Sicario: Day of the Soldado

First Hit: With a reflection towards today’s boarder issues and cartels, this film also shows us a side of our government that could also exist.

Our government manipulates groups of people to change the course of events to suit themselves.

In this movie, we have the government wanting to start a war between Mexican drug cartels so that it disrupts the flow of people coming into the United States. They want to do this, because their belief is that a terrorist bombing explosion in a Kansas City grocery store was done by Islamic radicals that came through the Mexican border. They believe the cartels are transporting these radicals across the borders.

To create this disruption, our Secretary of Defense James Riley (Matthew Modine) brings on Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) CIA Special Activities Division agent, to figure out how to start a war between two cartels. By doing so he hopes to disrupt the inflow of terrorists across the Mexican border. He says the way to do this is to kidnap one of the cartels children and have the evidence point to the kidnapping by a rival cartel. Once Riley decides to go with this plan, he assigns Cynthia Foards (Catherine Keener) to manage the operation.

Graver brings on Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) who has a grudge against Carlos Reyes one of the cartels' leaders because they killed his family. Besides being motivated, Garver tells Alejandro he’s got free reign to do what he needs to make this operation happen.

The subplot is about a young boy Miguel Hernandez (Elijah Rodriguez) who is lured by money to become a coyote and take people across the border. Because he lives in the U.S. he can easily go across the border as needed to pick up his cargo of immigrants and take them across the river to the U.S. side.

When Alejandro and Graver kidnaps Isabel Reyes(Isabella Moner), they try to bring her back into Mexico. However, the Mexican police get involved, start a gun fight with the CIA, and try to get the girl back by killing the CIA operatives in convoy. The whole mission goes sour.

Riley and Foards find out that most of the bombers were born U.S. Citizens and not from over the border. This and with the convoy attack, Riley tells Graver to “clean it all up,” meaning kill the girl and Alejandro who escaped the Mexican Police assault. However, Alejandro has some integrity, is in possession of the girl, and decides he’s going to help the girl and himself stay alive and figure out a way out of the mess they're in.

The action is intense in this film and there is humility and kind humanity. As for the latter, there is a sweet sequence when Alejandro meets up with Angel (Bruno Bichir), a deaf man, finds a way to communicate with him, and asks him to help both him and the girl.

Brolin is strong in this CIA role. He carries the right amount of commanding surety in his character. Modine is excellent as Secretary of Defense. Keener was OK as the mission’s commander. Del Toro was excellent as the assassin with a heart. Moner was a revelation in this role. She showed wisdom far deeper than her age and perfect for the role. Rodriguez was very good as the brooding young man trying to find his way through his life. Bichir was wonderful as the deaf man who helps Alejandro and Reyes. Taylor Sheridan wrote a strong script that bordered on being too complicated for the required action. Stefano Sollima did a wonderful job of directing the action in this film.

Overall: I liked the relatedness to today’s border issues along with the movie's dramatization of the ugly truth that our government is not above throwing people away to cover their mistakes.

Hereditary

First Hit: A rather complex or complicated horror film that worked reasonably well.

This is a dark film and attempts, in its own way, to pose question about evil being hereditary. The story revolves around the horrible death of Charlie (Milly Shapiro). She is killed in an accident (or is it) when her brother Peter (Alex Wolff) is driving her to the hospital.

Although this scene is early in the film, the strangeness of the family and their dynamics are shown because Annie (Toni Collette), the mother, makes models of the house and other things in her work studio. Charlie sleeps outside in a tree house that's very cold. The main house itself is way out in the country and is given the feeling of being a bit dark. Peter is shown to be somewhat ambivalent about life, school, and spends a lot of time high on pot.

We learn later that this Annie’s accurate models are her art and livelihood. Her husband, Steve (Gabriel Byrne) is rather stoic about the family’s oddness and acts as the solid foundation of the family.

After Charlie’s death Peter and Annie have fights blaming each other for Charlie’s death while Steve tries to referee these fights.

Annie meets Joan (Ann Dowd) who speaks with her about losing a child and quickly becomes Annie’s confidant. But things become more bizarre and sinister when Joan teaches Annie about how to conjure up the spirit of her deceased Charlie.

From here the film takes some bizarre turns and outside of the strong performances, the story is not believable or, in the end, horrifying.

Collette is amazingly and bizarrely strong in this role. She’s required to portray a wide range of feelings and emotions and she does this very well. Wolff is the other prime role and his lack of outward rage was either script driven, or he didn’t have the ability to share this. His actions after the accident didn’t seem to fit the event and that was disconcerting to me. Byrne was OK as the stoic father who rarely ventured out of this role’s comfort zone. Shapiro was good in her short-lived part. Dowd was excellent as the friendly helpful person who also had a dark side. Ari Aster wrote and directed this film. I trust he got what he wanted but for me, the horror in the film was the shocking accident that killed Charlie, the rest was just oddly bizarre.

Overall: This film was unique in its storytelling that had strong performances.

American Animals

First Hit: Interesting in that it shows, how many under 25-year-old men think and act. 

Friendships among young men can be very influential. As childhood friends Warren Lipka (Evan Peters) Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) are still friends as they enter college. Warren was the more wild, entertaining, and reckless of the two. Together they had a symbiotic bond.

With Warren supposedly going to college on an athletic scholarship and Spencer being drawn towards art, they still hang out, smoke pot and try things together. When Spencer goes into the special collection book room at the Transylvania College Library, he’s struck by the amazing paintings in the displayed Audubon books. Thinking they are valuable, along with others in the collection, including one by Charles Darwin, kiddingly he wonders outloud to Spencer about their value and what he'd do with the money.

Hatching a plan to steal and fence the books, the plan starts a life of its own. Throughout the planning process, Spencer thinks that they will come across an obstacle that will require them to quit thinking they can pull off the job. They don’t. For each obstacle, they find a solution including bringing on two others to help them; brainiac Eric Borsuk (Jared Abrahamson) and rich boy Chas Allen (Blake Jenner).

The film follows them as the plot and work their way through the obstructions from making this robbery work. One of those items was who was going to neutralize the woman guarding the special collections, Betty Jean Gooch (Ann Dowd).

All their planning, partially induced by watching robbery films, turns out to be not as through as they had hoped, which resulted in poorly executed robbery.

One of the better things in this film were the occasional interviews with the real thieves, Gooch, and parents of the boys. What made this even more interesting was that I thought the real young men might have made a better film as they were all personable and film friendly, especially Warren.

Peters was good as Warren. He didn’t quite have the wild-eyed look of the real Warren, but it worked. Keoghan was strong as the conscious one of the group. His hesitating nature make his role work. Abrahamson was strong as the quiet, smart, and a slightly dark brooding Borsuk. The real Borsuk ended up becoming a writer. Jenner as the amped up Allen was intense and supercharged. I thought he did a good job in this role. Dowd was very good as the special collections librarian. Bart Layton wrote an effective and interesting script. He also directed the film. Although I liked the use of having interviews with the real young men, it didn’t help the film because they might have been good in their own roles.

Overall: This was an interesting film especially because it was a true story.

Hearts Beat Loud

First Hit: It was an obvious feel good movie and it worked reasonably well.

Frank Fisher (Nick Offerman) is a failing vinyl record store owner in Brooklyn, NY. He’s raising his biracial daughter Sam (Kiersey Clemons) alone and she’s just about to go away to UCLA enrolled in their pre-med program.

He seems stuck in his record store and in an early scene, he lights up a cigarette while standing behind the cash register. When his only customer points out that it is against the law to smoke, Frank doesn’t care. The customer leaves and in view of Frank and the audience, he makes the vinyl record purchase from Amazon via his phone.

Frank is staying in Brooklyn because his mother Marianne (Blythe Danner) is struggling in her old age. At one point, early on, he’s called to pick her up from a small store because she was caught shoplifting. His Brooklyn store is also near where his wife died while riding a bicycle.

Frank and his wife were in a band together and his first love is performing music. To satisfy his urges, he and Sam do jam together when she’s not studying. The audience gets treated to some of their work together.

Besides having strong, yet mixed, feelings about heading to UCLA for school, Sam is leaving her dad in his failing record store, and is falling in love with Rose (Sasha Lane) who is a local artist. Rose is her first love and is encouraging Sam to follow her passions.

Jamming one day, Frank and Sam tape a song Sam has written. Frank, without Sam’s permission, uploads the song onto Spotify under the band name of, “We’re Not A Band.” Somehow the song ends up on the Spotify Indie Play List.

Encouraged that Sam has real talent, Frank attempts to keep his daughter around by telling her she has a real talent and they could make a go of it in the music business.

Because the store is failing, he decides to tell his landlord Leslie (Toni Collette) that he’s vacating the space. His closest friend, local bar owner Dave (Ted Danson), tries to help Frank get over the hump of closing down the business.

The stories and sub-plots in this movie are: Frank's failing record store and inability to support Sam’s college tuition, Marianne’s failing health, Sam moving to California, Rose and Sam’s relationship, Frank’s feelings for Leslie, Dave’s love of trees, and most of all the music that Frank and Sam make together.

Offerman was OK as the father. For some reason it was difficult for me to really feel his angst towards his situation. This difficulty could have been partly due to the script and direction versus his ability. I did sense his character's love for music. Clemons was wonderful. I thought that she did a great job of showing her love for her father, leaving home for the first time, and falling in love. Danson was fun as the long time Brooklyn barkeep and Frank’s friend. Collette’s role was interesting because she was very cagy about her feelings for Frank, as a friend and landlord. Lane was fantastic as the struggling artist who fell in love with Sam. Danner was excellent as Frank’s mom who was slowly losing her ability to function in the world. Marc Basch and Brett Haley co-wrote this script that lacked some background story but created wonderful interactive dialogue. Haley also directed this effort and it was generally on target.

Overall: The songs brought forth joyful emotion and were definitely a bright spot in this film.

On Chesil Beach

First Hit: Saoirse Ronan shows, once again, why she’s one of the top actors acting today.

When an actor can share a wide range of deeply felt feelings and emotions without saying a single word to draw the audience into each scene, pay attention.

This story is about two people, who've just married, attempting to sexually consummate their marriage. The film uses flashbacks to show their family history, issues, and the pressures they faced growing up and how it's affecting this new life together.

Ronan as Florence Ponting is a young lady with prodigious musical talents is being raised by her overbearing mother Violet (Emily Watson) and a pushy bullying father Geoffrey (Samuel West). Their opinions and control over Florence and her sister, Ruth's (Bebe Cave) lives is a key and important component of the film.

Then there is Edward Mayhew (Billy Howle), he’s living with a mother Marjorie (Anne-Marie Duff) who got hit by a moving train’s door and suffers mental issues. She can be found naked talking to birds in the backyard. His father Lionel (Adrian Scarborough) is long suffering taking care of his wife, the home, work and two daughters along with Edward. Their house is chaos and when he receives a letter stating that he’s #1 in the history tests he took, no one in his family cares.

Searching to find someone he can tell and who cares, he runs into Florence and it is love at first site.

The romance is wonderful yet void of much deep intimacy. They marry and when it comes to consummating the marriage through intimacy, they struggle.

The scenes during and after their sexual attempt are very strong and the amount and range of emotion shown by both actors was excellent.

The film takes the actors forward, some 40 years into the future and it is sweet to see how the film ends.

Ronan is phenomenal. As I’ve indicated in previous reviews, she’s the very best young actress around. She selects roles that are deep and complex and gives each character body and soul. Howle is very good here. He does a great job of portraying men’s insecurities and complexities. Watson is sternly great. West is strong as the intense demanding father. Cave is great. Duff is amazing as the mentally challenged mother. Scarborough is solidly good as Edwards’ father. Ian McEwan wrote a very strong screenplay. Dominic Cooke did a wonderful job of piecing this story together and getting excellent performances from his cast.

Overall: I loved the complexity of this film and how it addressed a difficult subject.