Alan Rapp

Prodigal Son – It’s All in the Execution

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Prodigal Son – It’s All in the Execution
  • IMDb: link

Prodigal Son - It's All in the Execution television review

Prodigal Son returns for its Second Season with Malcolm (Tom Payne) even “more brightish than usual.” Still feeling the effects of helping his sister get away with murder, it’s not until the final scene where the Surgeon (Michael Sheen), now reinstated back to the asylum, correctly diagnoses the true cause of his son’s guilt. With Gil (Lou Diamond Phillips) still recovering from his wounds, JT (Frank Harts) has done a solid job running the unit which catches a new case in a justice killer dispatching the guilty by obscure means (one by guillotine and walling another inside a literal dungeon while still alive).

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The Dissident

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Dissident
  • IMDb: link

The Dissident movie reviewThe Dissident examines events surrounding the government-sanctioned murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian journalist and dissident living in Turkey and working for The Washington Post who entered the Sauadi Embassy one day and never emerged. Director Bryan Fogel provides a compelling narrative, outlining Khashoggi’s work as a state-run journalist in his home country before being pressured to leave his family and start a new life abroad. In examining Saudi Arabia targeting Khashoggi, and other dissidents, the film explores frightening levels Big Brother technology. The film also, not so subtly, points out how Donald Trump, ignoring facts brought to light and sanctions from his own Congress, chose to turn a blind eye to the shocking events.

Fogel’s presentation isn’t without some curious choices starting with a bombastic score better suited to a thriller, or Christopher Nolan film, and some narrative choices which rearrange events out of order (such as Khashoggi’s short-run television program). Such jarring choices undercut the natural tension of events which are shocking enough without the need of additional help.

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Remington Steele – Vintage Steele

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Remington Steele – Vintage Steele
  • IMDb: link

Remington Steele - Vintage Steele television review

Throwback Tuesday takes us back to a con man pretending to be the world’s greatest detective in Remington Steele. “Vintage Steele” throws Remington Steele (Pierce Brosnan) and Laura (Stephanie Zimbalist) together on an absurd case involving a dead body which keeps appearing and disappearing. The body is first discovered by Laura’s ex-boyfriend (David Huffman), a banker overseeing a deal with a local winery, who discovers the body floating in a vat of chardonnay. He successfully hides the body, which he fears will blow the deal, only to lose in on the road and later discover it again in the winery. With most of the story centered around either finding the body, which Steele takes to calling Harry, or preventing others from stumbling upon it, the mystery of how the man died (or who he is) remains on the back-burner.

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All In: The Fight for Democracy

/ / Home Video
  • Title: All In: The Fight for Democracy
  • IMDb: link

All In: The Fight for Democracy movie reviewAll In: The Fight for Democracy tackles voter suppression in a documentary that examines both the racial roots of a practice to disenfranchise voters over the color of their skin and specifically Stacey Abrams‘ defeat in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election which led to her becoming a national voice on the subject. Tied both to Abrams’ own account, who produced the film and appears multiple times on camera, while also tackling the larger historical look and voter suppression, at times the documentary from Lisa Cortes and Liz Garbus feels a bit fragmented.

Like Slay the Dragon, All In: The Fight for Democracy examines gerrymandering, but here the subject is tackled along with several other aspects of voter suppression including poll taxes, literacy tests, and modern examples such as Voter ID laws. The former feels a bit more targeted with time to go into further depth. However, the film is still quite informative and works as intended – as a rallying cry to fight for your right to vote and be aware of those who would try to take it away for their own selfish ends.

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MacGyver – Jack + Kinematics + Safe Cracker + MgKNO3 + GTO

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: MacGyver (2016) – Jack + Kinematics + Safe Cracker + MgKNO3 + GTO
  • wiki: link

MacGyver - Jack + Kinematics + Safe Cracker + MgKNO3 + GTO television review

“Jack + Kinematics + Safe Cracker + MgKNO3 + GTO” picks up the long-dormant thread of the missing member of the team: Jack Dalton (George Eads). Eads, who left the show in the middle of the show’s Third Season, doesn’t appear in the episode other than in previously-shot footage to open the show in which Jack leaves the team to join a task force to hunt down terrorist Tiberius Kovac. The episode opens with Jack’s body returned to the United States and the team’s wake for their fallen friend. Nearly two-years since Dalton’s exit, this episode has been coming for awhile. The only real surprise is how quickly things are wrapped-up in a single-episode storyline (rather than kick-off a longer arc).

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