peter-376-761113 Reviews

The Power of the Dog (2021)

Old fashioned art film

[7/10 · 26 December 2021]

An interesting & thoughtful movie. It's a striking contrast to the melodramatic, over-the-top plot & characters in the Kevin Costner "Yellowstone" series. Beautifully acted & shot, but the setting in New Zealand, which doesn't really seem to resemble Montana much, gives the film an even more abstract, parable-like quality.

The Beast of War (1988)

Odd in the extreme

[6/10 · 27 November 2021]

What a very odd movie. Filmed in 1988, in a way it's a document of the era, with the Mujahideen treated sympathetically. A very American cast, including Steven Baldwin (!) portraying Soviet tankers caught up in the Afghan war. It's kind of a "road movie", by turns gritty, surreal, comic & plain ... odd.

I found the music score very distracting. Creating the a detached atmosphere that helps undermine any sense of realism. It's reminiscent of some films from the '70's that have arty cinematography & a mixture of violence, realism & surreal elements. Worth watching as a curiosity.

The Forgotten Battle (2020)

Not Forgotten

[8/10 · 12 November 2021]

My next-door neighbour (now 97) fought with a Canadian regiment during the liberation of the Netherlands, & my daughter is currently a student in Middelburg on the Walcharen island, so I feel have a personal connection with the events described. I think it would be fair to say that the Dutch have not "forgotten" the sacrifice made by Canadian soldiers in the Battle of the Schelde.

I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of this movie. It meanders around a bit in the first half, but the different threads are brought together quite nicely in the second half. The battle scenes are convincingly depicted, considering the limited budget, & the "war is hell" message is handled with some sensitivity & insight.

The Harder They Fall (2021)

Tarantino-lite

[6/10 · 9 November 2021]

Took a while for the extremely muddled story exposition to come into focus, as there are so many characters, none of who are particularly appealing. Then I realized: it's a blaxploitation Tarantino effort. I find some of Tarantino's movies pretty hard-going, but his best ones have interesting dialogue & themes. This movie has the all-black cast as its only notable component. Entertaining enough, but all a bit pointless & contrived.

T-34 (2018)

Entertaining mix of gritty realism & Rambo-esque fantasy

[7/10 · 6 November 2021]

Exciting filmmaking. The details of the storyline are pretty unbelievable ... but perhaps no more so than Brad Pitt taking on an entire German division in Fury. I'm not sure why there are so many complaints abut the CGI - it's all quite well done & delivers a pretty effective mix of realism & stylization on a budget the fraction of any comparable Hollywood production. The fact that it's in Russian creates a degree of distance that maybe helps make the movie more convincing.

Bridgerton (2020– )

Borderline Excruciating

[5/10 · 17 October 2021]

Decided to watch this with my wife to see what all the fuss was about. It's weirdly inconsistent in tone. On the one hand, a Regency drama that suggests comparisons to Austen, but on the other a cheesy modern/historical romance story in the bodice ripping tradition.

The story line is ludicrously predictable & unrealistic much of the time. The writing is sloppy & the acting very uneven. It's hard to take any of the characters seriously enough to care about them. Of the two leads, Daphne Dynevor is mesmerizingly pretty & does a good job of investing the often stilted script with some life. Regé-Jean Page is also mesmerizingly pretty, but his acting is painfully wooden - perhaps partly a consequence of the scant attention paid to the development of his, or any of the male characters. I suppose this reversal of the usual situation is one of the things that makes Bridgerton "interesting" ... but it's not enough to make it worth watching.

Wrath of Man (2021)

Disappointing

[5/10 · 4 August 2021]

Guy Ritchie minus all the things that make a Guy Ritchie movie entertaining. Grim, confused, lacking in any kind of humour or irony & with a pointlessly convoluted & ultimately nonsensical plot.

The Man in the High Castle (2015–2019)

Oh Dear

[6/10 · 30 May 2021]

OK - starts as a fascinating premise, devolves into an absolute dog's breakfast of implausibility, character inconsistency & bad writing.

I haven't read the book, so I have no idea in which ways the series departs from the narrative of the book, but what ends up on screen is a mess. Who ARE the main characters? Their personalities & motivations seem to wander all over the place - same is true of some of the secondary characters.

Shtisel (2013–2021)

Fascinating study of family life in an ultra-orthodox community

[9/10 · 10 February 2021]

Beautifully written & acted. Slow & patient character development draws in the viewer. Recommended.

Ozark (2017–2022)

Dark, tense, thrilling.

[9/10 · 14 April 2020]

Very engrossing, noir thriller with a southern twist. Well-written, well acted & well shot. The story-line does have some hard-to-believe plot turns, but overall it is immersive & convincing. Takes off from the sample go Breaking Bad, but with even more unlikeable & morally compromised characters.

I felt Season 2 was not as compelling as the first Season, but Season 3 picked up again.

Giri/Haji (2019)

Original, riveting, brilliant.

[9/10 · 3 April 2020]

One of the most original & compelling series to show up on Netflix in the last few years. Right up there with Babylon Berlin. Highly recommended.

Into the Badlands (2015–2019)

Visually well done. Storyline - nuts.

[6/10 · 11 December 2019]

Visually interesting. Impressive fight scenes. Some pretty decent acting & attractive lead actors. The storyline is just nuts though. The development from a fairly predictable post-apocalyptic tribal conflict to a grandiose mish-mash of just about EVERY theme imaginable gets a bit hard to take. Characters shift allegiances for no discernible reason & more & more factions are introduced with confusing results. The whole story ends up as a peculiar mess. Sort of a low-budget Game of Thrones where the plot makes even less sense than GoT. Still kind of fun though ...

Dunkirk (2017)

Surprisingly uninvolving.

[6/10 · 14 August 2019]

I enjoy historical film, I enjoy war films, I enjoy visually striking films, I enjoy Christopher Nolan films ... but in spite of being all these things "Dunkirk" left me unimpressed.

The lack of continuity in the weather/sea conditions was excruciating. The dialogue (such as it was) was clumsy & cliched, the characters (such as they were) were undeveloped & the plot structure was clunky. Some nice action sequences & beautiful cinematography, but a hollow emotional core with an old-fashioned, but unconvincing, overlay of patriotic sentiment.

Babylon Berlin (2017–2025)

Very, very classy!

[9/10 · 9 April 2019]

Just into the first season. Very impressive show. Great cinematography, great acting, great script & a fascinatingly complex storyline. This is "Golden Age of Television" material at its best. Highly recommended!

Bird Box (2018)

Disappointing.

[6/10 · 10 February 2019]

Interesting premise, nice atmospheric production, but there are too many gaps in logic & in the end the story doesn't come together very convincingly.

Also ... I hate to say this, but I found Sandra Bullock's face, which is in a LOT of close up scenes, disturbingly "plasticky". Bullock is 54, not 30, and the work she has had done on her face ends up making her look odd - like so many aging movie stars. I guess it's a catch 22: stars, especially (but not only) women, need to "look young" to get parts, but having plastic surgery takes away from their faces the lines & marks of aging that give their faces character & allow them to be expressive.

The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

A swing & a miss.

[7/10 · 4 December 2018]

Enjoyable enough through the first 6 or 7 espisodes, but as others have said, it all falls apart a bit at the end. The denouement in the last episode pretty much undermines the horror & dread of the preceding story-line ... & again as others have commented, the monologues required to pull it all together into one tidy package are stilted & contrived. I think the producers of this series were trying too hard & ended up with a mish-mash of genres that don't really come together successfully.

Apostle (2018)

Bad choice for Michael Sheen, Dan Stevens, Netflix & me.

[4/10 · 11 November 2018]

I guess some fans of the horror/supernatural genre might enjoy this movie. It has an interesting aesthetic, some talented actors & a promising premise ... but it descends into a pretty incoherent mess. After dragging through a slow build-up it comes to an abrupt, head-scratching conclusion as if the filmmakers ran out of gas, money & ideas. Only recommended for enthusiasts of the genre.

The Walking Dead (2010–2022)

Worser & worser.

[5/10 · 2 November 2018]

Yup - started out pretty entertaining, but as many others have stated, it gets worse each season. How many times can a character be taken by surprise by a "walker"? And the shifting motivations & illogical actions by the many protagonists show no character consistency whatsoever, with boring & meaninglessly pretentious dialogue thrown in for good measure.

This is typical of many American TV shows - they just go on & on & on milking the series, when they should have ended after 3 or 4 seasons.

Money Heist (2017–2021)

Not perfect, but very entertaining.

[9/10 · 2 November 2018]

Yes - as in almost every story of this sort there are some plot elements that stretch credulity, but it's an entertaining ride.

Production values are excellent, the writing is sharp & the acting first rate. Unlike in movies of this genre there is enough time to create relatively rounded characters. Yes, there are some cliched elements, but that is the norm in a highly stylized movie like this - it's not supposed to be "realistic". It's certainly unpredictable & original - doesn't really follow expectations & sort of shifts tone a bit as it progresses. It's an odd mix of "Leon, The Professional", "Ocean's Eleven" "Inside Man". (I will say, the Spanish police - trained swat teams, no less - appear to be terribly incompetent marksman! )

Seasons 3 & 4 still entertaining, althoughNetflix is definitely stretching things out for the purposes of ... "papel". Interesting to see so many negative reviews. People are criticizing it for being "unrealistic". Really? How realistic are the Mission Impossible or James Bond movies? How believable are the plots? For that matter, how realistic is "Breaking Bad", or "Ozark" or "Peaky Blinders"? How believable are the plots?

Overall, "Casa Del Papel" is a stylish, & fun heist series with a mix of drama, action, humour & pathos & works pretty well taken as it was intended.

Just finished Season 5: still entertaining ... & a little darker. Again, I have to say criticizing it for being "unrealistic" - which it certainly is, is besides the point. It's exciting, intriguing, stylish & fun.

One other thing: how can people watch foreign language movies dubbed? Dubbing is always a sure way to ruin a movie. My experience with subtitled foreign language moves is that after a while you're barely even aware you're reading the subtitles. Stick with it people!

The Angel (2018)

Confusing history, confusing movie!

[5/10 · 30 September 2018]

Passable spy thriller ... but the conclusions drawn by the film are highly questionable, as any reading of the real-life events indicate. Who the protagonist was actually spying for, & what his motives were ... who knows? It's a bit annoying when a film purporting to be based on real life makes a huge leap into unsubstantiated speculation like this.

The Climb (I) (2017)

Good natured but very "unrealistic" movie.

[7/10 · 21 April 2018]

An enjoyable enough fish-out-of-water tale of a young black man from a Parisian ghetto attempting to climb mount Everest. There's some beautiful cinematography of the mountains ... but the fact that it's presented as a based on a "true story" when the narrative bears hardly any resemblance to the real life events undermines the success of the movie. I would imagine it makes serious mountaineers cringe.

The Chosen (2016)

Fascinating piece of history.

[8/10 · 23 July 2017]

A superbly done political thriller based on the real-life events surrounding the assassination of Leon Trotsky. The one serious problem with the film is based on the lack of believability of the motivations & actions of the central protagonist & some of those around him. However ... this is how it actually was - truth is stranger than fiction.

A chilling lesson from history - read Orwell for more!

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

Old fashioned movie making with Mel Gibson's bloody touch.

[7/10 · 13 July 2017]

OK. It's like a 1950's epic, patriotic war movie ... but with Mel Gibson's signature sado-masochistic touch. It's certainly an interesting story, but played out with an extremely heavy hand that makes it a bit cringe-inducing at times.

I don't know how realistic the setting is, but one detail that bothered me throughout - WTH wouldn't the Japanese just have cut the rope ladder that led to the top of the ridge?!

Stranger Things (2016–2025)

Stylish, witty, poignant, scary, nostalgic & fun!

[9/10 · 9 May 2017]

What especially impressed me was the uniformly excellent acting of the children - really very impressive.

I always think "tone" is one of the most important qualities a movie needs to possess - it needs to be coherent, well-thought out & consistent. "Stranger Things" has a very particular tone - the '80's feel, the homage to horror/sci fi/fantasy traditions - that is perfectly realized. It manages to be referential & "cliched" while still seeming fresh & original - a very clever trick. Congratulations to the Duffer Brothers!