Movie Review: Jay Kelly (2025)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Noah Baumbach  

Starring: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Stacy Keach, Emily Mortimer, Greta Gerwig, Isla Fisher, Jim Broadbent, Riley Keogh  

Running Time: 132 minutes  

Synopsis: Jay Kelly (George Clooney) has enjoyed a 35-year career as a movie star. He wraps-up filming on his latest production, and his manager and life-long friend Ron (Adam Sandler) expects Jay to quickly transition to his next project. But a chance encounter with Timothy (Billy Crudup), a former friend from acting school days, forces Jay to re-evaluate his life. Having neglected all his family relationships, he takes off to Europe with Ron and publicist Liz (Laura Dern) to get reacquainted with his daughter, but forging genuine human connections does not come naturally to a lifelong actor.

What Works Well: Reflecting aspects of star George Clooney's reality, this is an introspective, thoughtful, yet also peppy and often humorous examination of choices. The script (cowritten by director Noah Baumbach and co-star Emily Mortimer) is neither judgmental nor moralizing, and avoids pat resolutions. Achieving and sustaining movie star fame meant Jay was never a good father, and he gained much more from his friendship with Ron than he ever reciprocated. Decisions and actions are presented as realities and trade-offs rather than rectifiable regrets, and Jay's reflections are rich with in-the-moment dilemmas, awkwardness, and poignancy. The superlative cast includes Stacy Keach as Jay's father, Patrick Wilson as another actor managed by Ron, Jim Broadbent as a mentor, and Riley Keogh as one of Jay's daughters. Many of the supporting characters are provided with well-rounded lives to add depth, texture, and context.

What Does Not Work As Well: The running time is longer than it needs to be.

Key Quote:

Jay Kelly (acting a death scene): That's the crazy thing...everything you thought you were...isn't true.

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Movie Review: Midway (2019)

Genre: Historical War Action  

Director: Roland Emmerich  

Starring: Ed Skrein, Luke Evans, Dennis Quaid, Aaron Eckhart, Woody Harrelson, Patrick Wilson  

Running Time: 138 minutes  

Synopsis: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor in December 1941, but fails to destroy American aircraft carriers. The United States enters the war and Japan's Admiral Yamamoto starts planning an attack on Midway Island to achieve dominance over the Pacific. The US intelligence team headed by Lieutenant Commander Edwin Layton (Patrick Wilson) intercepts enemy communications and starts to piece together the Japanese attack plan, allowing Admiral Nimitz (Woody Harrelson) to mobilize a defence. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle (Aaron Eckhart) leads an air raid on Tokyo to unsettle the enemy, while Vice Admiral William "Bull" Halsey (Dennis Quaid) and ace Navy pilots Dick Best (Ed Skrein) and Wade McClusky (Luke Evans) are involved in the escalating war in the Pacific. 

What Works Well: This is an unapologetically old-fashioned World War 2 action movie, faithful to historical fact and dedicated to celebrating heroism, sacrifice, and determination under fire. Despite an ambitious scope covering several major battles and culminating at Midway, writer Wes Tooke admirably maintains cohesion in melding strategic Yamamoto and Nimitz-level maneuverings with the front-line exploits of Best and McClusky, among many others, effectively capturing the critical strategic decisions and in-the-heat of the moment actions upon which history turned. Director Roland Emmerich delivers several stirring naval combat scenes, and maintains focus on individual sub-stories within the chaos of attack, defense, and counter-attack at sea. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The CGI effects are impressive but predictably over-done, and the out-of-uniform lives of the characters are essentially non-existent. The cast members do their job with minimum fuss, but quantity defeats quality and none are provided the opportunity to rise above basic representations.

Key Quote:

Edwin Layton (to Nimitz, in reference to Pearl Harbor): Sir, I'm the intelligence officer responsible for overseeing the greatest intelligence failure in American history.

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Movie Review: Young Adult (2011)

Genre: Psychological Dramedy

Director: Jason Reitman

Starring: Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson

Running Time: 94 minutes

Synopsis: In Minneapolis, Mavis (Charlize Theron) is a depressed and single thirtysomething writer of young adult books. After learning her ex-boyfriend from high school days Buddy (Patrick Wilson) has just welcomed a baby, she travels to her childhood town of Mercury determined to win back his love. She reconnects with Matt (Patton Oswalt), who was the victim of a savage beating during their high school days. Mavis shamelessly flirts with Buddy trying to pry him away from his wife Beth (Elizabeth Reaser), but her desperation is close to the surface.

What Works Well: Writer Diablo Cody crafts a likeable drama around a distinctly unlikeable central character, and director Jason Reitman allows Charlize Theron to walk the seam between cynical false confidence and pathetic sorrow. Having peaked in high school and now wallowing in unhappy selfishness as life passes by, her march to meltdown is compelling, while big city fish in quaint pond dynamics add texture. In a supporting turn, Patton Oswalt contributes soulful warmth as the physically and emotionally damaged assault survivor.

What Does Not Work As Well: Mavis' tangential narration - echoing her psychological attitude through the latest YA novel she is writing - is caught between obvious and half-baked. Her win-the-ex-boyfriend-back actions are contrived, and Buddy falls for a few of them all too easily. The non-ending is lukewarm at best.

Conclusion: A difficult topic receives breezy, if ultimately inconsequential, treatment.

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Movie Review: The Switch (2010)

A creaky romantic comedy, The Switch stretches credibility in search of laughs and love. A strong cast is still crushed by overbearing predictability.

In New York City, Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) decides to have a child using a sperm donor. Her best friend Wally (Jason Bateman), a stock analyst who suffers from mild neurosis, tries to talk her out of it, but she persists and selects college professor Roland (Patrick Wilson) as the donor. At the "insemination party" organized by Kassie's best friend Debbie (Juliette Lewis), a drunk and disoriented Wally secretly switches Roland's sperm for his own and recalls nothing about the incident.

Kassie gets pregnant and relocates to Minnesota. Seven years later she returns to New York with her son Sebastian and reconnects with both Wally and Roland. Wally quickly bonds with young Sebastian, who exhibits familiar signs of neurotic behaviour. Wally seeks advice from his boss Leonard (Jeff Goldblum), while Kassie starts a relationship with Roland, still believing he is the father.

With Wally confined to the friend zone but clearly still smitten by Kassie, The Switch telegraphs all the essential plot points within the first ten minutes. Allan Loeb's screenplay then trudges through another 90 minutes to arrive at the pre-ordained ending, suffering through all the predictable beats with precious few sparkling moments. In the hands of co-directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon, the tortured premise hinges on the well-worn malaise of characters failing to have the necessary conversations in fear of resolving all misunderstandings within television sit-com episode length.

The introduction of Sebastian in the second half provides a bit of a boost, and Wally's observations of nascent mannerisms within his offspring provide some father-son warmth independent of genre confines. In contrast, none of the other characters are remotely believable outside the flighty rom-com bubble, and emotions barely rise above good-looking-actors-reading-lines. Jennifer Aniston's Kassie is coldly self-obsessed as a love interest and even less invested as a mother. Jeff Goldblum and Juliette Lewis are wasted side-kick afterthoughts, and Patrick Wilson never stands a chance as the forced third point of a contrived love triangle.

Despite creating the space to delve into the challenges of single motherhood and anxiety within both adults and kids, the narrative lacks the courage for meaningful commentary. The Switch mixes up the donations, but still arrives at a dull place.

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Movie Review: The Hollow Point (2016)

A crime thriller with occasional dollops of gore, The Hollow Point is visually inviting but offers a baffling jumble of poorly executed ideas.

Prodigal son Wallace (Patrick Wilson) is appointed Sheriff of his rural Arizona hometown, located on the Mexico border. He replaces the grizzled and hard drinking Leland (Ian McShane), who is growing increasingly disillusioned and has just killed an ammunition smuggler after a violent struggle. Wallace reconnects with his ex-lover Marla (Lynn Collins), whose current boyfriend Ken has gone missing after killing a cartel member and helping himself to some cash

Wallace goes looking for Ken and soon tangles with corrupt used car dealer Shep Diaz (Jim Belushi), who appears to be profiting from the illegal ammunition trade. But much worse is to come in the form of ruthless and mysterious murderer Atticus (John Leguizamo), who is working his way through a kill list.

A good cast, impressive rural and remote landscapes and stylish cinematography cannot save The Hollow Point. The script is muddled beyond redemption, and in the absence of wit, depth and soul, the ambitions to recreate a No Country For Old Men vibe fall well short.

The story by Nils Lyew appears to have been haphazardly reassembled after going through the business end of a shredder, with key characters and events popping in and out of the story in random disorder. Director Gonzalo López-Gallego ploughs ahead, oblivious to the incomprehensible mess on his hands. What starts out as cross-border ammunition smuggling thriller morphs into a pseudo-horror indestructible killer drama without breaking stride. Intended victims routinely survive close-quarters gunshots with minimal scratches and no explanations.

And with no prior or subsequent context, one scene appears intent on infusing twisted religious demagoguery as the root of all evil. A clunky romance between Wallace and Marla never registers, and John Leguizamo is horribly miscast as a ruthless machete wielding killing machine.

Only Ian McShane stands above the carnage, his emotionally drained and craggy presence an order of magnitude better than the material around him. Otherwise, The Hollow Point is hollow but pointless.

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Movie Review: Bone Tomahawk (2015)

An engrossing horror western, Bone Tomahawk injects a sturdy rescue mission with a few unforgettable moments of abominable gore.

Deep in the western wilderness, outlaw Purvis (David Arquette) barely survives an encounter with a cannibalistic tribe. Terrified, he arrives at the nearby small town of Bright Hope. Backup deputy Chicory (Richard Jenkins) quickly pegs Purvis as trouble and Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell) duly shoots him in the leg. Town resident Samantha O'Dwyer (Lili Simmons) has medical training and is recruited to extract the bullet, while her husband Arthur (Patrick Wilson) is bed-ridden with a broken leg.

The night does not go well: Samantha, Purvis, and deputy Nick (Evan Jonigkeit) are kidnapped by the tribals, who also steal five horses. Franklin, Chicory, the distraught Arthur and debonair marksman John Brooder (Matthew Fox) form a rescue party and ride out on an arduous five day journey towards the tribal caves. But with Arthur hobbled and tensions rising among the men, even getting close to their objective will prove difficult.

Sheriff Franklin Hunt: Pain is how your body talks to you. You'd do well to listen to it.

A weighty yet enthralling dissertation on just how wild the wild west really was, Bone Tomahawk rides then walks into uncharted territory with a refreshing lack of irony. First-time director and writer S. Craig Zahler takes no shortcuts, unfurling his story over 130 minutes as he demonstrates deep caring for his setting and characters. The film builds to an exhilarating 45 minute climax of insane tension and violence.

The action unfolds in three neat acts. The opening introduces the town of Bright Hope and its inhabitants. Sheriff Hunt and his talkative but willing backup deputy Chicory are both weathered but hold the place together. Brooder is mysteriously arrogant. Samantha and Arthur O'Dwyer are very much in love, but his broken leg is creating a strain.

The second act is the longest, the four men trekking and camping across the wilderness. Arthur's injury gets worse as Brooder's backstory story comes to the fore and causes friction. His trigger-happy methods and prickly personality threaten to either derail the mission or salvage it. Plus he has a history of an attempted romance with Samantha, which further sours Arthur's mood.

Brooder: Smart men don't get married.

Zahler's affection towards his story shines in this middle section, the level of anticipation rising slowly but surely against the untamed scenery and silence of the west. With no music soundtrack to artificially inflate emotions, the determination of the characters to survive against the elements and each other drives the narrative forward. Chicory's incessant chattering adds touches of humour and occasionally serves as an essential interpersonal conflict diffuser.

Chicory: You know, I know the world's supposed to be round, but I'm not so sure about this part.

And then the third and final act arrives, and the investment in people pays off handsomely. Bone Tomahawk features some genuinely difficult-to-stomach scenes, the rescue plan disintegrating in the face of a merciless and savage enemy, acts of improvisation and extreme heroism required for any chance of survival.

Samantha: This is why frontier life is so difficult. Not because of the Indians or the elements but because of the idiots.

A non-intrusive soft stream of religious belief runs through the movie, including Arthur having a couple of quick conversations with God at crucial moments. In the face of unimaginable horror, the turn to divine intervention is no less than justified. And from the heartless murders in the very opening scene to Brooder's revenge-driven judge, jury, and executioner mentality, the film offers constant reminders about the relativism of civilized evolution.

Chicory: Mr. Brooder just educated two Mexicans on the meaning of Manifest Destiny.

The excellent four lead performers are a large part of the film's success. Veterans Kurt Russell and Richard Jenkins create an instant rapport, Matthew Fox is a revelation as the complex Brooder, and Patrick Wilson has the most physically and emotionally demanding part.

Smart, sharp and uncompromising in respecting both the genre's fundamentals and the era's metaphoric brutality, Bone Tomahawk is a fine young cannibal.

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Movie Review: The Commuter (2018)

An action thriller, The Commuter offers an initially intriguing premise but quickly falls through the large gaps of an outlandish plot.

In New York, Michael MacCauley is a 60 year old insurance salesman and ex-cop, buckling under growing family financial pressures. He commutes daily on the train from his suburban home to downtown Manhattan. On the same day he is laid off, a shocked Michael meets his buddy Detective Alex Murphy (Patrick Wilson) for drinks, then on the train is approached by the mysterious Joanna (Vera Farmiga).

She seems to know a lot about Michael and offers him a compelling hypothetical proposition: identify a person known only as Prynne from amongst all the passengers on the train in exchange for $100,000, of which the initial $25,000 is hidden in the train's washroom. Joanna quickly departs the train after hinting the offer is not hypothetical after all. Michael finds the $25,000, and also finds himself trapped: he has to identify Prynne, otherwise his family will be killed.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra and star Liam Neeson re-team and essentially remake 2014's Non-Stop, shifting the action from plane to train, along with borrowing some ideas from 2005's Red Eye. In The Commuter, the reassembly of the over-familiar components maintains only limited interest, and as usual in this particular sub-genre, as the plot reveals more of itself, logic and pragmatism are left further and further behind.

Collet-Serra deserves credit for knowing how to create energy and some tension in tight spaces, and The Commuter always looks slick. The cameras move with remarkable fluidity in, around and through the cramped multi-car train quarters, the setting just as important as the characters and events. Which is just as well, because the events immediately strain all credibility, and the characters, including MacCauley, are wafer thin.

Neeson can now knock off these roles in his sleep, and this is what he does, essentially sleepwalking through another damaged reluctant hero role. Joanna, the purported antagonist who sets the whole plot in motion, is for most of the film an intermittent voice over the phone.

Short bursts of action arrive at regular intervals, mostly in the form of sharp verbal sparring or physical tussles. Towards the end The Commuter turns into a clumsy sort-of hostage drama, the bad guys finding new ways to make their objective as hard as possible. This is a thriller where the evildoers have the remarkable capacity to do whatever they want, whenever they want, except when it matters most. In the process, the original would-be crime is overcomplicated purely for the sake of justifying a third-rate movie script.

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Movie Review: Lakeview Terrace (2008)

A social drama with thriller elements, Lakeview Terrace builds up good momentum in exploring race, mourning, jealousy and morality from a slightly different angle.

Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson) is an uncompromising veteran black Los Angeles police officer. He is nearing retirement and has never progressed beyond patrol duties in the city's worst neighbourhoods. Abel lost his wife a few years back, and is trying to raise two kids on his own using strict discipline in place of parenting. He has also installed multiple motion-activated security lights on his house and takes it upon himself to patrol his multi-ethnic middle class Lakeview Terrace community and judge the neighbours' activities.

Interracial married couple Chris and Lisa Mattson (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) move into the house next door to Abel. Happily in love and excited about owning their first place, their relationship is also carrying hidden strains. Abel takes an immediate dislike to his new neighbours, and in return they find him creepy and unwelcoming. Chris and Lisa will try to mend fences with their neighbour, but Abel is not an easy man to get along with.

Directed by Neil LaBute and inspired by a real incident, Lakeview Terrace generates and maintains a potent current of menace. The film's unsettling energy stems from the relatively unique character of Abel Turner, played with understated relish by Samuel L. Jackson. All of Abel's actions and mannerisms are just slightly off, and the script (by David Loughery and Howard Korder) delves into a man starting to unravel at the edges and goes looking for the reasons why.

Through snippets of his life away from the manicured suburban lawns, Abel's layers of frustration and anger seep to the surface. He never progressed beyond a patrol officer dealing with the scum of Los Angeles. His policing methods have descended to borderline abuse, internal affairs are on his case and he is being prodded into retirement. He has transported his obsession with crime prevention to his neighbourhood and fortified his house as if it's on the front lines. And on the home front Abel never got past the trauma of losing his wife.

Chris and Lisa arrive to disrupt Abel's rentrenched life, at the same time as a fire on the horizon threatens neighbourhood tranquility. At least superficially, Chris and Lisa's love, happiness, public displays of affection and positive outlook represent everything Abel no longer has. It does not help that Lisa is black, and the white Chris enjoying the love of a black woman is too much privilege for Abel to take. He sets about poking away at their vulnerabilities to drive them away.

The final act is where Lakeview Terrace stumbles, as the story heads towards cheap thriller territory and LaBute is unable to find a more cerebral resolution to the conflict in suburbia. It's an unfortunate let down, because most of the film is a welcome intrusion into what goes on behind the finely trimmed foliage.

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Movie Review: Passengers (2008)

A story of survivors of an airplane crash struggling to make sense of the tragedy, Passengers suffers through a clumsy opening but steadies itself for a better than expected resolution.

A plane crashes onto a beach, and there are just a handful of survivors. Psychotherapist Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway) is assigned by her boss Perry (Andre Braugher) to help the survivors deal with the trauma in group sessions, and individually if needed. Hunky survivor Eric (Patrick Wilson) insists that Claire meet him alone; she agrees, especially once he appears to exhibit some post-traumatic extrasensory abilities. Eric advises Claire to reach out and repair the relationship with her estranged sister. Meanwhile, he suffers bouts of agitation upon hearing a dog barking.

The stories recounted by the survivors seem to contradict the official explanation of the crash provided by airline executive Arkin (David Morse). Claire begins to suspect that there may be a cover-up underway, and senses that she is being watched by one or more creepy individuals. Meanwhile, Caire's dotty next-door neighbour Toni (Dianne Wiest) appears to take a greater interest in Claire's affairs. Gradually Claire and Eric fall in love and they start a relationship. Meanwhile, attendance at the group sessions diminishes, as the increasingly upset survivors appear to give up on the therapy, increasing Claire's frustration.

Directed by Colombia's Rodrigo García and filmed mostly in and around Vancouver, not much more can be said about Passengers without revealing its true intentions. Sufficient to say that while the opening half is a slow-baking romance unfolding against the background of some amateur survivor therapy mixed in with hints of corporate chicanery, it's all a careful set-up for where the film goes in its second half, which is much better.

The first 45 minutes are a study of the fragmented search for the truth and change that follow a tragedy. The film unfolds slowly and rather awkwardly, and the more Claire interacts with the survivors the more she realizes that there may be more to the story of the crash than first meets the eye. The recollections of the various passengers don't mesh with each other, much less with the official version. The number of survivors seeking Claire's help keeps on dwindling, and there are mysterious men and women who always seem to be hovering whenever Claire meets with the survivors. Then she finds herself affected by the tragedy in unforeseen ways. Her behaviour changes, first in reaching out to her sister and then in crossing all professional boundaries to get romantically involved with Eric.

Once it becomes apparent where the film is heading, it picks up the pace and becomes much more enjoyable. Garcia finds better success once he starts steering Claire's perspective towards not just what she is being told but also what is possible, and the film stitches itself to provide a satisfying conclusion. Anne Hathaway does a fine job mixing eagerness to please with sweet naiveté and building anxiety as Claire realizes that her assignment may not be as simple as she thought.

Passengers is worth the journey. Despite a rather ponderous take-off and plenty of turbulence along the way, the landing is quite uplifting.

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Movie Review: Morning Glory (2010)

Morning Glory is an adequately entertaining but relatively shallow comedy set in the ruthless world of broadcast television.

Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams), a young, enthusiastic television producer, is hired by network executive Jerry Barnes (Jeff Goldblum) to revive Daybreak, a desperately under-performing morning show. Becky brings in veteran newscaster Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) to co-host the show with resident anchor Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton). The grizzled Pomeroy looks down on any and all segments not related to hard news; Becky needs him to buy into the morning show's varied format to rescue the program.

Director Roger Michell's previous credits include the human-centred Changing Lanes (2002) and Notting Hill (1999), and here he again maintains focus on the characters, although despite the efforts of a good cast, none of the key roles reveal too much nuance. Once the personalities are revealed in broad brushes, they dry quickly. The Aline Brosh McKenna script enjoys some funny moments mostly at the expense of the resident weatherman, but generally lacks the sharpness and wit of her work on the juicier The Devil Wears Prada (2006).

McAdams almost overplays the perky, hyperactive, and passionate Becky, whose only future, at this pace, appears to be marrying her work and eating non-stop take-out Chinese dinners. Ford enjoys himself as the dour Mike Pomeroy, a man living off the legend of a formerly distinguished career. Diane Keaton and Jeff Goldblum add good depth to the cast. Patrick Wilson, as Becky's love interest Adam Bennett is bland to the point of transparency.

Morning Glory does not warrant waking up early; but it is engaging enough not to demand that the channel be changed.

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