Army Of The Dead

2021 Netflix

Rated: R

Length: 2 hr 28min

Action ~ Crime ~ Horror ~ Thriller

Starring: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighöfer, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tig Notaro, Raúl Castillo, Huma Qureshi, and Garret Dillahunt.

“There’s two hundred million dollars sitting in a vault in the basement of my Casino in the quarantine zone of Las Vegas. Assemble a team and extract it and 50 million of it is yours. What do you say?”

A zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, Nevada has prompted the US Military to surround the City with three layers of shipping containers, effectively containing (Pun Intended) the Zombie outbreak from temporarily spreading. Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) owns a casino on The Strip inside the containment (Again…Pun intended) zone and is asking Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) to assemble a team of mercenaries to extract the money in exchange for 50 million of it. They just have to kill their way through all the zombies in the quarantine zone, make their way to the casino, crack the Götterdämmerung safe, extract the money, revive and repair the dilapidated helicopter on the roof of the casino, and fly away to safety before the military nukes the quarantine zone in 96 hours. Let’s get cracking(Pun Intended).

Scott agrees and assembles a team to execute the mission. The last man they recruit for the team is none other than our good friend Sebastian (Matthias Schweighöfer) from ARMY OF THIEVES. The scene where Scott finds him in the locksmith shop is the very last scene in ARMY OF THIEVES. And Sebastian is ecstatic about getting a chance to crack the Götterdämmerung safe, after having cracked the Rheingold, The Valkyrie and The Siegfried safes in the other movie. So Scott and his team gather and enter the Zombie zone of Los Angeles to extract two million dollars in what looks like a horrific suicide mission. Scott must also contend with his daughter who has forced herself onto the mission against his wishes.

It is everything you would expect from a zombie movie based in Las Vegas. There are lots of Zombies…..Elvis impersonators, waitresses, circus performers, dancers, police officers….even Siegfried and Roy’s Tiger has become a zombie tiger. Anyone and anything in the quarantine zone is now a zombie. There is lots of blood and gore as they eat the flesh of the living and even more as the team slaughters there way through the Las Vegas Strip. It is very realistically shot, you feel like you are in Las Vegas with them as they fight off the horde. There is intrigue, horror, double crossing and the very real fear of getting eaten alive and escaping before a nuclear bomb incinerates the crew.

Matthias reprising his role as Sebastian is just as good and hilarious as in ARMY OF THIEVES. Dave Buatista is good as Scott Ward and the rest of the crew did a good job. I liked Omari Hardwick’s role and the scene in the end with him I thought was really good. Theo Rossi is really despicable as the sexist Burt Cummings. This was the sequel to Army of Thieves even though this movie came out six months before it. It was supposed to be the beginning of a franchise, possibly a trilogy or more, but at the time of this writing Netflix has apparently pulled the plug on any more movies to follow, reportedly due to the disappointing performance of Zack Snyder’s REBEL MOON movies. ARMY OF THE DEAD was a successor to Zack Snyder’s 2004 film Dawn of the Dead, which was a remake of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (filmed in Pittsburgh and released in 1978).

I thought that ARMY of THIEVES was the better movie. This one was good but just not as good. A long one too, coming in at 2 and a half hours. If you like Zombie movies it’s a good one, well filmed and directed. And if you’re going to watch this one I suggest watching ARMY of THIEVES first, it will give you a better background for this movie. Unless you just want to watch a Zombie movie….but there are zombies in the first one, just not as many.

So that’s a, “Yeah, it was alright. But I wouldn’t watch it again.”, for me…..

No thumbs up, just a wave of the hand as in…So~So

Army Of Thieves

2021 Netflix

Rated: TV-MA

Length: 2 hr 7min

Action ~ Comedy ~ Crime ~ Thriller

Directed by: Matthias Schweighöfer

Starring: Matthias Schweighöfer, Nathalie Emmanuel, Ruby O. Fee, Stuart Martin, Guz Khan, and Jonathan Cohen.

“Want to put your skills to the test? The house at the end of Leipziger Str. Berlin. 8pm. Back door. Password: Götterdämmerung.”

Matthias Schweighöfer stars as Sebastian Schlencht-Wöhnert, a would be safe-cracker with an extensive knowledge of Hans Wagner’s work, currently working as a bank teller in Potsdam, Germany. Hans Wagner was a legendary German locksmith who, in his twilight years, crafted four of the world’s most famous safes based on the four operas of Richard Wagner’s The Ring Cycle, with each safe named after one of the operas: The Rheingold, The Valkyrie, The Siegfried, and The Götterdämmerung. After posting a safe-cracking video on Youtube, he receives a comment on his video asking him to go to an address in Berlin and test his safe-cracking skills. He does and is entered into an underground safe cracking competition where he emerges as the winner. The next day on his way to work, as he makes his usual stop at the corner coffee shop, he is approached by……

Gwendoline Starr (Nathalie Emmanuel) who wants to recruit his safe-cracking talents and extensive knowledge of Wagner’s infamous four safes. The fourth safe’s whereabouts remain a mystery but she and her team have located the first three and plan to rob them all before they are decommissioned in four days with his help. The temptation of being the guy who crack’s Wagner’s safes is too much for Sebastian and he agrees to join “The Crew” consisting of Gwendoline, Korina Dominguez (Ruby O. Fee), Rolph (Guz Khan), and Brad Cage (Stuart Martin). They head to Paris France where the first safe “Rheingold” is the least guarded and the easiest of the jobs.

Unbeknownst to them, they are being hunted by The Interpol Agent Delacroix (Jonathan Cohen) who has been hunting the crew ever since they got away after shooting him three years ago. He is aware of the three safes and surmises that they may be after them and is close on their tail. The ensuing chase, as they hunt the three safes and avoid Delacroix, is a comical thriller full of action, deceit and intrigue against the backdrop of a growing Zombie Apocalypse in The United States. Matthias Schweighöfer stars and directed this movie which is a prequel to ARMY OF THE DEAD, both written by Zack Snyder. Matthias also starred in ARMY OF THE DEAD. They were both written as part of a trilogy with further movies in planning.

ARMY OF THIEVES starts out like a German fairy tale as Sebastian explains the history of Wagner and the four safes. I really like Matthias as the nerdy, straight-laced but very likeable Sebastian. Nathalie Emmanuel is awesome as Gwendoline, the very smart runaway thief with kick-ass street skills. I really like the nerdy but cool swagger of Ruby O. Fee as Korina, the tech wiz kid who writes and records her own music. Guz Khan’s very unique, very British, sandwich eating, getaway driver extraordinaire character is really cool. And Stuart Martin as the very conceited, arrogant and self-centered Brad Cage is well…likeable and hateable.

I love this movie. I love the story and the characters, and the actors that played them. I really think Matthias did an excellent job in directing and acting in this safe-cracking thriller. I had watched this earlier in the year not knowing about THE ARMY OF THE DEAD movie, and after watching that and finding out ARMY OF THIEVES was a prequel I had to watch it again. I have a better appreciation of ARMY OF THIEVES, especially how the story carries over into the ARMY OF THE DEAD. I would suggest that if you were to watch either of them I would watch this one first. That is the timeline order of the story and it leads to better understanding of ARMY OF THE DEAD.

So that’s a yes for me.

Two Thumbs Up!

Woman Of the Hour

2024 Netflix

Rated: Unrated

Length: 1 hr 35 min

Crime ~ Drama ~ Thriller

Directed by: Anna Kendrick

Starring: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale, and Autumn Best.

“Bachelor number three, I’m counting on you. What are girls for?”

Anna Kendrick stars as Cheryl Bradshaw, an aspiring actress from Pennsylvania, who relocated to Los Angeles. Desperate for work and not having any luck, her agent books her on “The Dating Game” TV show. Among the three male contestants is Serial Rapist-Murderer Rodney Alcala played by Daniel Zovatto. I just can’t talk too much more about the plot of the movie without giving any spoilers, so I will give you more background on the movie and the real life story.

Woman Of The Hour is based on the true life story of Cheryl Bradshaw’s account of being on the episode and meeting Rodney Alcala. It focuses more on that story than the life and deeds of the convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala. At the time he appeared on The Dating Game September 13, 1978 he was wanted for the rape and murder of several women and the rape and attempted murder of an 8 year old girl. He was also employed at The Los Angeles Times and was interviewed by the Los Angeles police as part of their Hillside Strangler investigation.

Rodney Alcala hid behind the façade of being a photographer. Always carrying a camera around his neck and pretending to be interested in photographing his victims as a ploy to get them to remote spots. Charming and personable be the devil that lurked behind the camera, peering at his victims through the lens. Quietly watching and capturing their last moments of freedom before he unleashed his unsuspected savage terror. He would beat and strangle his victims to the point of unconsciousness, then bring them back to life so he could rape and abuse them. Mercilessly over and over again until they died.

It reminds me of Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, the true life depiction of serial killer Ted Bundy. Another ruthless savage who hid behind the façade of his charm and good looks, using them to lure his victims into a false sense of trust before he brutally raped and murdered them. Woman Of The Hour does depict some of the most famous Rodney Alcala cases to give you a better sense of the suspenseful Game Show appearance. One of the other male guests is quoted as saying that Rodney gave him the heebie-jeebies, something very unnatural about his presence made him want to get as far away from Rodney as possible.

Like Ted Bundy, Rodney Alcala evaded capture by running and hiding, assuming a new identity wherever he went. Always leaving the state they perpetrated their crimes in for new territory and an untapped victim pool. Bundy wore a cast and pretended to be helpless as he asked victims to assist him, Alcala always wore the camera around his neck and pretended to be taking photographs as he hunted for his next victim. He had over a thousand photographs he had collected that the police found when he was finally captured. It is believed that he potentially raped and murdered hundreds of women.

This movie marks Anna Kendrick’s Directorial debut. Nice job, I say. It is a great depiction of how the devil hides in plain site waiting to pounce on his next unassuming victim. I think she did a great job with the story, the movie and her role as Cheryl Bradshaw. Daniel Zovatto also did a great job portraying the many sides of Rodney Alcala, going from personable and charming, to a horrific murdering animal in the blink of an eye. Autumn Best also did a great job of portraying the victim Amy (The real life case of Monique Hoyt) who managed to trick Rodney into letting her live and escaping while they stopped at a gas station. She alerted the authorities and he was apprehended at the gas station.

So, that’s a big thumbs down on serial killers and rapists and………..

Two Thumbs up for Woman Of The Hour, Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto and Autumn Best!

Last Seen Alive

2022 Sky Cinema

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 35min

Action ~ Crime ~ Drama ~ Thriller

Directed by: Brian Goodman

Starring: Gerard Butler, Jaimie Alexander and Russell Hornsby.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret. I improvised the whole movie. I was only ever shown the first ten pages and even they were thrown away once we were on set.”

Gerard Butler stars as Will Spann who is driving his wife Lisa Spann (Jaimie Alexander) to her Mom and Dad’s house. They are going through a tough time in their marriage mainly due to Lisa’s recent one night affair with an old friend. She has decided that she needs a break and is going to stay with her folks for awhile. Just outside of the town where her folks live, they stop for gas. Lisa goes into the store and Will never sees her come out. Frantic, he searches the store, the restrooms, the parking lot and surrounding areas to no avail. He then calls 911 to report her missing.

Will then goes to Lisa’s folks house and tells them what happened. Not finding her there and alarming her folks, he heads back to the gas station to meet Detective Paterson who is assigned to look into the case. What follows is Will taking the law into his own hands and tracking down any clues as to what happened to Lisa. It leads him to a meth lab outside of town and a lot of unsavory characters, like “Knuckles” the handyman doing work on Lisa’s parents house, and Oscar, the gas station attendant who is a meth addict.

As I watched this I thought, first off, Gerard Butler sure seems like he’s overacting. It just felt off, a little too intense right off the bat. It didn’t get any better when he went to Lisa’s parents house. The first scene with them in it felt really bad. That sure is some bad acting, I thought. It didn’t get any better throughout the movie, if anything it seemed to get worse. Even the interactions between Lisa and Will felt forced, didn’t feel real, no depth, just hollow words. Just a lot of overacting.

The story was sketchy at best. As it goes along you find out that “Knuckles” the handyman had overheard Lisa’s parents talking while he was working on their house. He knew Lisa was coming to stay and that Will was a successful Real Estate developer. He came up with the idea to kidnap Lisa and make Will pay a Handsome Ransom to get her back. We find out later in the movie that “Knuckles” just happened to be at the gas station, just happened to see Lisa and forces her into his car without anyone seeing??? And then takes her to the meth lab outside town, where the Meth Kingpin decides he’s not going to worry about Ransom, I guess he doesn’t really need the money, and decides to bury Lisa in the back yard????

I always think about the review I’m going to write while I watch the movie. Not real intently, just generally. As I watched this I was thinking, Not much to say about this one, might be a short review. Definitely not one of Gerard’s better movies. The next morning when I write the review I always do a little research. And that’s when I found some info that put the whole movie into perspective for me. Gerard Butler posted on his Instagram account about LAST SEEN ALIVE. I think that summed it up and I couldn’t have said it any better about this movie. Here’s my thinking:

It feels like there was no storyline and the acting is terrible, not cohesive on any level, just overacting like they really didn’t know the storyline.

Here’s the quote from Gerard Butler’s Instagram account posted October 5, 2022:

“I’ll let you in on a little secret. I took this movie on as a fun challenge/experiment. I improvised the whole movie. I was only ever shown the first ten pages and even they were thrown away once we were on set. We shot the movie in 8 days. I was drawn to the idea of how it would feel stepping into scene after scene having no idea what was gonna be thrown at me. I’ve never taken on anything like that and it was both challenging and exhilarating. You can’t help but be in the moment.”

So it was an experiment by Gerard and the director Brian Goodman.

A failed one in my opinion.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a Gerard Butler fan, I like his movies….just not this one.

Don’t waste your time, there are way better Gerard Butler movies out there, HUNTER KILLER for example. Now that’s a good Gerard Butler movie!

Two thumbs down…..way down.

Hit Man

2024 Netflix

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 55min

Comedy ~ Crime ~ Romance

Directed by: Richard Linklater

Starring: Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, Retta, and Sanjay Rao.

“Seize the identity you want for yourself, and whoever you want to be, be them with passion and abandon. And all pie is good pie.”

Glen Powell stars as Gary Johnson, a Philosophy and Psychology college professor by day, who moonlights with the police department assisting on sting operations. They are busting people who are looking to hire a hit man. Gary is assisting on a sting operation with Claudette (Retta), Phil (Sanjay Rao), and Jasper (Austin Amelio)when Retta tells him that Jasper just got suspended for beating up some kids. Jasper was undercover as “The Hit Man” and now they need a replacement. “Gary, you’re up. We don’t have anybody else, you’re gonna have to play “The Hit Man”.

Mild-mannered Gary The College Professor turns on the acting skills and transforms himself into “The Hit Man”, getting his first collar. With Jasper on suspension, and doing so well on the sting, the Chief agrees to let Gary keep playing “The Hit Man” undercover. He gets better and better as he makes each collar. Improvising accents, costumes and even using Hollywood style make-up to change his appearance. He starts doing intensive research on the clients to figure out what they think their “Hit Man” might look and act like. He gets very good at his job.

One day he meets Madison Figueroa Masters (Adria Arjona) at a diner where she is looking to hire him to off her abusive husband. After some witty banter between the two of them, they seem to hit it off and Gary (who is playing the part of “Ron” The Hit Man) decides to talk her out of doing the crime. “Why don’t you take the money and start you a new life?, leave him right now and go get yourself a new place.” She takes his advice and several weeks later sends “Ron” a text and invites him to a charity function.

They become romantically involved and their relationship does not sit well with her ex-husband. Eventually he tracks down “Ron” the Hit Man and tries to hire him to “take care of his wife”. Things get rather complicated after that for Gary. Madison thinks he is Ron the Hit Man, there is a murder, and a conspiracy involving lots of money. All tied to Madison and Gary, who is leading several different lives and roles at this point.

HIT MAN is based on a true story. In the 1980’s and 90’s, there was a real life Gary Johnson who worked for the Houston police department at night, College professor by day. There was an instance when he talked a woman out of hiring him, and they later became romantically involved. Glen Powell and Richard Linklater wrote the script based loosely on those facts, the rest is glamourized for the sake of the movie. The movie is based in New Orleans, not Houston where the real Gary Johnson lived and worked.

I liked it, thought it was real good. It’s funny and it is a Rom-com(Romance ~ Comedy). The relationship between Gary and Madison was very believable. And watching Gary struggle with trying to keep up the guise of Ron The Hit Man with Madison as they became more involved was almost comical.

The folks liked it as well, having watched it night before last.

That’s a big SIX THUMBS UP!