Rush

First Hit:  Extremely well-made film about the rivalry of 1970 Formula 1 racing legends James Hunt and Niki Lauda.

This is a sit back and hold on to your seat film, as Ron Howard, makes everyone seem integral to the story, including the cars.

The British Hunt (played by Chris Hemsworth) is a charismatic, hard drinking, smoking and instinctive race car driver. His goal is to drive fast and win races. He doesn’t know much about the details of the cars he drives, he just knows when they are good and how to drive them fast.

His archrival is Austrian Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) who is meticulous, knows everything about the cars he drives and knows the risk of everything he does. These two guys are as different as night and day, except they both like to go fast. We are immediately immersed into each of their personalities as Ron Howard makes sure you “get” what each of these guys are like.

Then there are the cars; the sound and power of these cars comes through on this film in spades, yet it doesn’t overwhelm the film or scenes. The races are used as check points on the evolution of the driver’s lives.

Hemsworth is very good at portraying the intense, likeable, Hunt and gives the audience glimpses of his depth as a person. Bruhl is absolutely amazing. His embodiment of one of the most famous drivers is amazing. Peter Morgan wrote a fabulous script that let both the characters breathe while the racing was the stage. Howard shows, yet again, why he is one of the best directors around.

Overall:  Whether you like racing or not, it is wonderful and intense film. It is a Rush.

The Family

  First Hit:  There were amusing moments but it was more of a drama than dark comedy and in this realm it was unexceptional.

Frank Blake (AKA Giovanni Manzoni played by Robert De Niro) is hiding out in France with his family; wife Maggie Blake (Michelle Pfeiffer), daughter Belle Blake (Dianna Agron) and son Warren Blake (John D’Leo). Blake/Manzoni is hiding out in France because he’s in a witness protection program headed by Robert Stansfield (Tommy Lee Jones).

His whole family cannot seem to hide out innocuously therefore Stansfeld has been moving them every 60 days. They just can't seem to stop causing trouble and bring attention to themselves wherever they move. Because Manzoni ratted on another Mafia boss thereby sending him to prison, he and his family are the active targets for assassination by the boss’s henchmen.

Where this film is fun and interesting is when either child is leading the scene or when Maggie is working her magic. Maggie gets pissed that a French store owner demeans her behind her back, so she blows up the store. Daughter Belle brutally takes care of French boys who have no manners, while son Warren sizes up everything and everyone and then arranges things to his advantage.

This is where the comedy comes and then goes. Maggie’s attitude toward each scene, showing her softer side or her hard New York City wasp side is fabulous. When the kids come together to save the family, the action part of this film comes together.

De Niro, although the primary male role, didn’t steal this film, his family did. Pfeiffer was fabulous. Her accent, attitude and actions were fully engaging and kept me interested in her scenes. Agron was really great. I enjoyed her strength and softness and felt she did a great job of embodying them. D’Leo was very strong as the young son who has embodied his dad’s wiliness, street smarts and the ability to put two and two together quickly. Jones seemed tired and uninterested in this role. Luc Besson and Michael Caleo wrote a confused script. If it was to be more of a black comedy, they needed more humor, if they were going strictly action, they needed better setups. Luc Besson directed this without a clear focus of the type/genre it was to be.

Overall:  Although the film didn’t really know its focus, many of the scenes were very enjoyable.

The Worlds End

First Hit:  Although funny at times, it wore on me and, in the end, didn’t quite work.

The film starts our rather drudgingly with Gary King (Simon Pegg) in some sort of support group telling a story that gets no intelligent discernible feedback from other members of the group.

Next thing you know, he’s recruiting his old friends to take a trip back to village where then stopped a tour of 12 Pubs some twenty years earlier. He wants them to finish the tour, like it will make his life different. King is manipulative and in a way that made me groan. Anyone falling for is stupid arguments for going deserved what they got.

Regardless of the quote un quote friendship that may have existed, there is really nothing that binds this group together. However, without this piece there would be no film, so… His friends in this caper are Steven (Paddy Considine), Andy (Nick Frost), Peter (Eddie Marsan), and Oliver (Martin Freeman).

The banter (writing) between the blokes, at times was laugh-out-loud outstanding, but in between the improbable plot and outcome put a dark (forget it) cloud over the entire film. It is like some of the bits were great, but the whole was left wanting.

The epilogue, sort of speak, did not help the cause of the film and therefore the ending was – “The World’s End”.

Pegg was funny at times but his character wore on me and I would have been rid of him early if I were one of his blokes. Considine, Frost, Marsan, and Freeman were all solid in their roles and upheld the story line very well. Pegg and Edgar Wright wrote the improbably script while Wright did a reasonable job as director tying it all together.

Overall:  Not much to enjoy except the funny bits which come few and far between.

Elysium

First Hit:  Well-crafted film about the future while keeping humanness as part of the story.

The future is clear, there are the haves and have nots.

The haves do not live on Earth any longer. They live on a spinning wheel space station just out of the atmosphere called Elysium. It can be seen from Earth. On this space station people do not get diseased and if they do, their machines make them well.

On Earth there is overcrowding, theft, crime, and denigration of humans and their spirit. Max (Played by Matt Damon) has been a thief, imprisoned, and now just is trying to get by. When he makes a joke to one of the robot policemen, he gets beat. His childhood friend, Frey (Alice Braga) is a nurse and was serving on Elysium but had to come back to Earth because her daughter Matilda (Emma Tremblay) had leukemia and wasn't a citizen.

Not being a citizen (meaning someone with an embedded code in their arm) means that you don't really exist to the people of Elysium. Frey and Max meet up again and she wants him to help her daughter to Elysium to get healed and he wants to get there because he just got a lethal dose of radiation and will die in 5 days.

Of course the heads of Elysium, especially Secretary of State Delacourt (Jodie Foster) who has eyes for more power, don’t want their world contaminated so no non-citizen gets to the space station.

This film explores, where are we going as a human race and what will we do to create equality among people. It explores the question of what will become of us in the year 2154.

Damon is, as he always is, sublime. He makes his role so real and effortless that you can’t help but be on his side and believe his rightness. Braga is great as his longtime friend. She brings such humanness to this film as does her daughter Tremblay. Foster is powerful and spot-on as the politico who wants control and to politically move up the ladder to President. Neill Blomkamp both directed and wrote this story. His extraordinary use of special effects on space vehicles and landscapes were well thought out and implemented.

Overall:  Although this film is well done, it may not do well at the box office because it just may be too smooth and the name doesn't help it.

2 Guns

First Hit:  From a tongue-in-cheek point of view, watching Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg work together was really fun.

The problem with this film is the script. There are just a few to many twists and turns to make this really hold together well.

However, the interaction between the two actors was wonderful. It seemed as though they probably had a gas working together. They were great in their characters as unidentified agents of the government.

Trench (Washington) is an undercover DEA agent who is attempting to set-up the arrest of Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos) a major cocaine dealer. Stigman (Wahlberg) is with a Navy investigative unit that is trying to recover money that was taken from a crime.

Together they decide to rob a bank for different unspoken reasons. What they end up doing is stealing a bank full of money put there by the CIA. Now the CIA area agent headed by Earl (Bill Paxton) who is a cruel man prone to using Russian roulette as a way to get people to talk. One of the lures to draw Trench deeper into the fray was his part-time lover Deb (Paula Patton).

So what the film tries to sort out is why the Navy, CIA, DEA and a drug cartel are fighting about $43.125 million dollars and how a friendship grew.

Washington is his usual strong centered intelligent character. Wahlberg is goofy bold in his approach to life and the mission. Paxton is excellent as the thuggish CIA lead. Olmos did a very good job of being the drug kingpin who needed to be taken down a notch. Patton was OK in her minor and pivotal role. Blake Masters wrote the convoluted screen play with enough comedy to redeem his effort. Baltasar Kormakur directed this team of top-notch actors and made it hold together by expanding the personality of the characters and using his actors well.

Overall:  This was an amusing film but any other two actors in the lead and this film fails.