Category: Film Reviews by Amy

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

U.S. Army soldiers operating in a remote corner of Afghanistan find themselves under attack in The Outpost, which is based on a true story told, among other places, in a book called The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor written by CNN’s Jake Tapper.

The movie takes place at what is eventually called Camp Keating, after Capt. Benjamin Keating (Orlando Bloom), the outpost’s commander as the movie opens. It doesn’t take military expertise to understand that this outpost is a bad scene — it is surrounded on three sides by mountains, putting the outpost and its personnel at the bottom of a bowl. Taliban soldiers can easily find a position on the mountains from which they can take easy shots at fighters throughout the camp. And they do, nearly every day, we’re told. For a while, the tension of bullets (and later mortars) entering the camp at any moment relaxes only at night because the Taliban fighters don’t have night vision.

We meet many of the soldiers who man this outpost, attempting to build relationships with the local population. What feels like oodles of people are introduced with on-screen IDs and we learn bits of information about lives back home. Ultimately, the men we probably spend the most time with are Specialist Ty Carter (Caleb Landry Jones), Lt. Andrew Bundermann (Taylor John Smith) and Staff Sgt. Clint Romesha (Scott Eastwood). The camp has a series of commanding captains, whom we also meet, each of whom has a different leadership style that presents a different set of challenges; their introductions serve as sort of chapters to the story as the movie builds to what we’re told from the beginning is definitely coming: the big one. That is how the soldiers refer to the inevitable attack by overwhelming numbers of Taliban using the advantage of the mountains to attempt to overrun the camp.

By the end of The Outpost, I completely understood all the storytelling decisions made in this story, which runs a little more than two hours and begins the most intense action (the predicted “big one”) a little more than an hour in. I feel like there was a version of this movie that could have slid in at fewer than 90 minutes and, similar to Tom Hanks’ recent Greyhound (which The Outpost sort of reminded me of), confined itself to the core of the fight. But Greyhound’s source material is a novel based on World War II events and this is a true story featuring soldiers who are real people, alive and deceased, with still living parents and spouses and children, and I understand why the movie puts such emphasis on having the audience learn everybody’s name and get at least a slice of backstory even when it feels like information overload.

The movie also stays away from having an overt point of view about the war and the larger politics involved. Instead, its criticism is pointed at military decisions made in reference to the outpost from its very existence in this (as the movie describes at the end) “obviously indefensible” location to various bad-call requests and decisions made by military officialdom elsewhere. The story’s focus is on the men, their bravery in their defense of each other and their ability to think on their feet and adapt when what seems like an unwinnable fight begins. B

Rated R for war violence and grisly images, pervasive language, and sexual references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Rob Lurie with a screenplay by Eric Johnson, The Outpost is two hours and three minutes long and distributed by Screen Media Ventures. The movie is available for rent.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Tom Hanks is the captain of a Navy destroyer escorting ships across the Atlantic during World War II in Greyhound, a sleek, no-time-wasted naval action movie on Apple TV+.

It’s 1942 and Navy Commander Ernest Krause (Hanks) is the captain of a ship codenamed Greyhound that, along with destroyers from the U.K. and Canada, is escorting a convoy across the ocean. Other than a brief flashback featuring Elisabeth Shue (which mostly explains that this is Krause’s first command and why he brought a pair of fancy slippers to war), the movie takes place over a 50-hour period when the convoy is outside the reach of Allied air support and is therefore particularly vulnerable to German U-boats. The destroyers are armed with a variety of submarine-sinking weaponry and more maneuverable than the convoy’s troop transporters, merchant ships and oil tankers.

In Krause’s first confrontation with a U-boat, he shows himself to be unconventional in his thinking but effective. Soon, Krause, his second-in-command Charlie Cole (Stephan Graham) and the captains of the other destroyers figure out that they are being followed by a “wolf pack” of U-boats that aren’t attacking the destroyers directly but sort of picking off boats here and there. As the hours wear on (and the Greyhound’s armaments are diminished), Krause subsists on coffee and quiet Tom Hanks worry as he tries to outlast the U-boats on the convoy’s race to the next air cover spot.

When it becomes clear that the destroyers will need help protecting the convoy, Krause asks Cole to plot the quickest path to a spot where airplanes can meet them, which Cole and his team do with, like, rulers and protractors and math. Greyhound is also full of a lot of “right full rudder all ahead two-thirds” type dialogue that is also presented in such a way that you can get what’s going on even if you can’t directly translate every naval command. Greyhound does a good job of conveying “people solving problems” and “people solving problems creatively” even if you don’t fully understand all the mechanics of what they are doing.

This movie, smartly, doesn’t waste time on any “nature of war” ruminations or even all that much filling in the elements of Krause as a person. (Or, perhaps the movie did all the adding dimension it ever planned to do with Krause by hiring Hanks; “a Tom Hanks-y character” is what we get and kinda all we need.) Greyhound, like the convoy’s destroyers, is at battle stations and focused on the immediate fight.

And that works. I think the moments when the movie tries to add a little something extra (the Shue scene, a bit of too-much-ness with radio transmissions from a German sub captain who’s all “we’re coming for you” and even throws out some wolf howls) are the least successful. Just show us a surfacing sub and a torpedo wake and a worried Hanks urgently but calmly ordering “left full rudder” and the movie is able to generate a perfect amount of tension and suspense. B

Rated PG-13 for war-related action/violence and brief strong language, according to the MPA at filmratings.com. Directed by Aaron Schneider with a screenplay by Tom Hanks (based on the C.S. Forester book The Good Shepherd), Greyhound is an hour and 31 minutes long and available on Apple TV+.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti become stuck in “one of those infinite time loop situations that you might have heard about,” as Samberg’s character explains, in Palm Springs, an enjoyably goofy rom-com.

Sarah (Milioti) is less than delighted about doing her maid of honor duties at her younger sister Tala’s (Camila Mendes) wedding in Palm Springs. But then a charmingly doofy Nyles (Samberg) shows up. They have some laughs, make out a bit — and then Nyles is shot with an arrow. He freaks out and runs away, a confused Sarah follows the wounded Nyles into a cave and suddenly she is sucked into a glowy light and — wham, she’s back in bed the morning before the wedding.

She finds Nyles and he explains: they’re stuck in a time loop, one he’s been in for an extremely long time (at one point, she asks him what he does for work and he seems to have genuinely forgotten). No matter what happens during the day, once he passes out (or dies), Nyles wakes up back in his hotel room and the day resets. Sarah takes some convincing. She drives nonstop to Texas, she attempts to balance the karmic scales (with a “selfless” act that’s actually sorta mean) and she drives into an oncoming truck (Nyles suggests unbuckling so she dies fast; the day resets but pain is real, he says). Eventually, she comes to terms with the situation and she begins to hang with Nyles, enjoying his existence of day-drinking and burritos. For Nyles, Sarah’s presence starts to give his life stakes and something to look forward to; for Sarah, her feelings toward Nyles start to push her to find a way out of the loop.

This movie hangs on Milioti and Samberg — are they enjoyable to watch individually and as a couple? The answer is yes and thus the movie works; it’s no more complicated than that. All the time stuff hangs together well enough to serve as a platform for their stories and their relationship. One could argue that it even sort of works as a metaphor for the movie’s take on love — everybody lives in their own time loop but you can choose to spend yours with somebody, which will change what you get out of life. But, it also doesn’t need to be that deep. If you just want a story about likeable goofuses plopped in sunny weirdness and their quirky romance, Palm Springs supplies that with laughs and moments of sweetness. B+

Rated R for sexual content, language throughout, drug use and some violence, according to the MPA at filmratings.com. Directed by Max Barbakow with a screenplay by Andy Siara, Palm Springs is an hour and 30 minutes long and available on Hulu.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Charlize Theron is an immortal warrior in Netflix’s The Old Guard.

Andy (Theron) leads a small team — Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli) — of sorta-immortal fighters. Andy has been around for millennia, Booker “died” the first time fighting in the Napoleonic wars, and Joe and Nicky fell in love after killing each other during the Crusades. Fighting in battles big and small throughout history, these immortals heal and come back to life every time they’re “killed” — though, we’re told, eventually their time will be up.

Mostly they’ve stayed hidden but a man named Copely (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an ex-CIA agent, has figured out their abilities and sets them up for capture. His intentions aren’t so terrible, maybe, if you don’t think about it too hard: he wants to bring them to petulant hoodie-wearing biotech bazillionaire Merrick (Harry Melling) for study so that their regenerative abilities can be used to heal disease and injury. But Merrick is clearly evil so what are the odds this experiment will just be a peaceful gift to humanity, as Copley intends?

As the group is on the run from Merrick, they get a psychic alert that there is a new immortal: Nile (KiKi Layne), a U.S. Marine recently killed in Afghanistan. Or she appeared “killed” but then healed — freaking out her squad mates. Andy sets off to find her and explain her weird new powers to her before the U.S. government or anybody else can ship her off to a lab.

In addition to the problem of Copley and his motivations (he is presented as a basically good, smart guy, though his initial actions undermine this), The Old Guard has, for me, a structural problem: the “Episode 1” trap. This movie feels so intent on setting up a series of movies that it piles up exposition and slows down the action. The Old Guard does a lot of filling us in — about characters or plot points that are clearly meant to pay off in the future — that doesn’t necessarily add to a fuller understanding of this story and that is a drag on the progress of this movie.

Near the movie’s end, when we get well-choreographed action and characters making decisions, I could see what this movie was and I enjoyed the world this had all built. But all the “TV pilot” business weighed the movie down.

These problems aren’t, however, fatal. I like the characters set up here. Much like in ABC’s Stumptown, another property based, as this is, on a Greg Rucka comic, The Old Guard has a good handle on how to create well-rounded female characters who feel like real people, not just one-dimensional Strong Ladies. The romance between Nicky and Joe adds much needed joy and humanity to the story. (They are a romantic-as-heck couple and it’s a treat to have something so swoony tucked inside an action movie.) Their scenes and scenes of Nile figuring out her new “eternal” status are good examples of the movie folding in heart and lightness without resorting to quippiness. (KiKi Layne, who I liked in If Beale Street Could Talk, holds her own next to Theron here.)

Did I immediately add The Old Guard graphic novel to my library request list? Of course. And the movie’s final moments set up a next chapter that I am eagerly awaiting. I just wish this movie could have been a little tighter and able to stand on its own. B

Rated R for sequences of graphic violence and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood with a screenplay by Greg Rucka (who created the comic book with Leandro Fernandez), The Old Guard is two hours and five minutes long and is available on Netflix.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Go watch Hamilton, the movie created from filmed performances of the musical made in the summer of 2016 and now streaming on Disney+.

You don’t need me to tell you that the musical based on Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton, the “ten dollar Founding Father” as the play reminds us, is great. I feel like even if musical theater isn’t your thing, you’ve read stories about the production, which follows Hamilton’s life from the time he arrives in New York City through the Revolutionary War and into the first few decades of the new American government. Maybe you’ve heard a few of the songs, maybe seen video of the performances at the White House. Maybe you’ve gone further — listened to the cast recording or seen the PBS show Hamilton’s America, filled with making-of and behind-the-scenes information. I’m not one of the lucky people who have seen the production live but I feel like I had some familiarity with Hamilton. Even after all that exposure to the story and the songs and the performances, this production still feels fresh and this movie is still excellent.

As advertised, this movie features the people I most associate with Hamilton when it first came out: Lin-Manuel Miranda (also the play’s writer and lyricist) as Hamilton, Leslie Odum Jr. as Aaron Burr, Daveed Diggs as Lafayette and Jefferson, Renee Elise Goldsberry as Angelica, Phillipa Soo as Eliza, Jonathan Groff as a delightfully maniacal King George and Chris Jackson replacing whatever image I had in my head of George Washington. Rather than run down the plot, which you probably know, either from previous Hamilton coverage or, like, history (which, sure, this takes some liberties with), let me run down some of what stood out from finally getting to see the whole play and see it as a play and not as a movie adaptation (which, I feel like I would have missed out on so much seeing a version of the story shot on location, 2012’s Les Miserables-style).

• I was surprised, delightfully, how much of this is Aaron Burr’s story and how meaty and complex that part is.

• I also liked how much heft the character of Eliza Hamilton, Alexander’s wife, has. This story acknowledges women (and the limits of their opportunity) in a way I don’t think you often see in big mainstream Revolutionary era stories outside of Abigail Adams and her “remember the ladies” quote.

• I am not the first or the 1,000th person to say this, I’m sure, but wow is the staging a real thing of wonder — how the play uses its set and set pieces, how it uses costumes. It’s beautiful and clever and just such a joy to watch how one actor can be two different characters or how a relatively sparse set can be a battlefield or an office or whatever is needed.

• For being a film of a stage production, this movie is incredibly dynamic. I have seen plays turned into movies (the recent Cats, for example) that felt more stuck on a stage than this one. There is great movement and action.

• King George is a hoot.

• I was not prepared for the different times and different reasons this movie would get me all choked up.

Go watch Hamilton if you’re a super-fan. Go watch Hamilton if you’re mildly curious. Just go watch Hamilton, a slice of history about a slice of history. A

Rated PG-13 for language and some suggestive material, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Thomas Kail with music, book and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda (based on Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow), Hamilton is two hours and 40 minutes long and is streaming on Disney+.

The Vast of Night (PG-13)

Two kids in 1950s New Mexico chase after a strange sound and a mysterious something spotted in the sky in The Vast of Night, a delightful bit of sci-fi campfire tale.

Introduced as an episode of some Twilight-Zone-ish mid-20th-century TV show called Paradox Theater, the movie takes place over one night in Cayuga, New Mexico, a town of 402 residents, many of whom are settling in for a night of basketball at the local high school. Teenager Fay (Sierra McCormick) and maybe slightly older teenager Everett (Jake Horowitz) are on the outskirts of the happenings: Everett works as a DJ at the local radio station and is the kid they call in to check out the wiring when the electricity starts to flicker in the gymnasium where the game is about to begin. Fay is his, I guess, fellow audio/visual nerd buddy; she seems to be hanging around to show off her new tape recorder to Everett. The two chat and play around with the tape recorder while Everett checks on the recording equipment for the game — the radio plays it back the next day and and people listen because, even though they know the outcome, they like to hear their kid’s name on the radio, he tells her. Then they walk together to their respective jobs — Everett to his night shift at the radio station, Fay to the switchboard where she serves as the telephone operator.

It’s there, with the radio tuned to Everett’s radio show, that she first hears the sound. The sound, a sort of mechanical-y, whir-y sound, comes through the radio, briefly interrupting the broadcast.

That, followed by some strange calls in to the switchboard, lead her to contact Everett and the two begin to investigate the sound, becoming more anxious as a couple comes racing into town saying they followed strange lights in the sky in from the highway and as people call in with strange stories.

Like a cocktail that mixes the ingredients just right, The Vast of Night is a cool, crisp delight. The mysterious unknown of a rural New Mexico night and the “modernity” of a post-World War II but pre-internet world are great materials to craft the “something spooky is out there” tone that drives this movie. The way the kids marvel over the possibilities of the future — self-driving electric cars, tiny TV-like phones you can keep in your pocket — while displaying their mastery of the audio recorders, radio signals and telephone boards that are their in-the-moment high tech has that “world of tomorrow” retro-future bittersweetness. McCormick and Horowitz make a great “let’s solve a mystery” duo, with Horowitz’s Everett looking for great tape that will jump-start his career out of Cayuga and McCormick’s Fay earnestly looking for answers (and maybe shyly looking for more reasons to hang out with Everett).

This week, I went searching for movies that were as close to pure fun as I could find and The Vast of Night is definitely the best scrappy example of this. B+

Rated PG-13 “for brief strong language,” according to the MPA. Directed by Andrew Patterson and written by Andrew Patterson and Craig W. Sanger, The Vast of Night is an hour and 30 minutes long and is distributed by Amazon Studios. It is available via Amazon Prime.