Thriller

The Long Walk

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Long Walk
  • IMDb: link

Set in dystopian present where the United States Government has been replaced by a totalitarian regime (something which seems scarily prescient given our current circumstance), The Long Walk follows a group of “volunteers” on a grueling contest to walk continuously over hundreds of miles until only a single winner remains standing (with the quick and brutal murders of any contestants who fall off the pace). Adapted from a Stephen King novel, the film has many of the same themes of King’s The Running Man, or other films such as The Hunger Games and Death Race, making social commentary on a corrupt system and the gamification of life for ordinary people turning survival into entertainment.

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Fuck Marry Kill

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Fuck Marry Kill
  • IMDb: link

I really do root for Lucy Hale, but she doesn’t make it easy. Fuck Marry Kill is a middling romantic comedy spliced together with a below-average thriller that leaves everyone unsatisfied. Hale stars as 30 year-old Eva who jumps back in to the dating scene after the end of a long relationship (with a doofus we can’t possibly see her spending 8 minutes with let alone 8 years) just as a serial killer is targeting young women from dating apps. While the killer is discussed early on, most of the first-half of the film follows Eva meeting three bachelors and discovering she’s walked into the classic Fuck, Marry, Kill scenario with her friends (Virginia Gardner, Bethany Brown, and JayR) and sister (Brooke Nevin) all having differing opinions on who she should end up with.

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In a Lonely Place

/ / Home Video
  • Title: In a Lonely Place
  • IMDb: link

Throwback Tuesday takes us back 75 years to the 1950 thriller featuring Humphrey Bogart as the temperamental screenwriter Dixon Steele who local police wrongly believe is responsible for the murder of a young cocktail waitress (Martha Stewart) which leads to continued harassment, although the events of that night do introduce him to his lovely neighbor Laurel (Gloria Grahame) and the beginning of a love affair. Despite the amount of time spent on its aftermath, including a memorable scene in the police station where Dix is first questioned, it’s actually little more than an unusual setup to our two leads together.

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Relay

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

The strength of Relay is in its setup and the more technical aspects of how Riz Ahmed‘s character Ash assists his clients, those in possession of damaging documents to their company who choose to return them rather than turn whistleblower, while keeping himself at arms length and hidden in the shadows. However, the weakness to Justin Piasecki‘s script is how the story of Ash’s latest client (Lily James), who is facing harassment after stealing confidential information from her employer proving criminal negligence that could kill thousands, eventually devolves into a rote thriller (especially in the last half-hour) that flies in the face of what made everything beforehand work so well.

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Weapons

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

It will be interesting to see if American audiences will be patient enough for the slow burn of writer/director Zach Cregger‘s Weapons which takes place one month after all but one student from an elementary classroom each leave their homes at exactly 2:17am one morning and disappear into the night. Presented in a series of vignettes highlighting different characters, some of which overlap more than others, the film digs into the trauma and fear the kids’ disappearance has caused before the movie, eventually, reveals the truth behind events. And, if you are patient enough to wait for it, Weapons delivers one of the most memorable climactic sequences in recent memory.

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