Army Of Thieves

2021 Netflix

Rated: TV-MA

Length: 2 hr 7min

Action ~ Comedy ~ Crime ~ Thriller

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!

Rebel Ridge

2024 Netflix

Rated: TV-MA

Length: 2 hr 11min

Action ~ Crime ~ Drama ~ Thriller

Directed by: Jeremy Saulnier

Starring: Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, David Denman, and Emory Cohen.

“I’m running out of letters. And I don’t mean to reminisce, but it’s one thing I can’t shake from the Corps: Acronyms. And the acronym you need to worry about right now is PACE.”

Aaron Pierre stars as Terry Richmond, an ex-Marine riding his bicycle into the town of Shelby Springs, Louisiana. He is listening to his earbuds and wears a backpack containing a paper bag full of $36,000 cash. He is going to the courthouse to bail out his cousin Mike Simmons and then buy a pick-up truck so they can make an honest living hauling boats. He is intentionally hit, and surprised, by a Shelby Springs Police Cruiser. The two officers illegally detain and search Terry against his will. Upon finding the money they seize it claiming Civil Asset Forfeiture, and then let Terry go.

Terry makes it to the courthouse and tries to post bail telling the Clerk that the County already has his money, illegally confiscated by the Police Department. Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb), another courthouse clerk, overhears Terry and offers to help him. Summer promises to have the paperwork ready for his cousin’s release if he can get the money together for the bail. Terry then goes to the Police station and tries to report the money stolen. Police Chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson) intervenes and tells Terry that unless he leaves he is looking at several felony charges, “Now, F*CK OFF! and get out of here!”

Terry leaves and arranges to get the $10,000 he needs from his former Marine colleague and business partner Mr. Liu. The police know that Terry got the original $36,000 from Mr. Liu, and raid the restaurant he owns and seizes cash under the guise of Civil Asset Forfeiture. Feeling trapped into a corner by the corrupt Police Chief and Department, he sees no recourse but to go to the station and take matters into his own hands. Chief Burnne confronts Terry outside just as they discover that Terry is a Marine Martial Arts Instructor specializing in Jujitsu.

And that’s the moment we see Terry’s calm, quiet demeanor turn into a very methodical Jujitsu Martial Arts Master. He overpowers the Chief and the Officers and retrieves just the $10,000 he needs to bail out his cousin. He then goes down to the courthouse where Summer helps him expedite the Bail paperwork. Terry, along with Summer, discover in trying to get his cousin out of jail that there is a very corrupt conspiracy involving the Police department and the Courthouse. They team up and help each other to uncover the conspiracy, and take down the corrupt Police Department and Judicial system of Shelby Springs.

Jeremy Saulnier (who wrote, produced, directed and edited rebel Ridge) says Rebel Ridge could be mistaken for a true story (although it is not) because he built the whole movie around the legal loophole anti-drug regulation Civil Asset Forfeiture. In Jeremy’s words, “It’s this insane loophole in anti-drug regulation that allows law enforcement to seize property from ordinary citizens without any proof of criminal activity. I thought it’d make a great premise for a movie because of how unifying it is — it pisses everyone off.”

Aaron Pierre is fairly new to the Movie scene, this being his fourth movie. The Others are:

Old by M. Night Shyamalan 2021
Brother by Clement Virgo
Foe by Garth Davis

He has done quite a few TV series starting in 2017. This is my first introduction to Aaron and I am immediately a fan. He was excellent in this as the quiet calm marine who has a storm brewing just under the surface. His other movies; Old, Brother and Foe are now on my watchlist. I am going to be doing an end of year series on Best of, Top Ten lists, etc. and I think Aaron might inspire a category; Best New Actor. (Maybe Mia Goth for Best New Actress) (What do You think? Let me know in the comments section)

AnnaSophia Robb is fairly new to movies as well, her most recent before this being the 2021 Eytan Rockaway movie Lansky. She was very likeable as the single mother trying to do the right things. “I appreciate your appreciation.” I thought Aaron and Annasophia were a good pair portraying the underdogs trying to expose a corrupt City Judicial system. And Don Johnson is completely believable as the cocky corrupt southern Police Chief.

Do yourself a favor and watch this movie, it’s a good one.

A high Action Crime Drama Thriller I Highly Recommended!

The Folks watched it two nights ago and gave it two thumbs up, so……

That’s SIX THUMBS UP!!!!

Anymore thumbs up?

Let us know in the comments section…..