REVIEW: Gangster Squad

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Uncle Critic

Gangster-Squad-MainWD-dropGangster Squad is the first attempt at a noir type movie we’ve had in a while. It’s got a crazy great cast that’s just too many to call out individually and a pretty decent story on it. Ruben Fleischer is the director here and he does a pretty good job. The gist of things is Mickey Cohen is a mob boss who’s running the town and wants to expand even further. A group of cops come together as a vigilante group to put a stop to Cohen. Overall it’s pretty great, though if you’re looking for the Untouchables you’ll be disappointed, it’s not that good and it’s not that serious. Don’t get me wrong, it’s no comedy but there are some pretty over the top things here, the movie is somewhere between the Untouchables and Dick Tracy. If you like movies about gangsters then you’ll probably have a fun time at this one.

Get Gangster Squad from Amazon HERE

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REVIEW: Robot & Frank

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Uncle Critic

First time director Jake Schreier and first time feature writer Christopher D. Ford bring us Robot & Frank, the story of an old jewel thief and his helper robot turned partner. Taking place in what seems to be the near future there’s Frank (Frank Langella) an old man that’s pretty set in his ways. He likes reading books he gets from the library, hates all the technology that’s all around him, has a memory that’s starting to go and is an ex-jewel thief that still likes to shoplift on occasion. His son Hunter (James Marsden) basically gets tired of driving up to see him and take care of the old man so he buys him a robot that is programmed to help him around the house and look after his health. Frank is obviously very against the robot at first, as is his daughter Madison (Liv Tyler). Though after a while Frank realizes he is able to teach the Robot things, things like picking locks and cracking safes. There’s some stuck up rich people in town, they’ve bought the library that Frank likes to go to and cleared all the books out of it so for a measure of revenge and some fun Frank decides to rob the place with the help of the robot. The movie is one of those comedy/drama deals, one where it’s got some good jokes in it but you won’t be laughing through the whole thing. I was pretty excited for this because movies with robots are pretty fun and this really exceeded my expectations. I’d recommend checking this one out while you can, it’s a limited release so you might have to search for it but it’ll be worth it.

Filed under: Comedy, Crime, Movies/Shows, Reviews, SciFi | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

REVIEW: Lawless

Posted on September 1, 2012 by Uncle Critic

Based on the book ‘The Wettest County in the World’ by Matt Bondurant, adapted by Nick Cave and directed by John Hillcoat. Featuring Tom Hardy (in his best role ever), Guy Pearce and Gary Oldman (shortly). Sadly the film also has Shia LaBeouf, but whatever, fuck that guy. The Bondurant brothers are moonshiners, they’ve got a good thing going in the county, no one bothers them and they’re making some decent money. Everything is going pretty well until one day a hot shot lawman from Chicago comes to town and gives all the moonshiners the option to pay him or get shut down. Everyone in the county jumps on board except the Bondurants, which causes a lot of shit. The Bondurant brothers are equipped for a war, especially since the one brother, Forrest (Tom Hardy) is pretty much invincible (or as the annoying bitch that talked through the entire movie next to me put it “invisible”), Forrest is really one of the great badasses of movie history. The movie is pretty much everything I like out of these flicks. We’ve got a good story, some great violence, and some amazing characters; I’d say this is one of the better movies about this era of history that I’ve ever seen. Anyone that likes bootleg running, gangsters and getting in wars with cops needs to see Lawless.

Get Lawless from Amazon HERE

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REVIEW: Consenting Adults

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Uncle Critic

This movie is further proof that Kevin Spacey doesn’t make bad movies. Consenting Adults however is a movie that Kevin doesn’t have to carry alone, Kevin Kline is in as the co-starring role, I never knew they did a movie together, but it’s a good thing they did, it’s a great team. We’ve also got Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as an added bonus in a good sized role here and even a bit of Forest Whitaker. Basically what we’ve got here is Richard Parker and Priscilla Parker are a nice married couple, Eddy and Kay Otis move in next to them. Eddy is a bit of a scam artist, they find out this out when he offers to pull something to help his neighbors get out of debt; they take the money but do it reluctantly. Eventually the two couple become close friends; Eddy wants to make it more than friends with a bit of a wife swap deal, as you can imagine this turns bad, but not in the way you may think. Someone ends up in jail on murder charges; he claims he’s innocent, while attempting to prove this some more bodies start to stack up. I loved the way this movie went, there’s a few turns, some you don’t see at all, some I was thinking ‘it would be awesome if this happened but they won’t do that’. A lot of people seem to be down on this movie a lot for some reason but I think the cast took this ball and ran all the way downfield with it. If you’re into murder mysteries Consenting Adults is a movie you should check out.

Get Consenting Adults from Amazon HERE

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REVIEW: Killer Joe

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Uncle Critic

This one has a little bit of everything, a fair amount of nudity, some pretty grizzly violence, and a pretty overall disturbing tone, I mean there are some really unsettling scenes in Killer Joe. Emile Hirsch and Thomas Haden Church are father and son, the son is down on his luck, owes some bad guys money and his life is on the line. He comes to his Dad with a plan to hire a hitman to off his Mom (his Dad’s ex-wife) to collect the insurance money, the policy being in his sister’s Dottie’s name, they can split it all equal. Matthew McConaughey is Killer Joe, a detective who’s a hitman on the side. Killer Joe is clearly a psychopath, not quite the level of Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men), but not too far away. Killer Joe’s fee is twenty five grand; they don’t have the money to pay him so Joe agrees to take Dottie as a retainer. As you can imagine somewhere down the road shit gets fucked up and everything goes pretty crazy. I’m always glad to see Thomas Haden Church in a movie, he’s really become a solid actor in his later years, Matthew McConaughey is pretty chilling but the brightest light in this movie is Juno Temple as Dottie, he’s so cute and happy it’s literally a joy to see her on screen, I’m pretty sure she’s going to have many males crushing over her after they see this. William Friedkin directs this crazy tale, you might know him from directing such films as Bug, The Exorcist and The French Connection, I won’t say he was the only man for the job but after seeing this it’s clear it wouldn’t have been the same movie with someone else in the director’s chair. If you like movies about hitmen and fucked up situations you’ll be happy with Killer Joe, but be warned, it earns that NC-17 rating in a few places.

Get Killer Joe from Amazon HERE

Filed under: Crime, Drama, Movies/Shows, Reviews, Thriller | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

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