Drama

Hostiles

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Hostiles
  • IMDb: link

Hostiles movie reviewHostiles is a wagon train movie, without the wagon train. Christian Bale stars as Capt. Joseph J. Blocker, a career solider who has spent the better part of two decades fighting Native Americans in the late 19th Century. A reluctant Blocker is ordered to escort an old enemy (Wes Studi) and his family (Adam Beach, Xavier Horsechief, Q’orianka Kilcher, and Tanaya Beatty) from New Mexico to Montana and deliver them safely home after years of being prisoners of the Union Army. Along the way, the group will pick-up a woman (Rosamund Pike) whose family was brutally killed in the film’s opening scene and a prisoner (Ben Foster) with a connection to Blocker’s past.

After the initial attack on the Quaid farm, Hostiles falls back into a slow burn of a film as former enemies and strangers will have to rely on each other to make the dangerous trek across country. Writer/director Scott Cooper‘s adapted screenplay doesn’t reinvent the wheel and relies mostly on strong performances to carry a rather straightforward plot that never quite succeeds in presenting Blocker and his prisoners as equals due to the vastly superior amount of time the camera spends on the former compared to the later.

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I, Tonya

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: I, Tonya
  • IMDb: link

I, Tonya movie reviewI, Tonya is a compelling, if flawed, look at the life and career of Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) memorable mostly for the terrific performances of Robbie and co-star Allison Janney (as Tonya’s mother). Framed as flashbacks told through a series of current interviews (which were actually shot as reference for the script) we watch a young Tonya struggle with acceptance in ice skating despite her obvious talent, her troubled relationships with her mother and husband (Sebastian Stan), and the events leading up to the attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver).

While a bit too apologetic of Harding in an attempt to allow audiences to see her as the victim of circumstance she believes herself to be, writer Steven Rogers embraces the trashy tabloid nature of the the entire sordid affair going so far as to include Bobby Cannavale as a Hard Copy producer. Director Craig Gillespie‘s film isn’t without its missteps including Robbie taking over the role of Tonya at 13 (seriously, was I the only one thinking of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story at this point?) and some awkward CGI that doesn’t always properly fit Robbie’s face to her stunt double on the ice.

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Battle of the Sexes

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Battle of the Sexes
  • IMDb: link

Battle of the Sexes Blu-ray reviewBattle of the Sexes works as a kind of CliffsNotes version of events leading up to the inter-gender 1973 tennis match between women’s champion Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and aging men’s star Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell). The script by Simon Beaufoy offers glimpses at both players’ home lives, marital and emotional issues, and eventually the match itself. While Battle of the Sexes touches on the creation of the WTA and the rivalry with the men’s tour, I’d have preferred more insight here and overall better framing of the historical importance of the match.

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Molly’s Game

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Molly’s Game
  • IMDb: link

Molly's Game movie reviewIn choosing to adapt Molly Bloom‘s true story, writer/director Aaron Sorkin begins with an already intriguing subject matter which is only helped by his trademark pacing and smart dialogue. Jessica Chastain is terrific as the failed amateur skier whose life took a dramatic twist after washing out of Olympic qualifying to become the what tabloids dubbed the “poker princess.” Filled with celebrities and high rollers, Molly Brown ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game for almost a decade before being arrested by the FBI. Sorkin rounds out the cast with Idris Elba as Molly’s lawyer, Kevin Costner as Molly’s father, and Michael Cera as one of the regulars at Molly’s games.

Sorkin’s script takes us through Molly’s journey from the ski slopes to underground poker clubs, while offering insight on how Molly rose to fame and the struggles she faced long before the FBI started knocking on her door. Although she has a court case looming, and much of the film is spent with her talking about her past with her lawyer, Molly Bloom stays out of the courtroom in favor of flashbacks to her glory days and mistakes made along the way.

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Stronger

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Stronger
  • IMDb: link

Stronger Blu-ray reviewJake Gyllenhaal stars as Jeff Bauman whose life changes in an instant when he loses his legs in the Boston Marathon bombing. Based on Bauman’s real experiences, the screenplay by John Pollono follows the man’s struggle to deal with his loss while an entire city embraces him as the symbol for “Boston Strong.”

Stronger spends a little more time on Bauman the screw-up and less on the man’s finding the strength to work through his accident (mostly shrunken down into a couple of montages) than expected. Post-accident, when the film focuses on Bauman’s struggle and that of his girlfriend (Tatiana Maslany) the film’s focus is clear, although the amount of side characters, including Miranda Richardson as Bauman’s mother and a host of friends and family (none of whom seem to understand what the man is going through, but are happy to cash in on his celebrity), aren’t nearly as strong or compelling.

[Lionsgate, Blu-ray $24.99 / DVD $19.98]

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