Benjamin Walker – STREAMING MOVIE NIGHT

2021 Netflix

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 43min

Action ~ Adventure ~ Thriller

Starring: Liam Neeson, Laurence Fishburne, Benjamin Walker, Amber Midthunder, Marcus Thomas, Holt McCallany, Martin Sensmeier, Matt McCoy, and Matt Salinger.

This Mission Is On Thin Ice

Mike McCann (Liam Neeson) is a Big Rig Driver hauling semi-trailers for The Nordak Trucking Company in Pembina, North Dakota. As he pulls in and gets out of a truck he hears his brother inside a garage being harassed by a couple of other truck drivers. His brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas) is an ace mechanic but suffers from PTSD and Aphasia from serving in The Iraq War. The truckers are calling him names and tossing his coffee thermos to each other keeping it from Gurty who is frantically trying to get it from them. Mike goes into the garage and catches the thermos mid-toss and reprimands the drivers for harassing his mentally challenged brother. One of the drivers calls him retard and Mike tells him,” I told you not to ever call him that!”. Then the driver looks at Mike at says, “RETARD!”. Mike promptly punches the man cold and he falls on the ground. Mike and Gurty are instantly fired from their jobs.

At the Katka Diamond Mine in Northern Manitoba, the miners have been instructed by the management to turn off their methane sensors in the mine in exchange for $100 dollars a month extra in their paychecks, so as to speed up production. The problem with that is as they are drilling they won’t know if they hit a methane pocket, which is extremely dangerous and could cause a huge explosion. And that’s exactly what happens and collapses the mine around 26 miners trapping them deep underground. The only way to save them is to cap the wellhead so they can safely extract the miners, but they need the equipment ASAP and the only way to get it there in time to save the miners is by trucking it across the already closed and starting to thaw Ice Road. A very risky mission, so risky they are going to be sending three different semi stuck and trailers, each equipped with the well head and supplies they need to cap the well, so that at least one will make it if two fail.

Mike hears about the mission needing drivers and decides, given the hefty payout, that the risk is worth it. He and Gurty head to Winnipeg to apply for the mission. Jim Goldenrod (Laurence Fishburne) has decided to organize the mission and is recruiting drivers for the job. He bails out Tantoo (Amber Midthunder), who is in jail for protesting, a Native American activist and the best Ice Road Trucker that Jim knows. When Jim gets back to the office with Tantoo he looks at Mike and Gurty and considers them for the risky Ice Road Run. After he watches Gurty take out a rocker arm assembly on an engine in no time at all, he tells them they are hired for the mission. Jim is going to drive one of the rigs himself, Mike and Gurty will drive the second and Tantoo the third rig. Tantoo’s brother works in the mine so the mission is personal for her, he is one of the trapped miners. Accompanying Tantoo is Tom Varnay (Benjamin Walker), an Insurance Risk assessor for The Katka Diamond Mine.

As the three head off onto the long Ice road and the treacherous mission running against the clock and the thawing ice, we find out that Tom Varnay has other ideas about any of the three rigs making it to The Katka Mine. The race is on against the elements, the ice, and the risk assessor sent by the management of the mine that don’t want the mission to succeed. It is a familiar Liam Neeson Action movie, the underdog called to action to make things right, thwart the bad guys and succeed in his mission. He does not disappoint in this role, it is exactly what you expect of the Taken star. This time as a trucker making his way across the perilous Ice Roads of Northern Canada. He plays the part well, as does Laurence Fishburn. I really liked Amber Midthunder in this as the gritty Native American girl not afraid of the white man. Marcus Thomas as Gurty was loveable, you felt for the guy trying to help his brother achieve success on the run and battling his disabilities

So while it is a bit predictable, it is also a fun ride full of action and adventure. There are definitely some edge of your seat moments as the danger escalates. I have seen this a few times and watched it again before I watch the sequel Ice Road: Vengeancetonight on Amazon Prime. I watched Wind River again a few nights ago and as I was watching this last night I thought one of the miners looked familiar. He was in Wind River too. Martin Sensmeier played Tantoo’s brother Cody Mantooth, one of the miners trapped in the mine in this and Chip, Natalie’s brother in Wind River.

The Ice Road is s good movie if you haven’t seen it. Liam Neeson doing what he does best on The Ice Road. Stay tuned for the sequel review tomorrow…..Ice Road: Vengeance!

Ice Road: Vengeance

Wind River

2015 Warner Brothers Pictures

Rated: PG-13

Length: 2 hr 1min

Action ~ Adventure ~ Drama ~ True Story

Directed by: Ron Howard

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson.

“Since we have discovered that whale oil can light our cities, it has pushed man to venture deeper into the deep blue unknown. We know not it’s depths nor the creatures that live there.”

From the 17th to the early 20th century The Whaling Industry was a well organized worldwide business. Up to 80% of a whale’s weight is made up of oil, which was perfect for oil lamps and heat. It was also used for lubrication in machinery and making soaps. Whaling ships outfitted exclusively to hunt and harvest whales were plentiful, and being a Whaler was seen as an admirable occupation. They would head out to sea for a couple of years until their hold was filled with barrels of whale oil.

When the whaling ship would get close to a pod of Whales they would lower three smaller boats laden with men and harpoons with long ropes attached. They would maneuver the boats right up to the whales and then harpoon them. As the whale took off the men followed in the boat, being towed by the harpoon imbedded in the whale. They would ride it out until the whale bled out and died, then they would tow it back to the ship. There they would harvest it by cutting sections of the whale and boiling it down to oil, then storing it in barrels in the hold.

In 1820 in Nantucket Massachusetts, a whaling company outfitted The ESSEX for a whaling expedition. Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker) is brought on due to his family’s deep ties to the whaling industry although he has little experience as a Captain or a whaler. Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) is hired on as First Mate and, having a rich history of being a whaler and a seaman, he and Captain Pollard clash from the start. The ESSEX has little luck in the first three months of their journey and at a stop in Ecuador a Spanish Captain tells them of a sweet spot 2000 miles to the west. He also warns them about a vengeful huge white sperm whale that destroyed his ship and killed six of his men.

The ESSEX and her crew head for the spot in the Pacific and find the spot full of whales. They also find the huge white scarred sperm whale the Spanish Captain had warned them about. What happened to the ESSEX and her crew after encountering the massive white whale became a worldwide story after what remained of the crew returned. Thirty years later it was this story that Herman Melville wanted, felt compelled, to write his next novel MOBY DICK about. As the movie opens we see Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) travelling to the home of Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), who was a 14 year old cabin boy on the ESSEX‘s doomed journey thirty years earlier, to get his firsthand account of the tragedy.

As Thomas Nickerson recounts the true tale of The ESSEX and the encounter with The Great White Whale, we watch it unfold on the big screen. It is a fantastic True Story told in 3-d directed by Ron Howard, beautifully filmed in The Canary Islands of Spain. The movie is based on the 2000 book by Nathaniel Philbrick titled In The Heart Of The Sea. I have seen this several times since it was first released, and I just watched it again on Netflix. I think it is a classic. Obviously a classic tale but I think Ron Howard did a great job at bringing the story to life. The lengths that Ron and the cast went to for realism was above and beyond, to the point of having the crew go on a strict diet to mimic the starving crew of the ESSEX.