Month: May 2018
Film Review: BAD SAMARITAN (USA 2017) ***
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A pair of burglars stumble upon a woman being held captive in a home they intended to rob.
Director:
Writer:
Brandon Boyce (screenplay)
Stars:
The film BAD SAMARITAN centres on young Sean Falco (Robert Sheedan), the bad Samaritan of the title who leaves a kidnapped woman in the house he is robbing only to feel guilty after and deciding to help her. The problem is the kidnapper. The kidnapper is a filthy rich psycho who has made it his goal to destroy Sean’s life. And so the story goes in this occasionally scary horror thriller.
The film opens with Sean Falco and his best friend Derek Sandoval (Carlito Olivero) working as parking valets for a high end Italian restaurant. They have the tech ability of finding the information from the cars they park and to use the information to rob the houses of these clients. This is not the first film based on this premise. The recent Canadian drama BOOST turned the scenario into the young robber’s coming-of-rites passage turing BOOST to become one of the Best Canadian debut features of the year. BAD SAMARITAN takes a different route as a horror thriller with the victim becoming the predator in what essentially is a slasher horror flick. But as a slasher flick, Devlin’s film succeeds and delivers quite a few jump out of your seat genuine scares. The film also plays to like a abduction thriller similar to HOUSE and SPLIT. Robert Sheehan is sufficiently apt in the title role of the young lead, though the film never explains the character’s strong Irish accent.
The success of a thriller or action film often depends largely on the effectiveness of the villain. As in the recent AVENGERS INFINITY WAR that had an excellent villain in the form of Josh Brolin’s Thanos, BAD SAMARITAN’s bad guy is so evil that the entire audience will be at the point of cheering aloud when he gets his comeuppance at the end. Full credit to David Tennant as the evil beyond comparison Cale Erendreich, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Anthony Perkins. This is especially apparent in the shower scene (director Deviln’s clever nod to Hitchcock’s PSYCHO) when Cale shows up in Sean’s residence while he is taking a shower. Audiences should be pleased too at spotting a few other Hitchcock references.
The film contains a brief episode showing Sean with his parents. Both his father followed by his mother have lost their jobs, from Cale’s orchestration to punish Sean. The parents move to a hotel but nothing more is seen of them.
Devlin devices a few brilliant suspenseful set-ups, the best of these is the one that has Sean lying low in his car parked outside the villain’s house while the villain sees his vehicle and walks towards it. A few false alarms allow the audience to jump out of their seats proving that it is fun to be scared in a movie. The film’s climax is well executed with the suspense and thrills escalating to a high point.
The film suffers from a weird ending (not revealed in the review) desperate to contain a twist in the story. Other than that, BAD SAMARITAN is a solid scary horror thriller that comes recommended.
Film Review: THE SEAGULL (USA 2018) ***1/2
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An aging actress named Irina Arkadina pays summer visits to her brother Pjotr Nikolayevich Sorin and her son Konstantin on a country estate. On one occasion, she brings Trigorin, a …See full summary »
Director:
Writers:
Anton Chekhov (play), Stephen Karam (screenplay)
Stars:
THE SEAGULL, Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov’s first of 4 plays became one of the greatest plays in the history of Russian Theatre when Konstantin Stanislavsky directed it in 1898 for his Moscow Art Theatre. I have never read or seen Chekhov’s THE SEAGULL even though there are previous film adaptations of the play including one directed by Sidney Lumet. So, watching the film unfold, flaws and all, is still an unforgettable experience given the strength of its source material.
The story features four main characters, Irina, her son Konstantin, her lover, Boris and the son’s love, Nina – all torn between love and art.
An aging actress named Irina Arkadina (Annette Bening) pays summer visits to her brother Pjotr Nikolayevich Sorin (Brian Dennehy) and her son Konstantin (Billy Howle) on a country estate. On one occasion, she brings Boris Trigorin (Corely Stoll) a successful novelist and her lover. Nina (Saoirse Ronan), a free and innocent girl from a neighbouring estate who is in a relationship with Konstantin, falls in love with Boris.
The film begins with the climax of the play and returns to it after the main story folds in flashback, a tactic used by director Mayer for the film. This is a common tactic in films to grab the audience’s attention at the start while bringing them back to the same state at a later part of the film. The tactic often works and works in this film as well. The brother Sorin is ill and dying while Irina visits and engages the guests in a game of ‘lotto’ a kind of bingo while something drastic takes place with her son in a back room that climaxes the story and ends the film. But quite the drama has occurred prior to this set of affairs with lives and loves being interchanged as well as unrequited love torn away from a poor woman’s heart. This is the stuff Chekov’s play is born of. Included in the story is the scene where Konstantine shoot and kills an innocent seagull (the story’s metaphor) which is placed at the feet of his true love, Nina.
There are lots of unrequited love in the story, that of Irina, her son and mostly Marsha’s (Elisabeth Moss). Irina brings to the estate the successful playwright, Boris Trigorin who falls for actress wannabe, Nina who falls for him. It is a question of he not able to get what he wants and she not able to get what she wants while each having the quality the oner desires. There is more irony in the artistic play that Konstantin writes that his mother makes fun of. Besides all this fantastic Chekov writing that is incredibly brilliant the way he brings it all together, director Mayer occasionally eclipses the brilliance with his touches. This includes, for example the scene where Konstantin makes silly ‘tweetie-bird’ faces in the mirror while his mother is desperately claiming possession in the next room, or when Kosntatntin plays the piano, the music complementing the activities going on again, in the next room.
The film, which looks fantastic (cinematography by Matthew J. Lloyd) was shot on
location at a New York State manor, using almost all natural light. In the nighttime scenes, 95 % of what you see is actually from candle light.
THE SEAGULL benefits greatly again from its actors, particularly its 3 main actresses Benign, Moss and Ronan. Relative newcomer British Billy Howle proves his acting chops as well in quite the major role. There are many reasons to see THE SEAGULL – the performances, the currently relevant tale of art and romance but especially if you are unfamiliar with this Chekhov play.
Director Mayer, who is a Tony Award Winning theatre director (SPRING AWAKENING) should do Chekhov proud with this film adaptation of THE SEAGULL.
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