Movie Review: Jurassic World (2015)

Genre: Science Fiction Action  

Director: Colin Trevorrow  

Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Nick Robinson  

Running Time: 124 minutes  

Synopsis: Teenager Zach (Nick Robinson) and his younger brother Gray (Ty Simpkins) are dispatched by their mom Karen (Jane Greer) to a vacation at the Jurassic World island resort, where dinosaurs have been brought back to life through DNA technology. The boys' aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is Jurassic World's operations manager, and she is soon confronted by a crisis when Indominus Rex, the park's latest genetically engineered creation, breaks free and goes on a rampage. Claire has to team up with Velociraptor trainer Owen (Chris Pratt) to stop the carnage and protect her nephews, while corporate head of security Vic (Vincent D'Onofrio) spots an opportunity to test dinosaur weaponization.

What Works Well: The fourth installment in the franchise features a generally light-hearted and tween-friendly attitude, dinosaur versus dinosaur combat, and stock human villains with evil intentions to militarize dinosaurs. The action is maintained at a constant (and largely bloodless and goreless) level, the editing is mercifully coherent, a few quips of humour add buzz, and the special effects are good.

What Does Not Work As Well: The path of maximum risk is always the preferred path (for example, with a very angry massive dinosaur on the loose, let's not evacuate the park), character definitions are wafer thin, deaths generate no emotion, and interesting perspectives are summarily truncated (including those of the chief DNA scientist and the park's owner). 

Key Quote:

Owen (referring to Indominus Rex): That thing out there... that is no dinosaur.

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Movie Review: The Eyes Of Tammy Faye (2021)

A rise-and-fall drama, The Eyes Of Tammy Faye is the biography of a woman who helped build an empire based on deceit.

In Minnesota of the 1950s, Tammy Faye (Jessica Chastain) comes from a poor religious family that never showed her any love. Nevertheless, she is bubbly and loves to help others. She meets the dashing Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) at a religious college, and they get married. Jim has big ideas to become a wealthy traveling preacher, and Tammy contributes puppeteering to attract the kids.

Everything changes when Jim and Tammy land a late night television slot on the Christian Broadcasting Network run by influential evangelist Pat Robertson (Gabriel Olds). Tammy insists on having a significant role on the show, and the couple build a huge fanbase, attracting the attention of powerful pastor Jerry Falwell (Vincent D'Onofrio). Jim launches his own the Praise The Lord (PTL) Network and funds a lavish lifestyle through an endless stream of pledges. By the 1980s Jim and Tammy Faye are on top of the televangelical world, but trouble lurks ahead.

Portrayed in the media as a caricature with a penchant for frightening makeup, Tammy Faye was Jim Bakker's influential partner as they bilked the gullible through the crass commercialization of religion. The Eyes Of Tammy Faye is a partially successful attempt to find the woman behind the visage, with a focus on portraying Tammy Faye as a genuinely kind people person, tempering Jim's fire and fury towards homosexuals and steering him towards a God loves everyone message.

The film is a showcase for set designs, outfits from the 1950s to the 1990s, and a variety of hairstyles. Jessica Chastain dominates even as she disappears under layers of increasingly scary makeup, portraying Tammy's ups and downs across 35 years. Andrew Garfield is less convincing as Jim, never quite landing the required mix of charisma and connivance. Vincent D'Onofrio has fun bringing understated authority to the character of Jerry Falwell.

The screenplay by Abe Sylvia (based on a documentary with the same name from 2000) accentuates Tammy Faye's positive attributes, but conveniently turns away from her complicity in selling bunk to the uneducated then enjoying the proceeds. Despite 126 minutes of running time, the film never pauses to examine the damage caused by the Bakkers' virulent brand of snake oil, and only waves in passing at the alliance between evangelist leaders and conservative politics.

Elsewhere director Michael Showalter invades the backstages and bedrooms where a power couple start to come apart at the seams, her addiction to pills, oils, and creams giving him licence to exploit her dalliance for profit. Meanwhile she spots clues he may be engaged in a homosexual relationship, but his infamous affair is only obliquely mentioned. The Eyes Of Tammy Faye are good at what they see, but limited by selective focus.

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Movie Review: The Unforgivable (2021)

A drama about the search for redemption, The Unforgivable is a human-centred and character-rich story about past mistakes casting a dark shadow on the present.

After serving 20 years for murdering a cop, Ruth Slater (Sandra Bullock) is released from prison. Parole officer Vincent Cross (Rob Morgan) sets her up at a dingy halfway house in Seattle's Chinatown and finds her a job at a fisheries plant, where she meets the amiable Blake (Jon Bernthal). Ruth is determined to find her younger sister Katherine (Aisling Franciosi), who was five years old when the murder happened. Katherine was subsequently adopted and raised by Rachel and Michael Malcolm, who also have a younger daughter Emily (Emma Nelson).

Ruth visits the farmhouse where the cop shooting happened and meets current occupants John and Liz Ingram (Vincent D'Onofrio and Viola Davis). John is a lawyer and offers to help Ruth track down Katherine. Meanwhile, brothers Keith and Steve Whalen are the grown sons of the slain police officer. Keith is furious Ruth is now free and plots a revenge, but Steve has a young family to think about. With emotions running high, the lives of Ruth, the Malcolms, the Ingrams, and the Whalen brothers are inexorably drawn together.

An adaptation of a British miniseries, The Unforgivable is a superbly constructed and unpredictable drama. The screenplay (by Peter Craig, Hillary Seitz, and Courtenay Miles) embraces a diverse set of well-drawn characters propelled by conflicting motivations, and launches them on different trajectories but all headed towards inevitable collisions. Breezy surprises abound: on more than one occasion, initially less prominent characters emerge as key plot participants, upturning expectations.

Narrative strength is derived from a range of emotions all tied to the same incident. Ruth's quest for reunification with her sister only gains resonance as more is revealed about their past. The sons of the slain police officer have every right to feel aggrieved the murderer is free in their community. The Malcolms raised Katherine as their daughter, but also suspect her lingering mental struggles are related to her childhood. Katherine's younger sister Emily starts at the margins but will not stay there, while the Ingrams learn they are living in a house with a past, and are now drawn into a tragedy's next chapter.

Hans Zimmer contributes a soulfully haunting soundtrack to enhance both the emotional twists and the host aesthetics. Mostly filmed in the Vancouver area standing-in for Seattle, the dreary and damp northwest landscape captures Ruth's dour mood. Sandra Bullock is suitably deglamorized and stays faithful to a character hardened by 20 years in prison, but also does not need to stretch much beyond a traditional pain-behind-the-eyes stance.

In an assured feature film debut, director Nora Fingscheidt introduces the characters with both depth and brevity. She demonstrates confidence with brief flashbacks to the pivotal shooting incident and its immediate aftermath while rotating multiple perspectives in the present. Some characters are therefore paused for relatively long periods, but step forward to make an impact on cue.

The complex and ultimately emotionally exhausting drama wraps up in under two hours. The Unforgivable is impressively expansive in scope, marvellously efficient in execution.

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Movie Review: Death Wish (2018)

A remake of the classic Charles Bronson vigilante thriller, Death Wish is a serviceable update without breaking any dramatic new ground.

Chicago is overrun by a deadly crime wave with dozens of shootings daily. Dr. Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis) is a leading hospital surgeon and operates on victims and perpetrators. He also financially supports his brother Frank (Vincent D'Onofrio), who has a chequered history with the law. On the night of his birthday Paul's family is targeted by home invaders, resulting in the death of wife Lucy (Elisabeth Shue) and leaving daughter Jordan (Camila Morrone) in a coma.

With police detectives Raines (Dean Norris) and Jackson (Kimberly Elise) not making much progress towards solving the crime, Kersey turns to vigilante justice. Armed with an illegally obtained handgun he takes to the streets and starts confronting and killing criminals. He then stumbles upon clues identifying the gang members responsible for Lucy's death, and goes after them.

The 2018 version of Death Wish does many things right. The build-up is deliberate, affording director Eli Roth appropriate time to surround Paul, Lucy and Jordan Kersey with a warm blanket of sympathy. And after the crime is committed, Roth again allows Paul to go through a grieving process and creates space for due process.

So it's only at around the halfway point that the real action starts, with Kersey taking his first tentative steps towards a one-man city clean-up job. He is far from perfect, mishandling his weapon, injuring his hand and allowing his intervention to be filmed. Then he gains a taste for it, and once the opportunity presents itself to properly avenge Lucy, Death Wish becomes a proper, old-fashioned Bruce Willis movie.

And Willis is in fine form, staying within himself and taking the most out of a Joe Carnahan script that avoids wisecracks in favour of grit and some moments of blood-drenched gore. While the movie never threatens to enter into a serious debate about vigilante justice and who gets to dole out punishment, Roth sprinkles enough references to both sides of the argument and purposefully swims away from the shallowest end of the genre pool.

Vincent D'Onofrio's role is underwritten and an obvious weak spot, but with plenty of well-edited action scenes to hustle the story along, Death Wish blasts its way to a satisfying exhibition of blood-for-blood righteousness.

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Movie Review: The Cell (2000)

A serial killer drama with a difference, The Cell combines imaginative horror, psychology and science fiction to invade a murderer's psyche.

Psychologist Dr. Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) is part of team attempting experimental treatments for schizophrenia. Using revolutionary technology developed by Dr. Miriam Kent (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and Henry West (Dylan Baker), she enters the mind of young patient Edward to try and lure him out of his coma.

Meanwhile Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) is a deeply disturbed schizophrenic serial killer. He kidnaps young women and isolates them for days in an automated holding tank, gradually increasing the level of water in a cleansing ritual before the kill. After kidnapping his latest victim Julie Hickson (Tara Subkoff), Carl succumbs to his illness and drops into an irreversible coma. FBI Agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) desperate needs to know where Julie is being held, and turns to Catherine with a request to enter Carl's mind to search for clues.

More of a visual feast than a traditional serial killer thriller, The Cell most resembles a visit to an elaborate modern art gallery as director Tarsem Singh brings music video panache to his cinematic debut. Stunning production design, outlandish costumes and make-up, an imagination on steroids and crisp cinematography combine to produce a memorable and knowingly disturbing experience.

The Cell is rich in symbolism, some of it religious, as well as echoes of inspiration from other films, including an opening shot that salutes no less than Lawrence Of Arabia. Water plays a key role in Stargher's agony and derangement, while horses help Catherine navigate foreign minds.

For all the emphasis on ostentatious style, the Mark Protosevich script does also provide an intriguing and relatively original race-against-time narrative. There is a short segment of detective work where Novak and his colleagues frantically work to identify and apprehend Stargher as his kill rate increases, but the real drama resides in the urgent infiltration of a killer's mind.

And it's up to Catherine to navigate a horror show where childhood trauma and a history of brutal abuse co-exist with an adult damaged beyond repair, trapped in his own grandeur but holding one last secret that may yet save a life. The link between deep childhood emotional upheaval and the adult descent into the worst kind of criminality is typical Hollywood fare, and here it amped up with sexual repression, sado-masochism and some disgusting gore.

Just as the film's strength are vivid, so are some suspect moments. The Peter Novak character almost literally wanders in from another movie, and some of the protocols in the mission-critical mind invasion science room, including dog privileges, are loosey-goosey at best. Singh's rush to the next spectacular tableau often overwhelms the pacing, The Cell sometimes resembling a hypnotic experience on warp speed.

Jennifer Lopez maintains a steady presence without achieving any breakthrough moments, while Vince Vaughn struggles to grab a hold of Novak. Vincent D'Onofrio plays to his strength as an unhinged murderer responding to vile impulses.

The Cell tackles horrid subject matter, wrapping grotesque inhumanity in incongruous yet gorgeous packaging.

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Movie Review: Adventures In Babysitting (1987)

A teen adventure comedy, Adventures In Babysitting enjoys a wacky ride through urban hazards, boosted by an appealing Elisabeth Shue lead performance.

In a leafy suburb of Chicago, high school senior Chris Parker (Shue) is anticipating a big date with her boyfriend, but he makes a lame excuse and cancels. Chris then reluctantly agrees to babysit the neighbourhood kids, 15 year old Brad Anderson (Keith Coogan) and his 8 year old sister Sara (Maia Brewton). Brad has a crush on Chris, and his friend Daryl (Anthony Rapp) ends up hanging around as well. The evening starts out as routine but soon Chris receives a frantic phone call from her friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller), who is stranded at the downtown bus station and in need of rescue.

Chris drags the three kids into her mother's station wagon and heads into the jungle. A flat tire on the freeway initiates an encounter with tow truck driver John Pruitt (John Ford Noonan), setting off a series of wild events including witnessing a stormy domestic dispute, an encounter with car thief Joe Gipp (Calvin Levels), an unwanted detour to a car chop shop where hissing villains await, and a chance meeting with dreamy college kid Dan Lynch (George Newbern). And Chris' resemblance to the latest Playboy magazine's centrefold model just adds to the night's insanity.

Written by David Simkins and featuring the directorial debut of Chris Columbus, Adventures In Babysitting is smart, sharp and funny. Adapting for a teen audience the "one crazy night" premise of 1985's Into The Night and After Hours, the film quickly establishes the dynamics between babysitter and kids, and then piles on the mishaps and laughs as Chris and her troop venture well outside their comfort zone. There is just enough edge to the events of the night to maintain an enjoyable amount of tension without ever threatening to alienate younger audience members.

Columbus plays up the central theme of downtown as a dangerous and unknown place that may as well be on a distant planet for a bunch of suburban kids ill-equipped for the perils of a concrete jungle. Chris' happy and sunny disposition belongs in the suburbs, and she has to learn on the fly to survive encounters with hardened inner city people, places and events. She maintains her composure and keeps a regime of discipline among Brad, Daryl and Sara, her coping techniques providing the film with plenty of charm.

Elisabeth Shue delivers one of the best performances of her career, defining Chris as a capable and resourceful teen, grounded enough to maintain sanity but capable of taking risks to get out of jams. Columbus and Shue combine to deliver the film's highlight, an unexpected appearance on an intimidating blues bar stage that turns into an impromptu improvised song performance by Chris and her charges.

The three kids are given their own personalities to liven up the night. Brad is star-struck as he nurses an understandable crush on his perfect girl-next-door babysitter. Daryl is more down to earth and up for trouble. Young Sara is just having a blast enjoying the best night of her young life, her obsession with comic hero Thor about to pay dividends in the unlikeliest of settings as Vincent D'Onofrio nails a mythical entrance to place an exclamation point on proceedings.

Every parent's too-nutty-to-happen nightmare, Adventures In Babysitting is madcap entertainment.

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Movie Review: The Magnificent Seven (2016)

A remake of the 1960 classic, The Magnificent Seven is a serviceable western with plenty of stellar action but little depth.

After the Civil War, the small town of Rose Creek is being terrorized by mining tycoon Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) and his army of hired guns. Bogue is exploiting the surrounding land for gold and kills at random to scare the townsfolk off their farms. After losing her husband to the wave of terror, Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) goes looking for mercenaries to push back against Bogue. She stumbles upon warrant officer Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), and he agrees to help.

Chisolm assembles a group of six other men: gambler Joshua Faraday (Chris Pratt), sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke) and his sidekick knife expert Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), frontiersman Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio), Mexican outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). The seven men quickly eliminate Bogue's guards from Rose Creek, and set about fortifying the town's defences as Bogue plans a massive retaliatory attack with hundreds of men.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua, The Magnificent Seven gallops onto the screen with all guns blazing, a western with a predetermined focus to litter the screen with bloodless dead bodies while making seven stars look cool. The one reason for this version to exist is as an update with modern day stars, and Fuqua easily ticks that box with a diverse multi-ethnic cast, and adds a generational range for good measure. Washington is a healthy-looking 61, Martin Sensmeier is about half that, and the seven represent all the major ethnic group that built America.

The gun play and masculine violence is frequent and in traditional Fuqua style builds its way to overwhelming. Almost every other scene, and for some stretches every scene, features men killing other men. Several scenes end with multiple dead bodies decorating the dusty streets, raising concerns about the availability of enough pine boxes and grave diggers to clean up each subsequent mess. The flying bullets and stylish dispatching of bad guys is undeniably fun but also callous, as despite the 133 minutes of running length the film spends very little time providing context, background or humanizing back stories.

The final battle seems to last for about an hour, an all-out orgy of death complete with explosions and a Gatling gun spraying bullets with wild abandon. In an almost perfect example of quantity over quality, Fuqua parks his intentions firmly on the side of sheer numbers making up for the lack of depth. But there are only so many scenes of extras and stuntmen swan diving into death that the brain can absorb, and the film becomes an endless highlight reel where little stands out.

The script provides enough panache and the actors do well with what they have. Washington glides through the film as coolness personified, while Chris Pratt provides most of the animated energy and enjoys by far the best character resolution.

The 1960 version was an ode to the end of an era, gunmen questioning their purpose in life and aware of history closing their chapter. The 2016 version has little time for thoughtful pursuits, just snazzy style: there are hundreds of bad guys to kill, and a kill rate per minute that needs to be maintained.

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Movie Review: The Newton Boys (1998)

Based on real events, The Newton Boys is a lighthearted drama about a band of brothers from rural Texas who robbed banks at will without hurting anyone in the early 1920s. Despite decent style, the movie never moves beyond perfunctory "good old boys" elements.

In rural Texas, Willis Newton (Matthew McConaughey) comes from a family of horse trainers. Recently released from prison for a crime he claims not to have committed, Willis joins career criminals Slim (Charles Gunning) and Glassock (Dwight Yoakam) in what proves to be a botched daytime bank robbery. Willis decides he can do better leading his own gang, and buys a list of bank safes that can be exploded open with nitroglycerin. He adopts the attitude that the banks and insurance companies are all corrupt, and that he is just a small thief stealing from bigger thieves.

Working with Glassock and eventually recruiting his brothers Joe (Skeet Ulrich), Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Dock (Vincent D'Onofrio), the Newton Boys successfully hit a succession of banks in various cities, all at night, and with plenty of guns but minimal violence. Willis meets and falls in love with Louise (Julianna Margulies) and tries to reinvent himself as an honest oilman, but has to admit that he is better at crime than anything else. But with the banks strengthening their safe security, the robberies start to get more complicated.

Director Richard Linklater tries his hand at a period piece, and does not do so well. The Newton Boys aims at a Bonnie And Clyde vibe without the violence, but instead delivers a frivolous piece celebrating charismatic hold-ups by characters who remain caricatures. There is plenty of 1920s style on display and the film generally looks attractive, but in the absence of depth behind the costumes, it devolves into a repetitive series of robberies by faceless and interchangeable men. The film is not helped by a cluttered cast that features plenty of side characters, including criminals, bankers, insurance agents and law enforcement types who come and go while contributing little.

The context and motivations start and stop with Willis Newton's Robin Hood-inspired philosophy that it's alright to rob banks because banks are corrupt and insurance companies anyway need robberies to sustain their business. It's a simple message for times that were perhaps simpler, but it's insufficient to sustain the film's two hours. The rest of the Newtons range from the charming Jesse (an animated Ethan Hawke) to the worrywart Jess and lughead Dock, and they all remain barely defined people, generally standing aside as the safes blow open with loud bangs.

There are a few good set pieces, including a particularly chaotic money-transfer hold-up in Toronto that descends into a well-executed farce. The romance elements fare much worse, with Louise easily falling under Willis' sweet talking spell and deluding herself that he is a businessman. Once she confronts the truth, Louise's role becomes to whine incessantly for her man to stop doing what he does best.

With jovial bluegrass music adding to the sense of flippancy, The Newton Boys is flighty film that unfortunately fails to impress.

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Movie Review: Dying Young (1991)

A romantic drama that advertises its premise in the title and proceeds to under-deliver, Dying Young is an irritating film that occupies the space between phony and awkward.

In San Francisco, Hilary (Julia Roberts) is a young woman who catches her boyfriend cheating and immediately dumps him and flees to the house of her dotty mother (Ellen Burstyn). With a vague background as a nursing student, Hilary responds to an ad for a live-in care giver, and is hired by cancer patient Victor (Campbell Scott), the 28 year old scion of a very wealthy family. Victor wants Hilary by his side as he goes through chemotherapy treatment for his leukemia.

Hilary learns to cope with the horrid aftermath of the chemotherapy sessions, and helps Victor through difficult days and nights as his body reacts to the chemicals. Soon he is feeling better, declares himself healthy, and scoops Hilary off to Mendocino, where they rent an old house and settle down to life as a couple. They make friends, including the hunky Gordon (Vincent D'Onofrio) and his mother Estelle (Colleen Dewhurst). Hilary and Victor start to fall in love, but reality will eventually catch up with them.

Directed by Joel Schumacher, Dying Young never rings true. What may have worked as a sappy novel by Marti Leimbach falls flat on the screen, with neither the events nor the characters leaving any kind of impression. The romance never catches fire, the motivations of Hilary and Victor come across as plain idiotic, and their actions farcical. Their relationship is based on the outright lies that Victor feeds to Hilary, and a ridiculously make-believe life in a rural cottage. As a side note, Victor's family seems unwilling or hopelessly inept when it comes to finding the missing and very sick heir to a fortune.

Julia Roberts is the only thing worth watching in Dying Young, and despite the poor material she almost saves the film. Hilary is not far removed from Pretty Woman's Vivian, and Roberts gives her some depth and background as an under-educated Oakland girl feeling very much out of her depth in the company of money and privilege. The few scenes that work benefit from Roberts finding nuances of frustration and anger as she adjusts to the opportunities offered by her growing attachment to a sick man. Schumacher's cameras clearly love Roberts, and the director finds every opportunity to linger on his star.

In contrast Campbell Scott (George C.'s son) limits his acting to staring into the mid-distance and sometimes breaking into a goofy smile, and several passages of his dialogue are delivered in an inaudible whisper. Both Ellen Burstyn and Colleen Dewhurst are wasted, while Vince D'Onofrio appears unsure as what his role is supposed to be: friend, handyman or wannabe lover. The scenes of banter involving Hilary, Gordon and Victor are beyond contrived. Hilary's girlfriend Shauna (A.J. Johnson) is unceremoniously dumped on the side of the movie early on and never heard from again.

Despite Roberts' effervescent presence, with an agonizingly prolonged running time of close to two hours Dying Young doesn't die soon enough.

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Movie Review: The Judge (2014)

A coming home father - son character drama, The Judge achieves impressive heights of emotion and boasts two excellent central performances from Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr.. The story ultimately packs itself into too neat a package, but is never less than mesmeric.

When his mother dies, celebrated Chicago defence lawyer Hank Palmer (Downey Jr.) travels home to the small town of Carlinville, Indiana to attend the funeral. Hank has a deeply strained relationship with his father Joseph (Duvall), the long-serving and well respected judge in the community. Joseph is getting on in years and Hank notices that his father is struggling to recall names and events. The evening of the funeral, Joseph's car hits and kills a local ex-convict, and he is arrested for the hit and run murder.

Despite the rift between them, Hank insists on defending his father, and gets reaquainted with his brothers Glen (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Dale (Jeremy Strong). Glen had a promising baseball career truncated by a car crash, while Dale is functional but has a mental impairment. Hank also reconnects with old flame Samantha (Vera Farmiga), who now owns the local restaurant and has a fiery daughter (Leighton Meester). With the prosecution team of Dwight Dickham (Billy Bob Thornton) uncovering evidence that appears to prove the judge's intent to kill, Hank has to delve into his painful personal history to try and rescue his father's reputation.

Directed by David Dobkin, The Judge is forceful drama about the present pausing to address unresolved issues from the past. With rich characters, strong emotions and the bubbling stream of family history unexpectedly converging into the headlines of today, the film is an intriguing examination of two men forced to re-examine their relationship. The film creates variety by alternating between the court case and Hank's re-engagement with family, Samantha and his past foibles, providing two narrative streams that nourish each other.

Despite the prevailing tension both in the personal dynamics and the court proceedings, the script by Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque is also peppered by well placed doses of humour. The strategically deployed light touch flows naturally from Hank's big city life clashing with small town sensibilities, and the merging of the past and present sparking whimsy as well as strain.

The two Roberts deliver dedicated performances. Duvall captures the judge as a rightfully proud man not yet ready to accept the creeping damage of failing health. It's an intense, tightly coiled performance, and Duvall demands full attention whenever he is on the screen. Downey keeps up, conveying the bittersweetness of a big city success story confronting the many ghosts of his small town past.

The Judge does wrap up all its story elements into too neat a package. By the time the court case reaches its climax, the reasons for Hank's estrangement from his father have been anchored into every character and event in their common history, in a case where everything is explained, printed on glossy paper, bound in a shiny cover and tidily placed on the coffee table. It's all just a bit too satisfying and detached from the unresolved loose ends commonly cluttering real life. But despite the impeccably precise resolution, The Judge delivers a fulfilling verdict.

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The Movies Of Vincent D'Onofrio

All movies starring Vincent D'Onofrio and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Adventures In Babysitting (1987)

Mystic Pizza (1988)

Dying Young (1991)

JFK (1991)

The Player (1992)

Men In Black (1997)

The Newton Boys (1998)

The Cell (2000)

The Break-Up (2006)

Sinister (2012, uncredited)

Escape Plan (2013)

The Judge (2014)

Run All Night (2015)

Jurassic World (2015)

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

Death Wish (2018)

The Eyes Of Tammy Faye (2021)

The Unforgivable (2021)

Dumb Money (2023)

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