Movie Review: The Card Counter (2021)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Paul Schrader  

Starring: Oscar Isaac, Willem Dafoe, Tye Sheridan, Tiffany Haddish  

Running Time: 112 minutes  

Synopsis: Convicted for his role in the Abu Ghraib prison atrocities, former US Army soldier William Tell (Oscar Isaac) uses his time behind bars to learn blackjack card counting. Once released, he travels between casinos keeping a low profile and aiming for modest winnings. William is also a good poker player, and stable manager La Linda (Tiffany Haddish) offers to bankroll him. At a security convention, William meets Cirk (Tye Sheridan), a young man plotting revenge on retired Major John Gordo (Willem Dafoe), who was instrumental in teaching torture techniques during the Iraq War. William takes Cirk under his wing to keep him out of trouble, and turns to the poker circuit to raise a large amount of money in a hurry.

What Works Well: Stylish cinematography conveys a sense of resigned desperation in the seen-one-seen'em-all hotel casinos and poker rooms where gamblers go to work. A stone-faced Oscar Isaac hides behind shades and conveys a man-on-a-mission-to-disappear vibe, pausing only long enough to wrap motel room furniture in white sheets.

What Does Not Work As Well: Despite the involvement of producer Martin Scorsese, the cards are drawn from different decks and suffer from shiftless lethargy. The plot meanders from blackjack to poker, from gambling drama to the emotional scars of war, from low-key winnings to in-the-spotlight tournaments, and from a one-person character study to another person's not-even-half-baked revenge plot. Unsurprisingly, the internally inconsistent dramatic components falter like scattered chips in a mess of misguided bets. William's transformation from loner to father figure is unconvincing, Willem Dafoe barely features and need not have bothered, a crucial confrontation is omitted, an irritating poker foe is built-up and left hanging, and Tiffany Haddish's character adds nothing of value.

Key Quote:

Major Gordo: This is where all the good stuff happens.

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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: Mud (2012)

Genre: Coming Of Age Drama  

Director: Jeff Nichols  

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Sam Shepard, Reese Witherspoon, Michael Shannon, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Joe Don Baker  

Running Time: 130 minutes  

Synopsis: In rural Arkansas, fourteen year-old friends Ellis and Neckbone (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) stumble upon Mud (Matthew McConaughey) on an isolated island in the Mississippi River. Ellis is intrigued by the stranger's story of a lifelong love for sweetheart Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), and starts bringing supplies to Mud and passing messages to Juniper. Ellis also experiences his first crush, get to know his mysterious neighbour Tom (Sam Shepard), and comes to terms with the painful separation of his parents (Ray McKinnon and Sarah Paulson). But Mud is a wanted fugitive, and his presence may unleash violence.

What Works Well: This coming-of-age drama combines lyricism with hard edges and tough truths. Director and writer Jeff Nichols finds a ramshackle section of river sustaining a simpler way of life, and populates it with characters harboring secrets. Within the stoic backwater isolation, Ellis' life is profoundly changing: his parents are splitting, the only home he knows might be dismantled, and he may have found a first girlfriend. But the revelations swirling around Mud are most potent, involving a deep love, easy lies, suspicions of murder generating a desire for violent revenge, and ultimately plans for an audacious escape. As the disruptions reach a climax, childhood is discarded and adulthood forged.

What Does Not Work As Well: Ten minutes could have been trimmed from the running length without dramatic loss, and Michael Shannon as Neckbone's river-diving uncle appears to be a character idea in search of a purpose.

Key Quote:

Mud (about Juniper): She is like a dream you don't want to wake up from.



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Movie Review: The Yellow Birds (2017)

A drama about the horrors of war and resultant psychological trauma, The Yellow Birds trudges through well-worn terrain with familiar characters and a banal battlefield mystery.

Private John Bartle (Alden Ehrenreich) returns from the Iraq War traumatized by what happened to his friend Private Daniel Murphy (Tye Sheridan). Flashbacks reveal the friendship between the two men developing from their training days under the guidance of Sergeant Sterling (Jack Huston) through to deployment and various difficult under-fire episodes.

Now Bartle refuses to communicate with his mother Amy (Toni Collette) and avoids Captain Anderson (Jason Patric), who is investigating what happened to Murphy. Meanwhile Murphy's mother Maureen (Jennifer Aniston) is desperate to learn her son's fate.

Battlefield mysteries and post traumatic stress disorder stories inspired by American involvement in Middle East wars have already featured in productions of various quality including Courage Under Fire (1996), Jarhead (2005), In The Valley Of Elah (2007), The Hurt Locker (2008), Stop-Loss (2008), Brothers (2009) and American Sniper (2014). Lacking anything new to say, The Yellow Birds unfortunately flies in lazy circles, unsurprisingly failing to extract any fresh drama from shrivelled material.

Director Alexandre Moors and writers David Lowery and R.F.I. Porto, adapting the Kevin Powers book, assemble the tired pieces with minimal heart and soul, resulting in a depressing and derivative tone. The time jumps between Bartle's present doldrums and his earlier training and battlefield encounters do little to camouflage the threadbare content. The resolution of Murphy's story adds to the sense of abject narrative incompetence, given the well-established value of a captured soldier in enemy hands.

The visuals are adequate, the action scenes in the dusty streets of Baghdad (filmed in Morocco) are rationally edited, and the cast members are better than their limited character definitions, with Huston and Patric particularly wasted. But despite some decent flaps, The Yellow Birds bumbles away into forgettable air.



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Movie Review: The Night Clerk (2020)

A crime drama and character study, The Night Clerk tantalizes with some intriguing potential but after a bright start loses steam instead of building momentum. 

Bart Bromley (Tye Sheridan) is a socially awkward 23 year old with Asperger's syndrome, working as an overnight hotel clerk and living with his mother Ethel (Helen Hunt). He voyeuristically snoops on hotel guests through hidden miniature cameras, using mimicry to improve his conversational skills. Through his cameras Bart witnesses an escalating argument involving hotel guest Karen and an unknown man. He rushes to the scene but when the police arrive Karen is dead and Bart is a potential suspect. 

He hides the video evidence from Detective Espada (John Leguizamo), who does not have enough evidence to make an arrest despite pressure from Karen's husband Nick. Relocated to another hotel, Bart meets guest Andrea Rivera (Ana de Armas), who appears lonely and treats him kindly. Bart is love struck, but Andrea is hiding her own secrets.

An independent production written and directed by Michael Cristofer, the first act of The Night Clerk carries promising echoes of a small scale Rear Window. A disadvantaged man passes the time observing others, only to witness a crime and become embroiled in the dangerous affairs of strangers. But while the opening third is engaging, the middle sags and the ending is clumsy, Cristofer unable to sustain the early impetus despite a crisp running time of just 90 minutes.

The context-setting, characters introductions and premise of voyeurism as a learning tool are all sharply delivered. But after the murder is committed, the crime investigation elements are incongruously neutralized to allow Bart and Andrea to get to know each other. The tone transition defangs the drama and sucks energy out of the narrative. Cristofer eventually cycles back to the antagonists and the investigation, but the conclusion is both rushed and bungled, and arrives too late to reignite thrust. Some key character relationships apparently primed for surprise reveals are also easy to spot. 

In a committed performance Tye Sheridan captures quirky awkwardness within Asperger's mannerisms, and introduces measures of pathos as Bart experiences the full force of first infatuation. Ana de Armas enjoys a few complex scenes as Andrea questions her actions and motives, but the supporting cast remains stiff.

The Night Clerk stays awake, but it's an uneven shift.



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