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Usually I'm wary of re-makes or re-boots. This take on Road House is full of charm, fun easter eggs and tributes to the prior film. Gyllenhaall is dynamic as Dalton and McGregor plays himself, which is pretty out there anyway. The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, particularly Billy Magnussenon, and a couple of fun cameos. Foot tapping score and good action sequences. Doesn't get all misty eyed but delivers a fresh re-telling of a classic tale, with western comparisons fueling this robust film. Really enjoyed this film. It certainly deserves a spot as one of the more entertaining films I've seen recently. Would love a sequel to this!

Very much looking forward to American Fiction and was expecting something special, something satirical and brightly funny. Don't believe the hype. Extremely poor, convoluted script. Trying too hard to be relevant and edgy, a script trying to show how clever the writer/director is and just comes across as arrogant. The best bits are in the trailer, so just watch that. Bland, bad and insults the audience's intelligence. Worst musical score, think any Charlie Brown cartoon. Too many silly family drama moments. Too many unnecessary and irrelevant characters with no purpose, no hand in driving the story forward. Achingly bad dialogue. Jeffrey Wight is still playing the same character from Westworld, again. Best moments, any scene with Sterling K. Brown or Tracee Ellis Ross. That's it. Too many characters popping up, like ground hogs, providing no focus or structure for the main character's journey. So many plot points that vanish, no resolution, no connection to the story. Ham handed and bafflingly poor ending(s). Save yourself the bother and finish the laundry, walk the dog or have coffee with a friend. A better way to spend your time and money.

The biggest problem for most movies lately has been the writing and how a story is told. So many poorly written and directed films out there. Fincher's last work, MANK, falls into that category. However, from the opening establishing shot to the very last scene, The Killer is a masterwork on how to develop a narrative and follow it through. No endless chunks of exposition, perfectly inhabited scenes, the story is taught, suspenseful and violent. The Killer is a passionless character, caring deeply about his inner mantra and following it to the letter. In the dangerous world he inhabits, a very necessary skill. Each chapter of the story has a purpose, there is not a whit of fat in this film. No endless exposition dumps. Every scene, lighting, camera angle, even the single massive fight scene, is a master class in brevity. No bewildering overwhelmingly pretentious shots and terrible writing (hello Oppenheimer). A true master class on how to construct a film. Michael Fassbender is the perfect actor to portray the protagonist and his performance is a precise and detailed as the character he plays. Never boring, utterly fascinating. The Killer is a master class in film making.