JANE MAYNE reviews
[star rating=”3″] KIDNAP. Directed by Luis Prieto, with Halle Berry, Sage Correa and Chris McGinn.
The trade in young kids has become an easy money-spinner, and there’s an ever-increasing parade of lowlifes cashing in on the demand. Here Karla Dyson (Halle Berry) is one unlucky mom who’s little boy gets snatched at a park. What ensues is a gripping 91-minute chase as she goes all out to rescue her son from a white trash couple hotfooting it home.
While Berry mostly wears just one high stress mask throughout, her pursuit elicits a nervous tension in the viewer, making Kidnap a worthwhile thriller if you’re not looking for cerebral colour. It’s a no-brainer that you keep rooting for this overwrought mom, and the culmination of her rescue mission adds value to a nuts and bolts chase flick.
[star rating=”3″] BEATRIZ AT DINNER. Directed by Miguel Arteta, with Salma Hayek, John Lithgow and Connie Britton.
A clever script could have weighted Beatriz at Dinner more towards a thinky art film than this somewhat mediocre tableau of a class clash (and more). When her car packs up after a session at a wealthy client’s house, alternative healer Beatriz (Hayek) is included at the supper table of hoity-toity folk celebrating their latest victory scooping more cash – all at the expense of the earth and disempowered communities in their path.
Hayek is the voice of reason – the conscience of an uncaring world. But it’s all lost on the posh diners, who’re so immersed in etiquette and greed, and can only operate within their framework of destruction and ‘success’. As hardcore capitalist Lithgow steps right into the shoes of the indifferent development tycoon, while Hayek plays it all big-eyed and sensitive – making for an uncomfortable collision between healer and destroyer. Grim Beatriz is not a particularly enjoyable film to watch, made more so by Arteta’s repeated frames of podgy Hayek as an awkward, ill-fitting dinner guest – constantly ramming home Beatriz as an island in a heartless world.
[star rating=”3″] THE MAN WITH THE IRON HEART. Directed by with Cédric Jimenez, with Jason Clarke, Rosamund Pike, Jack O’Connell and Mia Wasikowska
Jason Clarke cuts a disturbing figure as Nazi Reinhard Heydrich in this biographical
war drama, which relays the story of the Czech resistance’s WWII Anthropoid mission. The background story hones in on Heydrich, who, inspired by his National-Socialism-loving wife (Pike), becomes the leader of Czechoslovakia under Nazi occupation – head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SS intelligence agency) and the brains behind the Final Solution.
Heydrich is a natural killing machine and perfectly suited to the task, and Clarke brings him to life with bone-chilling intensity. Pike too plays convincing witness to this monster emboldened by his newfound power. Two young recruits are dispatched to Prague to assassinate Heydrich and the drama unfolds. Overall, cinematography and styling is excellent, but I remained strangely detached throughout.
[star rating=”2.5″] A GHOST STORY. Directed by David Lowery, with Rooney Mara and and Casey Affleck.
This is not an actor-driven movie, but someone with a sheet draped over them. To add to that, the sheeted one stands still for extended periods – watching, waiting, lost… Gettit?
Okay, so that’s the overall brief of A Ghost Story, who probably gets one star for entertainment value, and, lets be generous and say one and a half for honing in on the spirit world and hanging about on ‘The Other Side’.
But hell it’s tiresome staring at almost zero movement for one hour 32 minutes.
The film isn’t a typical horror/ghost story, but rather a vignette on sudden passing and unfinished business. It highlights our tenuous presence in the world of things and the common phenomena of spirits trapped in a linkage to the past. EXTRAS: The Inevitable Passing of Time Featurette; Deleted Scenes; A Composer’s Story Featurette
What: DVD Home Entertainment 2018
WS
