Closed Circuit Thoughts

I haven't seen a legal thriller in while, they seem to have gone out of style. Closed Circuit fits square within the genre, it doesn't change the rules of the legal thriller but delivers a solid entry to the genre.

The film opens with an intense scene of a terrorist bombing of a public market in London, from there we meet to lawyers who are charged with defending one of the suspected mastermind of the crime. As is par for the course in these legal thrillers, the case is not as simple as it seems from the outset and the true crime reaches into the highest levels of power.

Closed circuits will not change anyone minds on the genre, but delivers all the tension, suspicion, and conspiracy that fans of the genre will enjoy. Unfortunately the forced ADR'd ending is a real bummer.

**1/2 stars

Quick Thoughts about Getaway

Look, I knew what I was getting into when I chose to see Getaway. You have a man, with a special set of skills, who is being forced to do a robbery to save his kidnapped wife. He gets a special car, and he proceeds to crash his way through Bulgaria to help execute the plan of the unseen mastermind.

There were a lot of car chases and crashes and most were not exciting, there are performances where it seems no one cares. I was rather bored throughout, these crashes weren't too exciting, the villain's plan was too generic (steal money).

There was one cool thing that happened on screen. In the final car chase, the director chose to silence the soundtrack, put a camera on the dash of the chasing car and let us really see how exciting a car chase can be on screen.

This is the type of movie that will work in the background while you are on your tablet browsing the internet. Just look up occasionally when you hear a bang and you'll get the gist of what happened.

*1/2 stars

We're the Millers: We're Not Very Good

We're the Millers is as generic a comedy as they come. The film has an interesting novel concept, however, it doesn't manage to live up to its promise. Jason Sudeikis stars as a drug dealer who after losing all of his supplier's stash, offers to smuggle some drugs as repayment. He hires three people to pretend to be his family on a vacation to Mexico to sell a cover identification at the border. What we have next is a road trip movie with bonding between our four leads and the people they meet along the way.

The problem starts with the protagonist. Jason Sudeikis is not charismatic as any sort of lovable loser who the audience should care about. His character is smarmy and worst of all, not funny. This is the first movie I have seen with Sudeikis as the lead, and I'm not sure I want to see another with him as the lead. The movie in general is not very funny, for an R-rated film, there aren't many bawdy or outrageous jokes. The funniest part of the movie are the supporting performances of Nick Offerman and Katheryn Hahn, who play another couple who were on vacation from Mexico.

The story is pretty average, no surprises that were not setup at the beginning of the movie. There are however, no cringe inducing moments in the movie, and that is more than you can ask for a movie this year.

** stars

Gangster Squad and A Haunted House: Poor Starts to New Year

Not much needs to be said about Gangster Squad. It is a boring 1940s gangster movie that stars an uncharismatic Josh Brolin as the leader of a group of tough cops who go rogue to bust the operation of notorious LA gangster Mickey Cohen, played by Sean Penn. there are also tonal issues, with Penn acting his hammiest, yet Brolin and his crew are almost dead serious. This is not a movie that be remembered in 3 months.

** stars

A Haunted House is not a good movie, it's really crude and not thought out too well. The jokes are few and far between however there are a few of them there. Nothing that will make anyone laugh too much, but there are a few chuckles. Many of the jokes are sexist and dumb, and I know I should feel bad about them, but I chuckled at times. More often than not the jokes are lazy and repetitive. I think this will find an audience of people who don't think about it too much.

** stars