Red Sparrow

First Hit:  Although long at 2h 19min, it had enough twists, turns, and detail to keep me fully engaged.

Jennifer Lawrence (here as Dominika Egorova) is a strong actress and is able to project anger, sadness, and determination with only her eyes. It is this skill that sets her apart from many actresses.

As a Russian ballet dancer Dominika is revered more for her beauty than her dancing. However, she is good enough for the ballet company to give her an apartment and provide medical help for her sick mother. Her uncle Vanya Egorov (Matthias Schoenaerts) is part of Russian Intelligence and occasionally looks in on Dominika and her mom Nini (Joely Richardson).

When Dominika breaks her leg, Vanya recruits her to work for Russian Intelligence. He wants her because of her steely determination. He promises here that if she joins him, he’ll make arrangements for her mom to keep the apartment and her medical assistance.

Her first job is to seduce Dimitry Ustinov (Kristof Konrad). When he tries to rape Dominika, Russian Intelligence kills him while he’s on top of her. Because of her success she’s recruited to become a Sparrow. Sparrows use seduction and sex to get what they want from the people they seduce. They are trained in passionless seduction, hand to hand combat and how to use guns.

The Headmistress (Charlotte Rampling) of the Sparrow school is referred to as “Matron.” And it is her goal to make sure they become passionless seducers and combat ready spies.

Dominika is sent on a mission to Budapest to seduce American spy Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton). The goal is to find out the Russian Intelligence mole he was working with so that this mole can be destroyed.

Throughout the film, we see Dominika developing a path and plan to survive and persevere while keeping her mom’s health, safety, and welfare on her mind. However, as an audience member, we don’t always know what her plan is and how it will work out. That's the best part of this film. The unknowing, underscored with believing that Dominika will, in the end, get revenge, makes this story work.

Lawrence was excellent as the cold-hearted Sparrow who had a soul. I didn’t fully buy her being a premiere ballerina (jumps were barely 6 inches high), but this was completely overshadowed by her ability to embody the role as a spy. Rampling was perfect as the cold-hearted Matron of the Sparrow school. Edgerton was strong as the American spy who risked his life to keep his mole secret. Richardson was good as Dominika’s mom. Mary-Louise Parker (as Stephanie Boucher) was strong in her role as a US Senator’s Chief of Staff. Jeremy Irons (as General Vladimir Andreievich Korchnoi) was perfect. His cold intimidating voice and manner worked well. Justin Haythe wrote a good complicated screenplay. Director Francis Lawrence did a good of not tipping the story’s hand.

Overall:  I enjoyed the film’s puzzle and it was the acting that made it work.

Fifty Shades of Freed

First Hit:  Although not a good film, it was a good way to conclude the series.

I, for the most part, painfully waded through this series of films telling the story of sex, control and asking questions to discover what love is.

In this final of the trilogy, Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) accepts Christian Grey’s (Jamie Dornan) proposal for marriage. Marrying shortly thereafter they settle into a life together and when there is a discussion about children, Christian balks and states that he’s not willing to discuss it now.

Although they bring up Grey’s past upbringing and his being adopted, if you didn’t see the prior films, you won’t really understand the impact of this and why he’s not willing to discuss children.

As an audience member, this plot device is obvious that this is what is going to separate the couple and then bring them back together. There are no surprises in this film or story.

They add elements from previous films including Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson) who was Anastasia’s boss until he tried to make an unwanted move on her. We’re led to believe that he really wants Anastasia but the film attempts to make it deeper by showing us that he and Grey were in the same foster home and he’s jealous of who Grey got adopted by.

The sex and bondage sex scenes were not erotic. This might be because, as I noticed in all three films and it is more pronounced here, there is virtually no chemistry between Dakota and Jamie. I was also put off by the obvious product placements, especially Audi.

Johnson is OK as Anastasia. Dornan is a poor actor. I simply cannot buy his character as someone real and there’s little in this film to tell me anything different. Eric Johnson is one of the better parts of the film as he’s sufficiently a bad man. Niall Leonard wrote an OK final film screenplay to this series. James Foley directed this final film with some great scenery and a fun car chase.

Overall: This is a weak storyline but it doesn’t make a mockery of the film series and lets it conclude with some integrity.

The 15:17 to Paris

First Hit:  Absolutely dull and uninspiring until the very end.

This film intersperses quick flashes of the dramatic event of these three men thwarting a terrorist attack on a train to keep you in your seat. If they didn’t most people would walk out of this uninspired effort by Clint Eastwood.

My first turn-off was when a grade school teacher for two of the featured young men stated to the mothers, "your children have ADD and they need drugs." The retort as Spencer and Alek's mothers storm out of the meeting was “my God is bigger than your statistics.” Are you kidding me? This is how Eastwood ends a dramatic scene?

One of Eastwood’s biggest mistakes is having the actual hero’s play themselves in this film. They had actors portraying them as young boys (ages 11 – 14), but as adults the stilted acting, insipid dialogue, and poorly created scenes made this film drag on and on and on.

We experience Alek Skarlatos (played by himself and Bryce Gheisar), Anthony Sadler (himself and Paul-Mikel Williams), and Spencer Stone (himself and William Jennings) when they met at a grade school, how their initial friendship developed in Sacramento, and vaguely how it lasted through the years till we see them together again traveling through Europe.

The early years are OK in that there are scenes that give the audience cause to believe these boys supported each other because they were all misfits in some way. I was saddened to see how their playing together was focused on gun play, with realistic paint (and one real) guns that looked like an AK and a M-16.

There is a bent in this film about God and Christian religion although we don’t see them in church. The extent of their faith seems to be praying for something to happen or for things to be different.

Finally, they go to Europe but there is only some background on Spencer because we follow him failing through several military job trainings. However, these failings were a precursor to him actually learning stuff along the way; then using this knowledge to make a difference later on. There was virtually no history about Anthony as to what he was doing prior to going to Europe with Spencer. And there wasn’t much about Alek who was fighting in Iraq and mistakenly left his back-pack at a village. What was this about?

Arriving in Europe Spencer and Anthony, awkwardly travel from place to place. At one point they meet a young asian woman, they go a couple places together but a couple scenes later she's gone. What was this about? They finally get to Germany and meet up with Alek who was staying with a German exchange student.

Getting on the 15:17 train to Paris, they disarm a terrorist and save the life of a man shot by the terrorist. Then they get honored by the French government and all is right with their lives. This is the crux of the film.

Because Eastwood used the real men to portray an actual event, their lack of acting abilities and the way Eastwood works was a mistake. The men cannot project into the camera thereby making it feel real to the audience. Adding to this mistake was Eastwood’s penchant to only do one or two takes, and with real actors they can deliver something good, non-actors generally cannot. The film comes off as amateurish.

The storyline was haphazard, felt thrown together, and despite being Christian based, had little meat on the bones.

The best acting job in this film was Paul-Mikel Williams as young Anthony. Judy Greer as Spencer’s mom Joyce was OK. The acting by the real men was obviously poor which took away from their own heroic story. Kudos for their actions against the terrorist but I’m not sure this story was film material as it was presented. Dorothy Blyskal wrote a horrible screenplay and Director Eastwood failed in all cases to deliver something interesting until the very end when the terrorist tried to take over the train car.

Overall:  This film will more than likely be the worst film I see this year, if not it will be close and it’s only February.

The Foreigner

First Hit: Entertaining and nice to see Jackie Chan back in action.

This film is in the same bucket as Liam Neeson’s Taken series of films. Here, Quan Ngoc Minh (Chan), runs a restaurant which supports him, his daughter Fan (Katie Leung), and Lam (Tao Liu) who runs the day-to-day of the restaurant.

Quan takes his daughter to select and buy her homecoming dress and while she’s in the store the “Authentic IRA” bombs a department store that kills Fan. Quan, a former special forces operator from Vietnam, is heartbroken and distraught because Fan was his last living relative. After grieving for a short period of time, we know he’s going to make someone pay.

We get a back story of his losing his wife and other daughter when they fled Vietnam and now all he has are a couple pictures and a lot of sadness.

The good part is that at 60+ years old Chan can still fight and he makes it all look good and appropriate for his age and skill set.

His protagonist is the Irish Deputy Minister Liam Hennessy (Pierce Bronson) who led the IRA for years and now curries favor from the British Government for keeping the peace between the IRA operatives and Britain. Holding this peaceful co-existence together means he has compromised his Irish independence values and, per some of his peers, he’s gone soft towards the British Government.

Quan presses Hennessy for the names of the bombers and adds that he will not stop his quest until he has their names. He plans to revenge his daughter’s loss and exercise his demons for the all the losses he’s had.

Hennessy is also trying to find out who bombed the store and then it gets worse when they bomb a bus loaded with people. The peace in Ireland and his cushy job are in jeopardy.

The film becomes a cat and mouse game and Quan holds his own while following through on his objective. Hennessy also follows through on his goal to clean everything up and his ruthlessness comes through. In one of the last scenes in the film he directs his nephew to tie up one last loose end.

Chan is strong in this role and uses his impressive skills appropriately. What didn’t quite work was the use of the same sad face as his primary go-to for dramatic effect. It was a look that was suppose to express his deep sadness for his losses in life and that he was about to explode like a volcano. Bronson was very good in this role. He created a right level of being settled into a bureaucratic job, but still having the fire of being an IRA patriot. Niall McNamee as Hennessy’s nephew Patrick O’Reilly, was excellent. Appropriately responsive to his powerful uncle’s requests. Liu was wonderful as Chan’s restaurant assistant and friend. Her honorable sweetness stood out. Dermot Crowley as former IRA leader Hugh McGrath was very good. I loved how his anger towards the state of the IRA peace pact with Britain was expressed. David Marconi did a great job of writing a script that worked for all the characters. Martin Campbell directed this film with a good eye towards using the skills and strengths of his actors in this story.

Overall: It was an entertaining film.

Blade Runner 2049

First Hit:  Although this film was well shot and interesting in its context, I ended up not caring about the characters.

The original 1982 ‘Blade Runner’, projected our life in 2019. It was bleak and focused on the creation, use, and abilities of replicants. It left us with questions as to whether replicants could re-create. Given that we are developing robots, self-driving autos and other interesting things, we are not what was projected back then.  Given this, it is my guess that we won't be what this film says about 2049. The only caveat would be, we could be worse off than what is projected.

The original wasn't popular (gross sales) when it came out, however it did organically grow a larger and wide-ranging audience because of its questions, pacing and the way it was shot. It became more of a cult film that aged really well. In other words, as time went by, its positive qualities came forth and lasted. In that film replicants went back to Earth to find their creator and Rick Dekard (Harrison Ford) was sent back to kill these renegade replicants and in doing so, he started having questions of his own.

In this new version, again the languid pacing is in its own world, and because we have a history of this, it's expected. This makes this better understood in the first viewing. We are placed into the year 2049 and Los Angeles is this bizarre sort of world of real humans and replicants. If replicants can reproduce, then what use are humans? The story then, is about a Blade Runner “K” (Ryan Gosling) who thinks he’s found the remains of previously pregnant replicant and is tasked by his boss Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright) to find out if this baby lived and destroy all evidence of its existence.

This is asked of him because there is a fear that there will be a war between humans and replicants. As he learns more about this person’s possible existence he learns more about his possible part of this evolution.

This film’s storyline isn’t easy to follow; however, one aspect is that K thinks he may have real memories, versus programed memories and he tries to validate this by official memory maker Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri). He also speaks with the head of company that makes replicants Niander Wallace (Jered Leto).

Wallace is trying to program replicants to reproduce and in one scene, a fully grown and replicant reproduced woman drops onto a padded platform in the middle of an empty room. To make the point that this is a reproduced replicant, she arrives via a replica of an amniotic sac. Rather interesting and telling scene.

In search of his own beginnings, K then goes to San Diego which is a waste dumping ground, and speaks with Mister Cotton (Lennie James) who helps him put real context to a dream he has. Then he heads to a deserted and dust filled Las Vegas and finds Deckard (Harrison) hiding out with a rangy dog. At first Deckard doesn’t trust K that’s validated when all of a sudden others come to kill them both. Deckard is abducted by Luv (Syliva Hoeks) as a way to control the future.

However, K feels kindred to Decker and helps him escape. In the end, this film leaves the viewer with questions, as it's suppose to do, and makes one wonder if there will be one more film.

The music is a great part of this film. It enhances the sense, time, and etheric feeling of this film. The visual pacing is variable; however, the overall sense was, for me, too slow and pedantic. There were sections I wanted sped up or removed as the sense of the pace was already established and it was taking too long to develop and I was losing interest.

Gosling is strong is this type of role. His inner quiet and strength is what made him the right person for this part and he does it well. Juri is wonderful as the manufacturer of memories. Wright was good as K’s boss. Hoeks was strong as the steely person wanting to control what information gets out and what doesn’t. Leto is very good as the person creating the replicants. His otherworldly presence is felt. Ford was perfectly grumpy and irritated that his life was discovered and made more complicated by K. Ana de Armas as the hologram Joi was enticingly strong. James was excellent as the leader of the orphan kids in San Diego. The music by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch was a very strong part of this film. The mood, sets, and pacing by Denis Villeneuve was very strong under his direction. Hampton Fancher and Michael Green wrote the complex screen play that did a good job of moving the overall story forward.

Overall:  I struggled with the pacing, loved many of the sets, and thought the overall story was interesting enough to keep me engaged.