Movie Review: Caught Stealing

In terms of horrible New York City apartments, squalor, and barely surviving, set in a gritty, dark, and depressing story, the new movie "Caught Stealing" is one of the all-time standards.

Caught Stealing stars Austin Butler as Hank Thompson and Zoë Kravitz as his girlfriend, Yvonne, who are constantly in trouble, running for their lives, and getting beaten up. One of the early beatings of Hank involves a long period of kicking his midsection while he is lying on the ground. This causes Hank to lose one of his kidneys. At some point during a scene like this, you would think that director Darren Aronofsky would have yelled 'cut' long before this scene became obvious overkill.

Unfortunately, this movie is mostly about scenes like this, with one of the few good aspects, the appearance of an extremely attractive house cat, who is present for almost the entire movie, despite the constant gunfire and violence. My guess is the director thought of having this cat appear in this movie to diffuse the over-the-top action scenes.

The story is about a large sum of money that two groups of criminals are trying to find at all costs. Hank has a friend who is leaving for England, and the criminals think that Hank knows where the money is. What follows are chase scenes and non-stop gunfire.

One group of criminals is a Russian gang, the other group of two Hasidic Jewish men, played by two well-known actors, Liev Schreiber and Vincent D'Onofrio, are the most violent, at one point blowing up a nightclub with many people still inside. Regina King plays a police detective in a role and a story twist that we have all seen too many times before.

While the acting is good in this film, the story, over top violence and several parts of the conclusion that do not hold water, I do not recommend this movie, despite the too high 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Movie Review: The Roses

The new movie "The Roses" is a remake/reimagining of "The War of the Roses", released in 1989, that starred Michael Douglass and Kathleen Turner. This story is about a marriage and the long-term degradation of the relationship over many years.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Theo Rose, an architect, and Olivia Colman plays Ivy Rose, who becomes a very successful Chef who starts several restaurants in Mendocino, California. Meanwhile, her husband, Theo, loses his job as an architect after one of his buildings collapses following a severe storm. The problems start with Ivy becoming very successful and opening restaurants, and Theo becoming the house husband. The issues with marriages dissolving is the same, "he thinks, she thinks", due to bad communication over a long period of time. Very often we think the other person is thinking something that they aren't because there is no communication between the two people.

This story is about the man is no longer making a living and he starts thinking his wife no longer respects him - which may or may not be true. Of all the things that can go wrong in a marriage, money problems are the number one reason for divorce, with the very obvious exceptions celebrities like Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez and Angelina Joule and Brad Pitt, reminding the world that there is much more to a long term relationship than just money. Theo in his first task as a house father, starts athletic training for his son and daughter, turning them into major athletes that causes resentment from Ivy who thinks that Theo is trying to steal her children.

This film also stars Kate McKinnon as Amy and Andy Samberg as Barry who are the friends of the Rose's. While Kate is her normal funny self, she has a somewhat sick and tired looking appearance that is part of her role as a an emotionally drained person, disillusioned about her married life. Samberg is also funny in his role as Theo's friend and lawyer who later represents him in a volatile divorce hearing with Allison Janney in a scene that is both real life vicious and funny at the same time.

There is a very violent climax scene that will remind everyone of the original "War of the Roses", although the violence between Ivy and Theo is less than the original movie.

I was surprised at the relatively low 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for this film, with the acting alone worth a solid 75%. I give a solid recommendation to this movie which is a reminder of the realities of love, marriage and divorce.

Movie Review: Honey Don't

It is not often that a bad movie is released that is directed or written by either Joel or Ethan Coen. Unfortunately, this is the case with the new and very strange film "Honey Don't". This movie has three major stars, Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, and Chris Evans, who probably all took their roles only for the opportunity to work with the Coen brothers, regardless of the quality of the story or screenplay.

The erratic, haphazard story of the strangely titled Honey Don't is about a private investigator Honey O'Donahue, played by Qualley, who investigates a series of murders in the depressing town of Bakersfield, California ( this movie was shot in Albuquerque, New Mexico). As she investigates the different murders, while visiting a series of broken-down locations and homes, even more killings occur, some of them extremely violent, where most of the killings seem to be excuses to keep the audience from dozing off, as most of this movie is very boring.

I was surprised someone as talented and funny as Aubrey Plaza took this role as a police officer, as there are several shockingly raunchy scenes with Margaret Qualley and an extremely violent scene with Qualley later in the movie. What were these two up-and-coming actors thinking, taking bad roles in a bad movie with horrific scenes like these?

Chris Evans plays a local, perverted evangelist, Reverend Drew Devlin, in a role he will likely regret later in his career. The problem with clout in Hollywood is that a famous and respected director or writer can create a bad project and still attract named actors. The worst example of this is last year's disaster, "Megalopolis", directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who spent 124 million dollars of his own money to make one of the worst movies ever produced.

This movie is categorized as a dark comedy, which is used as an excuse for some of the insane and disturbing scenes. There is nothing funny here, within a film that really has no plot and no reason for existing. I agree with the very low ratings of 47% on Rotten Tomatoes and do not recommend this movie.