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Reviews
The D Train (2015)
Another Jack Black turkey.
I like Jack Black. How could i not?? he comes across as a thoroughly nice guy and he can be funny too, unfortunately he is not a big range actor and after a long career in the film industry that flaw is finally taking it's toll. Most of his films of late look exactly the same as the one before because he is always playing himself and the joke is wearing thin and while he has made a few genuinely funny ones the trend in the last few years is been mostly negative however this is not the biggest problem of this film.
the D train feels for the most part like a film that never knows where it wants to go. OK we got Jack Black so let's make an odd ball comedy....Wait a second, we also got James Marsden, why not a romantic comedy. Hey there's no strong female lead. Oh well it doesn't matter, let's get Jack and James falling for each other. Yeah but that wouldn't be funny. Hey i got it, let's make a character study of two closeted gay guys finding each other. Oh well whatever!!!! you get my point.
The result? A convoluted mess that is lacking in every department. Not funny enough to be a comedy though Jack Black really tries, usually being Jack Black (like the scene where out of the blue he decides to take some exercise). Not charming enough to be a romantic comedy as we never get the feel of what this two are really motivated by or what their feelings towards life in general are. And most definitely not a character study since in order to make a film like that you would have needed two actors with much more depth than Black and Marsden and also a proper supporting cast and not a bunch of unidimensional and highly clichéd characters that serve almost no purpose to the story as they are all stupid and devoid of any personality (why Jack Black's wife believes the brand new shirt she bought is now without buttons, ripped and clearly used and decides to take it out on the shop manager)and don't even get me started with Jeffrey Tambor's character (boss)
I guess the story of a very unhappy middle age man going to L.A. to convince his old very popular friend(a seemingly successful actor) to come to the school reunion in order to get the respect of the very sad people he shares his life with on a daily basis and then falling in love with him, or something like that seemed like a very good idea on paper, the reality is somehow completely different.
All in all another J.B. turkey.
De behandeling (2014)
A very good Belgian thriller with some flaws
This Belgian mystery thriller, follows the trend of the new wave of Scandinavian thriller noir. It tells us the story of a police detective who is haunted by the abduction of his younger brother years earlier when they were kids, while playing together near their house. To make things worse he is regularly taunted by a neighbour who happens to be his main suspect on his brother abduction. His brother was never found, making our main character an obsessive and hard to control individual. The film is impeccably directed, creating a grey picture that feels claustrophobic and terrifying at the same time.
All the actors are excellent and i would like to make special mention to Michael Vergauwen who plays his role with gusto but that's not to take anything away from the rest of the cast since all of them are really great and feel absolutely real. My problem with the film lies with the script. I love European thrillers because as opposed to the American ones they tend to be more about the substance and less about the cheap frills and i found that at some point The treatment decides to throw one too many twists into the plot and as a consequence the movie loses credibility and the whole project suffers for it which is really frustrating in a film this good. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX SPOILERS XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX When the swimming teacher tries to talk to the detective about the troll he is totally dismissed despite the fact the police had no real leads and troll seemed to be a recurrent theme in the investigation. when our protagonist meets the old woman following the clues found on the videos left by Plettincks he doesn't even try to search her house and leaves without as much as trying to fully question her. that strikes me as incredibly strange from someone who has been looking for some explanation to his brother disappearance for years and has now a tangible piece of evidence and a real suspect. He later submits the tapes which are his only hope to find out what really happened to his brother. when the police get the results from the tests on the semen found on the young boy's corpse they very happily completely forget about the bite marks which again don't seem to me like the logical actions of a methodical police department. And last but not least why in the name of God doesn't the detective request police back up when he goes to rescue the family at the end of the film. That is the kind of thing that American films do and the reason why they are not realistic in the slightest. All in all a good film that could have been even better.
What Now (2015)
The new "SWINGERS"?? I think NOT
I guess making it big in Hollywood is a pretty daunting prospect for any young filmmaker, scriptwriter or actor and there will always be the temptation to try and reproduce the success of the legendary 1996 SWINGERS in which a group of unknown (until then) friends and struggling actors, fed up with the lack of opportunities joined forces to create on a shoestring one of the funniest movies of all time. Jon Favreau wrote, produced and starred in a film that made household names of Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston and himself among others and i'm afraid that though a valiant effort, Ash Avildsen's WHAT NOW comes up short on almost every level. Technically the film is OK, direction, cinematography, editing etc are all competent. the problem lies mainly on the acting and the story which follows the tribulations of a group of unsuccessful thirty somethings on their quest for love using untraditional, modern methods and though this is an interesting premise, it is delivered without panache or an ounce of charisma by a group of actors that are in the majority of cases totally miscast. Jo Cassiere is supposed to be the all out comic relief of the movie yet he comes across more like a demented weirdo. Lorenzo Antonucci's role is totally clichéd and Bizzy bone AKA B-Murda never for a second made me believe that he was a former successful rapper though supposedly he is in real life which makes it even worse as he shouldn't even have to try. As for Ash Avildsen, his lack of screen presence is worrying for someone who aspires to be an actor not to mention his flair for comedy as a director which is utterly inexistent. The over the top acting and the clear attempt at giving us very witty and clever dialogues doesn't help and turns a group of guys that should have been likable into a bunch of burnt out,cynical and pretty mean at times thirty somethings for whom nobody is rooting. Avildsen tries to create a clever comedy with some light touches of drama but fails miserably on both accounts giving us characters completely devoid of any charisma for which is almost impossible to feel any empathy. All in all definitely NOT the new SWINGERS.
As Night Comes (2014)
awful
I've just seen this movie and the only thing i can say is please please please those people who wrote rave reviews about the film on this page stop doing things like that. You are bringing IMDb reputation to it's knees, and whatever reason you have to write those reviews is clearly wrong. The film is simply awful!!!! you know it, i know it. The acting is bad, the situations unrealistic to say the least, the direction amateurish with a guy wearing two different tops on the same scene from one second to the next. Our main character and hero of the film spends the majority of it acting like a retard when the easiest thing would be to just go home. so there you go guys save yourselves 1 hour and 45 minutes of pain and watch "a clockwork orange" an authentic masterpiece.