Gavin O’Connor’s (Pride and Glory, Miracle) The Accountant is a movie that resonated with audiences ($86 million at the box office, 78% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes) but nearly as much with critics (a score of just 51% on Rotten Tomatoes). I saw the movie on its opening weekend because I thought the trailer looked fantastic. I’ve been a big fan of just about everything Ben Affleck (Argo, Gone Girl) touches in front and behind the camera since 2007’s Gone Baby Gone, a film that led to his reemergence as a Hollywood A-lister. The Accountant looked like it would be the type of movie I enjoy. I love a gritty drama/thriller that is dark, mysterious, and violent.
Category Archives: Suspense
Hell or High Water (2016)
David Mackenzie’s (Spread, Asylum) 2016 surprise is a movie you’ll like if you go in with minimal expectations. You might be disappointed if you think it will be your typical bank robbery thriller. You might be disappointed if you think it will be full of suspense. If you are interested in a simple character-driven story with a little more than meets the initial eye, you might enjoy Hell or High Water. It’s a bit more quirky than you might think. If you expect a massive bank caper drama, this isn’t it. Mackenzie tries to take a different angle with this movie, adding humor, recklessness, and interesting side characters to a story, primarily a bank heist film. And while this movie has a 98% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, this doesn’t mean that most reviewers are scoring it a 9.8/10. Instead, it means that 49 out of 50 give this movie a positive review. While it is an interesting film (and the first one of 2016 I have watched twice), it is no longer a Best Picture candidate. I know there was talk that it might sneak into the race. I do not know how it got nominated for Best Picture, whereas a movie like Sully did not. While Hell or Hgh Water is a decent movie, I think many people (including myself) expected it to be far more significant than it was.
Elle (2016)
Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Total Recall) Elle opens with a scene that even the most jaded person would find difficult to watch. Whenever we see a rape scene on the big screen, we are mortified. Rape is a crime we abhor and, next to murder, the one we find most unacceptable in society. To start a movie with a brutal rape sets the immediate somber tone of the movie and, ironically, a tone that we often get away from. There are so many genres in this French-subtitled film. It can be classified as drama, romance, suspense, thriller, revenge, mystery, and even comedy. I’d be lying if I said I understood every component of this movie without having to do some research for it afterward. The older gentleman didn’t have that problem and began clapping as we rolled to the credits. I saw this film because Isabelle Huppert (Things to Come, Amour) is a lock for a Best Actress Academy Award nomination after winning a Golden Globe. I think she has a solid chance to win. Natalie Portman (Jackie) and Emma Stone (La La Land) are her only real competition.
Passengers (2016)
Passengers is one of those movies that interest you, and it would be better served if you looked at the audience score rather than the critics’ scores. A 30% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes would suggest skipping this one. However, a 70% audience score suggests something more. This was one of my most anticipated movies of the year. Plus, I try to see everything. But even I was skeptical when I saw how it was getting panned by so many different critics. Even my most respected site (Roger Ebert) only gave the movie 1.5 stars. But I talked to a couple of other people who go to the movies a lot, and they said, despite some holes, that they recommended it. The only thing I knew about Passengers going in (I never saw a trailer) was that it starred Chris Pratt (Jurassic World, Guardians of the Galaxy) and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook, Joy) and that they were lost in space. And while I suppose there were holes in this movie, they didn’t deter my enjoyment of it. The parts that I found more troublesome than anything else were the personal emotions and the relationship between the two leads, and I didn’t even have a problem with that.
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Allied (2016)
While a 65% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes suggests a movie should be checked out, sometimes you wonder why the score isn’t higher. Allied, the Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, The Walk) World War II love story set in Casablanca and London about two intelligence officers from opposite sides of the world says a lot. The movie has been loosely referred to as Mr. and Mrs. Smith (because of Brad Pitt) meets Casablanca. While I understand the reference, this is far from the truth. I was not too fond of either of these other movies. While I did not particularly like either of those movies, I enjoyed Allied.