Movie Review: Knox Goes Away (2023)

Genre: Crime Drama  

Director: Michael Keaton  

Starring: Michael Keaton, James Marsden, Suzy Nakamura, Al Pacino, Marcia Gay Harden  

Running Time: 114 minutes  

Synopsis: John Knox (Michael Keaton) is a veteran professional assassin who completes assignments with his partner Muncie (Ray McKinnon). Knox is diagnosed with rapidly progressing dementia, and soon afterwards botches a job, leaving behind unintended victims. Then his estranged son Miles (James Marsden) reappears, asking for help to clean up a messy murder. With detective Ikari (Suzy Nakamura) closing in, Knox has to find a way to assist his son before he completely loses his mind.

What Works Well: Michael Keaton directs himself in a thoughtful end-of-the-road drama, where health degradation, professional decline, and personal regrets merge into one final resolution. As director, Keaton demonstrates an eye for interesting angles, while the Gregory Poirier script is admirably interested in all the characters, including Knox's once-a-week mistress (Joanna Kulig) and the detectives sifting through ill-fitting evidence. Jolts of action and violence add a sometimes gory spark, while Al Pacino and Marcia Gay Harden (as Knox' ex-wife) contribute a classy touch to the cast.

What Does Not Work As Well: The complex central plot generates plenty of tactical machinations but with annoyingly opaque objectives, despite easy-to-discern intent.

Key Quote:

Knox: I'm getting worse every hour...it's like a curtain coming down.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

Genre: Romantic Crime Drama  

Director: Rose Glass  

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Katy O'Brian, Ed Harris, Jena Malone, Dave Franco  

Running Time: 104 minutes  

Synopsis: In rural New Mexico of 1989, gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) falls in love with muscular drifter-from-out-of-town Jackie (Katy O'Brian), who is planning to compete in a Las Vegas body building competition. Jackie accepts a job at the shooting range managed by Lou's estranged father Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), and starts to inject herself with large doses of steroids. Meanwhile Lou's sister Beth (Jena Malone) is being abused by her sleazoid husband JJ (Dave Franco). When the abuse goes too far, Jackie intervenes, triggering a cycle of violence.

What Works Well: Director and co-writer Rose Glass creates a sweaty and gritty genre-melding backwater drama. Against the backdrop of corruption (Lou's father) and exploitation (Lou's brother-in-law), a romance blossoms and hopes for Vegas glory spur optimism, but drug-fueled violence leads to neo-noir shadings and even moments of levity. The cast excels within the economic doldrums (Jackie is effectively homeless; Lou's main task as gym "manager" is to clear clogged toilets), and Kristen Stewart exudes intent as a protagonist emerging from passivity.

What Does Not Work As Well: The final act is buffeted by too many dead bodies and erratic tonal shifts, undermining the more subtle set-up work. The sub-story about the FBI's investigation into Lou Sr.'s shady criminal activities receives only half-hearted attention.

Key Quote:

Jackie: Anyone can feel strong hiding behind a piece of metal. I prefer to know my own strength.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Emilia Pérez (2024)

Genre: Musical Crime Drama  

Director: Jacques Audiard  

Starring: Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofia Gascon, Selena Gomez  
Running Time: 132 minutes  

Synopsis: In Mexico, lawyer Rita Castro (Zoe Saldana) is recruited by drug cartel leader Manitas (Karla Sofía Gascón) to arrange his transition to a woman. Rita travels the world and finds the right surgeon, allowing Manitas to fake his death and become Emilia Pérez. Manitas' wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) believes her husband is dead and relocates with her children to Switzerland. Four years later, Emilia reconnects with Rita and again asks for help: this time to move Jessi and the children back to Mexico, with Emilia pretending to be Manitas' distant cousin. Remorseful of her past, Emilia also launches a charity and finds love, but jealousy will challenge her happiness.

What Works Well: Director and co-writer Jacques Audiard creates an audacious hybrid of crime, regret, redemption, and subterfuge, all with musical underpinnings. The tone is serious, creating song beats that are more menacing than joyous, as the former cartel leader navigates a mazy money-can-buy-anything path towards fulfillment. The drama dives deep into emotional complexities at the intersection of survival and identity, including parental love clashing with selfishness and jealousy. Zoe Saldana as Rita (bitterly tempted by career shortcuts) and Selena Gomez as Jessi (raw and disoriented) deliver standout performances.

What Does Not Work As Well: The musical interludes only work in patches, and at their worst disintegrate into excruciatingly awful lyrics and painfully bad singing. The failure to demonstrate the scale of Manitas' pre-transition brutality artificially tilts sympathy towards a monster.

Key Quote:

Surgeon: So. Does your client have a name?

Rita: He desires to remain anonymous.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Wicked (2024)

Genre: Fantasy Musical  

Director: Jon M. Chu  

Starring: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh  

Running Time: 160 minutes  

Synopsis: The land of Oz is celebrating the death of the Wicked Witch of the West (Cynthia Erivo). When the good sorceress Glinda (Arianna Grande) is asked what made the Witch wicked, she recalls their story in flashback. Elphaba (who became the Witch) is born green and with magical powers. Her stunned parents show her no love, although she is kind to her younger paralyzed sister. Elphaba and Galinda (later Glinda) meet at Shiz University, where they are roommates, enemies, then friends. Elphaba's powers are noticed by Dean of Sorcery Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), and she is promised an audience with the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum).

What Works Well: The cinematic adaptation of the popular stage musical benefits from imaginative world-building, with bright colours and a child-appealing light-hearted sense of fun. The basic inclusion lessons are equally spoon-fed in small and deliberate morsels to register with young minds. Arianna Grande has a lot of fun as the entitled wannabe sorceress adorably convinced that the world revolves around her.

What Does Not Work As Well: The CGI overload is often the most impressive feature on the screen, and drives the experience towards animation wizardry where success is measured by pixel density. The songs are largely forgettable and support the most superficial of societal lessons (be yourself; be kind). From beneath the green make-up, Cynthia Erivo's one demonstrated emotion is seething anger for the entirety of the inexcusably obese running time - and this is only Part 1.

Key Quote:

Glinda: Something is very wrong, I didn't get my way... I need to lay down.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Hit Man (2023)

Genre: Crime Comedy  

Director: Richard Linklater  

Starring: Glen Powell, Adria Arjona  

Running Time: 115 minutes  

Synopsis: In New Orleans, Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) is a college philosophy teacher who helps the police department on the side. He discovers a knack for posing as a fake hitman to intercept criminals seeking an assassin-for-hire, and achieves a high conviction rate much to the chagrin of Jasper (Austin Amelio), the officer he replaced. But an encounter with Madison (Adria Arjona), who is seeking to kill her abusive husband, takes a different turn when Gary convinces her to abandon her plans and flee the marriage instead. Gary and Madison subsequently start a torrid romance as he maintains the pretense of being a hitman, but when a real crime occurs, Gary faces awkward questions.

What Works Well: Loosely based on Gary Johnson's real life experiences, this is a wacky story of deception, stings, jealousy, romance, and crime. Glen Powell has plenty of fun in a variety of disguises and personas offering assassination services to a succession of low-lifes and desperados, cleverly complementing a running college lecture thread about the capacity for change and self-recognition. The many narrative currents include film noir shadings, allowing Adria Arjona to swirl between victim, schemer, seductress, and perpetrator. Austin Amelio adds menace as the highly-strung but still perceptive Jasper. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The script (co-written by director Richard Linklater and Powell) repeatedly shifts gears with notable clunkiness. Smart truth-is-stranger-than-fiction comedy yields to sizzling romance, before much more serious crime and convoluted deception take over. The characters struggle to convince through the transitions, the script driving events more so than coherent motivations.

Key Quote:

Gary Johnson: All pie is good pie.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Speak No Evil (2024)

Genre: Suspense Horror  

Director: James Watkins  
Starring: James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy  
Running Time: 110 minutes  

Synopsis: While in Italy on vacation, American couple Louise and Ben (Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy) and their daughter Agnes befriend British couple Paddy and Ciara (James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi) and their son Ant, who is unable to speak due to a tongue condition. Louise and Ben subsequently accept an invite to spend a weekend at Paddy's home in rural Devon. Louise finds Paddy's behaviour increasingly unsettling, but her concerns are dismissed by Ben, deepening a pre-existing rift between the couple. But when Louise senses Agnes may be in danger, her unease escalates to horror.

What Works Well: This remake of a Danish-Dutch film expertly builds tension through a patient but still ominous opening hour. Director James Watkins leverages an excellent James McAvoy performance to construct a milieu dripping with social awkwardness, where every action may have multiple explanations from friendly to hostile. Subtle gestures, throwaway comments, and quirky behaviours may just be the habits of exciting new friends raising a child with disabilities, or clues about dangerous strangers. The strained bond between Louise and Ben, and the insecurities harboured by their daughter Agnes, add to the spiderweb of emotional fractures. The time for panic, once it arrives, is well-earned.

What Does Not Work As Well: As is common for the genre, some contrived reasons are combined with suspect decision making to swerve past opportunities to escape the horror.

Key Quote:

Paddy: I know we can both be...

Ciara: ...a bit much.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)

Genre: War Action  

Director: Guy Ritchie  

Starring: Henry Cavill, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Cary Elwes, Henry Golding  

Running Time: 122 minutes  

Synopsis: In 1941, Nazi Germany's U-boats control the Atlantic Ocean and the United Kingdom stands alone in Europe. Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear) authorizes a secret commando raid to blow up an Italian U-boat supply ship anchored off the East African coast. Hardened criminal Gus March-Phillipps (Henry Cavill) and Denmark's Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson) lead the mission, approaching their target by sea. Meanwhile, intelligence agents Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González) and Richard Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) are tasked with distracting the on-shore Nazi commander Heinrich Luhr (Til Schweiger).

What Works Well: Loosely based on the actual World War Two Operation Postmaster, this jovial romp is part throwback to mission-focused war movies, and part just-kill-all-the-Nazis video game style nonsense. Humour is never far from the surface, with the best laughs generated by insatiable killing machine Lassen. The quite brilliant Christopher Benstead music score is a most respectful salute to Ennio Morricone.

What Does Not Work As Well: The mindless entertainment sails dangerously close to a tick-box exercise, with most scenes soullessly borrowed from other movies. The characterizations are thin enough to disappear into the ocean, too much of the muddled action takes place at night, and the plot twists are simultaneously sketched-in and over-complicated. The sequences featuring Marjorie Stewart's seduction of Heinrich Luhr are a bad combination of prolonged and unconvincing.

Key Quote:

Anders Lassen: I'm not leaving until I have a barrel full of Nazi hearts.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Wicked Little Letters (2023)

Genre: Dramedy  

Director: Thea Sharrock  

Starring: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Timothy Spall, Gemma Jones, Eileen Atkins  

Running Time: 100 minutes  

Synopsis: It's the 1920s in the English town of Littlehampton, and aging spinster Edith Swan (Olivia Colman) receives a series of vulgar letters. Her father Edward (Timothy Spall) suspects the writer is their coarse next door neighbour and Edith's former friend Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley). Despite no evidence (other than her outspoken Irishness) linking her to the letters, Rose is arrested and charged. Police officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vassan) suspects the wrong woman has been implicated, and initiates a surreptitious investigation.

What Works Well: The idyllic small-town setting of Littlehampton is quaint, and both Olivia Colman (repressed) and Jessie Buckley (unconstrained) deliver committed if monotonal performances. The story's foundations reside within actual (albeit bizarre) real events. One joke (German deployed to protect a child from profanity) lands well.

What Does Not Work As Well: The script delights in unleashing (in equal measures) obscenities and sanctimonious moralizing about the evils of a patriarchal society. The smug portrayal of all men as buffoons is tiresome, and the intellectual depth to probe the letter writer's emotional motivations is lacking. The anachronistic casting of non-white actors in white roles coupled with the avoidance of racial narrative themes exposes the shortcomings of color-blind casting. 

Key Quote:

Rose: Why would I send a letter when I can just say it?

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Outrun (2024)

Genre: Drama 

Director: Nora Fingscheidt  

Starring: Saoirse Ronan  

Running Time: 118 minutes  

Synopsis: The story unfolds in two timelines. In the flashbacks, Rona (Saoirse Ronan) is a college student in London. She neglects her studies, moves in with her boyfriend, slips into a lifestyle of partying, and succumbs to alcoholism. In the present, Rona has moved back home to the remote and rugged Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland, where she reconnects with her separated mother and father. She secures a low-stress bird preservation job, but the urge to drink is never far away.

What Works Well: The beauty of the Orkney Islands provides a spectacular and unique backdrop for an otherwise standard journey of healing. Saoirse Ronan is magnetic in her portrayal of a young woman who has lost her way, and now experiencing her parents' dysfunction (mom has surrendered to religion, dad is bipolar) in a new light. Recovery passes through nature and solitude, but only after the desire to reclaim control emerges from the wreckage.

What Does Not Work As Well: This is a small human drama occupying limited emotional space, with barely sufficient material for 90 minutes. The unnecessary stretching towards two hours results in languid pacing, repetitive notes, and static scenery to obscure the sparse content.

Key Quote:

Rona (narrating): United Kingdom is an island off Europe. Orkney Islands is an island off United Kingdom. Westray is an island off Orkney and Papa Westray is an island off Westray.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Woman Of The Hour (2023)

Genre: Crime Drama  

Director: Anna Kendrick  

Starring: Anna Kendrick  

Running Time: 94 minutes  

Synopsis: The story unfolds across several timelines. In 1977, serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) pretends to be a photographer and murders a woman on the isolated plains of Wyoming. In 1971 he targets a flight attendant in New York City, and in 1979 he picks up a runaway teenager (Autumn Best) in California. In 1978, Sheryl Bradshaw  (Anna Kendrick) is a struggling actress in Los Angeles. She lands a role on the television gameshow The Dating Game as the eligible woman choosing one of three batchelor contestants, one of whom is Rodney. 

What Works Well: Anna Kendrick's directorial debut is a robustly assembled crime and suspense drama based on actual events. The chilling scenes of Rodney preying on vulnerable, isolated women are balanced by Sheryl's experience on the tawdry The Dating Game, where desperation is dressed up under bright lights and beamed into living rooms. The common theme is a society more than willing to exploit susceptible women but otherwise quick to delegitimize their concerns, enabling monsters to hide in plain sight. The 1970s are recreated in all the garish brown-orange wide-collars-and-broad-sideburns beauty of the decade.

What Does Not Work As Well: The focus on Sheryl is misguided, as she is at best a side presence in the bigger story, with another woman grabbing the initiative late in the third act. Unfortunately Alcala emerges as the most intriguing study, but his background and deeply damaged psychology remain unprobed. The frequent jumps in time demand some-assembly-required levels of attention.

Key Quote:

Rodney: Did you feel seen?

Sheryl: I felt looked at.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.