Movie Review: Animals (2026)

Genre: Crime Drama Thriller  

Director: Ben Affleck  

Starring: Ben Affleck, Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson  

Running Time: 106 minutes  

Synopsis: Mark Kimball (Ben Affleck) is an independent candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles. With election day approaching, he navigates financial pressures with campaign manager Sam (Steven Yuen). Meanwhile, Mark's wife Abigail (Kerry Washington) is having a secret affair. Their child Denny is cared for by housekeeper Cecilia (Adriana Paz), whose partner Ramon (Luis Geraldo Mendez) is a proud handyman but an illegal alien in the US. Mark's world is upended when Denny is kidnapped and held for a $7 million ransom. Sam calls upon shadowy high-priced fixer Dayle Burton (Gillian Anderson) to resolve the crisis, but many unexpected twists await.

What Works Well: This slick thriller builds tension with taut pacing, several surprises, and an icy Gillian Anderson performance. The foundational cracks in the relationship between Mark and Abigail (he is keeping money secrets, she is cheating) provide a crackle in the pair's reaction to the kidnapping, while Dayle's all-business approach to crisis management adds a riveting core of emotionless efficiency. Housekeeper Cecilia and her partner Ramon grow in prominence as the clock ticks down.

What Does Not Work As Well: The limited information about the kidnapper leaves the drama short of a worthwhile villain. A couple of scenes hint at budget limitations, notably an under-staged but supposedly pivotal public campaign event. The plot is overburdened with sub-themes, including the status of immigrants, the class divide, campaign finance, a fractured marriage, and corruption embedded in money-fueled power. Unsurprisingly, the resolutions fall short, and the postscript to the kidnapping ordeal is particularly unconvincing.

Key Quote:

Dayle: Power creates leverage, and leverage dictates outcomes.

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Movie Review: Bounce (2000)

Genre: Romance  

Director: Don Roos  

Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Affleck, Tony Goldwyn  
Running Time: 106 minutes  

Synopsis: During a weather delay at Chicago Airport, advertising executive Buddy Amaral (Ben Affleck) meets fellow traveler Greg Janello (Tony Goldwyn). Buddy gives up his seat on the LA-bound flight to Greg, but the plane crashes, killing all on board. After a guilt-fueled descent into alcoholism followed by a stint in a rehab centre, Buddy seeks out Greg's widow Abby (Gwyneth Paltrow), a fledgling real estate agent now raising two kids on her own. A romance ensues, although Buddy does not reveal to Abby his fateful encounter with Greg.

What Works Well: In bold and confident strokes, the opening sequence at the airport packs an impressive amount of character building and narrative seeding. The premise carries emotional weight, allowing two characters to carry coherent burdens of guilt and grief. Gwyneth Paltrow provides Abby with an impressive range of complexity as a woman still searching for a new normal, and the script (by director Don Roos) adds an edge by empowering Abby to pursue the romance with Buddy after he seeks to pull away.

What Does Not Work As Well: While both primary characters are understandably vulnerable, they also resort to lies and omissions as fundamental script requirements to underpin the easily predictable drama. Ben Affleck's limited emotional range is exposed opposite Paltrow, and the secondary characters are weak. The second half starts to drag and occasionally dips into melodrama, not helped by a running time that could have used a trim.

Key Quote:

Abby: Bouncing. It's like crashing, except you get to do it over and over again.

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Movie Review: The Rip (2026)

Genre: Action Thriller  

Director: Joe Carnahan  
Starring: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Teyana Taylor, Kyle Chandler  
Running Time: 113 minutes  

Synopsis: In Miami, the leader of a drug enforcement unit is murdered, casting suspicion on her team members. Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Matt Damon) is her second-in-command, and he receives a tip about cartel money stashed in a safe house. He leads the unit on a raid, and after getting past the home occupant Desi (Sasha Calle), they discover $20 million stashed in the attic. Dane and Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne (Ben Affleck) have to help the team resist temptation while improvising a plan to protect and transport the money, guarding against each other, and preparing for an incoming attack.

What Works Well: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck bring a weighty combination of star presence and world weariness to their roles, and almost save a few scenes. The plot borrows from Arnold Schwarzenegger's Sabotage, and does raise sharp questions about the limits of human capacity to push back against greed.

What Does Not Work As Well: The attempts at character building (Dane lost a son to cancer, J.D. was passed over for a promotion) are skimpy enough to be useless. The plot aims for twists and turns, but the predictable revelations are poorly paced and quickly descend into a muddle. The action scenes are badly staged, bathed in murky darkness, and edited into visual morsels of incomprehension. In the quieter moments between shootouts, the script replaces wit with an overload of profanity.

Key Quote:

Dane: C'mon, Desi. You got a Colombian flag hanging over the fireplace downstairs. We're cops, so it kinda takes the mystery outta who the money might belong to.

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Movie Review: The Accountant 2 (2025)

Genre: Crime Action Thriller  

Director: Gavin O'Connor  

Starring: Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, J.K. Simmons  

Running Time: 132 minutes  

Synopsis: Retired Financial Crimes Enforcement Director Raymond King (J.K. Simmons) is killed while meeting with professional assassin Anaïs (Daniella Pineda) to discuss the case of a missing Salvadorian family. King's successor and protégé Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) seeks help from elusive autistic accountant and trained killer Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck), and their investigation leads to a brutal human trafficking ring and a case of acquired savant syndrome. In need of more firepower, Christian calls upon his brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) for backup.

What Works Well: This sequel is all about buzzy brotherly buddiness punctuated by bold uncompromising action and techno wizardry, all underpinned by discussions of autism and a mean streak of humour. Director Gavin O'Connor uses the packed agenda to build and maintain strong momentum, the character-building scenes alternating with bone-crunching brawls and high-casualty shootouts. Ben Affleck plays to his stone-faced strengths, leaving Jon Bernthal and Cynthia Addai-Robinson to inject animation. The climactic battle in the Mexican desert is quite epic. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Both the narrative ambition and the running time needed a trim, as there is just too much going on. The human smuggling plot is almost lost in the shuffle, the core journey of the Salvadorian family and their gifted son reduced to shorthand.

Key Quote:

Wolff: Do I make you nervous?

Medina: Escaped convict...trained by mob accountants...clients are drug cartels, money launderers, several warlords...

Wolff: Is that a yes?

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Movie Review: The Last Duel (2021)

Genre: Medieval Historical Romance Drama  

Director: Ridley Scott  

Starring: Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Ben Affleck, Jodie Comer  

Running Time: 153 minutes  

Synopsis: In France of the late 1300's, Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) and Jacques le Gris (Adam Driver) are warriors serving the King through the powerful Count Pierre d'Alençon (Ben Affleck). After Jean saves Jacques' life in battle, their paths diverge and their friendship suffers. Desperate for an heir, Jean marries Marguerite (Jodie Comer), the daughter of a traitor, and continues to lead men into battle. The womanizing Jacques turns to politics and becomes Pierre's confidant, reaping land and title rewards at Jean's expense. Jacques than falls in love with Marguerite, setting up an epic duel to the death between the two men.

What Works Well: Based on actual events, the film is structured into three chapters recounting the same events from the perspective of Jean, then Jacques, then Marguerite. The he said, he said, she said sequencing gels into a powerful drama of personal rivalry culminating in a disputed rape. Themes of friendship, betrayal, honour, and gender roles provide an undercurrent to broader narratives of politics and war, director Ridley focusing more on people than strategy. The grey and muddy aesthetics capture a medieval France dominated by landlords, warriors, and imposing castles providing a backdrop for short but effective displays of battlefield brutality.

What Does Not Work As Well: The differences between the three versions are often subtle, and sometimes non-existent, resulting in tedious repetition and a bloated running time. While the performances are uniformly adequate, it is jarring to find Damon, Driver, and Affleck, all strongly associated with defining their current cinematic era, congregating in the medieval muck.

Key Quote:

Jean de Carrouges: God will not punish those who tell the truth.

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Movie Review: Hypnotic (2023)

Genre: Fantasy Mystery Thriller  

Director: Robert Rodriguez  

Starring: Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, William Fichtner  

Running Time: 94 minutes  

Synopsis: Austin Police Detective Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) is still traumatized by the unsolved kidnapping of his young daughter. Danny and his partner Nicks (J.D. Pardo) respond to a tip about an impending bank robbery and experience the immense mind control powers of the evil Dellrayne (William Fichtner). Danny seeks the help of fortune teller Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), and starts to believe Dellrayne's crime spree is related to his daughter's disappearance.  

What Works Well: Director and co-writer Robert Rodriguez creates a mélange of ideas borrowed from movies like The Matrix, Paycheck, Inception, and Firestarter. The outlandish episodes are initially layered with the emotions of a distraught father and quizzical enough to maintain some interest. The start of the third act briefly threatens a step-up in storytelling quality.

What Does Not Work As Well: The rules of engagement in a world of hypnotists capable of instant mental domination are too fragmented and inconsistent to ever make sense, exposing the first hour to an embarrassing volume of incredulousness. The flicker of hope that emerges with a premise reset is quickly extinguished with an avalanche of over-the-top antics, late character non-introductions, and the convenient piling-on of additional on-the-fly parameters. 

Conclusion: Beware the foundation-free constructs.



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Movie Review: Triple Frontier (2019)

Genre: Action  

Director: J.C. Chandor  

Starring: Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Garrett Hedlund, Charlie Hunnam  

Running Time: 125 minutes  

Synopsis: American military advisor Santiago "Pope" Garcia" (Oscar Isaac) provides his services to government forces in Colombia. He learns through an informer that drug lord Lorea is living in a jungle hideout with a massive stash of money. Pope recruits former military colleagues, including Tom "Redfly" Davies (Ben Affleck) and brothers William and Ben Miller (Charlie Hunnam and Garrett Hedlund), for an audacious mission to invade Lorea's fortress and steal the money.

What Works Well: Director J.C. Chandor and his co-writer Mark Boal cover the basics well, with a straightforward story, good action staging and editing, high production values, a variety of scenic settings, and plenty of local colour. The second half carries echoes of no less than The Old Man And The Sea, the catch of a lifetime tested by an epic masculinity-past-its-prime trek fraught with unforeseen challenges.

What Does Not Work As Well: With character backgrounds kept to a minimum (or skipped altogether), the performances are of the plastic variety. Ben Affleck and Oscar Isaac go through the motions with no sense of conviction, the other squad members are interchangeable, and the antagonist Lorea barely gets any screen time. When the going gets tough, the attempts to convey suffering and moral dilemmas fall flat.

Conclusion: The star power is dimmed by lackadaisical treatment.



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Movie Review: Air (2023)

Genre: Biographical Sports Drama

Director: Ben Affleck

Starring: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Chris Messina

Running Time: 112 minutes

Synopsis: It's 1984, and Nike is best known as a running shoe company. Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) is a talent spotter in the fledgling, under-budgeted basketball division. He recognizes the potential of new NBA recruit Michael Jordan, and decides to stake his reputation on signing him to an endorsement deal. Sonny has to convince skeptical Nike boss Phil Knight (Ben Affleck) that competitors Adidas and Converse can be out-maneuvered. He decides to reach out directly to Jordan's mother Deloris (Viola Davis), bypassing obstructive agent Rob Strasser (Chris Messina), but convincing the Jordans to even just meet with Nike will require an unprecedented effort.

What Works Well: The remarkable behind-the-scenes story of Air Jordan is a reminder that Nike was once the scrappy underdog on the basketball court. But one deal can change - and make - fortunes, and Sonny Vaccaro's persistence rewrote the rule book on sports superstar celebrity endorsements. Alex Convery's script is always alert to opportunities for humour drawn from audacity and character quirks, and director Ben Affleck maintains focus on the essential human connections residing at the deal's heart.

What Does Not Work As Well: The washed-out colour palette is unnecessarily sickly, and only so much drama can be squeezed out of a series of meetings with a well-known outcome.

Conclusion: Vision, courage, and grit combine to just do it.



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Movie Review: Deep Water (2022)

An erotic crime drama, Deep Water is a decent throwback to stories mixing sex, mystery, and malevolence. 

In Louisiana, wealthy and retired chip designer Vic Van Allen (Ben Affleck) is married to Melinda (Ana de Armas), and they have a young daughter Trixie. Although he loves his wife, Vic does not easily display his emotions. In contrast, Melinda is passionate, demands constant affection, and works overtime to make her husband jealous by publicly flirting with other men.

Vic hints darkly that he murdered one of Melinda's former lovers. Her current close friend Joel, a musician, senses the threat and leaves town. Melinda's next man-on-the-side is piano teacher Charlie. When he drowns in a swimming pool incident, suspicions swirl around Vic, and aspiring crime author Don Wilson (Tracy Letts) starts poking around Vic's life. But Melinda is not yet done with new liaisons, leading to more turmoil.

After a twenty year absence since Unfaithful, Adrian Lyne returns to directing duties. Deep Water is familiar terrain for a director always interested in the intersection - but not full overlap - of sex, jealousy, and love. Writers Zach Helm and Sam Levinson adapt the Patricia Highsmith novel with emphasis on churning emotions beneath a staid surface, and the film draws power from the slow reveal of a unique relationship surviving on dysfunctionality.

The film does spend plenty of time in the same emotional space, but is modestly enjoyable on its own terms, including accepting the fundamentals of the Van Allen marriage. His analytically cold demeanour collides with her over-expressive nymphomania, but these opposites do attract. They knowingly push the necessary buttons to generate sparks, whether through anger or arousal. Observing a relationship seeking balance on an unconventional edge is one of the narrative strengths.

The murder and mystery elements are handled with less elegance, and exist in a suspect world of limited scrutiny. Four men related to Vic and Melinda meet a foul end; only once does Lyne bother to show investigators doing their jobs. In one of the weaker elements, it is left to aspiring author Don Wilson to instigate ineffective amateur sleuthing.

Ben Affleck is a perfect fit for the bottled-up Vic, and that's just fine because Ana de Armas generates enough wanton lust for the both of them. In an unremarkable secondary cast, all her would-be lovers are too generic to register, and they appear in her life like men falling off an assembly plant conveyor belt.

Deep Water does not reinvent the erotic mystery thriller, but rather welcomes it back with a seductive massage.



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Movie Review: The Last Thing He Wanted (2020)

A journalist-in-peril conspiracy drama with thriller elements, The Last Thing He Wanted makes an incomprehensible mess out of a decent topic.

In the early 1980s, Elena McMahon (Anne Hathaway) is a foreign correspondent for the Atlanta Post, working with photographer Alma Guerrero (Rosie Perez) to report from the civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Elena tries to uncover the US administration's role in the conflicts, but eventually the newspaper forces her back home to cover Reagan's reelection campaign. She still tries to corner US Secretary of State George Shultz and his chief strategist Treat Morrison (Ben Affleck) with questions about foreign policy.

Elena's father Dick (Willem Dafoe) is a scrappy loser and in poor health, but now claims to have arranged a business deal that will make him rich. When he ends up in hospital he pleads with Elena to close the deal for him. She finds herself shipping a plane-load of surplus weapons to shady characters in Central America, with payment in drugs instead of cash, and her troubles are only starting.

The 1980s civil wars in Central America make for compelling if difficult cinematic foundations. Movies like Under Fire (1983), Salvador (1986), Kill The Messenger (2014), and American Made (2017) tackled the conflicts with different degrees of grittiness and success. The Last Thing He Wanted adapts the 1996 Joan Didion book, and is an unfortunately disastrous attempt to use the hotspots of the Cold War as a backdrop for drama. Director Dee Rees co-wrote the screenplay with Marco Villalobos, and they appear to have given up early trying to explain anything about the plot or character motivations. Abstract pregnant narration about important real things is used as cheap cover for events and actions that make no sense.

The film is a collection of ideas stranded without the thread of coherence. Elena is (maybe?) being used for a barely explained nefarious purpose, but neither the details nor the context survive basic scrutiny. Someone pulls a gun every now and then, nervous soldiers display menacing behaviour, back in Washington men in suits talk about conspiracies in hushed tones, names of other men who never appear are floated around, bundles of money change hands between undefined characters, and mysterious packages with covert photos are supposed to mean something. 

Somewhere within the dross is a daughter stuck at a boarding school to add a layer of parental guilt, Elena taking an awful long time to realize she is repeating the behaviour she hates her father for. But then again, no one close to The Last Thing He Wanted can be accused of displaying sharp instincts.



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Movie Review: The Way Back (2020)

A redemption drama, The Way Back benefits from an in-form Ben Affleck as it navigates overly familiar plot markers.

Construction worker Jack Cunningham (Affleck) drinks his way through his days. A former basketball star at Bishop Hayes High School, Jack lost his love for the game and is now separated from his wife Angela (Janina Gavankar). He ignores pleas from his sister Beth (Michaela Watkins) to ease up on drinking.

Father Devine of Bishop Hayes invites Jack to return as coach of the boys basketball team. He reluctantly agrees and gradually transforms the unmotivated and under-performing group of players into a competitive team. But Jack's personal demons are never far away.

Despite featuring decent on-court basketball action, The Way Back is less about the sport and more the story of an alcoholic stumbling his way towards something resembling a light at the end of a dark tunnel. As such, the Brad Ingelsby script provides only cursory definitions for the boys on the team. Jack does help one player find his voice and emerge as a leader, and knocks back the team's individualistic showboater to demonstrate the importance of the team, but overall his influence is more on the collective than individuals.

Director Gavin O'Connor instead focuses on studying a functioning alcoholic. Jack is never unattached to a drink, whether at the work site, in the shower, in his car, at home, at his coach's office, visiting his sister, or drowning the night at his favourite hangout. The scenes are repetitive and numbing, but achieve the purpose of hammering home the mental state of a man too emotionally devastated to care. Affleck's brooding presence fills the screen with quiet anguish, providing The Way Back with most of its pull.

Moments of humour do sneak into the drama in the form of Jack's foul-mouthed tirades clashing with a Catholic school's sedate code of conduct. But as the history of Jack's pain is revealed, the narrative starts ticking off cliches. The separation from Angela, who is now seeing another man, is only the start. Also in Jack's backstory are daddy issues, substance abuse, and familial loss, and the sources of his scars are described rather than shown. With his traumas representing a succession of hammer blows, Jack is a walking tapestry of recognizable cinematic tragedies.

The Way Back is an arduous retreat from the brink, a worthwhile journey despite the well-trodden path.



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Movie Review: The Town (2010)

A crime thriller, The Town combines high intensity action with a thoughtful exposition of characters and place.

The blue collar Boston neighbourhood of Charlestown is known as home to career criminals, with crime legacies passed on from fathers to sons. The cerebral Doug (Ben Affleck) and the more impulsive Jem (Jeremy Renner) are best friends and second generation bank and armored car robbers, leading a gang that acts on orders issued by mastermind "The Florist" (Pete Postlethwaite). Doug's father Stephen (Chris Cooper) is serving life in prison, while Jem served nine years for murder. Doug maintains a choppy sexual relationship with troubled neighbourhood girl Kris (Blake Lively).

The gang successfully robs a bank, but briefly seize manager Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) as a hostage. They are dismayed to later discover she lives near the neighbourhood and may be able to identify them. Doug gets close to Claire to determine whether she is cooperating with the FBI. They fall in love, complicating his relationship with the rest of the gang members and triggering a burning desire for him to leave crime behind. Meanwhile, Jem begins to exhibit more violent tendencies while FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) starts to close in.

Directed and co-written by Affleck, The Town is an adaptation of the Chuck Hogan book Prince Of Thieves. The film is an expertly constructed and executed character-driven crime thriller. Delving deep into the neighbourhood community, Affleck creates a sense of place where the roots below the surface are thick and deeply intertwined, uncompromising fortitude is embraced as a badge of honour, debts are owed across generations, fathers throw long shadows across their sons' lives, and crime is a family profession like any other.

In classic fashion Affleck places his three action set-pieces at the beginning, middle and end of the movie. The heists scenes fluently capture the thrills, mishaps, and on-the-fly improvisation demanded by high-stakes armed robbery, the rational editing and thoughtful camerawork dramatically enhancing the action.

Even more impressive is the focus on people. Affleck pulls the covers back on a social structure functioning within a set of unwritten codes. While Doug, Jem, Kris and their colleagues will never generate sympathy, Affleck does create understanding for men and women who only know what they know. Doug falling in love with outsider Claire and wanting out disrupts the natural order, and sets off a disruptive and naturally violent chain reaction.

The romance between Doug and Claire has to exist as the catalyst for change, but is perhaps the least convincing aspect of the film. Although it is conceivable for Doug to fall for the girl from the right side of the tracks and imagine her as an escape route to a better life, it is more of a stretch to believe what she sees in him, despite his engineered meet-sad-cute laundromat moment.

The cast is deep in talent and enriches every role. Small turns by Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper and Blake Lively are delivered with chilling conviction, while the more prominent performances by Affleck and Renner exude the requisite grit.

Forceful and absorbing, The Town crackles with coiled and sometimes explosive energy.

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Movie Review: Dazed And Confused (1993)

A teens-hanging-out movie, Dazed And Confused is a plotless exercise in capturing ambiance.

It's May 1976, and the last day of school at Lee High School in Austin, Texas. A group of seniors-to-be and incoming freshmen interact throughout the afternoon and into the night. The freshmen undergo initiation ordeals and hazings, while the seniors smoke weed, drink beer, cruise down the streets in their vehicles, and look for a place to party. The school's star quarterback "Pink" Floyd (Jason London), heading into his senior year, and struggles all night with his coach's demand to sign a good-behaviour pledge.

Written, directed and co-produced by Richard Linklater, Dazed And Confused is all about mood and music, a 20-years-later and much inferior spiritual successor to American Graffiti. Set against a soundtrack of early 1970s rock anthems, the film has an overabundance of characters doing very little. At a stretch, themes of growing up, fitting in, and striking out can be discerned in the jumbled debris of the film, but the presentation is painful, Linklater obsessed with a group of boorish seniors intent on abusing freshmen with paddle-inflicted bum-beatings.

Whether intended to be funny or painful, Dazed And Confused spends too much time on nondescript and poorly defined teens mistreating each other with no consequence, retaliation or after effects. Elsewhere, the characters' primary motivations are weed, beer, making out and parties. The conversations are instantly forgettable, and hardly any of the people who populate the film are remotely interesting or memorable.

The one exception may be Matthew McConaughey as Wooderson, the former school quarterback who now has a job and acts as the cool older brother to the seniors. McConaughey improves the film everytime he is on-screen, but not enough to create a compelling narrative direction. Other cast members who went on to prominent careers include Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich, Cole Hauser and Parker Posey. Renée Zellweger makes a brief appearance in an uncredited role.

For fans of 1970s classic rock the film is a treat, and features music by Foghat, Alice Cooper, ZZ Top, Nazareth, Ted Nugent, Sweet, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath. and Kiss. Alas, Led Zeppelin inspired the film's title but denied permission for their music to feature. The aesthetics also evoke nostalgia for admirers of 1970s bell-bottom dominated fashions and muscle cars.

Dazed And Confused cruises up and down the main drag, looking good and sounding good but not intending to go anywhere in particular.

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Movie Review: Runner Runner (2013)

A drama thriller set in the world of gambling, Runner Runner deals a potentially intriguing hand but folds early.

Richie Furst (geddit? played by Justin Timberlake) is a financially struggling mature student at Princeton. Richie was on the fast track to Wall Street wealth when the 2008 financial crisis destroyed his prospects. Now he makes money on the side by channeling fellow Princeton students to online gambling sites. Threatened with expulsion, Richie tries to win his entire tuition playing online poker on the Midnight Black site. He loses everything, but not before spotting signs of a sophisticated cheating scam.

Richie travels to Costa Rica and confronts Ivan Block (Ben Affleck), the charismatic head of the Midnight Black online gambling empire, with proof of the scam. Impressed, Ivan offers Richie a job, and the money starts pouring in. Richie meets and starts a relationship with Rebecca (Gemma Arterton), one of Ivan's associates, but also starts to get exposure to the dark underbelly of Ivan's business, including massive extortion of local Costa Rican officials and dodging threats from FBI Agent Shavers (Anthony Mackie).

Directed by Brad Furman, Runner Runner has the kernels of a good story, even carrying echoes of no less a classic than Gilda. The film looks slick, capturing the vivid decadence of life with the super rich operating marginally legal but massively profitable gambling businesses from off shore havens. Furman mixes glitz and glamour with earthy Costa Rican surroundings, and Runner Runner is nothing if not a colourful and visually immersive experience.

Furman also deserves credit for avoiding the temptation to suddenly turn Furst into any kind of action hero. Runner Runner remains reasonably grounded in reality, and the thriller elements are drawn from a battle of wits and influence, rather than the more typical surge into cheap action.

But little else works. Timberlake offers bored and unnecessary narration, and the story only starts off with promise. It is quickly apparent that little will actually be explained, and so the nature of Furst's job with Block is incoherent, the relationship between Rebecca and Ivan is barely sketched in, and Richie has a couple of buddies who seem to be essential to the story but hardly register. Richie's father (John Heard) pokes his head into the margins of the story, seemingly from a whole other movie.

The deeper the film gets into the sub-plot of grafting local politicos, FBI Agent Shavers' hissing agenda, and the inner workings of Ivan's business and his grand plan, the less useful information is provided. By the time the third act arrives and true colours start to be revealed, it's impossible to care about any of the characters.

The performances are predictably stoic. Timberlake maintains the same tone throughout, Affleck mails in an easy turn as the slick mover and shaker, and Arterton is never quite sure what her role in the movie really is.

Runner Runner starts with a decent sprint but quickly runs out of steam.

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Movie Review: Live By Night (2016)

A crime drama, Live By Night carries plenty of style but also too much plot. The story of an Irish gangster carving his way through a life of crime is scattered and fails to build effective momentum.

In Boston of the 1920s, war veteran turned independent gangster Joe Coughlin (Ben Affleck) falls in love with Emma Gould (Sienna Miller). She's the floozy of gang lord Albert White (Robert Glenister), who is embroiled in a turf war with rival mobster Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone). Coughlin is of Irish descent, and the son of respected police captain Thomas (Brendan Gleeson). Joe is eventually betrayed and almost killed by White, but survives. After a stint in prison Joe joins Maso's gang and with his loyal sidekick Dion (Chris Messina) relocates to Ybor City, an immigrant dominated, crime infested neighbourhood of Tampa, Florida.

Joe establishes an alliance with the local Cuban gang and builds an impressive crime empire capitalizing on the illegal rum trade. He also falls in love and eventually marries Graciela (Zoe Soldana), the sister of a Cuban crime lord. Joe maintains an uneasy understanding with Ybor's Sheriff Irving Figgis (Chris Cooper), but their relationship sours when Irving's dim witted brother-in-law R.D. Pruitt (Matthew Maher), a member of the Ku Klux Klan, tries to muscle in on Joe's profits. Meanwhile, Joe tries to expand into the casino business, but there are more unexpected troubles in the form of Irving's daughter Loretta (Elle Fanning).

An adaptation of the Dennis Lehane book written for the screen and directed by Affleck, Live By Night has a lot going on and nothing going on. The drama motors on from Boston to Tampa, featuring a dizzying number of gangsters hissing at each other, but the film never grabs hold of a compelling narrative arc. This is the story of Joe Coughlin and he is the one constant, but Affleck plays the central character as a laid back soft spoken type, his obvious narration droning on as he disappears into the set. It's a problem when the assorted villains who enter and exit every other scene are much more colourful than the presumed protagonist.

The film is a demonstration of more is less. A dedicated focus on fewer story lines may have improved control of the material. Instead the overflow of plot and characters eventually overtakes the film, and plenty of seemingly important conversations and incidents start to happen off-screen. Joe's father appears magically at the right time and in the right place to intervene in a murder-in-progress. Joe seems to take over Ybor City in a remarkable hurry, and wins Graciela's heart even quicker. After a long build up, the resolution of the KKK problem is rushed. Major chunks of Loretta's story are summarily dealt with in a few words. Late in the film two adversaries become allies with barely an explanation. And even critical battlefield tactics are botched, Affleck choosing to talk about rather than demonstrate Coughlin's ability to influence goons in battle.

Affleck does have an eye for creating beautiful settings, and the film is awash in vivid colours and plenty of artistry. The camerawork is fluid, capturing bustling neighbourhoods and idyllic landscapes. And some of the climactic showdowns with the head baddies are well constructed.

A large cast supports Affleck's docile take on Coughlin. By far the most memorable is Elle Fanning as the enigmatic Loretta. In just a few scenes she demonstrates what intense charisma can accomplish, and the film would have hugely benefited from investing more in her story.

Live By Night may suggest an adventurous lifestyle, but this is a fragmented, surprisingly dull and ultimately unsatisfying experience.

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Movie Review: The Accountant (2016)

An action thriller with a rich story and plenty of style, The Accountant is an intelligent and inventive addition to the genre.

Department of Treasury Agent Ray King (J.K. Simmons) recruits analyst Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to dig into a mysterious accountant who appears to have ties with some of the world's worst criminals. Now going under the name Chris Wolff (Ben Affleck), the accountant is a mathematical savant with a high functioning form of autism. He leads a double life as a nondescript local store-front accountant while surreptitiously traveling the world and working for shady clients with major financial secrets to hide.

As Medina digs into the accountant's mysterious identity and background, Wolff's next assignment is a legitimate forensic audit of a large Chicago-based robotics company headed by Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow), where junior accountant Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick) has accidentally stumbled upon financial irregularities. Wolff uncovers a dangerous and well-hidden secret that triggers a round of brutal violence leaving him and Dana in mortal danger from a well-armed hit squad, while Medina unearths more twists in Wolff's past.

Directed by Gavin O'Connor and written by Bill Dubuque, The Accountant surprises with a crisp introduction of a new screen action hero. With tired sequels, reboots and comic book adaptations flailing and failing to gain traction, credit to the The Accountant for venturing into original territory. The concept of an autistic mathematical genius as a conflicted protagonist, capable of untangling dense annual financial statements and disposing of ruthless killers with equal effectiveness, is a breath of fresh air. Far from a clean-cut hero, the accountant holds morally ambiguous ground, helping dubious clients while toiling towards difficult to discern ulterior motives.

The film's pacing and construction is also commendable. O'Connor displays remarkable patience, allowing the rich story to unfurl its various sails in an intriguing first hour. There are several flashbacks, some to Wolff's childhood, others to a bloody massacre at a mafia hideout, and still others to a prison stint. The exploits of Agent King and analyst Medina run in parallel with Wolff's latest investigation into the robotics company, and only deep into the film do all the pieces start to fit together, and even then there are more clever surprises to come. When the puzzle picture starts to take shape, it's a satisfyingly elegant mosaic, and a sturdy foundation on which to build a franchise.

The Accountant is weakest when it mimics routine action flicks, and does suffer from one over-the-top combat scene, a prolonged one-against-many home invasion that could have been extracted from any Jason Bourne movie. But most of the 128 minutes of running time are preoccupied with more intelligent fare, and the accountant's uncovering of financial deviousness is more thrilling than any conventional gun play. Even more captivating is his agony when his forensic work is interrupted: this is man who absolutely needs to see every task through to full completion, and can mentally fall off a dark edge in the pragmatic world of enough is enough.

Chris Wolff is an almost perfect role for Ben Affleck. Inexpressive, introspective, alone and with a lumbering gait, the actor does not need to stretch much. The supporting cast is good but predictable, Kendrick at 31 years old still able to pull off the ingenue trick, J.K. Simmons extracting maximum gruffness out of Agent King while Addai-Robinson gets a role with depth and potential as the analyst with a dark past of her own. Jon Bernthal makes for a handsome but lethal leader of an intimidation and murder squad.

Both smart and stirring, The Accountant's pen and sword are equally mighty.

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Movie Review: Pearl Harbor (2001)

A romantic love triangle set before, during and after the Japanese attack, Pearl Harbor features a sensational 40 minute recreation of the raid, but is otherwise weighed down by clunky writing and listless performances.

Tennessee boyhood friends and lifelong aspiring pilots Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett) enlist together and join the air command of Major Doolittle (Alec Baldwin). During the recruitment process Rafe meets and falls in love with nurse Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale). With the United States not yet involved in World War Two, Rafe is granted a transfer to the Eagle Squadron of American pilots fighting in the Battle Of Britain, while Danny and Evelyn are stationed at Pearl Harbor.

Rafe proves himself to be an ace pilot, but his plane is lost during a dogfight and he is assumed killed in action. Gradually the grieving Danny and Evelyn get close, and after a few months they fall in love. In the meantime, the imperialistic Japanese government is negotiating peace with the United States while secretly plotting a devastating blow to the US Pacific fleet. Rafe, who had survived his crash and was sheltered by the resistance in France, returns to Pearl Harbor only to find his best buddy and girlfriend now in a full-fledged relationship, on the eve of the audacious Japanese attack.

With Titanic proving that famous real-life disasters can be recast as grand fictional romances and achieve great box office success, Pearl Harbor uses history as rough background for a three-hour romance. Pearl Harbor aims more for the dreamy universe of From Here To Eternity than the technical reality of Tora! Tora! Tora!. It's a reasonable effort, eschewing historical accuracy for fictional characters caught in the crosshairs of extraordinary events.

But when the emphasis is supposed to be on tenderness and people rather than action and machines, Michael Bay is likely the most wrong director to be at the helm. Bay is much more comfortable with exploding hardware than exploring human emotions. The romance elements never add up to any level of convicing passion, with neither the Randall Wallace script nor Bay's directing able to create memorable moments or sufficient chemistry between the three leads.

The casting choices don't help. Affleck carries a smugness that helps him in the cockpit but oozes insincerity in the romantic scenes, while the stiff Josh Hartnett labours mightily but to no effect trying to prove that he can actually act. Kate Beckinsale is the best of the three and could have smoldered, but she never finds the required masculine reciprocity from neither Affleck nor Hartnett to catch fire.

Wallace also packs in too much into the story. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor there is a side trip with Rafe to the Battle Of Britain, and after the attack Rafe and Danny participate in the training and execution of the Doolittle raid. Compared to the elaborate treatment of the central attack, the other two military sub-stories are rushed, underdeveloped and ultimately unnecessary.

Despite the mammoth running length, none of the supporting cast are given enough to do, and the likes of Jon Voight (President Roosevelt), Baldwin (Doolittle), Sizemore (as a soldier stationed at a small airfield who helps rustle up a modicum of resistance during the attack) and Gooding Jr. (as real-life hero Petty Officer Miller) are reduced to symbolic snippets. The Japanese commanders planning the attack never progress beyond grim faced men spouting stock lines.

This leaves the film with its centrepiece to celebrate, and its a masterpiece of battlefield recreation. Bay comes into his own, filling the sky with Japanese Zeros, the ground with thundering explosions and blazing fires, and the sea with large battleships being pummeled and with drowning, desperate men. It's a stunning sequence deserving of full praise, Bay capturing the fury, chaos and brutality of the "date which will live in infamy". Ironically, a film that attempted to emphasize romance at the expense of hardware is almost saved by the roar of battle squashing the intended sweetness of convoluted love.

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Movie Review: Good Will Hunting (1997)

A drama about the value of intellect as a natural gift, Good Will Hunting is a dazzling achievement. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck announce their proper arrival into the movie industry with a witty script about a young man withholding his own potential behind a wall of acrid charisma.

In Boston, Will Hunting (Damon) lives on the wrong side of town, and is working as a janitor sweeping the floor at MIT. Will is an orphan and had a rough childhood, but he is also a cocky genius, supremely confident and a voracious reader, with a particular aptitude for solving complex math problems. To avoid any risk of disappointment, Will emotionally pushes everyone away and shuns any opportunity to improve his lot in life. He prefers instead to pick fights with hoodlums and hang out with his blue collar friends, particularly best buddy Chuckie (Affleck). Will's advanced mathematical skills come to the attention of renowned MIT Professor Gerry Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård), just as Will lands in legal trouble for striking a police officer during a meaningless street brawl.

As a condition of avoiding serving time, Gerry agrees to take Will under his wing and make sure that he sees a therapist. Will and Lambeau work well together tackling math problems, but finding a therapist who can penetrate Will's hard exterior proves difficult. Eventually Gerry reaches out to his former college classmate Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), a psychology professor himself struggling with the death of his wife. Will starts dating Harvard student Skylar (Minnie Driver), but opening up to her will prove to be as difficult as having meaningful conversations with Sean.

Co-written by Affleck and Damon and directed by Gus Van Sant, Good Will Hunting is an intellectual Cinderfella drama. While not exactly rags to riches, Will's journey is from the streets of South Boston to the hallowed halls of MIT, and more importantly, his awakening to the power of vulnerability and the potential for a better life. With a smart script and a spellbinding diamond-in-the-rough central character, the film captivates as it delves into the psyche and spirit of a charismatic genius looking for a cause.

Gerry and Sean represent two distinct father figures and two separate paths available to Will, should he choose to break out of his thick crust of mistrust. Gerry tries to appeal to Will's intellect and charts a course towards potential business success. At great personal cost, Sean batters away at Will's armour, trying to unleash a spirit with unlimited all-round potential. It's a fascinating two-pronged probe on a young man smarter than both his mentors. With Skylar presenting a tantalizing look at what is possible, deep down Will Hunting realizes that to make good, something has to change, and Sean may be his last chance to find out what an alternative future may look like.

The therapy sessions between doctor and unwilling patient held in Sean's cluttered office are at the heart of the film. Sean's own open wound due to his wife's death gives the film a third dimension, and Will an initial target to bore in on as he attempts to destroy Sean as quickly as all the other shrinks. But Sean recovers, regroups and patiently invests the time it takes to reach into the heart of a man who has decided that he never wants to be reached again. The climax of these sessions may be a bit more cinematic than convincing, but the process is a captivating study in progressive cerebral interaction between two determined men, and remarkably excellent filmmaking.


With an unforgettable performance, Matt Damon establishes his screen persona as a smart man with boyish looks and a wickedly playful streak. Robin Williams won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role as Sean, giving the doctor plenty of complex humanity and a steely resolve to not give up on Will when it would have been easy to do so. The complex relationship between Sean and Gerry also helps to provide depth, Stellan Skarsgård doing his bit to create an appropriately arrogant but still genial celebrity professor.

While making good use of the attractive Boston locations, Van Sant keeps the mood buoyant, mixing drama with touches of humour and sprinklings of friendship and romance. Good Will Hunting is a most rewarding expedition.

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Movie Review: Gone Girl (2014)

A missing person mystery wrapped into a drama about dysfunctional family relationships, Gone Girl is an entertaining romp through the physical and psychological wreckage of a wild tabloid crime story.

In a small Missouri town, Nick Dunn (Ben Affleck) returns home one day to find that Amy (Rosamund Pike), his wife of five years, has mysteriously disappeared. There are signs of a struggle in the house, and police detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) quickly spots blood traces in the kitchen. Amy's parents (Lisa Banes and David Clennon) arrive from New York, and the community rallies around Nick to organize searches and ramp up efforts to find Amy.

But Nick's behaviour is awkward, and as the case starts to generate a national media frenzy accusatory fingers start pointing in his direction. Nick's twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon) stands by him, but even she starts to have her doubts when Nick's affair with nubile college student Andie (Emily Ratajkowski) becomes public, and a nosey neighbour reveals that Amy was pregnant when she disappeared. With Rhonda becoming more convinced that Nick had something to do with his wife's disappearance, Nick turns to famous attorney Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry) for help, but this case will have some unexpected revelations.

The synopsis can only recount half the story, because Gone Girl's major twist comes midway through the film. What appears to be a standard missing woman case, routine fodder for the tabloids and the kind of story that regularly helps to fill hours of brain-deadening cable TV "news", suddenly takes a turn into darker territory. Nick and Amy's marriage was in deep trouble, but not in any way that Nick fully understood. Amy's role in the disintegration of the relationship emerges like a spectre to knock the mystery on its head, and Gone Girl engages the evils that lurk in twisted minds. But after expertly negotiating the mid-stream gear shift, the film ends with a spectacular and bloody somersault that is maybe too ambitious in the context of the story's solid anchors in realism.

Written by Gillian Flynn based on her own bestseller, Gone Girl is directed by David Fincher (Seven), who enjoys nothing more than morphing worrisome events into previously unimagined extremes. Gone Girl gets down to business with brisk efficiency: the disappearance happens early, and the couple's dynamic is introduced in flashback, as Amy narrates from her diary. Fincher allows the past story of the marriage to comfortably run in parallel with the present search for a missing woman. The first few years of the relationship in New York are filled with boundless love and the electricity of frequent sex. But then a recession kicks in, a parent gets sick, the couple relocate to nowheresville and the marriage is thrust into troubled terrain.

Amy's creepy childhood is also revealed: her parents used her as inspiration for the adventures of Amazing Amy, the fictional heroine for a children's book series. The real Amy was much less emotionally buoyant than her fictional counterpart, and the blurring of the lines between the real and fake Amys in the eyes of the books' fans, and maybe also in the eyes of her parents, did not contribute to stability.

Gone Girl explores what constitutes appropriate behaviour in the face of a family crisis subjected to continuous and incessant news coverage. The artless Nick is repeatedly caught on camera revealing expressions not consistent with what is expected from a suffering husband. His graceless overexposure becomes cause enough for suspicion and character assassination. Ben Affleck is perfectly cast, and delivers the gait and slightly stunned look of a man swept into the glare of unwanted events. Rosamund Pike is a revelation, coming into her own in the second half as Amy's story takes over the film. Pike demonstrates an impressive and persuasive range, from beaming newlywed sex-kitten wife to a troubled woman deep into the morass of a floundering marriage. Neil Patrick Harris provides support as Amy's ex-boyfriend who reappears at a critical point in her life.

Compelling as only a public familial crisis can be, Gone Girl starts with a drama that is all too common, and pushes it into multiple gasp-inducing, perversely absorbing twists.

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