Mark Wahlberg (“Parker”) is a thief who wants to pull off a big heist. When this goes wrong, he is out for revenge on a team mate who wanted everything for herself, but Parker will only get his revenge if he does one more job with her.
“Play Dirty” is an alright action heist with a few jokes.
Is this the first MI that I review? I thought I also saw (some of) the rest. Perhaps never an entire film, or just parts on TV? Well, after “The Final Reckoning” I might never watch the rest of the franchise… This final film is fairly weak.
Tom Cruise is of course Ethan Hunt, who is both lauded and despised by his (former) employer, the secret service. He is again retired, but hired, because he is the only one who can prevent a world catastrophe.
That catastrophe is fairly dull. Some AI virus has taken over the world wide web and plans to use the nuclear arsenal to wipe out humanity. Hunt flies over the world to try to prevent that. The story, the acting and several of the scenes are quite unconvincing…
Quite like Pierce Brosnan in “Fast Charlie“, a very amusing Christoph Waltz gets to play an over aged contract killer who wants to show that he still has it.
Danny Dolinsky (Waltz) works for “London”, some crime syndicate, to do the dirty work. He is forced to train a young and upcoming prodigy, which of course means replacement. After a few mistakes, Dolinsky steals the show.
A fairly amusing action comedy.
Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) is in need of money and comes up with a plan to rob the local race track. He consults his brother (an amusing Adam Driver) and recruits Joe Bang (an even more amusing Daniel Graig) to pull off their elaborate plan.
The plan is to use the mine where Jimmy used to work to access the safe of the race track. Together with a few extras, the three set out to complete this massive heist.
The film has a bit of a Red Neck Wester Virginia humour with funny dialogues. The robery is planned and executed with a few problems. Too bad that all the way at the end Soderbergh felt the need to explain why things were even more complex as it already seemed.
With Aronofsky you never know what you will get. A weird film like “Pi” or “Mother“, a drama like “The Wrestler” or “Black Swan” or perhaps a Hollywood spectacle like “Noah“? The only thing that I knew when I went to see “Caught Stealing” was that it was an Aronofsky. And he tried something else this time, an action thriller.
Hank (Austin Butler) is an ex baseball player working in a bar. He has a nice girlfriend, but not such a nice neighbour. This punker amusingly played by Matt “Dr. Who” Smith asks Hank to take care of his cat when he goes visiting his dying father. From then on, everything goes wrong.
Hank runs into two violent men who kick him into the hospital. On getting out, it becomes clear that these two are not done with Hank. Worse even, they are not the only two interested in him. Things go from bad to worse, to much worse.
“Caught Stealing” is perhaps a fairly ‘normal’ action thriller, but it is a descent one. What is quite amusing is that there are themes reappearing from “Pi”. Detective Roman is quite like Marcy Dawson and we again run into a couple of Hasids.
I thought this was a recent film. Also, the story sounds familiar, but I do not remember similar to what movie.
Chev (Jason Straham) is a gun for hire. He gets injected with a poison that will kill him unless he keeps his adrenaline levels high. Het sets out on a high speed and drug infused revenge chase.
It took some effort/patience to see this oldie, but now it is just a Prime Video included film.
“Tank Girl” is much more a comic book film than what for a time I had expected Marvel movies to look like. It had got a lot of comic book interludes. Very amusing.
In a Mad Max type dystopian future Tank Girl sets out to take revenge on a company who wants to control the water supply. Overly confident and utterly crazy, Tank Girl gets captured, but fights her way to the top of the company to get her revenge.
Apparently another branch on the Marvel tree. The Fantastic Four are a 1960 comic book super hero team and Shakman created a highly amusing 1960’ies style future.
For the rest, there is not much to the film. We have the usual bad guy who wants to destroy the world and a group of heroes with special abilities to prevent that from happening. Add the usual American patriotism and drama and you have got another entertaining and typical Marvel production.
A revamp of the “Tomb Raider” movies. This time Lara Croft is the daughter of a rich businessman who was an adventurer in another life. Father Croft is looking for a hidden, primordial, Japanese witch, but dies along the way.
Having been gone for many years, Lara is pressured into accepting the inheritance. Instead she finds a lead where her father may have got lost and she decides to try to find out what happened.
A typical story unfolds with an “Indiana Jones” type archaeological mystery.
I thought a couple of Marvel films lowered on my list because of their lengths, but at a night when I had the time for a 150+ minute film, it proved that most titles on my list from the ‘Marvel cinematic universe’ are not released yet.
Then it also proved that there appears to be a branch on the Marvel tree that I have missed: an X-Men branch with several movies. I just picked the longest one.
So-called “X-Men” are people with extra abilities. They are not trusted by ‘normal man’, but they do have their own academy, some sort of Hogwarts. From there a massive fight between former heroes (some of whom have turned to the other side) and a God-type being.
Of course there is a lot of spectacle and morality. The result is… oh well, another Marvel film.