong” and co-founded the Common Ground Justice Project — of which Joan and David are advisors.

To criticize a play that tells this story of transformation is to be a grump. But good intentions aren’t enough to make a good play. The suspense leading up to the first meeting between the parents and Jacob is palpable, and in those early moments, it’s clear that there’s a lot of pent-up emotions ready to erupt at the mere choice of a wrong word, much less a whole question or pointed accusation. Obviously, the three of them eventually come to more than an understanding; they become good friends and Jacob goes on to have a beautiful wife, an adorable baby and a successful career. So where’s his Nobel Prize? And more important, where’s the drama after two hours and 20 minutes? The resolution here is much too easy and pat. Maybe that’s the way it transpired in real life, but the stage is another world.

Yes, it feels good to know that, occasionally, convicts like Jacob can turn their life around and go on to do good. And even more heartwarming, before he delivered the lethal punch, Jacob had all sorts of other formidable odds to overcome, stuff like dyslexia and autism, not to mention an economically disadvantaged childhood. We learn all these things because Will Harrison tells us every unfortunate feature of Jacob’s life. It is a narrative that’s not so much dramatized as it is told. Actually, it’s shouted at us by Harrison, who is an actor of not much nuance.

His loud performance is of a piece with Adam Penford’s splashy direction, which punctuates every other sentence coming from Harrison’s mouth with lots of lighting (by Robbie Butler) and sound effects (by Alexandra Faye Braithwaite).

There’s something else that Penford does that’s really grating. Even though he has 10 actors on stage, he relies on leads Clark and Robards to play minor characters with a mere switch of a hairdo or a shirt. It’s especially unfortunate to see Clark, a fine actor, resort to cheap tricks to go from playing the levelheaded mom to the cute grandma to some rowdy young street urchin.

As a playwright, Graham is as unsubtle here as he was with his previous ripped-from-the-headlines Broadway offering, “Ink,” about Rupert Murdoch. In one “Punch” scene, he has the owner of some Amazon-like warehouse, where Jacob briefly works on his way to rehabilitation, lecture us about an economy that has gone from producing things to simply shipping things. It’s a five-minute speech that I’ve heard at least once a week on MSNBC and delivered to better effect. To make it even more insufferable, Piter Marek delivers this New Finance 101 talk in the same hectoring manner that Harrison uses. And, of course, in another of Penford’s quick character switcheroos, Marek throws off his sports jacket to play a street thug in the very next scene.

Awkward, yes; impressive, no.

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What’s missing chemistry-wise between this Gogo and Didi, as they call each other, is not really apparent until Brandon J. Dirden’s Pozzo and Michael Patrick Thornton Lucky appear. They make their entrance at the back of the stage, which designer Soutra Gilmour has turned into a gigantic tunnel.

Or maybe it is the inside of the tree that director Jamie Lloyd has relegated to somewhere in the first of second balcony. Gilmour’s set and Jon Clark’s lighting create several eclipses of the sun and moon worthy of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and it against one of these dramatic lighting displays that Pozzo, needing to wear black sunglasses, pushes the wheel-chair-bound Lucky, wearing a Hannibal Lecter protective mask.

Lucky has only one very famous attack of logorrhea, and yet, even in his silence, the tragic codependence of these two men is more clearly and quickly established than anything going on in the previous half hour between Reeves and Winter. It’s also great to see Dirden and Thornton, two real theater animals, attack their roles with such obvious relish, that creepy reference to “The Silence of the Lambs” being the least of it.

This Pozzo is a bursting sun repelling everything in its orbit, and this Lucky is the black hole that sucks it all right back. An added attraction is that Dirden brings an old American South flavor to his portrayal. This fine actor is destined to play Big Daddy or Boss Finley.

Regarding the broken link in this ensemble, what Reeves does have going for him is a look. The late theater illustrator Al Hirschfeld would have drawn him with a minimum of very long lines. This Gogo is so tall and thin as to be suffering from severe desiccation, the eyes small beads of black glass, the body so starved for another of Didi’s carrots that hair has sprung out all over his face in a kind of hirsute protest. Gilmour’s costumes emphasize this physical starkness by making Gogo’s suit too small, Didi’s suit too big. Of course, there are the Laurel & Hardy black derbies, also worn by Pozzo and Lucky. Gogo and Dido aren’t so much big and thin as they are tall and short. They are also the stomach and the brain, the id and the ego.

But a look only goes so far. It is not a performance, and Reeves very studied and mannered delivery of his lines is enough to ban the word “staccato” from Webster’s.

Which leaves it to Winter to carry this tragicomedy act. It’s a lopsided routine, but this Didi’s longing gaze out over the audience not only makes us see that missing tree but the abyss that awaits us all.

Jamie Lloyd attempts to make up for the lack of a dynamism between the two leads by overusing the tunnel set to decreasing comic effect. Over and over again, he sends Reeves and Winter, as well as Dirden, running up the sides of the tunnel only to slide back down. Never have I felt so sorry for hamsters.

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But you won’t find any ironic detachment or “John Wick” fight choreography in “Dead of Winter.” Instead, Thompson plays a kind, quiet Minnesotan named Barb who just wanted to go ice fishing. Instead she stumbles onto a kidnapping plot, perpetrated by [checks IMDb] “Purple Lady” and “Camo Jacket,” played by Judy Greer and Marc Menchaca. Their parents must have named them after an improv game, where they were asked to choose a color and some practical attire.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere, on an icy lake, and with no cell phone reception (it’s still a movie), Barb has to decide whether to escape to the nearest town — two hours away by car — or try to save the kidnapped girl, Leah (Laurel Marsden). In some ways Barb is in her element, since she’s from Minnesota and she’s used to the cold. In other ways she’s out of her depth, since she’s not Arnold Schwarzenegger. She’s such a nice lady that she apologizes to a kidnapping victim when she says the word “damn.”

Why did Purple Lady and Camo Jacket kidnap this woman? A lesser movie might have said “who cares” and settled for a meaningless subplot about money or drugs. “Dead of Winter” concocts a brilliant rationale that makes both villains, for different reasons, emotionally invested to the point of their self-destruction. Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb’s masterfully constructed screenplay utilizes every tool at Barb’s limited disposal, tying everything together in a thoughtful thematic bow.

There aren’t a lot of reveals in “Dead of Winter,” so delving too far into the plot would be unfair, but the parallels Kirk’s film draws between Barb and its villains, with Leah as a contrary spoiler, give the story some surprising weight. Thompson brings the full measure of her considerable talent to this character, infusing small moments with big feelings, and big feelings with small details. Greer matches her note for note, on the opposite end of the spectrum, with a performance that would be over the top if it wasn’t — to her way of thinking, at least — totally justified.

If anything, Thompson and Greer are perfect for each other. Both performers have perfected the art of sensitivity, giving sympathetic performances no matter how hard-hearted their characters are. They could both play magical nannies, they could both play hilarious spies and they can both walk across an icy tundra with loaded weapons and desperation. They’re terrific actors who have been given the gift of complete, fascinating characters, and they make the most of it at every turn.

And, fortunately for all of us, the taut, clever script is a gift that keeps on giving. Barb doesn’t have a lot to work with but she knows Minnesota, gosh danged it to heck, and she knows how to turn inconveniences into serious problems. As soon as the film’s villains leave their cabin, Barb sneaks in, puts out their fire and gets all their clothes and blankets soaking wet. It may sound like a juvenile prank but it’s Minnesota in the “Dead of Winter,” so without at least a good fleece they’re going to get slowed down, and maybe even die.

These little details, the decisions that only people who live in and understand their home would make, give “Dead of Winter” a rare quality which benefits almost every story: specificity. Barb could not be found anywhere else in the world. This story could not be told anywhere else either. Sure, lots of places are freezing, but where else could you stumble onto a kidnapping, tell the kidnapper you noticed blood on the ice, and then walk away without incident because he didn’t want to be rude?

“Dead of Winter” is impressively efficient. It’s suspenseful and smart. It’s got great performances across the board. It’s exactly the kind of thriller we keep saying we want, again and again, but which never get enough credit (or enough marketing). And unless we’re very lucky, I’m afraid it might be a cold day in heck before we get more films like it.

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If you haven’t outsourced your memory and imagination to AI chatbots yet, let’s do a little exercise. Try to think back to the year 2001, when “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” came out. They’d just filmed three epic fantasy films, at once, and everything was riding on Peter Jackson’s first film to justify the effort. Fortunately for them it was a blockbuster pop culture event, but what if it wasn’t? What if it sucked? And what if they were still obligated to finish the other two movies, knowing that nobody wanted them to, or even cared?

That’s where we’re at with “The Strangers: Chapter 2.” It’s not so much a movie about a young woman running from masked murderers, it’s a movie about fulfilling a contract. Sure, the previous film made some money but even die-hard horror fans balked, and we’re an easy target. The first film remade Bryan Bertino’s original, about a couple trapped in a house with deadly, masked home invaders, and managed to flush the simplest story ever told down the septic tank. The pacing was so slow it wouldn’t have survived “The Long Walk” for five minutes. The protagonists were so bland that a single splash of Tabasco could have been a major improvement. And apparently they were both born without a survival instinct.

Sequel time: Maya (Madelaine Petsch) survived her encounter with The Strangers. Her boyfriend, not so much. So the Strangers are like, “Aw, man” and clock back in for some overtime, chasing Maya out of the hospital, into the woods, across town, and into a cliffhanger because, again, this is a trilogy, so we’re getting another one whether we want it or not. (Shout out to the person in my theater who saw the words “To Be Continued” and literally screamed in annoyance. I feel you, friend.)


What “The Strangers: Chapter 2” has that “Chapter 1” didn’t is semi-competent pacing. The whole movie is one long chase scene, so at least everyone’s running around instead of doing idle animations in a cabin for half the film. Also, Maya appears to have finally connected with a part of her brain that doesn’t want to die, so instead of sitting in empty rooms staring at open doors and hoping for the best, she’s constantly fleeing, hiding, and even successfully fighting back on more than one occasion. It may not be a good movie but at least it’s not as annoying the last one.

Renny Harlin, a filmmaker who absolutely can make better films than this, seems a lot more interested in chase movies than home invasions. Madelaine Petsch is a more engaging performer when she’s in survival mode than when she’s in nondescript love interest mode. Still, Harlin can’t seem to decide if Maya is the universe’s latest punching bag — a nigh-comical figure who’s having the worst day ever and eventually approaches each new threat and terrible stroke of luck with a “for crying out loud, what now” attitude — or a tragic victim. There’s a giant chasm situated between the “Evil Dead” movies and “The Last House on the Left,” and “The Strangers: Chapter 2” lives in that chasm.

“Chapter 2” also decides to reveal, for the first time, the origin of some the Strangers. Did you ever want to know more about the villains who were only scary because of their total anonymity? No? What if I told you their origin was that they were always creepy kids, and one of them used to have a doll that looked like their mask? No? What if after they did something in the present, we saw a flashback where one of the creepy kids said that someday they’d do the thing they just did? No? Me neither.

There’s a horror scene in the middle of “The Strangers: Chapter 2” that appeared to have been ripped from a 1984 cult Australian horror movie, or possibly an Oscar-winning 2015 Western, and unlike the rest of the movie it’s unexpected and it kinda works. But the scares in the rest of the movie lack novelty and/or panache, and Harlin’s attempts to give the movie an air of mystery — by repeatedly shoving his camera so far into a townie’s face that you could give them a COVID test — aren’t tantalizing, they’re just socially awkward.

I repeat, “The Strangers: Chapter 2” is an improvement on “The Strangers: Chapter 1.” Then again, a moderate case of food poisoning is an improvement on a severe one. You don’t have to feel too bad for the filmmakers, since “Chapter 1” made a profit and the follow-ups are, from a financial perspective, probably nothing but net. So save your pity for the audience, who not only had to sit through these things, but now have to decide whether to live with their mistakes or navigate their local theater’s bureaucracy and get their money back.

“The Strangers: Chapter 2” is now playing in theaters.

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