Wind River

First Hit:  Extremely well-acted character driven crime film in a stark cold setting.

Jeremy Renner is a fine actor and his turn in “The Hurt Locker” was amazing. In “Wind River” he gets an opportunity to shine once again. Here he plays Cory Lambert an agent with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Wyoming. He spends most his time alone in the wild hunting down animals that are killing local rancher’s animals. He's divorced, a father and haunted by loss.

He was married to Wilma (Julia Jones) a Native American. They had two children together, however the oldest, a daughter, was suspiciously killed one night while the couple were out together for much needed alone time. Their young son lives primarily with Wilma and she’s looking to move away for a new job.

While tracking mountain lions in the high country, he runs across a Natalie (Kelsey Asbille) who is frozen, dead and barefoot. He can tell she'd been running away from something horrible because of the tracks in the snow, wounds on her body and that the freezing cold air coagulated the blood in her lungs causing them to burst. Cory suspects she was also sexually assaulted because of the location of blood stains on her clothing. He contacts Sheriff Ben (Graham Green) who calls the FBI because they suspect it is a homicide and on government Native American land.

The FBI sends Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) to determine what happened and if a homicide, resolve the murder. Between Ben, Jane and Cory they figure out how Natalie was killed and who was responsible for her death.

The scenes and scenery were dramatically staged showing the wild, cold, wilderness of remote Wyoming. Camera shots were powerful and added to the suspense of the story. The scenes of Cory with Martin (Gil Birmingham), Natalie’s father are deeply moving as they share the experience of losing a daughter and having to deal with their respective losses.

Renner is amazing. He’s perfect for the role by being rugged, smart and sensitive. Jones is perfect as Cory’s divorced Native American wife who's looking to move on. She impeccably carries the sadness of losing her daughter and the status of her and Cory's relationship. Asbille is wonderful in her small, primary, yet pivotal role. Olsen is flawless as the FBI agent naïve in the ways of Wyoming reservation ways, but focused on getting the job done. Birmingham is priceless. I loved his reserved suffering ways and willingness to take another step. Greene is excellent as the Sheriff who bridges the gap between the native American and white man’s worlds. Taylor Sheridan wrote and directed this film. In both cases, he hit a home run. Some of the shots in the wild made me feel as if I was a voyeur and greatly added to the experience.

Overall:  This is a top-notch film because the story, acting and direction is sublime.

The Dark Tower

First Hit:  Story lacked punch and was not compelling. Having seen “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” and witnessing the real life demise of our planet, followed by watching a film where the falling of some tower in some unknown place will destroy the world seemed silly.

In addition, two of the three main characters were either miscast or poorly directed. The Man In Black (Matthew McConaughey) looked like he step right out of his Ford Lincoln Continental commercial and into this role. Both his attitude and look said this every time he came on the screen.

On the other hand, the guy saving all the worlds from The Man In Black, Roland Deschain aka The Gunslinger (Idris Elba) seemed to carry the energy that I would have contributed to the man trying to destroy the worlds.

The third character Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) was the only one of these three that kept true to his role, a young boy, with dreams that foresaw the pending calamity if something isn’t done.

However, gathering up and shooting bright smart children’s energy at the Dark Tower to collapse it, seemed dumb to me. Although I know this story comes from a series of well-read and popular books, how it plays out in this film attempts to make everyone’s imagination and internal interpretation the same. And this interpretation lacked soul and was not compelling.

In essence, since Jake’s father died in a fire, protecting and saving others, Jake’s has dreams of the children being harvested, The Man In Black using them to collapse the tower and world. He also dreams about The Gunslinger who is, alone, trying to save the world.

The physical world is supporting his dreams because each time a child’s energy is shot at the dark tower an earthquake happens on earth and he feels it.

In the waking hours Jake draws his dreams and although psychologists keep telling him their “only dreams”, Jake is convinced it’s all real. When The Man In Black sends his earthly New York agent Sayre (Jackie Earle Haley) to collect young Jake, he escapes and finds himself going through a portal where he meets The Gunslinger.

McConaughey is just too slick, smarmy, and straight out of a high end commercial to make this role work. Elba is good, however I’m not sure he needed to be so dark spirited in this role. It was almost like he and McConaughey could have switched roles. Taylor was very good and I thought he did a great job of being both strong and naive. Haley is always strong in his roles and here is no exception. He gives it his all. Katheryn Winnick as Jake’s mother was good but I’m not sure it is believable that she would send Jake away. Akiva Goldsman and Jeff Pinkner wrote the screenplay, which I didn’t find very compelling. Nikolaj Arcel was the director and as I’ve previously stated I didn’t think the film worked very well.

Overall: I have heard that this was supposed to be the first in a series of films based on these books, I’d recommend that they re-think this strategy.

Atomic Blonde

First Hit:  Action filled with Charlize Theron showing strong fighting skills.

Although this film is done in a flashback mode, following the story is not hampered. Although, as the film unfolded and after the end, I wondered how it would have played out if it was done sequentially?

The film begin by showing agent Lorraine Broughton (Theron) being interviewed by her boss Eric Gray (Toby Jones) and CIA department head Emmett Kurzfeld (John Goodman) while Gray’s boss Chief ‘C’ (James Faulkner) watches this behind glass. Lorraine is badly bruised but being sure of her story, she begins telling it.

She starts the interview with talking how she was sent to Berlin to find and obtain “The List” which has been put on microfiche and stored inside a watch. The list has information about each agent in British Intelligence and possibly the CIA, where they are and their possible covers.

Immediately after getting to West Berlin she gets attacked by Russians who what to kill her because they are the ones who are trying to obtain "the list" at all costs. Her contact and co-agent is David Percival (James McAvoy), however, the audience sees that Percival is sabotaging Lorraine’s attempt to obtain the watch (list). The one who put this list together and stored it in a watch has a code name and it’s Spyglass (Eddie Marsan). He’s doing this because he wants to trade giving up the list for freedom to West Berlin.

As the story unfolds and until the end, the audience thinks David is on multiple sides but so is Lorraine, it is just that the audience doesn't know how many she’s on.

Lorraine gets involved in so much fighting, shooting and stabbing that I can only imagine that she was really sore after doing this film.

One of the things I loved about this film was the color mood used to present this film. Everything was muted down from a color perspective. This in honor of being in both West and East Berlin at the time the wall comes down between the two parts of the city.

Theron was amazing in how she used her body and gave the audience a perception that she fights for a living. I loved her character and at times I laughed out loud in the audacity of some of the scenes. McAvoy was strong and his smart-alecky version of the character worked for me. Jones was perfect as Lorraine’s boss. Marsan was very good as the meek Spyglass. Goodman was very good as the CIA connection. Kurt Johnstad wrote an wild and fun screenplay. David Leitch had a clear vision in mind and for me it clearly worked well.

Overall:  It was a fun film and Theron was a joy to watch.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Overall:  Visually entertaining, poignant message and fun to watch.

The “setup” I thought was a bit weak when there’s an explanation as to how and why this very large spaceship/planet/thingy named Alpha become home to species from a thousand planets. However, getting past this we are introduced to Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne) who work for the government of Alpha. Therefore, the best interests of the government, not any particular species is their focus.

The film also documents, at the beginning, the destruction of planet Mul, which was occupied by highly evolved and functioning humanoids that focused on giving back what it receives.

The Defense Minister (Herbie Handcock) instructs Valerian and Laureline to guard Commander Arun Filitt (Clive Owen) because the Commander warns that the ship has an expanding radioactive bubble in the middle of the ship and they cannot figure out what it is or why it's there . Unfortunately for the film, Filitt acts in such a way that he gives it away that he’s implicated in this radioactive bubble. This could be because of the way the character was written or because Owen often plays this type of double crossing character.

Valerian and Laureline are also sent to find the “converter” which replicates items it ingests. It is a survivor from the planet Mul and really belongs to the remaining humanoids as part of their way of life. They also find a pearl which was used by the Mul members to feed the converter and then the planet itself.

Filitt is then abducted and Valerian must search the ship to find him discovers that the “radioactive” menace in the core of the ship is not what they think it is. As they figure out what really happened to Mul and why Filitt is implicated, Laureline convinces Valerian to give the converter and pearl to the rightful owners, allowing them to restart their nirvanic race. It is hard for the major to break his dutiful role and use love as the answer.

DeHann was good and embodied the youthful character required to make this film work. Delevingne was, to me, the star of the film. Her wide-eyed soulful intelligence worked and made the film complete. Owen was, and is always, good as a self-righteous villain. Rihanna was very strong as Bubble. Ethan Hawke was wonderful as Jolly the Pimp. Hancock was OK in a pivotal but distant role. Luc Beeson wrote the screenplay as well as directed this film. It was a visual extravaganza and this made it worth watching.

Overall:  The film’s visuals,  Delevingne and DeHann are what kept me watching this film with interest.

Dunkirk

First Hit: An amazing film that focuses on the event not the actors or their characters.

Easily the best overall film of this year mainly because the vision is true and clear. Not many films make the story the highlight and focus. Mostly films have a character or two that engage the audience into the story. Here the characters are a subset of the story. This doesn’t take away from the actors or acting, but it lays the responsibility of how good this film is on the writer, editor, sound team, music, cinematography, and director.

Christopher Nolen did an amazing job of creating and giving his vision life on the big screen. This is the true story of how 800 boats, most of them small personal pleasure and fishing boats from England, crossed the English Channel to save over 338,000 allied soldiers consisting of British, French, Canadian and Belgium men who were trapped by German soldiers.

Nearly 400,000 soldiers were backed-up to the English Channel, trapped into a corner at Dunkirk, France. German planes bombed the English ships, including hospital ships taking the wounded away from the shoreline. Boats were also torpedoed and sunk. The British Government determined that sending in more large ships and planes to assist these trapped troops would only result in more losses of people and hardware.

The call went out to boat owners in England to sail to Dunkirk and save as many men as possible. Their low water draft meant they could also get closer to shore.

The film follows a couple of the English pilots in their Spitfires as they sacrificed themselves to knock German plains from the sky. It follows a couple of soldiers as they try to find their way to a boat to take them to freedom, alive. It gives the viewer glimpses of British command thinking through Commander Bolton. And it follows a man and his sons in their small boat attempting to save as many as possible. The line shown in the previews and used in the film, “there’s no turning away from this…” was poignantly perfect.

Everyone who played a character in this film is to be lauded. Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard, Lee Armstrong, James Bloor, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Glynn-Carney, Tom Hardy, and Kenneth Branagh, just to name a few, were fantastic in each of their respective roles. The music by Hans Zimmer was astounding. The sound effects and its use was spot on perfect. Hoyte Van Hoytema created a sublime view as director of photography. As I previously noted Christopher Nolen’s script and direction was clearly top-notch. This film is his crowning achievement thus far.

Overall:  As of July 2017, clearly best film of the year.