Tag: Amazon Prime Streaming Movie

She Rides Shotgun

2025   Lionsgate

Rated:  R

Length:  2 hr

Action ~ Crime ~ Drama ~ Thriller

Directed by:  Nick Rowland

Starring:  Taron Egerton, Ana Sophia Heger, Rob Yang, Odessa A’zion and John Carroll Lynch.

All A Father Needs Is A Fighting Chance.

THE BOOK:

She Rides Shotgun – A Novel by Jordan Harper – March 13, 2018.

A propulsive, gritty novel about a girl marked for death who must fight and steal to stay alive, learning from the most frightening man she knows—her father.

Eleven-year-old Polly McClusky is shy, too old for the teddy bear she carries with her everywhere, when she is unexpectedly reunited with her father, Nate, fresh out of jail and driving a stolen car. He takes her from the front of her school into a world of robbery, violence, and the constant threat of death. And he does it to save her life.

Nate made dangerous enemies in prison—a gang called Aryan Steel has put out a bounty on his head, counting on its members on the outside to finish him off. They’ve already murdered his ex-wife, Polly’s mother. And Polly is their next target.

Nate and Polly’s lives soon become a series of narrow misses, of evading the bad guys and the police, of sleepless nights in motels. Out on the lam, Polly is forced to grow up early: with barely any time to mourn her mother, she must learn how to take a punch and pull off a drug-house heist. She finds herself transforming from a shy little girl into a true fighter. Nate, in turn, learns what it’s like to love fiercely and unconditionally—a love he’s never quite felt before. But can their powerful bond transcend the dangerous existence he’s carved out for them? Will they ever be able to live an honest life, free of fear?

She Rides Shotgun is a gripping and emotionally wrenching novel that upends even our most long-held expectations about heroes, villains, and victims. Nate takes Polly to save her life, but in the end it may very well be Polly who saves him.

THE MOVIE:

She Rides Shotgun follows Nate (Taron Egerton), a recently released ex-con who suddenly shows up at his 11-year-old daughter Polly’s (Ana Sophia Heger) school and drags her into a car without much explanation. Polly barely knows her father and does not trust him, but she quickly learns that a violent white-supremacist prison gang has marked Nate’s entire family for death, and the safest place for her might actually be on the run with this stranger she is supposed to call “Dad.”​

As they hit the road across New Mexico, Nate starts teaching Polly how to disappear: new hair, new clothes, fake names, and a crash course in how not to look scared. They bounce between cheap motels, roadside diners, and sketchy contacts from Nate’s old criminal life, always trying to stay one step ahead of the gang members hunting them. At first Polly feels like cargo, but the more danger they face, the more Nate involves her in the plan, whether she is ready or not.​

Nate takes Polly to his brother Nick’s ex-girlfriend’s house looking for help and a place to lay low for a while. Charlotte (Odessa A’zion) is a tough, street-smart woman who gives Polly a different view of Nate and the choices he has made. Polly starts to pick up survival skills of her own, from handling herself in sketchy places to swinging a baseball bat as more than just a toy, which both scares her and makes her feel powerful. The father and daughter who started as strangers slowly develop a rough, awkward bond, built on shared danger and dark jokes.​

As the gang closes in and law enforcement also starts paying attention, the walls tighten around Nate and Polly, forcing them into riskier moves and more direct confrontations. Nate becomes increasingly desperate to wipe out the threat before it reaches Polly, while Polly struggles with how much violence she is willing to accept from the man who is finally acting like a father. The story builds toward a final standoff that tests how far both of them will go to protect each other.

As I watched Ana Sophia Heger’s Polly in She Rides Shotgun, I was genuinely impressed by how authentic and emotionally nuanced her performance was. She never tries to play Polly as unrealistically tough, but instead shows a kid who’s scared, confused, and searching for safety, all in a world that keeps demanding she grow up too fast. The subtle changes in her expressions, whether she’s nervously watching her dad dye her hair or making difficult decisions under stress, made every scene feel real, and at times, heartbreaking.​

What really resonated was how Ana, despite her age, matches and sometimes elevates the energy Taron Egerton brings to the screen. Their chemistry gives the whole father-daughter dynamic a bruised authenticity that made me care about their connection. There’s a moment near the end when Polly’s silent reaction communicates more than any line of dialogue could. For me, Ana Sophia Heger absolutely anchors the emotional tone of the film, her vulnerability, grit, and growth make Polly’s journey unforgettable and truly worth watching.

Ana Sophia Heger, at the age of 12, is an actress to watch, inviting comparisons to a young Tatum O’Neal while carving out something more fragile and contemporary. Ana gives a performance that feels like a spiritual descendant of Tatum in Paper Moon, but filtered through a 2020s sensibility. Less wisecracking prodigy, more vulnerable kid learning, far too early, what violence and loyalty really cost.  She brings genuine depth and subtlety to her role far beyond her years, and given her passion, discipline, and ability to handle emotionally complex material, Ana Sophia Heger is poised to become a truly exceptional force in film as she grows.

You know what Bobby would say……

Highly Recommended!

Turn off the lights and devices,

Make some popcorn,

Grab a beverage,

and Stream This Movie

on PRIME!

Taron Egerton and Ana Sophia Heger in SHE RIDES SHOTGUN.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate
Taron Egerton and Ana Sophia Heger in SHE RIDES SHOTGUN.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate

After The Hunt

2025   Amazon MGM Studios

Rated:  R

Length:  2 hr  18min

Drama ~ Psychological Thriller

Directed by:  Luca Guadagnino

Starring:  Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny.

Not everything is supposed to make you comfortable.

FROM AMAZON PRIME:

AFTER THE HUNT is a gripping pychological thriller about a college professor (Julia Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (Ayo Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Andrew Garfield), and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come into the light.

“A Gripping Psychological Thriller…..”

I would hardly call it gripping, borderline boring, and definitely not thrilling. More of a “where is all this leading?” quandary as you watch and wonder. The very beginning of the movie starts out with the very loud ticking of a clock. So loud it was immediately annoying, and I had to pause the movie to make sure it wasn’t something else I was hearing. It wasn’t, it was in the movie soundtrack. It was odd because they didn’t even show a clock, I kept waiting for one. It seemed to last forever until it finally abated, only to show up obnoxiously halfway through the movie, just as loud. The only thing I can assume is that it was meant for dramatic effect, apparently to add a heightened sense of tension. Which, as far as I can tell, failed in it’s mission because it seemed to have no relation to the film or the storyline.

The Characters:

In the beginning, as we meet the characters in the movie, Alma (Julia Roberts) and her husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) are throwing a dinner party at their lavish house. Alma, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) and Hank (Andrew Garfield) are engaged in a very philosophical debate about the current state of man and education. It came across as very contrived philosophy forced onto actors playing the part. Hank and Alma are both up for tenure at Yale, and Maggie is Alma’s brightest student. Hank and Alma were also lovers in the past, as we find out later in the movie, which is part of the supposed tension and drama. It didn’t really come across that way, although there was some solid chemistry between Julia and Andrew. Hubbie Frederik came across as a bit of a weirdo, it was hard to imagine that Julia and Michael were a married couple, more like The Odd Couple.

The Actors: 

We all love Julia Roberts, hopefully. As I watched her I couldn’t help but compare her in this to some of her other roles like Pretty Woman, Ocean’s Eleven, The Pelican Brief, and one of my all time favorite movies, Erin Brokovich. I don’t think this role was right for her, although she did a fine job with it. I think that had more to do with the directing and the story itself. Andrew Garfield is a Streaming Movie Night Favorite: Hacksaw Ridge, We Live In Time, Spider Man….Andrew is a charismatic, lovable Character Actor. He does some fine dramatic acting in this movie, but again, some of it fell flat thanks to the directing. Ayo Edebiri as Maggie came across as contrived, clunky in her motions and scenes. People don’t act like that, pun intended, but again I think it was the script, story or the directing.

The Less Than Thrilling Drama:

I didn’t set out to bash this movie, although as I look at what I have written, it sure feels that way. There were scenes that really didn’t make sense to me, for example:

    • Maggie rooting through the bathroom linen closest looking for toilet paper, ransacking the entire closet all the way to the bottom shelf. Then leaning over and in far enough to find the envelope Alma had taped to the underside of the shelf, to hide it from the world. Then opening it and taking something from inside it……
    • Frederik getting upset at the dinner table with Maggie for no apparent reason, then turning into a complete ass, grabbing his plate and storming off. Then playing music at such a loud obnoxious volume…for what? That was not clear to me.
    • Alma stealing blank prescriptions from her friend Dr. Sayers office and then forging a prescription for pain meds while she is trying to walk the straight and narrow line to a Tenure position at Yale. Doesn’t make sense.

I feel like I need to stop the bashing, again, that is not what I intended when I started writing this, but that is what I feel like I am doing. My expectations were high given the star power of Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield. But for me, it didn’t deliver. They were great but the movie itself felt disjointed, and as a whole, contrived and over dramatized. Somewhere about an hour and a half into it I thought, “How long has it been, how long is this movie?” I was a little dismayed when I saw I still had a ways to go.

The hook at the end, the secret that Alma was hiding, the thing that Maggie discovered about Alma and tried to use against her, was anti-climatic. I think it was supposed to pull it all together but it just kind of fell flat. It was disappointing, I found myself thinking, “That’s it? That’s what I waded almost two and a half hours through…….for that?”

So while it features some great acting by Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield, the direction and story felt like they missed the mark. In hindsight I do see what it could have been, a better movie…a great movie. But for me, it didn’t get there. I wouldn’t waste almost two and a half hours on After The Hunt again.

We Live In Time

New Movie After The Hunt Debuts On Prime Thursday November 20, 2025

AFTER THE HUNT

“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.”

–Otto Von Bismarck

FROM AMAZON MGM STUDIOS:

In Luca Guadagnino’s thriller, written by Nora Garrett, a devastating campus accusation unleashes a torrent of public and personal chaos that blurs the truth of what really happened beyond recognition. Secrets, deceptions, furies, and mixed agendas for the film’s five central characters soon collide in the morality tale that is After The Hunt. And as the tension mounts, the film becomes an intentional provocation, a mirror on this modern moment, probing the dynamics of power, privilege, community—and how they interplay with a whole host of human frailties.

After The Hunt tells the blisteringly psychological story of gifted, unapologetically ambitious philosophy professor Alma Imhoff, who is in an all-out bid for the tenure she knows her work merits. But when Alma’s prize student Maggie suddenly asks for help, levelling charges against Alma’s colleague and close friend Hank Gibson, it threatens to uncover Alma’s own long-buried private history.

Academy Award® winner Julia Roberts is joined by Academy Award® nominee Andrew Garfield, Emmy Award® winner Ayo Edebiri, Academy Award® nominee Chloë Sevigny, and SAG Award® winner Michael Stuhlbarg creating an all-star cast each matched in craft and versatility. Their intricate performances underline After The Hunt’s stark refusal to provide easy answers and instead barrel into the blurred, divided territory we all vividly recognize as the world we inhabit right now.

This visceral sense of life as we feel it is a touchstone quality of storytelling in the auteur vision of Luca Guadagnino. With his meticulous cinematic craft and love of hard questions, his audiences’ minds are often active long after the credits have rolled. For Guadagnino, the story of an elite campus in turmoil was a magnet precisely because it felt destined to ignite conversation—not just about which people in the story are telling the truth but how status, desires, and prejudices tint our views of reality.

The Ballad of Wallis Island

2025   Universal Pictures

Rated:  PG-13

Length:  1 hr  39min

Comedy ~ Drama ~ Music ~ Romance

Directed by:  James Griffiths

Starring:  Tom Basden, Tim Key and Carey Mulligan.

He’s Getting The Band Back Together!

On a misty Welsh island far from the mainland, eccentric two time lottery winner Charles Heath (Tim Key) lives alone with memories of his late wife and a collection of folk music relics. To mark the anniversary of his wife’s passing, he splurges on an unusual indulgence hiring his favorite long-disbanded duo, McGwyer Mortimer, for a private concert performed solely for him. When fading singer Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) arrives expecting a quick payday, he finds himself drawn into Charles’s odd orbit, equal parts wealth and loneliness. What he doesn’t expect is the reappearance of his former musical partner and ex-lover Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan), whom Charles has secretly invited too.

Old wounds reopen as the trio collides over dinner, money, and old songs they can barely stand to hear again. Nell, now living quietly in Oregon with her bird-watcher husband Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen), wants nothing to do with her former life onstage. Herb, desperate to revive his failing solo career, clings to the past while resenting it. Charles, meanwhile, treats them both as living ghosts of the happiness he once shared with his wife. As rehearsals stumble forward, tense silences give way to laughter, confessions, and the soft rebirth of their music. In those verses and harmonies, decades of hurt and longing start to fold back into something tender and human.

When a storm lashes the island, everything spills over, grief, love, resentment, and unexpected forgiveness. Herb’s impulsive act to retrieve a drifting lantern ends in a clumsy rescue that finally grounds all three souls in truth. By the time dawn breaks, the concert has transformed into something far deeper: a quiet eulogy for love that outlasts fame. Herb leaves behind his payment and stage name, signing a guitar with his real identity before departing. In the film’s closing notes, Charles sits with Amanda (Sian Clifford) as folk music drifts across the waves, while somewhere inland, Herb begins recording a new song The Ballad of Wallis Island, proof that even broken chords can still find their tune.

What drew me in most about The Ballad of  Wallis Island was the emotional honesty pulsing under its quiet humor. It’s not a loud movie and it doesn’t need to be. Watching Tim Key’s quirky, lonely Charles slowly chip away at Tom Basden’s crusty cynicism through his sheer enthusiasm for life reminded me that connection can be just as healing as grief is deep. There’s a tenderness in how the film handles nostalgia, the ache of remembering who we used to be, the music we used to play, the people we used to love, without ever making it feel maudlin or manipulative. It feels human, awkward, and genuine, the kind of bittersweet storytelling we don’t often get anymore.​

I think that’s why I loved it so much, it reminds us that life doesn’t have to wrap up neatly. The film embraces imperfection, lingering in the missed notes and uncomfortable silences between people trying to find forgiveness. It’s a movie about the quiet miracles of emotional survival, how creativity and companionship can pull us through when everything else falls away. Carey Mulligan’s performance gives the story its heart, a reminder that growth sometimes comes from sitting in the sadness and still choosing to sing. By the closing scene, that final song feels earned, like a life that’s been lived, scarred, and still somehow hopeful.

An absolute Gem of a Movie that started out as an Indie Short Film, I highly recommend this one!

Make some popcorn,

Grab a beverage,

and Stream This Movie!

Currently on Amazon Prime.