Movie Review: Hunter Killer (2018)

A submarine action thriller, Hunter Killer is a slick throwback to the era of well-made, edge-of-your-seat military movies.

Two submarines, one Russian and one American, are attacked and sunk almost simultaneously in Arctic waters. The US Navy responds by deploying the USS Arkansas to the area, under the command of new and untested Commander Joe Glass (Gerard Butler). A Navy SEAL team led by Lieutenant Bill Beaman (Toby Stephens) is also dispatched to eavesdrop on Russia's Polyarno naval base, where an unusual meeting is scheduled between Russian President Zakarin (Alexander Diachenko) and his Defence Minister Durov (Mikhail Gorevoy). 

The Arkansas has to evade an attack before rescuing Captain Andropov (Michael Nyqvist) of the sunken Russian sub. In the meantime war hawk Durov seizes power, holding Zakarin prisoner and manoeuvring for a confrontation with NATO naval forces. US Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff Charles Donnegan (Gary Oldman) immediately seeks to escalate, but Rear Admiral John Fisk (Common) and National Security Agency senior analyst Jayne Norquist (Linda Cardellini) improvise audacious missions for Glass and Beaman to try and avert a catastrophic war.

Recalling earlier eras from the 1990s (The Hunt For Red October and Crimson Tide) and 1950s (Run Silent, Run Deep and The Enemy Below), Hunter Killer rolls back the years and overachieves. Adapting a book by Don Keith and George Wallace, co-writers Arne Schmidt and Jamie Moss deliver a solid script for director Donovan Marsh to work with. Co-produced by star Gerard Butler, this is a well-crafted and coherent geopolitical thriller, generally plausible and grounded in real-world tensions and nationalistic agendas that can tip military posturing into shooting wars.

The special effects are immersive and enhance the familiar submarine drama beats of maintaining stealth, evading attacks, and hunting enemies. But the introduction of a parallel on-the-ground mission by the four-man SEAL team is a surprisingly effective enhancement. The gritty infiltration and surveillance objectives (which eventually expand into much more) provide relief from the naturally claustrophobic underwater environs.

With Butler in typically stoic form but also conveying the requisite smarts, Commander Joe Glass is introduced as an unconventional leader who earned his way to the top. Everyone else stays within narrow limits, making way for narrative spice in the form of earned trust between Glass and Andropov, natural rivals who will have to work together to try and pull the world back from the brink of disaster.

Given the ambitious scope, some clunky and cheesy moments do creep in, Gary Oldman particularly culpable with a dismissive display of hawkishness, and shortcuts in time and space help to keep the action compact. But the two hours of running time fly by with a series of well-executed and sequentially logical action highlights, before Hunter Killer sails its way to appetizing pivot points where hunting and killing are a valid response but thinking and trusting may be more judicious actions. And global calamities hang on the small margins where such under-pressure decisions are unavoidable.

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Movie Review: The Informer (2019)

A gritty drama and thriller, The Informer maintains low key intensity but is hampered by loose plotting and some disinterested performances.

In New York City, ex-convict Pete Koslow (Joel Kinnaman) is working as a mole for FBI Agent Erica Wilcox (Rosamund Pike) to infiltrate the fentanyl empire of Polish mobster The General (Eugene Lipinski). Erica's boss Keith Montgomery (Clive Owen) gives the go-ahead for a sting operation to arrest The General, but it all goes wrong and undercover New York police detective Gomez is killed.

To clean up the mess, The General wants Pete to serve time and seize control of the drug trade from within the prison system. Erica and Keith pressure Pete into accepting the deal, and he is forced to leave his wife Sofia (Ana de Armas) and young daughter and head back behind bars. Meanwhile NYPD detective Grens (Common) is oblivious to the FBI operation and just wants to know who killed his partner Gomez. Pete is soon facing dangers and betrayals from all sides.

A thriller that dares to forgo routine car chases and shoot-outs, The Informer deserves credit for adopting a reticent approach to the conundrums of one man caught in the grey world between hardened criminals and heartless government agencies. But Italian director and co-writer Andrea Di Stefano can only take the material so far: the script is both short of depth and too happy to gloss over essentials, while all the supporting roles are underwritten and performed with bored blankness by actors who should know better.

In the lead role Joel Kinnaman as Pete Koslow is eminently watchable and fully invested, bringing plenty of intensity and humanity to the drama. But Rosamund Pike, Clive Owen and Common have much less to work with and go through the motions, their level of engagement scrambling towards television levels. Ana de Armas is only marginally better.

Regardless of performances, The Informer's fundamental weaknesses reside in a gap-filled and pacing-challenged script that barely sketches out what the General wants Pete to do in prison, much less how agents Wilcox and Montgomery co-opt that plan for their own purpose. Once behind bars Pete is sidetracked into a squished prison drama with all the usual cliches, including racially segregated cabals, corrupt guards, inmate-on-inmate violence, and bad guys doling out their brand of vengeance. Some drugs and scribbled lists change hands to usher in a much less than convincing climax.

Despite decent ambition, The Informer is an eager mole betrayed by substantive holes.



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Movie Review: Ava (2020)

A routine action thriller, Ava boasts an impressive cast but mostly recycles tired professional assassin sub-genre cliches. 

Highly trained killer Ava (Jessica Chastain) works for a mysterious organisation and eliminates her latest target in France, but not before breaking protocol and conversing with her victim. She returns to Boston and reconnects with her sister Judy (Jess Weixler) and mother Bobbi (Geena Davis), as well as Michael (Common), who used to be Ava's lover but is now with Judy. Eight years prior Ava was an addict and abruptly abandoned Michael and her family when she discovered her father's infidelity. 

Now Ava is displaying signs of stress but her handler Duke (John Malkovich) maintains his trust and sends her on a new mission to Riyadh. Through no fault of her own this assignment ends in chaos, with Ava barely getting out alive. Duke's boss Simon (Colin Farrell) loses faith in Ava, unleashing a wave of violence.

Ava zips between several international destinations and always looks slick, director Tate Taylor never lingering in any one place for too long and often finding interesting camera angles. The above-average cast maintains interest without ever being challenged, Jessica Chastain (who also co-produced) suitably dour and ably supported by John Malkovich and Colin Farrell.

But the film's problems run deep. The Matthew Newton script adds little to the well-worn travails-of-the-assassin canon, and features a tediously high number of samey prolonged physical combat scenes. All are clumsily edited into incoherence and end with Ava just a bit bruised and bloodied despite receiving a barrage of heavy blows. The parade of bone crushing melds into a continuous stunt performer exhibition, the impact dwindling with each brawl.

Away from the action, and in a rare case of too much character depth, Ava is surrounded by a daytime soap opera family. Geena Davis is a welcome screen presence, but mom Bobbi is both a drama queen and a heart attack victim. Sister Judy is a highly strung musician quick to erupt into tirades, and Michael is moving from one sister to the next without leaving his gambling addiction behind. Dad was a philanderer and Ava herself is a recovering alcoholic, rounding off an all-in dysfunctional family. 

The domestic scenes exist in a separate, almost dumbfounding movie, and the attempt to bring Ava's two worlds together at a gambling den showdown exposes the script's fundamental brittleness.

Ava looks cool, but gets iced by mediocrity.



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