William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones star in this slow burn revenge thriller that sees the pair as former P.O.W.s of the Vietnam War finally returning home. Unfortunately, the world isn’t the way Major Charles Rane (Devane) left it. His city welcomes him back, gifting him a giant Cadillac convertible, and a hefty collection of…
Tag: climax
The Spider Woman (1944) – Roy William Neill
Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) is back! By his side, the redoubtable Watson (Nigel Bruce)! Despite the (once again) short runtime, I really liked this one. It got the series back on track to solving mysteries and while the War was still going on I liked the fact that it decided to be more escapism than…
The Shallows (2016) – Jaume Collet-Serra
Blake Lively stars in a tight little actioner that runs shy of 90 minutes, but features some crisp and beautiful location and underwater photography. Lively is Nancy, a med student who has journeyed to Mexico to surf a secret beach that her mother once surfed long ago when she learned she was pregnant with Nancy….
Rebel Ridge (2024) – Jeremy Saulnier
Jeremy Saulnier wrote and directed this tense little thriller that retreads familiar territory, but does it in a very entertaining way. Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) has cashed out of his job and heading to a small-town to bail out his cousin, and then buy a truck so the pair of them can start their own…
Blown Away (1994) – Stephen Hopkins
Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones star in a cop thriller about revenge and the past. Set in Boston, Jimmy Dove (Bridges) is verging on retirement from the Bomb Squad following his marriage to Kate (Suzy Amis). Unfortunately, Dove’s past comes calling for him in the form of Ryan Gaerity (Jones) an IRA extremist with…
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015) – Osgood Perkins
After enjoying Longlegs I definitely wanted to check out some of Perkins’ other work, and pulled up The Blackcoat’s Daughter to watch. And once again, I rather enjoyed his work, his storytelling and the performances he got from his actors. Set in a February winter break in an all-girls private school, Bramford (a nod to…
The Queen (2024) – Nick Cutter
Canadian author Nick Cutter (aka Craig Davidson) really knows to deliver a tale that gets under your skin, and horrifies you, and he does it again with The Queen. Combining a coming-of-age tale with explicitly detailed body horror, this one was a page-turner from the beginning and is completely engrossing. Cutter plunges readers right into…
TIFF24: I, the Executioner dir. Ryoo Seung-wan
I, the Executioner is the follow-up to Seung-wan’s Veteran. I hadn’t seen it, and I loved this one. So don’t let that hold you back from checking this one out. South Korean action films and police thrillers are always engaging, and they aren’t afraid to get dark. Veteran cop, Do-cheol (Hwang Jung-min) works in the…
2 Guns (2013) – Baltasar Kormakur
Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg star in 2 Guns, based on the comic series of the same name, a fun little actioner where everyone seems intent on betraying every one else over forty-three million dollars. Posing as buyers, Bobby (Washington) is actually a DEA agent, Stig (Wahlberg) is in the Office of Naval Intelligence, and…
Under Paris (2024) – Xavier Gens
Under Paris delivers my second favourite shark movie of all time. The first is Jaws, of course. That whole slew of Sharknado films couldn’t do a damned thing for me. They are so far beyond cheesy that they become an embarrassment. You have to be able to walk a line with shark movies, to balance…
The Mind Reels 