This month’s a little light on direct to home video titles, but given that the NZ International Film Festival is kicking off, that’s probably for the best… Still, we’ve got a few things to see here – including a couple of fest titles from last year, a superhero who gets powers from women’s panties, and lots of crime.
Blood Ties
In a nutshell: Clive Owen and Billy Crudup play Chris and Frank, brothers on different sides of the law. When Chris gets out of jail after doing time for a gangland murder, Frank is there to pick him up and reluctantly helps to get Chris back on his feet. But despite helping him with a home, work, and patching things up with his ex-wife (Marion Cotillard), Frank’s efforts aren’t enough to stop his brother slipping back into his criminal ways…
The buzz: 49% on Rotten Tomatoes. The AV Club reckons it “comes off as a weird, misshapen version of a ’70s-style thriller”, Variety labels it a “sluggish, dramatically undernourished saga”, while Entertainment Weekly states Blood Ties, “in the guise of a crime thriller, creates a panorama of broken lives trying to put themselves back together”.
Reason to watch: As someone on Facebook said “Please ‘scuse the chauvinistic for a moment, but PHWOAR wasn’t Marion Cottilard a bit of a’ight in that role?!”
Blue Ruin
In a nutshell: A dishevelled man eking out a homeless existence in his car learns someone from his hometown has been released from prison. Heading back there for long-awaited revenge he must transform into an amateur assassin after years of consuming anger and growing a shaggy beard.
The buzz: 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. The Chicago Sun-Times hits the nail on the head, saying “You couldn’t ask for a more unlikely avenger than the ill-equipped sort-of hero of Blue Ruin, and that’s precisely why it’s far, far more suspenseful than the typical violent revenge thriller”. L.A. Weekly deserve a mention too, for intriguingly describing it as “disquieting and raw, like Commando turned inside out”.
Reason to watch: If your life ever turned to shit and you spent years trying to kill someone it might just turn out like this. Hope it doesn’t!
Hentai Kamen
In a nutshell: An everyday Japanese student transforms into a crime-fighting superhero – the Pervert Mask – thanks to the powers he attains by smelling women’s panties.
The buzz: Not reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes yet, but Twitch call this “a big, colourful, bizarre comedy that is a lot of fun.”
Reason to watch: Um, “thanks to the powers he attains by smelling women’s panties”. Surely.
A Touch of Sin
In a nutshell: Best Screenplay winner at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival (and nominated for the Palme d’Or), this pessimistic Chinese drama takes its inspiration from true crime events as it examines the country’s everyday violence via four interlinked tales.
The buzz: 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Film.com labelled it “by far the best action movie of the year”, NPR calls the film “the most dramatic and even lurid of writer-director Jia Zhangke’s movies” and Little White Lies simply states “Shocking. Stylish. Historic.”
Reason to watch: Modern existence getting you down? Check out how rough it is in China as people get pushed to breaking point.
Ride Along
In a nutshell: Buddy-cop action comedy from the director of Barbershop starring Kevin Hart as a wannabe policeman preparing to propose to his girlfriend. But first, he has to go on a 24-hour patrol with her hard-edged law-enforcing brother (Ice Cube) in order to get his blessing and prove his worthiness.
The buzz: 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. Time Out complain Ride Along is “saddled with an uninvolving plot, and largely content to coast on cop-movie clichés”, and Variety labels it “a lazy and listless buddy-cop action-comedy that fades from memory as quickly as its generic title”. On the other hand, the Newark Star-Ledger says “for 100 minutes, I didn’t think about anything else at all. And sometimes that small relief is the best thing a movie can give.”
Reason to watch: To decide whether or not the distributors were right to not release the movie in NZ. Based on the reviews, maybe they were…
