Cultures and genres clash cutely enough in Mike Wiluan’s east/west mashup Buffalo Boys, an action pic that’s high on energy and low on originality. Make of that what you will, but considering the aim appears to be a sort of genre refresher, it’s easy to feel an aura of missed opportunities when the story proves…
It’s a rare piece of cinema that is able to hearken back to atrocities committed during World War II through spoken recollections in the midst of a home invasion plot, but that’s exactly what we’ve been given with Winter Hunt (“Winterjagd”). Astrid Schult has crafted a unique, aging Nazi thriller, brimming with unending desires to…
Following up from 2014’s urban actioner, “The Equalizer,” the blood-thirsty avenger/defender out to protect the vulnerable from predatory forces is back in fighting form in The Equalizer 2. Returning as Robert McCall, the former CIA-operative-turned-people-protector, is two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington and joining with him is director Antoine Fuqua (who directed the charismatic actor…
Caught between action flick thrills and hefty existential drama, Timothy Woodward Jr.’s film, Silencer, ends up in an unconvincing purgatory which neither excites or provokes. We open with a squad of US Marines in Iraq. It’s all radio banter and “Copy that!” and it looks like it’s been filmed with sunglasses over the lens, so…
German Angst is a movie for the “V/H/S,” “Zombieworld,” “The ABCs of Death” crowd in that it is technically a collection of three shorter films — “Final Girl,” “Make a Wish,” and “Alraune,” respectively — full of extreme violence and horrific fun. With “Final Girl” as a quiet, graphic, and personal revenge fantasy, “Make a…
Night Comes On is a powerfully told and emotionally intelligent feature debut from director Jordana Spiro. By focusing on creating a connection with their characters, Spiro and co-writer Angelica Nwandu infuse an otherwise typical story with not only originality, but also care and empathy. Night Comes On thus becomes neither a coming-of-age tale nor a…
“Scribbled, shot and cut by Giorgio Serafini,” read the titles at the end of The Executioners, as Tim Polecat’s jaunty song “Another Word for Hate” bounces on the soundtrack, as if what we just saw was all a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun. But there’s nothing fun about Serafini’s hateful home invasion horror movie. Four twenty-something…
