Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it seemed to have a decent reputation, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I always had a weak spot for minimalistic features and, on top of that, even if I’m not a religious man, I have always been fascinated by religion so this movie definitely had some potential. I have to admit that, after I watched the trailer, I was expecting this ominous house to become some kind of huge labyrinth but the scale turned out to very small after all but it wasn’t an issue. Still, the material was completely in my ball park and it all worked fine up until the Hugh Grant’s character showed up with his ‘prophet’. Indeed, I was quite intrigued by this theological debate between the 3 characters but, from this moment, they kind of lost me though. I have to admit that, at first, I was also rather skeptical about Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East. Indeed, I never saw them before and I thought they would be the usual pretty faces that you get in your average horror flick. However, both girls were actually pretty good and there was more depth to their characters than I expected. And, of course, it was quite a blast to see Hugh Grant, once the 90’s King of the romantic-comedies, playing a deranged serial killer in a horror flick this one and the guy really nailed it. Instead of getting them involved in some weird non-sensical gory theatrics, they could have developed more these characters though. Indeed, as long as these 3 characters were involved in  some kind of theological debate, I was really in. By the way, I was amazed that none of them ever mentioned the concept of ‘faith’, the fact that you actually believe, not because it is supposed to make sense but because you simply chose to believe. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t completely work out, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was starring Gerard Butler and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. To be honest, with Butler, when you watch his most recent movies, it either can turn out to be actually fairly decent like ‘Greenland’ (also from the same director) or borderline awful like ‘Angel Has Fallen’ (and also from the very same director). Well, even though this one didn’t make much waves when it was released, I thought it was not bad at all after all. Indeed, during the first half, when you get introduced to all the people involved in some way in this spy world, it was surprisingly convincing for what seemed to be at first a rather generic Butler action feature. Unfortunately, from the moment the main character and his guide/translator left Herat to go to Kandahar, it became much more generic and less interesting though. Basically, the movie then became a very long chase which was watchable but it wasn’t exactly thrilling, especially if you would compare it to the intriguing first half. It was also rather bewildering how little they eventually did with Mohammad, considering that they took a full scene to show his dramatic entrance in his home country. Of course, there was also some stuff involving the private lives of some of the characters, probably in an attempt to make them look like some really fully-fledged human beings but it didn’t really work, especially with the main character (seriously…. These guys never have a harmonious family life…) Anyway, to conclude, even if it wasn’t anything groundbreaking, it actually turned out to be a solid action flick and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was directed by King Vidor and since it was available on YouTube, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, with only 130 viewers on IMDb, it is probably is one of the most obscure movies I have seen so far. In fact, by now, I have seen 6 movies directed by Vidor (I won’t count ‘The Wizard of Oz’ because he did direct only a handful of scenes) and it was probably the least impressive one I have seen so far. However, on the other hand, his output in the 20’s was not really stellar. First of all, even though it was supposed to be dealing with the conflict between English and Irish, both groups were hardly fleshed out at all and I think it was pretty obvious that it was a US production. Concerning the story itself, it was also pretty flimsy, even for a movie made more than 100 years ago. Eventually, as far as I’m concerned, the only thing which was really noteworthy was Laurette Taylor. Indeed, she was actually pretty good, even if she was probably the only interesting actor from this otherwise rather dull cast.  Eventually, I was even more impressed when I found out afterwards that she was almost 40 years old when she played this character. Apparently, she would only play in a few movies after this one but she was considered as one of the greatest stage actresses of all time, no less than that. Anyway, to conclude, even if I didn’t care much about the damned thing after all, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. To be honest, it is one of those rare movies which, while I was watching it, I was constantly wondering how on Earth it did actually end up in my queue. The fact that it turned out to be so lame made this choice even more dubious and I have to admit that I was already skeptical from the moment I saw the ‘Nickelodeon’ logo when the movie started. Then, within a few mins, it became clear that they did dare cast Victoria Justice and Jane Levy as supposedly two losers in high-school which was just ridiculous. Seriously, either you make they play some really popular girls or you hire someone completely different who might looked more convincing for these characters. So, pretty much from the start, the damned thing was rather hopeless and, to be honest, it never really got better afterwards. Indeed, even though Wren and Roosevelt were obviously meant to end up together, Victoria Justice and Thomas Mann had basically no chemistry whatsoever. Concerning the jokes, like the rest of the movie, it was also rather pathetic, I’m afraid. The tone was also seriously uneven. Indeed, even though it was a Nickelodeon feature and even though it did seem to be targeting young children, some jokes were actually much more adult oriented. The whole sub-plot about Chelsea Handler’s character dating a young man only 10 years older than her daughter was a really good example. Anyway, to conclude, even though my rating might seem to be harsh and I have to admit that it was rather harmless but, even so, I just didn’t care at all about the damned thing and I think you should probably avoid it. 

More than 20 years ago, I actually saw ‘Gladiator’ with my buddies in the movie theater. Sure, I thought it wasn’t a decent watch but, to be honest, not really much more than that, and I have to admit that I didn’t expect it at the time to become so huge. After all these years, it might have seemed to be a no-brainer to come up with a sequel but, to be honest, especially after watching the damned thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if it would eventually turn out to be a flop after all. I mean, Ridley Scott is a really solid director so the damned thing was well made, no doubt about it, but, seriously, what was the point of this sequel? I mean, the plot was just so similar to its predecessor that it made the whole thing was rather pointless. I felt especially bad for Paul Mescal. It was in fact the first movie I saw starring the up-and-coming actor and I can confirm that the guy definitely has some solid acting chops. Still, with his first blockbuster, I’m afraid he was a lit bit unlucky here and I guess he will focus even more on indie productions in the future. To be honest, he was not helped by the fact that his character was just so similar to Maximus and, to be fair, even though Mescal is quite charismatic, he is not (yet) a Russell Crowe in his prime. In fact, from the whole cast involved, the only one who managed to be interesting was Denzel Washington who basically stole the show every time he was on the screen. Anyway, to conclude, even if I actually had a hard time to care about the damned thing, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch though and it is worth a look but probably only if you really like genre.

To be honest, since this movie had been a big flop when it was released, I had some rather low expectations but since it was directed by Clint Eastwood, I still wanted to check it out. Well, even though the old film legend is still productive, it has been more than a decade since he really impressed me and I’m afraid this new director effort was probably one of his weakest movies so far. I mean, even though I’m not huge fan of road-trips (I think it’s a lazy gimmick), I really like minimalistic features involving a few characters and I do believe that Rafo was actually a really interesting character. Unfortunately, well, pretty much nothing else did work in this work though. There was first the issue that the film was filled with some awkward clichés about Mexico and especially the Mexican people. Another big issue with this movie was that the fact there were only 2 characters involved and both actors were just seriously miscast. Indeed, like I mentioned before, even though Rafo was a complex character with a lot of potential, Eduardo Minett was actually really weak though. Concerning Clint Eastwood, sure, he is actually a solid actor but I still think he wasn’t the right choice to play this character. Indeed, even though it’s really cool that Eastwood is making movies focusing on elderly characters (something terribly rare nowadays in spite of the ageing of the Western population), I’m afraid it didn’t work in this case though. Indeed, at more than 90 years old, Eastwood was at least 20 years too old to play this guy. The fact Natalia Traven’s character would fall in love with him, when she is in fact almost 40 years younger than Eastwood, was also ridiculous and even rather pathetic. Anyway, to conclude, even if the damned thing was rather harmless,  it was still weak and I think you can pretty much avoid it, except maybe if you are a die-hard fan of Clint Eastwood’s work. 

To be honest, ever since I saw the trailer for this movie, I had some mixed feelings about the damned thing but, since it was available on Netflix and since there was a solid cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out anyway. Basically, the issue I had, even before watching the damned thing and only by even looking at the poster, was that it did seem to be a rather predictable forbidden love story. Eventually, I do have to admit that it was well made and the cast was really strong but I’m afraid it was still missing something to really blow me away though. The main thing I was thinking while I was watching this movie was that I will probably never join a religion myself. Indeed, even though I actually think a lot about God and religion in general, the way the biggest religions (not only Judaism but also Christianity and Islam) reject whole groups of people only because they are different makes it impossible for me to join any of these groups. Coming back on the movie itself, I still think that the story was too generic though. However, there is no denying that Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams were both really good here. From Weisz, I’m actually used from her to give some stellar acting but I was positively surprised by McAdams who completely disappeared in her character and I think she probably gave here the best performance of her career, no less than that. Concerning Dovid Kuperman, the character played by Alessandro Nivola, it was a nice touch that the guy didn’t become violent verbally or even physically and that even gave his wife her freedom but this character was never the focus here so I don’t think it really mattered much after all. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, for a very long time, I was completely oblivious about Harold Lloyd’s work so it was pretty neat to finally discover his movies. I wonder how many of his movies I have eventually watched but I think it will be the last one for the time being. Anyway, even if it might not be his best movie, I certainly enjoyed it though. One thing I did like was the fact that there was actually more or less a real plot this time so it did feel less disjointed than most of his other movies I have seen so far, at least, until the 3rd act. Furthermore, even though I apparently already saw a few silent features starring Jobyna Ralston, I thought she was super charismatic and charming here. One thing that didn’t really work in my opinion was the running joke of the main character constantly stuttering when he was nervous though. Indeed, a stutter is something more sonic than visual so I don’t think it worked well in a silent movie like this one. I mentioned that this movie did feel less chaotic than his other movies but it actually did change with the 3rd act though. Indeed, basically, the last 30 mins (and we are talking about a movie barely lasting 90 mins), it became some really wild non-stop chase during which the main characters kept stealing vehicles to prevent the love of his life to marry someone else. To be honest, I’m not so sure how I felt about this madcap sequence. I mean, sure, it was quite spectacular and fairly entertaining but, in my opinion, it was also a huge departure from the rest of the movie. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was maybe not a masterpiece, it was still a really solid silent comedy and is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but, since I had it been in my queue for years, I thought I might finally watch it after all. Well, unfortunately, as I expected, it turned out to be really terrible though. In fact, I think that this movie actually had some potential and there was also a solid cast of famous Dutch actors playing plenty of small characters. Sure, I wasn’t a big fan of the comedic approach, I think something darker and more serious would have been more interesting but something funny could have actually worked as well. Furthermore, Yes-R and Turk were not bad. Unfortunately, most of the jokes were just so pathetic though. The other thing that really bothered me was how completely random and disjointed the damned thing was. The best (or worst) example was when, towards the end, they went fetching some African Voodoo doctor at the airport. Indeed, if their gang killed someone, the victim was allowed to choose a clergyman of his religion which was supposed to be hilarious (obviously, it was not the case). The joke went even further though. Indeed, somehow, they managed to have him dying at an artificial ski slope (of all places?!?!), they then replaced him with some random black dude that they found. Not only this Voodoo doctor character was quite offensive (like most of the jokes in this movie) but, to make things worse, they didn’t even wait for him to proceed with this execution making the whole extended joke even more pointless than it already was. In fact, towards the end, it seemed that the makers cared even less than before and the end-result was just a total mess. Anyway, to conclude, I think I was actually rather generous with my rating here, the damned thing was really lame and you should probably avoid it.  

It’s so funny, I realized it only later on, but I actually bought my ticket for this movie exactly on 05/11/2024. That’s right, I actually bought it on the actually US election day and, later on that very same day, Donald Trump became the 47th president of the United States. I know, it is f*cking unreal and it probably made me appreciate this movie even more. Eventually, how is it possible that this specific guy did not only become president once but even twice? But I think that’s what really worked in this movie. Indeed, they displayed really well that, in our capitalistic self-centered society, even if we pretend it, it actually doesn’t matter if you are a good person or even only mildly competent and average, at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that you have to be a ruthless killer, no matter your field. I think it’s also interesting how some Trump critics argue that the guy is even bad in business because he got bankrupt many times but I think it’s actually rather delusional. It’s like saying that Adolf Hitler was the worst politician ever, he obviously did some horrible things but, as a politician, he was actually really good (it doesn’t mean I cared for him or his ideology though). With Trump, it’s a similar thing and, no matter what you can say, the guy was (and apparently still is) incredibly successful. Was this success really worth it after all? That’s a completely different story and it was also very well displayed in this movie. However, once again, in our society, nobody cares about such things at all or, at least, I should say the majority doesn’t care at all (not only in the US but in the whole freaking world, by the way). Finally, I would have a hard time to choose between Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong who gave the best performance as they were both pretty much pitch-perfect here. Eventually, I do believe that this movie was too disjointed and unfocused to become really amazing but I still enjoyed most of it though. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was maybe not a masterpiece, I thought it was really interesting movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in this subject.