3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Heads of State

2025, Ilya Naishuller (Nobody) -- Amazon

Two things kept up rising up in my brain while watching this porridge level digestible action comedy. 

One, which is a topic that often arises, especially during the last decade -- American identity as the "good guys", primarily in their own minds, but also in the collective world pop culture consciousness. This is a difficult fiction to maintain right now, but also makes one wonder whether Hollywood creators might use light entertainment as a way to comment on the political bodies? 

Two, its only a matter of time before an entire Hollywood script is produced by a well-trained generative AI model via some really skillful people entering prompts to produce a movie which is exactly what the Purple Suits are asking for. This movie strikes as a very real possible example of such. Its painfully obviously constructed to push all the right buttons.

My intent in the last few posts was to comment on my predilection for violent action movies, and the irony of them being light fare, even in my brain, and even if you ignore the action-comedy tropes. Instead, I found myself more talking about the construction of these movies, the presentations they chose, within all that gunplay and killing people. But it still fascinates me that this is a thing, in that in the Hollywood presented mindset, a pair of bared breasts holds more power than the senseless slaughter of a dozen people. Maybe it has something to do with the unreality of it all -- we are all going to be exposed (pun intended) to sex, but very few of us will ever experience true, real violent death. I wonder if people who do see it, caution away from violent movies, while the rest of us find escapism in them.

In case you care, yes I will spoil major aspects of this movie, but even the movie expects you to have figured it out long before its "revealed".

This movie, a movie about two arrogant Leaders of the Free World, one being the American President, Will Derringer (John Cena, Freelance), an ex-action movie star now charismatic, if a bit naive politician, and the other is the more sobre, somber Sam Clarke (Idris Elba, The Take), ex-soldier, just trying to do right for his country, his people, knowing it is a challenge for a non-politico type, begins with an exciting but truly horrific setup segment. Coerced to travel together to a NATO event on Air Force One, the plane is attacked and only the two leaders escape. The dozens of staff, attachés and other governmental officials are all killed or die as it crashes. I mean, I know why, as in all such action movies, it is about something terrible happening that our heroes barely escape, to provide a clue as to how bad the Bad Guys are, and to motivate our heroes. But like I did in one of the White House slaughter movies, I felt the weight of the collateral damage. It did not feel light to me.

The rest of the movie is about the argumentative leaders trying to get from Point A to Point B while straining to figure out who betrayed them. Of course, its the Vice President (Carla Gugino, Lisa Frankenstein). Even Derringer quips, "Its always the Vice President." Very little of the action stands out in the movie, but for a small segment in the middle which guest stars Marty Comer (Jack Quaid, Novocaine) as a fan-boy CIA station agent who is surprisingly effective, but dies (not really, suggesting a spin-off). To be honest, what stands out is as surprising to me, but it was the quippy dialogue between the two world leaders as they get to know each other. Derringer is an ex-action movie star and approaches everything in life from the point of view of being adored by his fan base. Its naive and annoying, but he has a point in that it allows him to cross barriers that are sometimes put up by his own people and foreign dignitaries. He actually has a genuinely good heart. Meanwhile, Clarke is a no-nonsense, mostly angry, dismissive, sarcastic bastard (a man after my heart) who dislikes Derringer's use of his fame and rose-coloured glasses approach to leading a country. Sam only wants to do right by all his people, and knows its 99% challenges. There is an honest attempt to say stuff via the banter between these two men, even if its political stance lite. Too bad its fiction, cuz as we well know, neither country has a strong, moral, likeable or capable leader.

Its entirely cookie cutter, entirely constructed in small chunks of everything expected from such a movie with requisite recognizable faces, interesting locales (in the vein of the "travel Europe" trope I have commented on in the past), funny scenes galore combined with an endless supply of mooks to be gunned down. It even plays with the "love interest" trope, as Sam is a single guy hung up on his ex intelligence agency girlfriend (Priyanka Chopra-Jonas, Citadel). 

The script could have been designed by a room full of Purple Suits, or a room full of nerds typing prompts into a laptop. Those that fear AI (and they should) visualize someone saying, "Computer, make me a comedy-action movie" and it spitting out a full-formed script. But those in tech know it will be much more complicated, nuanced and challenging to get an AI, or many AIs combined, to produce a workable script -- machine training, source material fed in, skilled prompt writers, etc. But eventually it will become a very real thing, and yes, jobs will be replaced, with different jobs, far less paid jobs, far less creator oriented jobs. And if we think all movies feel the same now, imagine when they are.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Accountant 2

2025, Gavin O'Connor (The Accountant) -- Amazon

Since Bill Dubuque wrote the previous movie, he garnered success with Ozark. Neither Kent nor I wrote about that acclaimed show; I watched one episode of it, and where most people suffer superhero-fatigue, mine is more strongly seated in "horrible family crime show" fatigue. For some reason, I more inclined to watch a "damaged but brilliant" detective/investigator show, but watching terrible families do terrible things, even if they are the protagonists, is just not my thing. Is that fatigue? I think I was tired of it before it became a thing.

Anywayz, this is a round-about way to respond to my own comment on the first movie -- that Dubuque would be worth watching. I responded well to the first movie, and even in my rewatch, I still greatly enjoyed it. It was a small movie, quirky. I realized something during my rewatch; I am not convinced that Christian (Ben Affleck, Argo) is an assassin at all. I think he does accounting work for the mobs (plural is important) and because he works with so many, and because of how he and his brother were raised, he is prepared for any sort of violent repercussions. Thus his entire life is contained within an airstream trailer, half domestic necessities, half weapons locker. But he does not kill for a living. He's an accountant.

This movie picks up some time after the first one. Raymond King (JK Simmons, Red One), the Financial Crimes director from the first movie, now retired, is doing private detective work for someone named Anais (Daniella Pineda, Cowboy Bebop). They are meeting in a bar, but someone has followed him or maybe her, and in the gunfight, King is killed, but she slips away. Later, in the morgue Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), who followed in King's footsteps, rising in the ranks of FinCEN with the help of Christian and his handler, reads "find the accountant" scrawled on King's arm.

Something about preambles, and recounting them, always interests me. I like a good (re)establishment of a coming story. Questions arise, reminders are provided. Motives are offered. Medina does indeed call our "hero" and despite being more uncomfortable with his business than her mentor ever was, she begins to work with him. Christian does his "thing" taking all the boxes of information King had collected, and collating it into a story about a family from El Salvador fleeing to America. But the father was killed, found in a mass grave, and ... who was King looking for? The mother? The child? Both? Who is Anais? Why does she want them found? So much of the movie is about filling in little blanks, while providing so much more, establishing Anais as a boogeyman killer, someone both law enforcement and criminals fear, another violent person available by a single phone call.

It leads them to LA. And Christian reaches out, in his usual neurodivergent way, to his brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal, Ford v Ferrari), whom he hasn't talked to since he blew up Braxton's last job. Braxton is a proper hitman and security thug, the usual Goon or Henchmen hired in other movies to do the dirty work for proper Bad Guys. He's pretty pissed at his brother but comes to LA anyway. And thus, the movie becomes a ... cough... buddy comedy?

Its still pretty dark in its content, a story about trafficking and coyotes and child slavery, but the "fun" comes from watching Braxton and Christian interact. It wasn't my thing. Sure, it is funny. Christian gaming a match making agency but still creeping all the women out. Christian adapting well to country line dancing. Braxton always being brash and loud mouthed and violent and ... basically an asshole older brother. Sure, I chuckled. But it wasn't my thing.

Eventually the movie degrades / succeeds into a typical action-thriller mass gunfight. The brothers are tracking down the whereabouts of the surviving child from El Salvador, in a child labour camp in Mexico, while Medina finishes King's investigation and discovers what happened to the mother. Its a weird, odd, very interesting spin on Christian's neurodivergence, having the mother suffering a brain injury, losing her memory, losing her personality, becoming a ... well, world-class killer in about four years, aka Anais. Spin-off character? In Hollywood's current weird confusing world of franchise love, why not? 

Braxton and Christian shoot and blow up their way to heroism, some loose ends are tied up (with murder) and Anais's son, who also happens to be autistic, moves into that weird group home where Christian grew up, and where his childhood friend, and now handler, runs.... an intelligence agency?

Dubuque doubled and tripled down for this movie. Its not at all what I was expecting from a sequel. Its a fine movie, seriously, a decent well-done action-thriller, but... still, not what I wanted.

Part of me wanted to blaze through this movie writeup, and the next few blog posts, focusing on the ultra-violence, the gun play, as all of them are dominated by such, as are my viewing habits. But in the end, that contributed very little to my memory of the movie, beyond a recollection of scenes in the trailers depicting a very different version than what ended up in the final movie. I wonder if that will play out similarly in the next few movie's posts.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Old Guard 2

2025, Victoria Mahoney (a lot of TV including Lovecraft Country) -- Netflix

This movie is the sequel to the first one. 

Really deep statement there, toasty me fellow.

I recently rewatched the first one, in preparation for this viewing. It stands up. As is common with what I consider "middling actioners" once I get into the rewatch cycle, I can ignore what I didn't care for first time round, focus on what I do like. I expected pretty much the same from this sequel.

So, yeah, we pick up ... (Googles) ... six months after the events of 1. Andy (Charlize Theron, Hancock) is mortal, Nile (KiKi Layne, Captive State) is still with the team and .... frak, I don't even recall what the opening action sequence was about, beyond re-introducing the characters to us, new haircuts and all. But the real opening sequence is seeing the retrieval of Andy's old girlfriend Quỳnh (Quinn; ahh the stereotypical fantasy naming convention of taking a standard name and adding apostrophes to it; Veronica Ngô, Bright) from her entombed state at the bottom of some ocean location Andy could never pin down. Someone had the resources to locate her, and we know it won't lead to anything good.

Nile has a dream about a library, which triggers a look from Andy. Said librarian is Tuah (Henry Golding, Last Christmas), another immortal Andy doesn't talk about, someone from her past who stepped away from the violence to study... everything? Tuah explains that yet another immortal (they need to sit Andy down with a, "are there any other immortals you need to tell us about?!?") named Discord (the social platform must be named for her; Uma Thurman, My Super Ex-Girlfriend) stole some books from his library and is ... after Andy and her crew. Also, she kidnapped Booker, who was in exile, and yes, she has recovered Quỳnh -- that shakes Andy to her core. What Discord's motives are is unclear.

Now that I think back on this movie, its feeling a bit over-stuffed, like the mid-franchise Marvel movies. There are more immortals, there is a first immortal, there is a mythical connection between the "first immortal" and the "last immortal". There is an old failing and bitterness, and there is an even older bitterness. So much drama. And there is a Chinese nuclear facility that is part modern art exhibit, part death-dungeon, but is very little.. power plant? Absolutely none of that sequence made any sense to me. I don't actively dislike any of the movie, but it all ends up feeling muddled. Like many sequels, it ends up trying to be more than the original, but somehow ends up being much less. And like many other sequels, this one ends on a cliffhanger.

I really enjoy the idea of this movie franchise. I love the fact it is primarily about women warriors and both movies have been helmed by women. Its comic book born and fantasy driven (swords & guns), which puts it square in my wheelhouse. There is a whole wide world to explore here, but I do wish they would mete this out carefully, and focus on the characters. These warriors have been around a really long time and that perspective is worth exploring. Petty grievances are human, and these immortals still are, as are failings & frailty, but I prefer these characteristics contribute to the story, not become focal points. 

ReWatch: District 9

2009, Neill Blomkamp (Gran Turismo) -- Amazon

Yup, my love of Neill Blomkamp all started with this movie, which I never wrote about before, and haven't watched in about a decade.

Weird; not a single Blomkamp post from Kent.

I have been doing a lot of rewatching, primarily to combat the "meh" reaction -- if I watch something I know I already enjoy then I will enjoy it again. But also because of the self-imposed, if I watch it, I have to write about it. Too many hiatus-i has added self-imposed weight to that ideal. But with rewatches the self-imposed ideal doesn't always apply. Sure, there is a tag, but that doesn't mean I have to write about every rewatch I do. That path would surely lead to madness.

Nuff self-justification there?

Anywayz, I never wrote about this pre-Blog movie before, likely because I haven't rewatched it a lot in the past 15 years or so. To be honest, I was kind of holding out for the expected sequel. It never happened. After the much maligned Chappie, Blomkamp never seemed to have recovered in the eyes of the public. He did a ton of short films, many via his Oats Studio, and has briefly returned with some outside of (usual) genre flicks. But I am not sure we will ever see the sequel, nor his return to proper robot-propelled scifi. One can hope.

District 9 takes on the format of a semi-mock-umentary, interspersing a news-style story of how low-level bureaucrat Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley, The A-Team) becomes an alien, literally. The movie postulates that in 1982 an alien spacecraft came to settle over Johannesburg, South Africa. Onboard the ship were a horribly treated worker species, and no signs of what happened to the owners/pilots of the craft and why it showed up at Earth. Not sure how to deal with the million plus bug-like aliens, they do what good humans like to do (most notably, more recently, see Gator Gitmo), and relocate the "prawns" to slum shanty towns. Twenty years later, with little to no understanding and no input from the rest of the world, nobody, prawn (the aliens are never actually given a non-pejorative name) or JoBurg resident, is happy with the situation.

The movie begins with van de Merwe assigned to a resettlement action. They are issuing "evictions" to the ramshackle shacks the prawns live in. Most don't understand, many react violently. The humans are armed to the teeth. But one, who goes by the name Christopher Johnson, has been working on something. Obviously smarter than the average prawn, he has a lost shuttle buried under his shack and he has been processing minute amounts of some sort of liquid for the last twenty years. When van de Merwe tears apart his shack, having discovered a ton of mysterious technology, he is sprayed by the liquid. And it begins... changing him. Not immediately, but not long after, he begins his own Kafka story.

District 9 did a brilliant job of mashing together so many ideas. Social satire, actual comedy, body horror and scifi actioner all come together, as van de Merwe tries to desperately find a way to stop what is happening with his body, and also survive the human response to it -- which is almost immediately intended to be fatal. The people in charge here are the Bad Guys. The effects stand up, startingly so, and its easy to be lost in the visuals between the overly-complicated alien bodies and the real world environments. Blomkamp loves his practical effects as well, as the details applied to the alien weaponry is apparent, even right down to the colour schemes chosen. 

After all these years, I am still astounded with how gripping the movie is, how effective the commentary on how inhuman we can be is. In reality, the alien we use to justify horrors doesn't have to be much. And while I still wish there had been a sequel, I am not sure I could ever be satisfied with what would be produced.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Boy Kills World

2023, Mortiz Mohr (feature debut) -- Netflix

Also known as "Bill Kills: Vol 1".

I had this movie downloaded as soon as it became available but then I saw it was coming to Netflix, so I waited. Not sure why I felt the need to share that with you, but why begin editing random thoughts now...

I wanted to know more about the director and the making of this movie, which is is more than a decade since his last IMDB credit, and his first actual feature film. Sure, the Sam Raimi producer credit tells a short story that he impressed someone and after that, a lot more piled on, but other than a pitch short and some cinematics, what has this guy been doing?

Also because of the 10 minutes of research, all I can say is that I am not entirely convinced some of the "critics" actually watched the movie before they wrote their pieces. Do critics assign other people to watch movies and then write a review from the notes of the assignee?

Anywayz, it was a blast, as I knew it would be. Its a weird, wacky, funny, gorey, action-filled revenge flick kinda-sorta-maybe post-apocalypse (I couldn't tell if the towers were ruined and covered in overgrowth, or the society has perfected growing gardens on office towers) with some very VERY impressive fight choreography. Also, appears Bill was using this movie to kick off the uber-ripped bod he wears in The Crow.

The City is ruled by the Van Der Koy family and once a year they show the people of the city that they are the bosses by selecting 12 random "dissidents" and killing them live on TV -- The Culling. Boy's (Bill Skarsgård, It) family, including his younger sister whom he loves dearly, are killed beside him but somehow he survives and is left for dead, only to be found by Shaman (Yayan Ruhian, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum), a martial arts kook hiding in the jungle outside the city. 

In classic rep theatre Hong Kong revenge flick style, Shaman raises Boy to be a killing machine, through a mix of abuse and martial arts training and a little bit of hallucinogenics. Also, Boy is deaf & mute but has an inner monologue that we can hear, a voice (H Jon Benjamin, Bob's Burgers) from his favourite arcade game, you know that voice, the one that shouts "FIGHT!" in all the fighter games, but with much more to say and not always the most reliable narrator. The communication is expertly paired with Boy's looks, nods, facial expressions, etc. Its a delightfully fun gimmick even when its annoying.

The idea is that Now Well Trained Boy will break into the Van Der Koy compound during the latest airing of The Culling and kill them in front of the people of The City. His whole focus is to kill their matriarch Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen, Taken). But while we are seeing Boy's progress towards getting in, we are also seeing a bit of the chaos behind the family. Hilda's sister Melanie (Michelle Dockery, Downton Abbey) is actually running things via her media empire, as Hilda hasn't been seen in a while -- gone a wee bit bonkers, hiding out in her bunker. Hilda's brother Gideon (Brett Gelman, Stranger Things) is just a fop convinced he is writing screenplays/scripts for the farce that is their reign. He writes the words that Melanie's "pretty face" husband Glen (Sharlto Copley, Hardcore Henry; really? he's the 'pretty face' ???) uses to lull the masses -- but Glen's a bit of a fool, a distraction who causes as much trouble as he prevents. Boy's coming for them all.

After accidentally killing Glen, just as he agrees to help them, "You know what, I hate them, they treat me badly, yes YES I will help you... GLUK!" <head squished by a table vice>  Boy ends up teaming with The Resistance, which is made up entirely of Basho and Benny. One of the best bits, which reminds us that Boy is deaf and must be hearing everyone via lip reading, is that Boy cannot understand a word Benny is saying. He is either mumbling terribly through his thick beard or speaking a language Boy doesn't understand. Either way, all "we" hear is a string of nonsense words strung together which Boy cannot exactly communicate he doesn't understand. So, plan Not Understood One Bit but they are off to the Van Der Koy compound!

Oh, I should mention, Boy's little sister has now joined him. His dead little sister who is quite dead, and Boy knows she is dead for she is still the age she was when she was shot down by The Culling, but she can talk to him and he can "talk" back, i.e. have conversations with her via the Voice in his Head. I know, its silly and derivative but I love it, especially when Boy simultaneous acknowledges she cannot be real while diving in front of bullets to "save" her.

Often when writing these posts, I hit this far, sometimes two-thirds, sometimes half, and I wonder can i, should i, continue with the play by play. But I run out of steam...

There are two more battles to be had, the one going in, the one getting out. Getting in is realizing the plan Basho & Benny devised, which Boy apparently enacts without understanding a single word of it ("Dodo buns for turtle bird.") which leads him to a confrontation on the set of the current Culling, a colourful winter themed commercial for a breakfast cereal where box characters kill the "contestants". Boy, Basho and Benny intercede, stopping the event live, as he always planned. Boy kills and kills and kills his way to the elevator down to the bunker where Hilda is.

Now, at this point I should mention that as the movie played along, we constantly were given visions from Boy, fever dreams of his near-death at the hands of the Van Der Koys, his brutal training by Shaman, the deaths of his family. But as the movie progresses we see details change. We see that it was Shaman who deafened him and cut his tongue out. We begin to get the idea that Shaman was not as heroic-revenge-nobility driven as we thought.

Also, there has been an incidental Van Der Koy character, an enforcer named June27 (we know that because the subtitles I had on told me so; Jessica Rothe, Happy Death Day), a lithe gunfu warrior wearing a motorcycle helmet with a display screen where the visor would be, which always has her inner monologue running on it. Its a cute gimmick, but really, its just there so that Boy can be communicated with, as he wouldn't be reading any lips behind a helmet.

I give these two points because of The Reveal. Once we have reached The Bunker, where Boy has no real chance to defeat all the guns & thugs of Hilda we learn the true SPOILERIFIC truth behind it all. Boy's family was never murdered by the Van Der Koys, Shaman never rescued him. The truth is revealed by a single painting of the Van Der Koy family, which includes a young Boy. On a Culling day, it was Shaman's family who was killed, somewhat at the hands of Boy himself. But Shaman survived and stole Boy away, and the torture slash training slash hallucinogenics was all an indoctrination plan so Boy could be sent back to destroy his own family. Hilda tries to welcome Boy, her son, back but... yeah, Boy is torn. He knows the truth but he also knows his own family are horrible monsters. "Kill them all!" Mad Hilda screams when she sees Boy is lost to her.

Buuut that then reveals as I was saying all along -- June27 is Mina, Boy's sister. It was not a ghost running around in a ballerina outfit, talking to Boy; she was really nothing more than a deluded, broken mind trying to provide Boy comfort and direction. Once June27 realizes her mother would kill her son returned, she turns on them. Together they take down Shaman and fight their way out.

One last twisty, turning, gunfu battle scene as they kill the remaining guards to escape the bunker, after having killed Hilda and Shaman. The two get out and return to their Happy Place -- a retro video game arcade where we finally meet the game that gives Boy his voice.

This is a movie that depends on you enjoying a certain number of tropes and genre gimmicks. Unlike something ultra-violent but still accessible, like John Wick, one could admire this movie for its audacity and lunacy, but to truly enjoy it, as I did, I would suspect you have to enjoy most of the elements and style choices. But maybe, even if you didn't, you could engage with the art took to make this movie so surprisingly coherent. A creator had a vision, an intent and it was thoroughly seen through, like Boy's journey to destroy the totalitarian rulers of his City.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Ballerina

2023,  Chung-Hyun Lee (The Call) -- Netflix

The reveng-ening continues.

Not the be confused with the coming John Wick: Ballerina but also to be confused with it. It borrows a lot of style from Wick. Revenge flicks are not high cinema, but they can be elevated... elevating? John Wick definitely did what I wanted standard fare, trope driven movies to do --- do it with style and do something different. It set a bar. But if I am being honest, and when I am ever not here, I am ready for that bar to be moved.... higher? Or even just replaced? Just like there was an era of every movie being compared to / called "the next..." Taken. I am ready for there to be a replacement flick to dominate the action movie trope mindset.

But at least Ballerina picks up that bar and gives me a very different looking & feeling Korean women with guns flick. I have seen a fare share of Korean action & drama & TV, but this one felt unfamiliar in styling to me, almost suggesting it may have picked up some of its visual cues from the romantic genres I don't subscribe to, but are all over my stream services. It just so often looked so very ... pretty. 

Jang Ok-ju (Jeon Jong-seo, The Call) is a violent young woman who built an unexpected friendship with Choi Min-hee (Park Yu-rim, Miraculous Brothers), a young woman hoping to be a ballerina. Ok-ju is the classic character with a violent past, someone likely working as an enforcer for crime syndicates, or as a Rake-style operative for a corporation. With Min-hee she finds what she has been missing -- gentleness, and sweetness. Until she finds Min-hee in a bathtub, a suicide due to shame, shame for being extorted for sexual acts. 

Ok-ju figures out the extortion racket pretty easily. The sex trafficker Choi Pro (Kim Ji-hoon, Rich Family's Son) meets pretty young women in trendy nightclubs, drugs them, shoots videos of them, and then uses the shame of that act, and the threat of sharing it with the world, to extort them into being prostitutes at his syndicate's brothel / love hotel. The younger the girl, the better. You would think this would be a uniquely east Asian concept relying upon a culture's desperate desire to avoid bringing shame to a family, but all you have to do is Google, to find it happening in our back yard.

Ok-ju's revenge plan (pretend to be one of these nightclub girls) works, mostly, and she gravely injures the Choi before being forced to flee, but not before she pulls another girl out of the brothel, a high school aged girl. Now she needs a new plan. She realizes now that Choi's entire gang is out to get her, she needs help, and to be properly armed. The divergence of North American / European crime movies is so apparent here, where she goes back to her old job for help, and is sent to a shady gun dealer, the equivalent to buying guns from the back trunk of a drug dealer's car which we see in all the movies. Except most of his guns are in shit condition. Attaining a gun must require so many layers of bureaucracy in Korea that finding "lost" ones is a challenge. 

Meanwhile Choi has displeased his boss. Not only was his brothel gig on the side, and making him tons of money he kept to himself (explicitly visible via his sports car) but now he has exposed the gang to someone seeking revenge.  Take care of it, or else, is the message he gets from his boss. So he tracks down Ok-ju, but again she escapes. But they take the highschool girl.

Again Ok-ju tracks them down, this time to the entire gang's headquarters, where she completes the final act of ultra-violence these movies rely upon -- the slow, methodical take down of every Bad Guy, starting with the gang's leader. Guns first, dropped when empty of bullets, and then knives and whatever is handy, Ok-ju is a killing machine. Eventually she finds Choi and the girl, who is surprisingly still alive. She subdues the trafficker, and takes him to a beach where she and Min-hee had many carefree hours together. He offers her anything, everything, to stay alive --- she roasts him with a flamethrower., and then his expensive care.

What's with the detailed plot recap? Doesn't strike me as anything out of the expected there?

When I am watching these movies, I am seeking the formula I "enjoy" to play out. I am not bothered by a lack of ingenuity in the story itself. Revenge stories play as revenge stories. But I am looking for something to tie me to it, a visual style, characters that elicit sympathy, an aesthetic that I can admire. I got this in droves here. There is a flair here (and there) that I enjoyed, and it still had an internal continuity and logic that it did not betray. 

For example, when Ok-ju meets Min-hee, the former is dark haired and plain looking, the latter with bleached blonde hair and makeup, a girl who cares about her appearance. But when Min-hee dies, it is she with the dark hair, and Ok-ju sports blonde locks. While the violent girl was coming out her malaise of anger, the ballerina was falling into darkness. Ok-ju has lost her opportunity at peace, normality, gentleness. 

Not sure you answered my question.

Yeah, well live with it. Something about the tale demanded a retelling.

Alt Media: Far Cry 6

2021, Ubisoft

This was a replay, as the last one was. Sometimes I just want to shoot bad guys... 

Unlike all the previous games in this serious, you are not given the choice -- the Bad Guy is a monster and you acknowledge it down to the last second. But, you also have to acknowledge that you also are one. But isn't every main character in video games that has to slay hundreds if not thousands of people?

The island of Yara, Cuba analog but with a Spanish-background dictator ala the Reagan era action movies in tropical places. He is the son of the last dictator deposed in the 60s revolution. A few years before the game takes place, the son Antón Castillo is democratically elected and soon after, his Yara becomes more like the one his father ran: a rift between the Outcasts and the True Yarans, disappearances, conscripted work in the country's tobacco fields, an overreaching military present in all aspects of life, etc, etc, You are Dani Rohas ("fútbol is life") who are initially trying to escape the island but watch Castillo kill everyone onboard the boat, except his own 13 year old son who was trying to escape as well.

Dani is now forced into a role in the revolution. They (you can play either gender) are themselves ex-Castillo military, an antisocial natural killer who was ousted for assaulting an officer. They are the perfect pawn for the leader of the revolution -- Clara Garcia, and her supporter, Juan Cortez, a classic Far Cry sociopath trained by the Americans and sporting a manifesto on how revolutions are to be fought. And a knack for kludge-ing together fantastical weapons. Dani is tasked with meeting and uniting three diverse factions of anti-Castillo forces, because only united under Clara can Yara hope to be free.

The tropes of the franchise are present. Castillo has invented Viviro, a wonder drug, said to all but halt cancer. He intends to sell it to the world, so Yara can enter the First World as a saviour. The drug is "grown" in Yaran tobacco, which is fumigated with a bright red gas that encourages the Viviro to form within the plant. The gas is also a poison and a hallucinogen. Castillo conscripts people to work his fields. 

The islands are covered with military bases and outposts, which you are expected to liberate and bring to the revolutionary cause. They are also littered with poverty stricken villages and the dead his soldiers leave behind as they intimidate, murder and torture indiscriminately. 

As you progress your legend grows, one of skilled and ruthless killing and more than once you are called out for being as much a monster as Castillo. You don't deny it. But you are not heartless, for a number of key points in the story, you are presented with chances to kill Castillo's son, but you don't. He is only a boy, and still has a chance to learn right from wrong, to not become his father, and not become  you. 

Castillo is a classic dictator, convinced he is doing the best thing possible for his country despite racking up countless dead as he strives for "progress". His propaganda machine is everywhere, his speeches constantly play from speakers and radios. His key allies are his psychotic generals, scientists, public security minister, PR manager, and an amoral "yanqui" investor, a Trump analog who happens to be Canadian.

Of course, the game is beautiful. The tropical island, with a number of ecosystems, is lush and vibrant, full of animals (which you can hunt for resources) but it is also decrepit and shows its poverty stricken state. The radio is playing a wide variety of Latino music, from Mexican traditionals, to Cuban rap, to folk songs, Caribbean dance music, to Ricky Martin, Camila Cabello and Pitbull. You can listen here. By mid-way, I was humming along, while my character would actually sing along to the radio.

Unlike previous games, you know there is no point to thinking Castillo might have a point. Oh sure, he might have a cancer wonder drug, but you know these games, you know their misdirection, you know he is playing a shell game, and while it delayed his own cancer, by the end of the, the ravages show on his face. Not even he can lie about his own failures. He leaves only ruin, and death, and thousands of dead bodies at your hands.

Why do I play these? Because I like action movies, I have nostalgic recollections of the simplistic plots of the 80s, and sometimes, after a rough day at work, I just need to shoot someone.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Civil War

2024, Alex Garland (Annihilation) -- cinema

The post was started right after we saw it.

Ugh, my stomach still hurts. This movie had me anxiety ridden from almost the first moment. As a man who watches a lot of violent media, often as comfort food, and plays very violent video games, often as a relaxation mechanism, I was rather surprised how I reacted to the constant anticipation of very realistic violence, to something that seemed plausible. It was not a pleasant feeling.

And I believe that was the point of the movie.

One of them?

America is at war, with itself. Not the metaphorical version we are IRL, but a civil war. Texas and California have seceded, Florida breaks away (allies? on its own?) and the rest of the US is at war with them. It is not an isolated war, not one with clear lines. It is everywhere and everyone is affected. Who are the Bad Guys? Who are the Good Guys? This movie is not here to answer that for you.

You're ALL the Bad Guys, even the quiet motherfuckers who just sit quietly by and watch all this shit go down !!!

Lee (Kirsten Dunst, Bring it On) and Joel (Wagner Moura, Elysium) are war correspondents, journalists covering the war in their own country. They don't take sides, they just go where the action is and report on it, Lee with her camera and ... Joel writes? They are in NYC, suffering water shortages, brownouts and suicide bombers, but they want to get to Washington, DC to interview POTUS (Nick Offerman, The Last of Us). Despite the President's rhetoric, this seems to be the final days of him being in office. They want that story.

Tagging along is Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson, Dune): veteran reporter, old, overweight, walking with a cane, and Jessie (Cailee Spaeny, Priscilla): in her early 20s, but looks much younger, and softer and very very naive. The movie opens with Lee saving her from a bombing. But Jessie wants to be a war photographer like Lee, her hero, with her vintage film cameras and know-nothing attitude.

Its about a 1000 miles from NYC to DC by way of older highways and back country roads, because the interstates have been destroyed. A thousand miles of unknown danger. Their trucked labelled with PRESS and their badges are only expected to protect them so much. And in DC, "they shoot journalists on sight."

I am not sure if it was the anticipation, like I mention above, or recent latent anxiety I have been supressing of late, but it was tangible to me, the ache in my gut. In a lesser movie, the chosen music, style of filming, the mannerisms of the characters, would have set this journey as an adventure, instead of an ordeal to be survived. But here we get well-built characters: Lee, the world-weary photographer with the same name as another famous war photographer who suffered extreme PTSD after her WWII experiences, and Joel, seemingly unphased by it all, drinking, smoking, hitting on much younger women, and Sammy, who is tired of taking chances, and knows its all bullshit. And Jessie, young, scared, but very much assured this is the life she wants, hero-worshipping Lee and her namesake, not afraid to push past her fear to take the shot, but also so prone to stupid stupid moves. 

I feel I was aligned with Lee: she was upset at her own country doing what she had spent her entire career trying to caution them from doing, she was tired of atrocities, tired of scary little boys with big guns, and the people in power who just let it happen. She's doing what has to be done, but looks for the quiet moments, instead of finding herself in the key centre of action. Until that becomes impossible for her.

Part of what elicited the anxiety, extracting itself once again from lesser movies, was the sound design. From that first boom of the suicide bomber's explosion, which is less the familiar boiling rumble, and more the sound of a sledgehammer, to the sharp, angry retorts of gunfire, to the deafening din of helicopters at the staging ground, this was not your average action flick. These are the sounds that make you cringe, startle, not feel adrenaline and excitement.

What is Garland saying in this movie? Its obvious, and its not obvious. For those who walked out of the movie because its not the exciting, travelogue action movie of some of the deceptive marketing done for the movie, the clear cut "look at Americans doing right by their country, doing The Right Thing" is not there. Oh, there are hints of a side being chosen here, in that we hear about "the Antifa Massacre" and wonder what was so horrendous that it inspired Texas and California to ally against DC, but for the most part, we don't even know what side the soldiers we meet are one. When the journalists come across a battle between a small cadre of uniformed soldiers holed up in a university, while a handful of irregular looking, civilian clothing wearing, soldiers hunt them down, which side is which? Are the uniforms members of the Western Front and the un-uniformeds fearless locals defending their home? Or are the uniforms the standing army of the US while the un-uniformeds are just those who picked up arms to help fight the civil war? We see war crimes from "both sides" but most often, we don't have a fucking clue which side is which. Again, scary little boys (and girls) with big guns getting the opportunity to shoot at each other. Like Kent mentioned as we walked away, a strong comment in this movie is about the US being a country with a lot of guns, and its just itching to use them, on anyone, including each other.

The movie ends as the civil war is brought to an end, by an action we have seen in a couple of other movies, with the White House invaded. Where those movies were about the invading forces being very clear Bad Guys, and the brave men & women within the White House were defending America, this movie steps sideways, and this act seems more like a street action from any other war movie. But again, more visceral, more scary. The handful of secret service people and supporters are defending against a large force of heavily armed, highly trained soldiers. It also ends with Jessie becoming who she wants to be, getting the award winning shot that will be on the cover of Time Magazine, but at a cost she probably won't understand until she is Lee's age.

I liked this movie, a lot. It dragged me out of my usual comfort zone, or more accurately heightened my already severe discomfort zone? It made me feel things, for reasons more than my usual work drama. Unfortunately, all it left me was feeling bleak. I don't see the movie as much of an exaggeration of the US situation. The possibility of Americans killing Americans, almost gleefully, seems very real. And scary AF.

Kent: We Agree.

I really dislike most of the posters for this movie, not because they aren't evocative, but because most are deceptive. The movie doesn't take place there, that is not really what the movie depicted. And that's not even mentioning the incredibly terrible AI generated posters highlighting major American landmarks being destroyed.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Freelance

2023, Pierre Morel (Banlieue 13) - Netflix

"I am in the mood for something dumb," I said as she queries why I have clicked on this. I have said this enough that it could probably become a tag. But as the credits opened, I saw Morel's name and I also thought, "Wait, don't we like Morel?" We do. I have written about a number of his movies here, but strangely enough, no post for Taken, not even a rewatch.

Another tag thought occurred the other day, wherein I rewatch all the movies I have previously commented on or questioned, "Why don't I have a post for _______." But at the same time I am saying, "Why look for an excuse to rewatch when you have hundreds on your to-be-watched list?"

Also, "clicked" ? Is there a better term for what you do when you press a button on a remote control that activates an icon on a smart TV ? Essentially the remote is the mouse for the TV...

I am not entirely favourable in my write-ups of Morel but I guess they are the dumb movies I am looking for at the moment. BUT there were shades of a decent movie in here, but were over-shadowed by the pablum-ization required to make this a mid-range hit in America? Hit is stretching it, but if Uwe Boll made a career out of making movies purely for the in-flight movie market, then making movies purely for the "short theatre run + streaming" is a business model... I guess?

Mason Pettits (John Cena, Peacemaker; [also, #IYKYK]) was a lawyer who hated being a lawyer so quit to become an Army Special Forces soldier. Weird pivot but if you look like John Cena, sure why not. He finds purpose, finds happiness (happy killing people, sure why not) until a failed mission kills a bunch of his squad mates and fucks up his back. So, back to the lawyer career, family, house in the suburbs; unhappiness.

Until his old Army commander Sebastian Earle (Christian Slater, Mr. Robot)  calls him. Just seeing Slater on the screen, in this role, I predicted, "This is the man who will betray him." Earle offers him an easy protection job -- escorting discredited reporter Claire Wellington who is seeking career resurrection through an interview with south-of-America dictator, Juan Venegas. Based on depicted maps, I still couldn't tell if the fictional country was in South America or Central America, but it was your classic pseudo-Latin, semi-tropical country run by a foppish, brash, charismatic dictator. And Venegas just happened to be subject of Pettits failed mission.

Duh duh duh duhhhhh....

Of course, ten minutes after arriving in the country, they are ambushed by rebels during a coup / assassination attempt and Pettits has to defend the man he hates, technically protecting Claire, killing all the Bad Guys. Good Guys? If this is an Evil Dictator, wouldn't his enemies be the Good Guys? And that's the crux of the movie. As Pettits tries to lead Claire to a safer place, with the dictator tagging along, we learn he isn't such a bad guy. I guess, at first, he was happy that foreign interference could prop up his government, giving him full control, while exploiting all the country's resources, but eventually he realized he did want to protect "his people" and started manipulating the situation. He knew that if he betrayed his exploiters directly, he would just be replaced by another puppet leader, so instead  he stuck around to build a charade, doing their bidding but also helping the "rebels" and helping his people as much as he could. The interview was supposed to be the point where he would reveal that to the world, and begin turning things around, while the eyes of the world protected him from further interference.

That was the shade of the decent movie -- a decent, fun plot. Alas, it was mired in a boring, run-of-the-mill chase & shoot-em-up. And so many dumb scenes. Dumb dumb dumb. At points I wondered whether I was watching a video game adaptation, tossing me back into memories of Uwe Boll. One weird quirk, which almost derailed my brain, my sense of confidence in reading movies such as this, was that Earle didn't betray him, but even the depicted plot wanted to make you think he did. It was a prime thread to the story that probably got lost in edits and re-writes, a send-up of our expectations.  Maybe Purple Suit interference?

But I guess I got what I wanted?

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Beekeeper

2024, David Ayer (Suicide Squad) -- download 

The Bee Keeper and the Brick Layer walk into a bar....

This one, typical of the kind of movie I rush to download now, that That Guy of my youth would have sneered at. Despite my comments prior, I did not waste my youth only watching terrible movies. To have found the quality actioner among the dross was a challenge, endlessly reading reviews and the backs of VHS boxes. But as I got older, I tempered, reduced my desire to be challenged all the time. Sometimes, and more often than not now, I just want familiarity, a digestible plot, the same brain chemistry release I get when I play FPS video games. Oh, I want some semblance of capability, as if all I wanted was the concept, there are endless number of Z-grades on Amazon and Tubi. 

Yes, I know I have said that umpteen times but I still catch myself wondering why Toasty Now actually looks forward to movies that Toast Then (aka That Guy) would have sneered at.

David Ayer doesn't have a great track record in my world (actually no, scratch that dude. other than Suicide Squad, you rather like his work), but TBH I didn't even know he did the movie till I clicked Start. What I knew going in was that this was seminal Jason Statham, who is still in his prime Action Hero role for at least a decade, before he gets relegated to my other favourite (one of) genre of Aging Shooter. Here, he is a retired.... agent... of an organization called The Beekeepers, Ayer's version of Vaughn's "The Kingsmen", except there only seems to be one Beekeeper at any one time, a legendarily capable soldier for America, who stands aside from the politics and the laws to always set things right.

Statham is the same age as me, i.e. we are both turning 57 this year. On one hand, he is very very VERY much in better shape for a guy our age, than  I am. On the other hand, he or his purple suit, were very concerned about his "greying" as he has the most obviously dyed beard. People have asked me if I have ever thought about dying my facial hair as my head-hair is still mostly sans grey, but after seeing how blatant his was, and he doesn't even have any head-hair, I am secure being (more) salt & pepper.

Adam Clay (Statham, Parker) is quiet in his retirement as he... well, keeps bees. That is, until Evil Scammers scam the Old Lady (Phylicia Rashad, The Cosby Show) he rents bee space from, stealing from her not only her own money, but the money from the charity she runs. In response, he uses his old Bee Keeper contacts to blow the Evil Scammer callcentre up, which strangely enough, is not in a foreign country, but in midwest US of A, and looks like the set of a 90s hacker movie, replete with tacky clothing and annoying personalities, all the while spitting out an endless litany of bee knowledge. Meanwhile the Old Lady's daughter (Emmy Raver-Lampman, The Umbrella Academy), a member of law enforecement who happens to have been trying to take down these Evil Scammers, follows Clay from blowed-up-place to blowed-up-place. MEANWHILE, the Top Evil Scammer (Josh Hutcherson, The Hunger Games) happens to be a pampered rich boy who uses his pampered rich mom's contacts (Jeremy Irons, Dungeons & Dragons [not that one]) to find out who is blowing up his call centres, leading to a John Wick "oh" moment, when they discover Clay was a Bee Keeper.

For the most part, the movie is an unremarkable, familiar action movie, paced as well as expected, with a slight twist that is more of an eye roll. It introduces an an interesting John Wick-ian organization, but never really does anything with it. So.... pretty much as I expected / sought out?

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Extraction 2

2023, Sam Hargrave (Extraction) - Netflix

I really should have published this post directly after publishing the Atomic Blonde one, when it chronologically meant something and I remembered more about it, but here we are. As we often are.

I was really looking forward to this sequel, actually hinging on that final scene in the first movie where we see a blurry image of Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth, Ghostbusters) on the edge of swimming pool, seemingly returning to connect with Ovi, the boy who's life he saved, after miraculously surviving the kill shot on the bridge.

Alas, this sequel forgets all about that scene and picks almost immediately after the fall from the bridge. Instead of proceeding from the above scene, which was 8 months later, we visit those months of recovery and self-doubt and recuperation after they pull him from the river, isolated in a cabin in rural Austria (It's almost like someone made a typo in the script, and instead of him returning to his cabin in rural Australia, he ends up here. "But Mr. Hargrave, we already have the winter cabin by the lake built and all the production staff hired!!").

Rake is a bit of a whiney boy (or Sad Action Hero, as the trope calls it) who requires external validation that he is needed, before finding motivation. In the first, he had his best friend and handler Nikki Khan (Golshifteh Farahani, The Night Eats the World) pull him into a job to save a boy, a reflection on the son he couldn't save. This time he is approached to save his sister-in-law, and her children, from the prison where they are kept with her crime boss husband, in Georgia - the country not the American state. This request comes via a mysterious handler Alcott (Idris Elba, Luther) at the behest of Rake's ex-wife Mia (Olga Kurylenko, Quantum of Solace). It works and gets Rake off his crutches and out into the Austrian cold for a work-out recovery montage.

That bit, Elba's character, is kind of out place, but I guess he is still just happy with collecting a paycheck from playing tertiary characters? The role seems more one of those Doing a Friend a Favour roles than anything. Reminds me of his toss-away role in the Ghost Rider movie.

The remainder of the movie can be broken down into the three major action sequences. The first, the actual extraction from the prison in Georgia, is the selling point, the (now) signature Hargrave stitched-together "single-take" chase from a prison to a train to an industrial complex in a forest. The next moves us to an Austrian skyscraper, and the final, a church in Georgia. I don't really have anything to say about this particular movie's plot but comment on the sequences, especially the first, which was just another of Hargrave's experiments on singular flows of continuity, which is obviously why the Russo Bros (producers) chose him for these movies. They are beautiful ballets of ultra-violence, a playground for the action-figure character of Rake to move through. There are prison yard riots, gauntlet runs through tunnels, a train fight and a vehicle chase through a blue-tinted forest, as Hargrave chases the violence around with a camera strapped to his chest, swinging in, around, over and often through the shots.

The plot, as if it mattered, loses a bit in comparison to the first, by expanding scope. I usually prefer my romps in ultra-violence contained to a few players (Wick being the exception), and by expanding Rake's extraction to a greater team of disposable black-suited support, who slowly diminish, we are supposed to understand the greater import to it all... or is it just more people to be shot/blown-up by the countless black-suited henchfolk on the Bad Guy's side? 

I want to see a movie that shows us the recruiting & training company for these black-suited henchfolk. I know it was been explored in comics and animation, but a proper movie that sets up a counter-organization to all these well-funded mercenary outfits and espionage agencies, providing semi-well-trained soldiers prepared to die for whatever megalomanic needs to hire them.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not; Definitely Not): John Wick: Chapter 4

2023, Chad Stahelski (John Wick) -- download

I need to rewatch this again, so I can get past marveling at all the colours and the utter beautiful brightness of it all, and see if I enjoyed the story. At least, at this point, I do recall enjoying it enough to not be in the state the third one left me upon initial viewing. I enjoyed this immensely and it worked really hard to expand further upon the world and sum up the consequences of all John's actions. Alas, not sure it succeeded at that.

Instead of rewatching this, I have been plowing through the full arsenal of violent movies that have connective tissue of some sort: Nobody, Kate, Gemini Man, The Old Guard, etc. I should probably do a single ReWatch post about it, my continued return to "comfortable" violence, but I am sure that conversation is best left between me and my diary, or fictional therapist.

When Last We Left Our Intrepid Hero (Keanu Reeves, Constantine) he had been thrown off a roof. Bounce bounce bonk, THUD. He was not dead and was wheeled away by The Bowery. But The Continental management was absolved of their crimes and Winston was back in charge. 

Bzzzzzzt. The High Table changed their mind. You see, they know John is alive, because he has been trying to kill the head of the snake, by shooting the current Elder, but the snake is a Hydra, and in retribution, the High Table allows the Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård, It) free reign to enact punishment. He begins by blowing up the NYC Continental, killing Charon (Lance Reddick, Fringe; rest easy my good man, we lost you too soon), leaving Winston (Ian McShane, Lovejoy) to suffer the consequences of his obviously duplicitous actions. And thusly, John has a new fop with unlimited resources to kill.

Of note, despite not seeing this in The Cinema, I did purloin a rather grand looking 4K copy of the movie and, BIGAWDS this movie is beautiful looking! So much colour! So much LIGHT! Those crepuscular rays over NYC in the opening scenes are 'lobby of hotel still photography' level gorgeous. And it just continues! So many shots, are intentionally held still for a moment, so we can just... partake.

Also, not related to the beauty & lighting, is the realization, as I rewatch, that John's actions, from the very beginning are all very intentional, with an End Goal in mind. But also, dude, how did you not know that these "unintentional consequences" were a possibility? John really has his head up his ass when it comes to his "friends".

And finally, of note, I did ReWatch this.

The Marquis is an utter douche, a pompous, grand-standing sociopath intent not only on killing John Wick, but killing the idea of John Wick. And he kind of has a valid point. John, and Winston's lackadaisical reaction to John's shooting of a Table member inside The Continental is what spins off the latter three movies. They think they can "technicality" away all that John has done against The Table. The Marquis represents the futility of that.

Next up Osaka, the Continental Osaka. John again hides out with an old friend Shimazu (Hiroyuki Sanada, Ring), with his daughter, and also concierge, Akira (popstar Rina Sawarama) rightfully confronting him of the likely costs of allowing such. But men like Shimazu and John, and I should also mention Caine, the blind assassin who also thought he Was Out until The Marquis brought him back in to kill John, well these men are old and loyal friends. Shimazu does what he believes in and Caine is doing all he can to protect his daughter because he knows The Marquis has full dispensation to do whatever the fuck he wants to do, to bring down John and all his "rebellion" entails.

Again, colour and light. Again the ballet of violence but also with sword and bow. The fancy bullet-proof, but fully flexible suit given to John in a previous episode is now the norm as all of The Marquis' men wear it, giving us the clink-clink of each bullet striking them. Doesn't stop an arrow or sword though. John is very aware of the consequences he brings upon others, but... well, he doesn't seem to care. He is on a path, not one of his own making (blame that on the Russian family in NYC), but also one he has to end no matter the cost.

I also loved loved the oni soldiers in their bullet-proof armour requiring shots to throat and knee and eyes to complete kill shots, but sure, a few dozen bullets in the chest will delay them for a moment, allowing John to catch a breath and take them down gradually. At some point The Table is going to run out of hench-folk even in this world where every second person is under it.

From Japan where John loses a friend, to another friend, he realizes that there is only one solution to defeat The Marquis. The old rules. A Duel. The Marquis may be choosing to take down John because he keeps on invoking "technicalities" but even he cannot ignore the old edicts of The High Table.

"Rules. Without them, we live with the animals."

But before John can present such a challenge, he has to be part of a Family. But remember, he already gave that up to get out of NYC in the previous movie. Sooooo, how can he go crawling back to said Rus family? Off to Berlin to talk to his Uncle, the head. BUT because of John's previous actions, a thug was sent to kill John's Uncle. The Family won't even listen to his entreaty unless he avenges said Uncle. So off to a Berlin night club to kill the Killa.

"I am Klaus."

Fuck, I hate that. Sure, its a wonderful homage to Groot, presented by actual Berlin DJ and personality Sven Marquardt, but fuuuuuuuck its cheesy and soooo out of place.

So, club fight, because there has to be a club fight. I don't begrudge the Wickian desire to repeat familiarities anymore. The movies have their forms, their tropes and their expectations and its all about fulfilling them, sometimes trying to exceed them. The build up to this fight, getting some of the players at the table (pun intended) is better than the fight. As Kent pointed out, some of the best acting comes from second-rate actor & action star Scott Adkins, mostly known for his Accident Man movie(s) and similarly themed B and C grade actioners. He is basically unrecognizable beneath the fat suit, until he starts high-kicking. But as Killa he steals the scene with his cheesy accent and theatrics. The scene also finally, properly establishes The Tracker (Shamier Anderson, Wynonna Earp) as one of the main characters of this movie, not just another Table thug seeking a payout. His relaxed, no suits look & feel are a breath of unfettered air in this franchise.

John wins, kills the Killa, brands his arm (as Marmy pointed out, he should have had to lift the urn with both arms, branding both) and is now properly back in the family fold, ready to be presented for his duel challenge. They do so at a promenade in front of the Eiffel Tower, playing a Animal Crossing style card game (high number wins) to choose the particulars of the duel. Those glass stylized cards are just beautiful. The Marquis thinks he's being soooo clever having Caine as his proxy and Winston even surprises John by mixing his own terms into the agreement -- if John wins, he once again goes free, while NYC gets its Continental back. The duel will be at dawn, at a high point in Paris. But John has to get there first.

I am not all that fond of this sequence, as John has to fight his way from point A to B, constantly harried by all the other assassins in the JWU, coaxed onward by a... radio DJ (??!?) and terrible music choices. The movies require a car scene, and this it, but instead of just destroying John's car (they do) they also play Rocket League with John as the ball. John is knocked down constantly, hit by cars and car windshields, but always getting up, not even relying upon a nod-to-Max Payne bottle of pills anymore, just... always getting back up. The bystanders of Paris might not be actually standing by, but they are driving by, mixed into the fight without collateral damage.

This sequence leads to an abandoned, being reno'd building at the foot of the stairs leading up to Sacre Coeur, where the duel will happen. The set is seen from overhead, the ceiling shaved off, as they do another nod-to-video-games sequence, moving from room to room, shooting "dragon fire" rounds, lighting shit on fire, killing a lot of French men in baseball caps and khaki jackets. The Tracker has finally stepped again from the shadows, having frustrated The Marquis into putting up the bounty price he wants, but that win is quickly dashed when John protects his "puppy". Seemingly having borrowed a dog from Sofia's (Halle Berry, Cat Women) pack, Tracker is verrrrry protective of his dog. And John likes dogs, so then, Tracker likes John.

And next, the Fight Up the Stairs. By now its very apparent that John is tired, bruised and moving much more slowly. I like to think of this as us seeing that Keanu is just not really up to all this movement as he once was, being an Old Feller like me. He looks creaky, shambling up each flight, swaying back n forth, shooting, dodging, rolling, flipping, killing. We know what's going to happen, as he gets to the top and is kicked off the top stair by The Marquis' key thug Chidi (Marko Zaror, The Defenders). He rolls and rolls and rolls and bounces all the way back down, like he was a participant in those rolling cheese competitions that has lost his footing on their way down the mountain. But at the bottom, Caine comes back into the fray, knowing that if he kills John, he goes free, but not if one of these Parisian nobodies does. Sooooo back up the stairs with some help from Caine's gun, sword and pencil.

Conclusion. The Duel (it gets capitalized this time) at a high point in the city, looking at the sun come up over the horizon. Once again so beautiful. Pistol duels are so so weird. Single shot, archaic, fancy looking pistols. Begin at 30 paces, shoot, get wounded, walk closer, shoot again. We have forgotten to be amused by the idea of a blind man participating in a duel. And with only minimal misdirection all the parties at play engineer the death of The Marquis, even to the visible satisfaction of The Harbinger (Clancy Brown, The Highlander), the arbiter of The Table's rulings and Not a Big Fan of The Marquis.

John has won. Caine has even won. Winston has won. Its done, Its over. Its the fourth movie. And alllll the foreshadowing so very very obvious in a rewatching of the movie comes into play. John is doing his final dance, has worked it out so it happens this way, but has gone out his own way. Finally he succumbs to his wounds. FINALLY, he is laid to rest next to Helen. They can be together.

So, then. The series in its current form has ended. Oh we know well that John could be alive, that he could be living a life unfettered by The Table, having faked his death so as to not have a constant parade of upstarts wishing to annoy him. But I like to think he is dead, properly dead, and resting. Finally. The franchise can continue with other characters, like The Continental prequel series or maybe starting another quadrology with The Tracker? Maybe with time. But please, give us some rest first. Those stairs were a bitch.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Mother

2023, Niki Caro (Whale Rider) -- Netflix

What does it say about my personality that I make an effort (and even tag it, you doofus) to watch action movies focused on Women With Guns? I really cannot feel that bad considering there is already an established trope along the same lines. But wherein I usually dislike most of its male oriented genre, I do tend to see most in this category, even the ones I know will be less than stellar. Do they make more of an effort with the female helmed properties? Maybe? Not likely? Or maybe I should stop dissecting it, and just enjoy what I enjoy.

Also, why do you have to start pretty much every WWG post with a dissection of the tag? "Do I?" you ask? Well... click through the above tag and you will see, I don't. So, mnneyyyahhh.

So, directed by Niki Caro from a screenplay (and story) by Misha Green, mostly known as showrunner for Lovecraft Country, the movie tells a typical tale of a retired assassin who is drawn out of her isolation, back to her old, more violent life. But it begins before that, in a safe house where she is being harangued by FBI agents tasked with protecting her. She relates her recent past from military sniper to enforcer for arms dealers, a typical story of a killer who cannot come back to "the real world", but she abandons it all when she finds they are smuggling people as well as guns. Unfortunately her partners find her, kill all the FBI agents (but one), so she has to make her own safety in Alaska. Buuut before that, she has her baby, a baby fathered by one of her violent partners, but she doesn't know which one, and that is important because it doesn't matter; the child is hers not theirs. BUT she cannot take the child into hiding, so they fake its death and she tasks the surviving FBI agent with her child's protection. And then she leaves.

Of note, she makes use of that magical portal that transports people in stolen vehicles from one US border to the next, conveniently bypassing Canada altogether.

Years and years later. The FBI agent protecting the assassin's daughter has discovered evidence that the arms dealers are aware of the daughter, so she comes out of hiding to protect her daughter. Act two ends up with her rescuing the girl from her captors and secreting her away back to Alaska, the one place she now knows she can protect the girl. And then the Bad Guys come for them.

Despite my unbalanced paragraphs, things do happen, interesting things where we get to see Lopez being all badass despite her age. Despite her age. I hate how that has to be a thing because its not at all apparent. She's over 50, and while not in the ageless zone of Tom Cruise, there is no denying her athleticism. Men seem to be allowed to begin their action careers after 50 -- Liam Neeson was mid-50s when he did Taken and that was not yet part of his aging men of violence era. But let's hand wave all this consideration away and just say she does come across as convincing, even as the sociopath her character is meant to be. 

But the crux of the film, that she has no character name, just The Mother, is the female aspect of it ("female aspect of it" ?? CRINGE), one that was intentional, and while not the experience of all women, is something that must be unique to women (which is honestly coming from a male who has no desire to child bearing). If Neeson's Bryan Mills was protecting his daughter because he could, and because he had failed her so often before, The Mother is compelled because of motherhood. Or that is the implication. Whether it be biology or ritual or societal convention, that is what is portrayed in her, the mother lioness that will do anything to protect her young, even die. But was it successful in that depiction? Was it different than any other aging assassin protecting a weaker person? Other than a few teary scenes, I am not sure. Maybe I have to subscribe more to the societal convention to see the weight this movie wants to portray? In the end, I think I just ended up with a middling to lower-middling action thriller to add to The Tag.

3-2-1: John Wick: Chapter 4

 2023, d. Chad Stahelski - in theatre

The What 100:
John Wick continues his reign of vengeance against The Table, his friends fewer and fewer while the price on his head goes higher and higher. The Marquis de Gramont has his mission from The Table: kill John Wick and punish anyone who helps him.  John Wick brings with him ruin wherever he goes, and, he is told, his only way out is death...until another option is presented to him....
Or.
170 minutes of relentless, impossible violence.

3-2-1

3 BAD: (1) JW, superhero. John "Baba Yaga" Wick is a total cartoon character at this point. He can survive pretty much anything and keep going, seemingly finding another gear, and another, and another until he's on, like, gear 18 by the end of this journey.  In one sequence, JW is hit by cars at least four times, and not slow moving vehicles either. Where other men are out of the game with one strike, Wick gets up and keeps on fighting, and fighting, and fighting. Without some sort of superpower or supernatural explanation, it stretches credulity. In a later scene (still only a few minutes after being hit by multiple cars in story time) JW jumps out a fourth story window and bounces off the edge of a van parked below, hitting the pavement hard. He not only survives, but gets up and walks away, pained, but not many-broken-ribs pained, or coughing-up-blood-from-a-punctured-lung pained. I wasn't giving up on the action and adventure after these (or many other points) but I had an audible "yeah, right!" reaction so often in this movie. And that's not to mention all the bullets JW's taking.

(2) Bulletproof.  The bulletproof suit was introduced in the Chapter 2, so it's one of the conceits of the series, so that doesn't really bother me. But there is still a logic factor to it...even if a bullet doesn't pass through into the flesh, all that energy that it has heading into the suit has to go somewhere and it will be felt by the wearer. Bruises and cracked or broken bones. It's going to severely injure someone, and you'll be feeling it for days if not more. Not John Wick though. Where others JW goes up against kind of get pinned down by the repeated shots, JW just keeps moving.  It's a consistency thing.

In relaying the film's features and follies to the wife, I noted that the film runs 170 minutes because seemingly everyone is wearing bulletproof suits, so my real problem with them is it takes forever for John Wick to kill anyone. The fight scenes are long, and the longer they go on the more monotonous they start to get, the more I want the film to move on to something else.

(3) A video game world. The world of John Wick is comprised of 95% assassins and murderers and people who work for The Table. There are so few people in this world outside of them, and none of them, except for John Wick's dead wife or Caine's (Donnie Yen) daughter.  At one point, JW is having an all out brawl with goons and a boss-level baddie in a sprawling bunker of a rave club. It's jam packed with people, and John is burying axes in people's heads or shooting people, and the by-dancers (as opposed to bystanders) don't seem to notice. The fight goes on for many minutes before people start to flee the scene. They're digital noise, in a way, like the backdrop of a Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter game. They're not real people, they don't really even exist, they're just part of the setting.

It's the same when JW is fighting seemingly every mercenary in Paris in the roundabout of the Arc de Triomphe. There are cars and vehicles driven by non-enemy players, but do we see them? Do they matter? When someone slams into a vehicle does it seem like anyone is even driving it? Not so much. There's almost a point to Stahelski not including any collateral damage in the film. He doesn't want the audience, at any point to be taken out of the underworld that the fighters exist in, and one simple death of a bystander would blow the whole thing up.  And the dead bodies that should pile up, seem to disappear when the camera pans away.

John Wick is a video game world. JW is the player character, he has levels to go through, and bosses to beat, and between levels, there are the story cut scenes. It does all this pretty well, but I'm not a gamer, this isn't my language, so it all feels somewhat hollow.

2 GREAT: (1) Scott Adkins' Killa Harkan. I used to really detest Keanu as an actor. "The little wooden boy" I would call him. I would watch films he starred in despite his presence, not because of. In the John Wick series, I have to give him full credit...he has real presence, and a commendable physical acumen. But 4 out of every 5 line deliveries I'm asking "that's the take you're going with?" It's like he doesn't quite understand what the words coming out of his mouth mean, an alien of some kind, detached from common communication. It doesn't matter what language he's speaking (and he speaks a few in this one) the line readings are all very, very awkward.

So that's why they have some phenomenal character actors in this beast. We'll get to Donnie Yen and Bill Skarsgård in a moment, but the absolute standout player in this is B-movie action star Scott Adkins. I don't really know Adkins' work, I just know of him. I've heard talk of many of the lower-budget, direct-to-video/on demand he stars in being elevated by his presence, and his fighting / stunt coordination skills. But here, in John Wick: Chapter 4, Adkins delivers a performance. It's scenery masticating with capital "A" Acting! Adkins is a big guy to begin with but here he's got prosthetic on both his face and body to pad him out into not just a burly man, but the burliest. I think of the comic book character Kingpin who is always well tailored but is just drawn like a stone wall covered in fabric. Inside Killa, Adkins has a chin that disappears into his neck, three gold fronts in his mouth, and a playful German accent that doesn't quite hold water. Adkins sits across a table from Reeves, Yen, and Shamier Anderson, all three who can hold the screen, and he dominates them with his devious congeniality. I think of big, cartoonish, in-makeup roles like Al Pachino's Flat Top in Dick Tracy or Colin Farrell as the Penguin in The Batman. This is the best performance in the movie.  And when the big man finally gets into the fight, he's not a pushover, he's every bit that wall of fabric that the Kingpin is, but far more agile, unexpectedly delivering patented Adkins high kicks. 

(2) Donnie Yen. What a great presence Donnie Yen is. Is it any wonder that the film seems to take its leave

of John Wick for, like, a ten minute stretch and just let Donnie Yen's blind master, Caine, take the scene. The first act is almost more Yen's than Reeve's and all the warmth and charm that John Wick doesn't have can be found in Yen's performance.  Caine is, ostensibly, the second lead of the film.  He is also a man with a reason to kill.  He's been set upon John Wick by the Marquis, his daughter's life effectively in the balance. Should he fail to kill JW, both his life and his daughter's are forfeit. But he and John are friends, from way back, so he doesn't take this task lightly, though he's also keenly aware that John is not going to be an easy kill, so there is double reticence to his approach. Yen has a wonderful scene with Hiroyuki Sanada, again, old friends, but whom he's forced to combat, and there's no pleasure in the dance. Yen manages to deliver compassion, respect and admiration while in a fight for his own life. Yen has played a blind master before, in Rogue One, and he's very effective at it. There's a moment in the poker game with Killa where Yen holds the cards up to his face real close and quickly puts them down. Having a good friend who is legally blind, I'm very familiar with that type of reading, which leads me to believe Yen is playing visually impaired, but not full blind.  There's the whole Zatoichi aspect to the character that, once you introduce guns into the equation, becomes much more fantastical, and somehow I'm much more okay with Caine's ability to escape harm then I am with John Wick's ability to absorb it. 

1 GOOD: Bill Skarsgård's Marquis de Gramont.  For my many reservations about this film, it is a success, if only because it manages to earn its 170 minutes when it really should have no right to such an inflated run-time.  It's a testament to Stahlenski's visual acumen, making every scene gorgeous to look at, and his stunt team who go above and beyond with every fight...but it just wouldn't play, like, at all, without a big bad behind it. It's not that the Marquis is particularly well written...these types of vainglorious, ruthless characters with a simmering evil are everywhere, but it's what Skarsgård does with it that makes it utterly compelling. There's a composure to his Marquis, one that so very rarely cracks, such that when he does, it's quite delicious to watch. Skarsgård's performance here has that Scandanavian reserve (even though he's playing French) that reminds me of Mads Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, except if Le Chiffre's station in life was so much closer to the top. They garb the Marquis in such elegant finery that screams customized, each wardrobe tailored only for him. The design is very 1800s chic but with a contemporary line in a way that can only be described as "dandy".  Does the uniform fit the performance or vice versa.  The Marquis likes to think himself unpredictable, which makes him easily manipulated. He's just got power and money and authority, which makes him hard to get to...so the challenge for John Wick is getting to him, and more than anything, the Marquis wants to make sure that never happens.  

META:
In the end, after 170 minutes of people getting shot in the head, I had to ask, what's the point? Not of movies, which is entertainment, but of the story, both in this film and the series, what is the point? What is the objective John Wick is trying to achieve, and does it feel in any way appropriately satisfying how this film ends? Do we feel like the character had a meaningful journey, and made some sort of difference in his bleak, bullet riddled world?

I am not a John Wick devotee. I've seen each of the films and liked them to varying degrees, but I've only watched them once. I may have lost the plot on what exactly ol' JW was trying to accomplish through four of these features and hundreds of dead bodies. It certainly didn't seem like the end goal was killing the Marquis, who is just a face up front, a representative of The Table.  I was seriously expecting this to be a "John hunts down every member of the table and kills them, dismantling the table in the process." Alas, that seems to be an impossibility so John's looking for an out, from this life he's living.  But is this end agreeable? I came out of 170 minutes asking "is that it?" And I'm not really asking for more.

At a certain point in this film, quite early on, I grew...not tired...numb, I grew numb to the violence of it. The repeated sound of guns firing became a sensation that barely registered by the end. I found any form of combat without the guns to be far more enjoyable.  At one point JW gets a set of nunchucks and watching him beat people with that was far more enjoyable than the gunfighting.  That sort of very American excess of bullets and carnage, when it gives way to the more poetic dance of swordfights, is such a blessing.  This is a gun-centric series though, and the glowing reverence for Wick's preferred handgun, when the Bowery King presents it to him, made me feel kind of ill to my stomach knowing that the scene is there for the gun lovers in the crowd.  This isn't an inspirational series, it's an escapist nightmarescape, one that aptly ends where any gun-obsessed, revenge-fuelled movie should. There's no happy endings in that world.

I think of other action-first movies, like Dredd or The Raid: Redemption, and these are films I enjoyed quite a bit but that I never really go back to because they don't really have a story to tell.  The first John Wick created a world, on that seemed so intriguing and full of promise, but that promise never really bore fruit for me. The world was maybe developed (if not to my satisfaction, it's still developed) but the character we're following through that world never changes, grows or learns anything.  So I say again what's the point?  There's a reason I haven't rewatched this series, and I don't really have any desire to... there's not really anything there beyond the stylish thrills of mass murder.

RIP Lance Reddick.