Movie Review: The Order (2024)

Genre: Crime Thriller  

Director: Justin Kurzel  

Starring: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Jurnee Smollett, Tye Sheridan  

Running Time: 116 minutes  

Synopsis: In the early 1980s, grizzled FBI Agent Terry Husk (Jude Law) relocates to Idaho and starts investigating white supremacist groups in the Pacific Northwest. Minister Richard Butler is running the Aryan Nations, but Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult) heads the more dangerous splinter group The Order. Inspired by The Turner Diaries, Mathews is focused on recruitment, training, and fundraising-through-crime to instigate a revolution. Husk, local police officer Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan), and FBI Agent Joanne Carney (Jurnee Smollett) start hunting down Mathews, but he is determined to fulfill his mission.

What Works Well: Based on actual events, this Canadian thriller excels in creating a downbeat mood of rural economic despair, with director Justin Kurzel finding an excellent balance between sharply executed action scenes and character-enhancing interludes. The dreary aesthetic creates fertile recruitment grounds for the charismatic Bob Mathews, and Nicholas Hoult's chilling performance captures a dead-eyed ability to manipulate the uneducated and blame others (mostly Jews and blacks) for all ills. Jude Law finds a career highlight in the well-written role of Terry Husk, this FBI Agent carrying physical scars and psychological burdens. The tension seeps in multiple directions, officer Bowen's wife (Morgan Holmstrom) eerily describing the unease created by the intrusion of serious law enforcement into this community. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Jurnee Smollett is not given much to work with as the other prominent FBI agent on the case.

Key Quote:

Bob Mathews: In every revolution, someone has to fire the first shot.



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Movie Review: Juror #2 (2024)

Genre: Courtroom Drama  

Director: Clint Eastwood  

Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Zoey Deutch, Leslie Bibb, Kiefer Sutherland  

Running Time: 114 minutes  

Synopsis: In Savannah, Georgia, Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is called to jury duty for the trial of James Sythe (Gabriel Basso), who is accused of murdering his girlfriend Kendall on a rainy night after a quarrel at a bar. As prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) and public defender Eric Resnick (Chris Messina) present their arguments, Justin keeps secret the fact that he was at the bar on the fateful night and may be involved in Kendall's death. A recovering alcoholic with his wife Allison (Zoey Deutch) in the final weeks of a high-risk pregnancy, Justin's decisions in the jury room will have far-reaching implications. 

What Works Well: A compelling personal conflict of interest presents a gateway into broader social dilemmas. Juror Justin is a family man reconstituting his life but hiding a heavy burden of guilt, while the accused is a career criminal responsible for societal disorder but now vehemently denying harming his girlfriend. Surrounding them are an ambitious district attorney, other jurors seeking expediency rather than justice, and a victim who cannot speak for herself. Director Clint Eastwood reveals plot secrets and gnawing suspicions in measured doses, gradually increasing tension and achieving admirable shifts in sympathy. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Beyond the wild coincidence of Justin being called to be a juror for this particular case, the premise requires exceptionally sloppy work by the medical examiner and police investigators. One of the jurors (J.K. Simmons) and the prosecutor then self-appoint themselves as detectives. Kiefer Sutherland suffers neglect in an underdeveloped role as a lawyer. 

Key Quote:

Justin Kemp: Maybe I didn't hit a deer.



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Movie Review: The Menu (2022)

Genre: Satirical Mystery Drama  

Director: Mark Mylod  

Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, John Leguizamo, Janet McTeer  

Running Time: 107 minutes  

Synopsis: Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and his date Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) travel to a small island for an invitation-only dinner at Hawthorn, the restaurant of celebrated Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). Tyler is a wannabe foodie, but Margot is less than impressed with the whole event. The other dinner guests this evening include food critic Lillian (Janet McTeer), a fading movie star (John Leguizamo), a married couple, and three obnoxious business bros. The evening of set-menu courses starts normally enough with Slowik introducing each plate, but events turn weird in a hurry.

What Works Well: This is a humorously acidic descent into an unexpected nightmare, augmented by attentive service and thoughtful wine pairings. Writers Seth Reiss and Will Tracy line up a range of targets including a dictionary-mining food critic, crass corporate types, a clumsy foodie with his nose pressed-up against the sophistication window, and an undeserving celebrity. Their horror chamber is a chic evening out where director Mark Mylod unleashes fury from the kitchen in the form of class warfare spiced with Agatha Christie. Ralph Fiennes is chillingly effective, Nicholas Hoult has rarely been better, and Anya Taylor-Joy is the only guest packing streetwise scrappiness.

What Does Not Work As Well: Despite the controlled duration, padding creeps in with some irrelevant interludes, including a hide-and-seek excursion. The time could have been more meaningfully invested in deeper dinner guest definitions.

Conclusion: Societal pretension, personal retribution, and a side of psychosis.



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Movie Review: Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021)

A chase thriller, Those Who Wish Me Dead is a messy combination of fire-devouring-the-land and unstoppable-killers-on-the-loose.

In Montana, firefighter Hannah Faber (Angelina Jolie) is still traumatized by deaths she could not prevent while leading a crew fighting a forest blaze. She is now assigned a fire monitor position atop an isolated tower in the woods. Hannah remains on good terms with her ex-boyfriend and local law officer Ethan (Jon Bernthal), whose pregnant wife Allison (Medina Senghore) runs a survival school.

Meanwhile assassin duo Jack and Patrick (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult) are hunting forensic accountant Owen Casserly (Jake Weber) and his young son Connor (Finn Little), to retrieve incriminating evidence. With the killers closing in, Connor stumbles upon Hannah deep in the forest. She must keep the boy safe while a massive fire closes in.

Directed and co-written by Taylor Sheridan, Those Who Wish Me Dead unfortunately flash fries all essential elements. The forensic files and scribbled notes triggering large scale mayhem are a barely explained MacGuffin, and Hannah's psychological damage is of the stock variety. Sheridan also spends a lot of time with bad guys and killers-for-hire Jack and Patrick, hinting at a willingness to explore them as people, but never actually gets there.

Instead the film features the expected impressive wall-of-fire visuals, and plenty of stunt performers falling, jumping, driving, crashing, and scuffling their way through routine narrow escape scenes. A lightning storm obstacle course is thrown in just for the sake of more special effects.

A few moments of tender reflection relieve the tedium. Jon Bernthal and Medina Senghore generate a sturdy bond as a couple adept at navigating the rigours of the wilderness. And young Finn Little is excellent as the boy Connor, gradually easing his way towards the drama's centre, and sharing the best scene with Jolie as they seek shelter from the fire in a small creek.

Despite the occasional spark, Those Who Wish Me Dead is more smoke than fire.



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Movie Review: A Single Man (2009)

A psychological drama, A Single Man delves into individual grief caused by immense loss and the deliberate logic of intending to end life.

It's November 1962 in Los Angeles, and middle-aged and gay English Professor George Falconer (Colin Firth) is preparing for what he wants to be the final day of life. Still deeply depressed after the recent death of his long-term partner Jim (Matthew Goode) in a car accident, George intends to tidy up his affairs and shoot himself. In flashbacks he recalls his happier days meeting Jim after the Second World War and settling down in a loving relationship.

Back in the present, after delivering an impassioned lecture George is approached by Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), one of his students, who notices George's fragile mental state and suggests meeting up later for drinks. In the afternoon George encounters Spanish male prostitute Carlos (Jon Kortajarena) and visits his close friend and former lover Charlotte (Julianne Moore), as the clock ticks towards the end.

The directorial debut of Tom Ford, who also co-wrote the script as an adaptation of the Christopher Isherwood book, A Single Man is a stylish and thoughtful study of anguish. But it also suffers from the typical ailment of this particular dramatic subgenre: plodding pacing, a gradual wilting away of energy, and ultimately a scarcity of ideas.

Despite the film's slick early-1960s look and feel and Ford's clever penchant for playing with colour and light, every scene drags out longer than it needs to. Some sequences, including the encounter with Carlos and the pass-bys featuring the idyllic family-next-door (with Ginnifer Goodwin as the cheery housewife), border on irrelevant. Even at just the 100 minutes the film out-stays its welcome by a stretch.

This takes nothing away from Colin Firth, who is in every scene and fully immersed in the impenetrable sadness engulfing George. Firth combines melancholia with anger at a life no longer worth living, and he remains watchable as momentum seeps away from the script. The supporting characters are just that, Jim (in the flashbacks), Charlotte and Kenny defined only as George sees them.

As a study of depression A Single Man focuses on the reasoning that after Jim's shocking death, George cannot find a pathway towards reclaiming any sort of happiness. The glimmers of hope come from the insistence of Kenny and Charlotte that friendships and love may still lie ahead, but cutting through the thicket of mourning will require herculean yet sensitive and persistent efforts.

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Movie Review: Dark Places (2015)

A crime thriller mystery melding the past with the present, Dark Places has a promising, brooding premise but flubs the resolution.

The film takes place in two timelines: 1985, when a notorious crime happened, and the present day. In 1985, eight year old Libby Day is the only survivor of a Kansas farmhouse massacre that kills her two sisters and her mother. Based on young Libby's confused and fractured testimony, her teenaged brother Ben, a heavy metal music fan who dabbled in Satanism, is convicted.

In 2015, Libby (Charlize Theron) has wasted her life doing nothing and living off the charity of others. Now nearly broke, she accepts an offer from amateur murder sleuth Lyle Wirth (Nicholas Hoult) to research the real story of what happened at the Kansas farmhouse. Libby visits Ben (Corey Stoll) in prison for the first time and starts to piece together the events preceding the murders.

Prior to the massacre Libby's mother Patty (Christina Hendricks), divorced from the sleazeball Runner (Sean Bridgers), was struggling to make ends meet, while Ben was spending time with his older girlfriend Diondra (Chloë Grace Moretz) and criminal hardhead Trey Teepano. Ben was also facing accusations of sexually abusing young girls, including Krissi Cates. The grown up Libby tries to track down Diondra, Krissi and Trey among others to finally understand what really happened and why.

Based on the book of the same name by Gillian Flynn (of Gone Girl fame), Dark Places builds up a satisfying head of steam as the past and present story of Libby Day is revealed. Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner actually plays in three time zones, adding in increments a jerky recreation of the night of the murders, mostly from the muddled perspective of young Libby, to the two main narratives.

And there are enough subtle riddles about the events of the night to create a rich atmosphere of evil, and open up possibilities for motives and villains. Many family members, friends, associates and hangers on had reasons to unleash violence on the fateful night. At the centre of the mayhem then and still suffering now, Libby has to decide how much she wants to care, and whether poking away at the scars of the past is worth the emotional pain.

But the narrative thrust starts to unravel the closer Paquet-Brenner gets to his conclusion, and in some ways the story picks the weakest path towards resolution. The ending is rushed and jumbled, and in many ways inconsistent with some of the more determined character traits that the film invests in.

The choice for the two lead actresses gets in the way. Charlize Theron and Christina Hendricks don't do anything wrong; they are simply too glamorous for their roles, and have to work back from the starting line to convince as rural, poor and borderline white trash folks. Theron spends the entire movie covering her hair and eyes under a baseball cap in an unsuccessful attempt to get into the skin of a woman with nothing going for her except an offer for a few paltry bucks from true-life murder nerds.

As for Lyle Wirth and his club of amateur crime solvers, they fade out of the story after contributing a base level of interesting irritation.

Dark Places launches into a captivating and twisty mystery, but flubs the landing.

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