(**** / *****): Always love a good Linklater genre exercise – SCHOOL OF ROCK, especially, holds a special place in my heart – and HIT MAN is no exception: Howard Hawks energy channelled through the combustable sexy-star power of Powell and Arjona. Only gripe being that the ending, while not unearned, did feel a bit too breezy and/or pat – but then again, I suppose does fit within that Hawksian mold. Great little weekend film.
(*****+ / *****): Best GODZILLA film since the 1954 original. Deeply-drawn characters whose pain and fear pack an emotional wallop; a resonant anti-war message and examination of Japanese PTSD and devastation; and – at last – a return to Godzilla as a terrifying, world-destroying monstrosity. Adding to Blu/4k library as soon as it's available – hope they include the black and white version. Masterpiece.
(****+ / *****): Few phrases inspire an automatic watch like "Korean revenge film" and BALLERINA is one of my recent tops: tight, taut, crowd-pleasing revenge story with great performances across the board – especially lead Jeon Jong-seo as Ok-ju (in a rather Michael-Caine-in-GET-CARTER-infused turn) – and narrative twists (one in particular being a fantastic subversion of the "hunt from the bottom up" fare) that jolt what can be – in less imaginative hands – a fairly rote genre with pathos and unpredictability.
Considering PRISONERS the centerpiece of an unofficial pre-Taylor Sheridan blue-collar crime film trilogy circa 2012-13, Scott Cooper's OUT OF THE FURNACE and Andrew Dominik's KILLING THEM SOFTLY being the other two: bleak, brutal, unflinching, and breathtakingly beautiful (thank you Roger Deakins and Jóhann Jóhannson (RIP) – what a marriage of visual and music) in all of its bleak and unflinching brutality (emotional and physical), PRISONERS is one of the best studies of loss and the consequences of rage at one's own impotence I've seen.
Three career-best performances: Hugh Jackman (2019's BAD EDUCATION notwithstanding); Jake Gyllenhaal (my appreciation for and and recognition of my under-appreciation of his talent – though Dan Gilroy's NIGHTCRAWLER remains my favorite Gyllenhaal role – grew here by leaps and bounds; and Melissa Leo, which is saying something considering almost every performance from her could be considered a career-best.
Why, exactly, it took me more than 10 years to get around to seeing this masterwork is, like most things, beyond me. Duly added to the "procure blu / add to library pronto" list.
