Movie Review: Weapons (2025)

Genre: Supernatural Mystery Horror  

Director: Zach Cregger  
Starring: Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Amy Madigan  

Running Time: 128 minutes  

Synopsis: In a suburban Pennsylvania community, 17 out of 18 children from the same third grade classroom inexplicably leave their homes at 2:17am and disappear. Young Alex Lilly is the only exception. The class teacher Justine (Julia Garner) becomes the target of enraged parents, including Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of one of the missing kids. Police officer Paul (Alden Ehrenreich) and homeless addict James (Austin Abrams) are caught up in the mystery, made more bizarre by the sudden appearance of Alex's eccentric aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan).

What Works Well: The events immediately after the kids' disappearance are recounted from various perspectives. Teacher Justine, dad Archer, police officer Paul, and addict James shed different light on the intractable mystery, director and writer Zach Cregger rocking the small and seemingly quaint suburb with an inexplicable event and unleashing a sense of mounting dread. Julia Garner excels as the teacher in the middle of the storm, shrugging off the community's rage and doggedly conducting her own snooping into what may have happened to her students.

What Does Not Work As Well: After all the careful build-up, the final act is quite the let-down. While Amy Madigan is memorable under layers of make-up and in an outlandish wig, her character's appearance and the subsequent turn towards barely explained witchcraft punctures all suspense out of the narrative. Gore and humour take over, wasting the clever narrative construction. And in retrospect, the plot can only be enabled by incredibly slipshod police work.

Key Quote:

Justine (addressing a parents' meeting): The truth is that I want answers...just as badly as all of you.

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Movie Review: Streets Of Fire (1984)

Genre: Action Musical  

Director: Walter Hill  

Starring: Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, Willem Dafoe, Amy Madigan  

Running Time: 93 minutes  

Synopsis: Rock star Ellen Aim (Diane Lane) returns to her childhood neighbourhood for a concert promoted by her rich partner Billy Fish (Rick Moranis). Mid-performance, Ellen is abducted off the stage by Raven (Willem Dafoe), a thuggish motorcycle gang leader. Local girl Riva (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) appeals to her brother (and Ellen's former lover) Tom Cody (Michael Paré) for help, and he teams up with Billy and ex-soldier McCoy (Amy Madigan) to mount a rescue.

What Works Well: Director and co-writer Walter Hill gives free rein to young masculine fairy tale tendencies, labeling this effort "A Rock & Roll Fable". The intriguing and abstract aesthetic is neon-drenched vintage 1950s augmented by 1980s MTV, with streets always wet enough to glisten, the better to capture explosions from every shotgun blast. By era standards, the soundtrack is derivative but not bad, with two catchy tunes (Nowhere Fast and Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young) and a bonafide hit (I Can Dream About You). Diane Lane does not sing, but does fearlessly sell the thumping beats.

What Does Not Work As Well: The actors embrace characters fiercely loyal to two-word definitions like cool hero, ugly villain, pouty girl, and scrappy sidekick.  About 20 of the 93 minutes are occupied by musical performances, leaving scant time for what can charitably be called simple content. The drama depth and dialogue sophistication are at the middle school Grade 7 level.

Conclusion: Ambitious, audacious, and amalgamated style appended to asinine substance.



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Movie Review: American Woman (2018)

Genre: Drama

Director: Jake Scott

Starring: Sienna Miller, Christina Hendricks, Amy Madigan, Aaron Paul
Running Time: 112 minutes

Synopsis: In rural Pennsylvania, the anarchic Debra (Sienna Miller) is a single mom to teenager Bridget (Sky Ferreira), who herself is a single mom to infant Jesse. They live across the street from Debra's more settled sister Katherine (Christina Hendricks) and her family. When Bridget goes missing without a trace, Debra's life is upended. 

What Works Well: Director Jake Scott (Ridley's son) and writer Brad Ingelsby construct a teasing story of one woman's scrappy life in the working class shadows. Economic survival depends on snaring a man, and the threats of abuse, unplanned pregnancy, and personal ruin are always close. The narrative circumvents convention: Bridget's disappearance is only one chapter in Debra's life, and the plot adopts a stubborn and ultimately rewarding commitment to the climb from the depths. Sienna Miller registers a career highlight with a realistically slow evolution of emotional maturity, and is well supported by Christina Hendricks as the responsible sister.

What Does Not Work As Well: By design, the structure settles into episodic rhythms, including some forward lurches that skip ahead several years. 

Conclusion: A soulful portrayal of the arduous journey towards individual betterment.



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The Movies Of Amy Madigan

All movies starring Amy Madigan and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Streets Of Fire (1984)

Places In The Heart (1984)

Field Of Dreams (1989)

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Rules Don't Apply (2016)

American Woman (2018)

The Last Full Measure (2019)

Weapons (2025)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Places In The Heart (1984)

A feel good drama, Places In The Heart celebrates the human spirit through the simple story of a widow determined to thrive.

Rural Texas in 1935, the depth of the Great Depression. Edna Spalding (Sally Field) is suddenly widowed when her police officer husband is accidentally shot and killed by a drunk, leaving her to care for their large farm and two young children. Edna receives moral support from her sister Margaret (Lindsay Crouse), who does not know that her husband Wayne (Ed Harris) is carrying on a passionate affair with married local woman Viola (Amy Madigan).

Threatened with foreclosure by banker Mr. Denby (Lane Smith), Edna accepts help from drifter Moses (Danny Glover), a black man who claims that he can create a revenue-generating cotton plantation on her farm. Edna also takes in the blind Mr. Will (John Malkovich) as a boarder to raise some money. Despite the price of cotton plummeting, enormous pressure to sell the farm, rampant community racism against Moses, and nature's fury, Edna pushes ahead, determined to not give up on her land or her family.

Directed and written by Robert Benton, Places In The Heart is a slice of rural life, where the struggle for economic survival shatters class, race, and gender divides. The film may be a hopelessly optimistic parable in its portrayal of a woman in the 1930s staring down the depression, the bankers, the racists, physical disabilities and mother nature to turn her life around, but there is no denying the uplifting and well-intentioned energy coursing through Edna's story.

With beautiful period sets and Néstor Almendros cinematography glorifying the landscape, the film plays with themes of trust and betrayal. Once her husband is killed Edna is forced to trust first Moses, a drifter and thief, and then Mr. Will, a blind man much more likely to be a hindrance than a help. They will need to prove their worth, and the film revels in contrasting Moses and Will's contributions to Edna's life with the individuals who should be her more natural allies: healthy white men in the form of the banker Mr. Denby and the cotton merchant W.E. Simmons (Jay Patterson).

Benton's script includes a substantial subplot involving the illicit affair between Wayne and Viola, at the expense of Edna's sister Margaret. The story of a marriage under tremendous stress adds to the texture of the community and the themes of trust and betrayal, and Viola's fury at Wayne's continued affection for his wife contributes an uncommon cutting edge. But Edna's story of endurance never fully meshes with the turmoil in her sister's life, and the two plots occasionally trip over each other.

Sally Field won her second Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Edna, and its a solid enough performance, more robust than spectacular. Field reaches an early highlight when Edna is forced to confront punishing her young son, a distasteful duty previously performed by her husband. Field captures the horror of a mother coming to terms with what it means to physically abuse a child, ticking off one more thing that will now change in her family's life.

Wisely, Benton is capable of removing the rose coloured glasses when needed. While Edna's journey carries an eternally positive trajectory, the film avoids the temptation to neatly tie up all the loose ends. There are troubles aplenty scattered in the unforgiving southern landscape, and the only certainty is continued interaction between what is sincerely labelled good and evil. Places In The Heart ends with a beautifully mystical moment, an unlikely gathering where human judgement is deferred in favour of a greater communion.

Breathing deeply from the complexities and mysteries of life, Places In The Heart emits a warm, soft glow.

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Movie Review: Gone Baby Gone (2007)

A dark investigative thriller about a missing young child in Boston, Gone Baby Gone starts with a simple premise and gracefully expands into an engrossing quest through the terrain of conscientious choices. For every action there is an unplanned consequence, and Gone Baby Gone shines a light on alternatives that remarkably reside somewhere between well-intentioned, selfish and socially destructive.

In the working class Boston neighbourhood of Dorchester, four year old Amanda McCready is abducted. The child's angelic looks dictate that the media will choose this case to be the shock crime story of the week, creating a predictable circus of television crews and reporters overrunning a once reasonably quiet residential neighbourhood. The police are on the case, but the girl's aunt Bea (Amy Madigan) and uncle Lionel (Titus Welliver) want to do more, and approach private detective Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his partner Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) to also investigate. Patrick grew up in the area and went to the same school as Amanda's mother Helene (Amy Ryan), a single mom now proudly flaunting her white trash credentials.

Police chief Doyle (Morgan Freeman) who himself lost a young child to crime years prior, reluctantly agrees to cooperate with Patrick and Angie, and connects them with detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton). They soon uncover Helene's drug habit, her sleazy boyfriend, and their drug supplier, a Haitian crime lord who goes by the name Cheese (Edi Gathegi). Helene recently stole money off Cheese, creating the perfect motive. Another investigation thread suggests that a recently released child molester and two other drug addicts may also be suspects. But just when Patrick thinks he is close to making a deal with Cheese to recover Amanda, events take a sudden turn for the worse and a bad situation descends into an unmitigated disaster.

Ben Affleck's directorial debut is a magnificently downbeat achievement. Adapting the Dennis Lehane book, Ben directs his brother Casey with the measured confidence of a veteran and creates a dramatic, morally nebulous masterpiece. Gone Baby Gone peels away layers of social normalcy to uncover the warts that live underneath, and dares to wade into unattractive places with imperfect people, where decisions start at bad and progress towards atrocious. Other than Amanda, no one is pure, everyone has questionable motives, and unspoken shades of gray dominate the landscape of judgement.

A thriller with no cheap thrills, no contrived drama and barely any superfluous action, the film just exists with common people trying to get ahead in a world decaying on news soundbites and crass daytime television. Patrick and Angie uncover the lowlifes surrounding Amanda, and realize that they are lifting the cover on a sewer of rotten humanity. Helen's scuzzy boyfriend Skinny Ray, crime lord Cheese and his henchman Leon are just the start: the list of scumbags possibly connected to Amanda's disappearance extends to a deranged child molester and hardcore drug addicts.

This is a foulmouthed, dangerous world that easily sucks in the uneducated Helene, but no matter what, she is a victim: her child has been abducted, and Patrick clings to this principle as everything else around him seems to collapse. Meanwhile, the unglamorous Boston locations give the film an earthy attachment to a current of discontent where crime can find a comfortable home.

Ben Affleck carefully constructs the film around character depth, and although no single person dominates, they all receive enough definition to emerge as real and flawed people. Helene, Bea, and Lionel instantly create an uncomfortable family dynamic, while on the enforcement side, Patrick is never sure how far he can trust the sharp Remy Bressant, burly Nick Poole and their Captain Jack Doyle. They all become memorable individuals circling each other, saying half-truths to get by and sustain dark motives that may or may not emerge into the light.

With Patrick stubbornly picking away at the details of a case that never quite seems to be resolved, every relationship ruptures. Even Angie finds herself questioning Patrick's actions, her belief in her partner called into question by the lingering fate of a young girl.

Gone Baby Gone elegantly finds its way to the murkiest corners of the soul, where wrong may be right, right may be wrong, the moral choices are infused with unease and all decisions lead to uncertain futures.

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Movie Review: Field Of Dreams (1989)

A lyrical fable about the meaning of life, Field Of Dreams embraces a loveable eccentricity as it meanders down the path of answering the big questions. Mixing the rich mythologies of baseball and the cultural earthquake of the 1960s, the film celebrates life as the sum total of poignant outside influences and deeply personal decisions.

Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) never properly resolved his relationship with his late father John, a bit-part minor league baseball player. Ray experienced the turbulent 1960s, married Annie (Amy Madigan), and finally settled down as a corn farmer in Iowa. Walking his fields one day, Ray hears a Voice repeatedly telling him  "if you build it, he will come". After seeing a vision, Ray goes ahead and flattens a patch of his corn field, and builds a baseball diamond, complete with floodlights. Soon, Shoeless Joe Jackson, John Kinsella's hero, appears from the wall of corn surrounding the diamond; he and Ray talk, and Ray pitches to Jackson for some practice hitting. Other members of the 1919 Black Sox scandal soon start joining Jackson on the field, but only Ray, Annie and their daughter Karin can see them.

There are more instructions from The Voice, and these lead Ray to take a road trip and connect with Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), a once influential 1960s author now reduced to a crusty, angry and reclusive curmudgeon; and to Archibald "Moonlight" Graham (Burt Lancaster), a baseball player from the 1920s, who fielded half an inning in one game and never had an at-bat. Graham went on to become a well-respected doctor, and although he died in the early 1970s, Graham first appears to Ray in his elderly "Doc" persona, and then as a youthful and eager ball player.

Congregating back at the baseball field on Ray's farm, now busy with many players from bygone eras, the young Archie Graham gets a chance to fulfill his ambition of one major league at-bat before his ball career gets interrupted again; and Terence receives an invitation to rediscover his magic in the corn field. There is one more visitor to Ray's field of dreams, and a final lesson about appreciating what life has to offer.

In one of Kevin Costner's defining roles, he plays Ray Kinsella as a man embarking on an incredible yet needed journey, guided by forces that he does not understand to connect the dots of his life. Costner conveys anchored bewilderment to perfection. Amy Madigan defines the spunky and fully supportive wife, and shines in the one scene at the school PTA meeting where she demonstrates what she contributed to Ray's life. James Earl Jones and Burt Lancaster appear to have enormous but controlled fun lending their domineering authority to the roles of Terence Man and Doc "Moonlight" Graham.

There are many hidden and interweaving meanings and themes running through Field Of Dreams. Most apparent is the value of listening to the inner voice when making decisions, although in this case instinct is crystallized as a clear outer voice. Ray does not fully understand where The Voice will lead him, but he trusts the instructions and never regrets doing so.

Celebrating life as the accumulation of past legacies and key individual decisions is the overall theme of the movie. Baseball played a large part in Ray's heritage and childhood; the 1960s defined who he was, and led him to his wife; she in turn influenced his decision to relocate to a farm in Iowa. These elements are mixed in a rich broth, represented by Joe Jackson and Terence Mann, to awaken Ray to the treasure of his life's accomplishments.

The character of Moonlight Graham serves to reconnect Ray with his father's achievements, as well as his own lack of success on the baseball diamond: just like John and Ray Kinsella, Graham never made it in the Big Leagues; but Graham vividly demonstrates to Ray the value of contributions made by failed baseball players. There indeed is a rich purpose to the life of those not quite good enough to hit, pitch or catch a baseball.

Phil Alden Robinson directed his own screenplay, adapted from W.P. Kinsella's book Shoeless Joe. Robinson allows the magic to flow with a tinge of humour and a shading of pathos, the story never pretending to be anchored in anything other than the enchantment of the soul.

Field Of Dreams succeeds due to its unadulterated joy of the incredible, the film a surrender to a pleasant self-aware dream. From the early moments of The Voice talking to Ray to the long series of ghosts starring in time-shifted events, Field Of Dreams takes place in an alternate reality where the fantastic is acceptable, and a diverse set of miracles work together towards a common, human-centred and very down-to-earth conclusion. Sometimes, the spirits just enjoy the freedom of providing guidance using their own curious methods.

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