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TheManWhoDoesThings
Reviews
Monkey Man (2024)
Contender for Best Movie of the Year Already
I left this movie jaw-dropped at how amazing this movie was. I came expect a John Wick-style high octane action movie with cool fight scenes, and I not only got that, but also so much more.
For a first-time director, Dev Patel has amazing film-making skills. Even when this movie wasn't absolutely kicking ass with its adrenaline pumped fight scenes, the narrative and characters kept me engaged the whole time. Patel creates absolutely gut-wrenching moments that are not too common among a lot of modern directors you see. Patel really gets you into the headspace of the main protagonist and gives a compelling, dare I say oscarworthy, performance as a traumatized man fueled by a lifetime of suppressed rage and anger as he tries to navigate his own life.
I honestly can't praise Patel enough for his work on this film, but there's a lot of other people involved who deserve a shout-out too. Sikandar Kher and Makarand Deshpande give perfectly despicable performances as the main villains of the movie that go above and beyond merely being serviceable. Sobhita Dhulipala, Pitobsh Tripathi, and Vipin Sharma also have some outstanding performances which really stood out.
The cinematography by Sharone Meir and Simon Temple is masterful, to say the least. The shots and transitions throughout this film capture the raw brutality as well as the stylish world that the world of this movie is entrenched in from beginning to end.
Fight coordinator Brahim Chab creates fight scenes that pack a punch with hard-hitting martial arts blows that devolve into messy, chaotic violence as they go on.
Even though there haven't been many movies that have been released so far this year, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that this movie will be somewhere in the upper rung. The brutal action, memorable performances, and general stylistic flare secures this movie as a gem in the action genre that will be remembered for years to come.
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Oddball Comedy With Extremely Quotable Dialogue
This movie is one of the few comedy films that I have watched that has succeeded in getting me to laugh scene after scene. This film is a perfect demonstration of the comedic genius the Coen Brothers have; they are masterful at creating dialogue that is not only humorous, but also very memorable ("The dude abides", "Obviously, you're not a golfer").
The memorability of the dialogue in this movie is also due in large part to the performances of the stellar cast. Jeff Bridges was absolutely made to play the laid-back Dude, and to replace him with any one else would be a disservice and a travesty. John Goodman also knocks it out of the park as the gruff Walter and I found his performance to be just as memorable, if not, even more so than Jeff's. I could genuinely not imagine anyone else playing these two characters because of how much they embody them.
Every scene in this movie is like its own comedy vignette, which makes it very rewatchable. The crime-related main story of the movie takes a back seat to the various strange and comical encounters and exchanges that the Dude happens upon throughout, so if you're watching this movie hoping to have a complex narrative about blackmail, fingerprints, and what not, you might be disappointed. Nonetheless, I feel like the crime aspect taking a back seat was a good choice for what the Coens set out to do in trying and gave the film less of a ball-and-chain to drag around.
If you're looking for a comedy you can watch your friends on the weekend, you might skip the Hangover and choose this comedy classic instead.
Maestro (2023)
Oscar Bait That Stumbles As It Goes Further Along
Maestro is a film which deeply desires to be intelligent, but can't quite reach the artistic heights it aspires to.
Firstly, it should be noted that Matthew Libatique's cinematography is absolutely phenomenal. There were many shots throughout this movie that were able to capture tension and character dynamics in creative ways. Bradley Cooper's acting is great for the most part as Leonard Bernstein, although sometimes his intentions come off as a bit vague at moments. The performances from the other members of the cast, which included Carey Mulligan, Maya Hawke, and Matt Bomer, also absolutely knocked it out of the park. There is a notable extended scene of Bernstein conducting music, will be gripping for those who are fans of orchestral music.
Despite all of Maestro's highs, it has a very pretentious air about itself that drags it down. There are many scenes in this movie which try to elevate themselves to the point of being profound, but try so hard in the process that they fail to do so. For example, a character will be having a casual talk when they suddenly begin talking about the folly of human nature completely out of nowhere. Many scenes feature characters making small talk that goes on for uncomfortably long times to the point where you begin to silently beg the film to move on to something else. There are also darker themes which are focused on much later, but are treated in ways that are trite for the average moviegoer.
Perhaps the greatest crime this movie commits is that it doesn't quite know what to say about Bernstein. Some times, he presented as a devoted romantic, whereas other times, he presented as promiscuous and devious. When the film ended, I found that I lacked a sense of what Bernstein's exact character was.
Maestro is a movie that might service people who have an interest in Bernstein, but for anyone else, it will be a drawn-out film that, while filled with some good performances and camera work, doesn't quite stick the landing it was hoping for.
Night Swim (2024)
"Use the Power of the Pool"
Going into this film, I was expecting a dumb-fun self-aware so bad it's good experience, but instead I got a bland horror film that took itself seriously to the point where it was painful. Every single scare that happened in this movie was not only predictable, but also didn't make sense considering the mechanics of the "pool monster" at its center. (I'm trying as I can not to laugh). Before I get into my criticisms of the monster proper, it is revealed later in the film that the pool has killed hundreds of people somehow without anyone catching on, which I find to be extremely hard to believe. Even if people didn't suspect the pool, you would still at least recognize the amount of disappearances associated with the area and avoid it. Anyway, on to my critiques proper. The "pool monster" basically heals you or grants your wish or some vague thing like that and requires you to sacrifice someone in return for it (even though it just brainwashes you and turns you into a killing machine, which undercuts the whole "sacrifice" aspect), but it also for some reason spooks random people who jump in it with not scary CGI jump scares and then just lets them go afterwards. Why would it go through the trouble of scaring people it is not going to kill? This is not only pointless, but also seems like it would jeopardize the pool's whole goal. If a corpse monster popped out at me when I was taking a swim, I would 100% book it out of that house. Another feature of this "pool monster" is that it connects to its host and gives them what I can only describe "pool power". There's a scene where the father character, Ray Waller, who is an ex-baseball player recovering from some injury, hits a ball superhumanly hard after the mentally calls upon the pool to help him. He also later goes on to mumble "the deep end is so cool" while getting possessed, and it meant to be terrifying instead of comedic, and the strangeness of it makes it even more hilarious. Not only are these real parts of the movie, they are also taken 100% seriously. In general, you could describe this movie as what would happen if a director read an ironically bad horror script (something akin to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes) without it ever occurring to him that what he was reading was meant to be ironic. The acting from everyone (except maybe Wyatt Russel early on) is very phoned in and inauthentic. After figuring out that a woman murdered her child, Mrs Waller, played by Kerry Condon, has little to no reaction the monstrosity of the act whatsoever. If you want to get a few good laughs at how bad this movie is, you might want to check it out, but otherwise, I would advise that you keep away from this predictable and vapid jumpscare compilation.
Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)
Amazing Experience
To be honest, I wasn't expecting this to be anything more than a crappy, lazy, slapped together low-effort, video game movie. However, I was pleasantly surprised with an engaging thriller that kept me at the edge of my seat throughout. This movie is obviously one that is going to be enjoyed more by fans than by newcomers: The crowd in my audience, all composed of hardcore FNAF fans were cheering and clapping all the time throughout the movie and filled our theater with pure magical cinematic energy that people new to the series couldn't up but join in on. This movie is also good even if you're not a fan of the franchise. The animatronic designs look absolutely gorgeous and can be appreciated even by those who the farthest outside the community. Josh Hutcherson's character and is relationships with his sister is captivating and is a great drive for the story. The kills, although tame, are also delightful fun for fans of horror. This movie does feel a bit rushed at points , ignores some of the main plot lines in the third act, and is inconclusive, but that doesn't slow it down too much. This movie is great for fans, casual horror watchers, and people who want to get into horror and will do a good job of providing some Halloween spooks for anyone else.
Plane (2023)
Plane: One of the Most Movies I've Seen
After having seen Plane, I feel cheated out of the movie I was expecting to see. The trailers advertised an action thriller with Gerard Butler Die Hard-ing as a pilot who finds himself an unlikely hero who joins forces with an ex-military killing machine in mowing down dangerous radicals after a commercial plane accidentally lands on an island populated with them. Unfortunately, what I got instead was a confused and incomplete mess that has a plot so basic and unoriginal you'll probably forget everything that happened in it after a few days. Gerard Butler plays the amazingly original character of a sad action protagonist with a dead wife and a daughter he's trying to get home to. Despite a decent and fairly gripping performance, Butler never manages to elevate his character to something with more depth than a plank of wood. His character also barely even gets involved in the fights and spends most of his time fixing stuff while everyone else is squaring off in big gunfights, even though his name is the top billed in an action movie. The villains of the film are also extremely underdeveloped as well, and we're never given anything more about their motivations and plans other than an off-handed statement from some background character about them being "separatists", which leaves them feeling like run-of-the-mill stock commando terrorists that are only in the movie so that the film has some antagonistic force. It's so never made clear what our villains are doing on the island, we see people getting led away off the island and see some people being held hostage as ransom, but we're never told who's paying for these ransoms or why and makes the film feel like it's unfinished. The worst aspect of this film, however, is a boring long drawn out side plot with the corporation that owns the type of plane that crashed talking about the plane's disappearance, even though it contributes nothing to the story and is merely there to pad out runtime. Overall, Plane is a forgettable action movie that has a poor script and an even worse execution of a concept that never really ever takes off.