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The new Film Critics pants fit like a glove, so I am wearing them to review another week's worth of new film releases—and this week, there are a lot of new ones. We have a glut of movies this week as studios rush to get the leftover 2024 releases into theaters.
Six new films are featured in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, January 10, 2025.
1) HARD TRUTHS
The singular, brilliant, and prodigiously talented British writer/director Mike Leigh ("Secrets and Lies," "Life is Sweet," "Another Year," "Naked" and many more) is back with his 24th film. It is one of the best he has ever made.
The richly detailed and wonderfully observed story takes place in contemporary London, focusing on various members of an extended Black family and their relationships with one another, friends, co-workers, and strangers.
The main character is Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a hypersensitive, angry, tragically damaged, and depressed middle-aged mother and wife whose relentlessly unpleasant behavior has alienated her from everyone except her cheerful hairdresser sister (Michele Austin), who nonetheless might be on the verge of a breaking point with Pansy.
This piercing and tough portrait of how anger, depression, and festering trauma can destroy lives is as beautifully heartbreaking as you would expect from Leigh, one of the most powerfully observant storytellers on the planet. His love of human interactivity, both pleasant and unpleasant, funny and sad, joyful and depressing, is so thoroughly compelling that you feel as though you are invading the privacy of real people.
Leigh is meticulous in his attention to his characters' lives and behaviors, and it is nothing less than astounding. He is a true humanist artist who cares so much about giving his creations room to breathe that many of his films feel like documentaries. His direction of actors is rooted in improvisation and open collaboration, and the result is a naturalism seldom seen in commercial cinema.
The complexities of the deep family dynamic and its conflicts are elegantly explored, highlighted by Leigh's reliably truthful direction and some of the best performances you will see in any movie this year. This rich ensemble of actors continues to shine a light on Leigh's remarkable ability to get extraordinary performances from his players.
Now, to Marianne Jean-Baptiste, whose incredible performance as the tragically complex Pansy is, without question, the best performance I have seen by any actor this year. The slender tightrope of emotions that Jean-Baptiste walks throughout this film is astonishing to behold. The shifts in mood and the bouts of uncontrollable anger, depression, and sadness are all handled with grace, elegance, great depth, and, at times, remarkable humor. It is truly a performance for the ages and must be seen to be believed.
Mike Leigh is almost 82 years old and continues to be a vital, essential artist whose work is as important now as it was when he made "Bleak Moments" in 1971. The landscapes of his films change almost as much as the subjects he covers in them, and even when it's a culture that he may not come from (as with this film), there is a feeling of genuineness that is seldom found in any cinema of this type.
I was mesmerized, entertained, and deeply moved by "Hard Truths." It made me laugh; it made me sob; it made me think. It's typical Mike Leigh, anchored by the best performance of the year by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and it's one of 2024's best films. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This big, sprawling, and grand-in-scope saga from co-writer/director Brady Corbet is admittedly a work of unbridled ambition and expression, which is admirable, especially in this day and age of soulless comic-book movies and big-budget tentpoles.
Unfortunately, it is also an obvious, snide, pretentious parade of tired clichés cleverly disguised as an old-fashioned roadshow cinematic epic.
This is all done to hide the fact that there is absolutely nothing beneath its busy, derivative, misleading surface except for a needy director's nonstop attempts to be taken very seriously.
The story follows the life of László Tóth, a Jewish-Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor (played by a mannered and forced Adrien Brody) who, as a destitute immigrant, navigates post-war America through poverty, success, love, power, addiction, and a passionate need to express himself through his art.
His relationships with distant relatives, recent friends, and his newly arrived-to-America wife (Felicity Jones) and niece (Raffey Cassidy) are all overshadowed by his connection to a raging rich industrialist (a terrific Guy Pearce, who is easily the best thing in the movie) who hires László to eventually design and build a huge symbolic community center.
All of this results in conflict, change, horror, and progress, turning the film into a reflection on history, fascism, architecture, the Holocaust, and the brutality of combining art and life.
These are all big ideas and worthy of special treatment on a grand scale, but in Corbet's wildly overreaching hands, the results are often self-important, trite, and downright ugly.
The film's title alludes not only to the architectural style of post-WWII but also to the characters in the film and the message Corbet wants to convey about America. Throughout the endless running time, he brings constant brutality to the screen in misguided, sloppy chunks.
Subtlety is certainly not Corbet's strong suit, but neither is his ability to tell a clear story, work with actors, or especially (and most annoyingly) in his use of the incredible cinematic tools he has at his disposal.
With all of the hoopla being sung about this film existing as an unapologetic throwback to the epics of yesteryear - by being shot in 70mm (in VistaVision, no less), having a very long runtime (about 220 minutes) and a built-in intermission (complete with overture and on-screen countdown) - at its core, it definitely doesn't feel that way at all.
This is the work of a smarmy cynic who, based upon what is cinematically presented in "The Brutalist," seems to hate those gorgeous historical film events with a passion and does everything in his power to make his movie the opposite of what those special presentations were really about.
His movie is a soulless, blatant attempt to snidely comment on old-fashioned cinema while slamming hipster anti-philosophy down your throat. He is a pretentious, misguided crusader who clearly couldn't care less about the work of the Roadshow Era filmmakers but is actually more inspired by shameless, provocateur filmmakers like Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier, both of whom he has worked for as an actor.
But, he also manages to screw that up and misinterpret the intentions of those already spotty and inconsistent directors. The result is a pompous mess that needs things like rape scenes, screaming matches, crying jags, heroin addictions, and over-the-top, insultingly obvious visual symbolism to make its simplistic points.
On a technical level, it is also deeply unattractive, poorly framed, ineptly lit, and an absolute waste of 70mm film and VistaVision. Clearly, Corbet's idea is to scream, "This is a cinematic experience and not a streaming one!" and say, "No Netflix for this movie!"
While those messages are admirable (especially since he is working with a surprising and unusually limited budget here), this guy is clearly the wrong artist to attempt something like this and would be better suited to make his next movie just using an iPhone because the results would be exactly the same.
Don't be wrong; I admire directors who take big swings and love long, ambitious movies. I am, after all, one of the only critics to include Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" on his Top 10 Best Films of 2024 list. If possible, I would also watch Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" on a 24-hour loop. I adored what Tarantino did to the Roadshow concept ten years ago with "The Hateful Eight."
Hell, my favorite movie of all time is Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, a blatantly over-the-top epic with wild ambitions and a crazy-long running time. I am definitely not opposed to these grand ideas and gestures. Still, simply put, Brody Corbet is a lousy filmmaker.
He is certainly not even close to being in the same league (or stratosphere) as Coppola, Kubrick, Tarantino, Anderson (or Chazelle, or Villeneuve, or Scorsese, for that matter), but with a little more experience, a bigger budget, and even more misogyny, he just might become the next Christopher Nolan. That, by the way, is not a compliment. - ⭐️1/2
3) BETTER MAN
From Michael Gracey, the Australian director of The Greatest Showman comes this unique and reasonably entertaining music biopic about the life of British popstar Robbie Williams.
On the surface, it's your basic music biopic. However, what sets this apart from other music biopics is that Williams is presented as a CGI-generated chimpanzee (not kidding). The gimmick seems stupid (and sometimes it is). Still, it generally works and adds a nice twist to the typical clichés you find in almost every biopic.
It's a bold and big stylistic swing that I definitely admire, but it is not without its problems, and the inevitable pitfalls of the genre that the film is cemented in. The movie is genuinely sweeping, and Gracey's confidence behind the camera is impressive in an energetic and stylish way, but the script is anything but radical and never matches the boldness of the approach.
There are some terrific musical sequences in the film that prove that Gracey's sharp direction of "The Greatest Showman" (as well as many very cool P!nk videos and mini-movies) was not a fluke. He is an innovative craftsman who is clearly ready for better material than he has worked with previously.
The film will likely play like gangbusters to sold-out houses in the UK and other parts of the world where Williams is truly a megastar, but here in America, it might be a tougher sell. Those facts may explain the chimp gimmick and the over-the-top style and emotions jammed into the movie that do make the experience fun.
Like "Piece by Piece," the music biopic of Pharrell Williams told entirely through Lego animation from 2024, this risky piece of work brings a much-needed freshness to the genre, even if I'm unfamiliar with Robbie Williams's work.
Even though it is original, risky, and cool, it doesn't reach the heights of something magical like "Rocketman," the remarkable, imaginative biopic of Elton John from 2019 that soared in ways that this film really wants to but doesn't quite reach. It's worth a look, though, especially if you are a fan of Robbie Williams (and monkeys). - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is a big vehicle for pop culture icon, actress, "Baywatch" star, and former Playboy Playmate Pamela Anderson. In it, she plays a seasoned and successful Las Vegas showgirl who must make crucial life choices when the show she's been a part of for thirty years is closing.
Directed by Gia Coppola (Francis' granddaughter, Sofia's niece) and written by Kate Gersten, this very by-the-numbers and familiar story about age, being pigeonholed, and survival doesn't add anything new to the game.
It is strikingly similar in tone, subject matter, and style to Darren Aronofsky's 2008 masterpiece "The Wrestler," which was an almost autobiographical showcase for actor Mickey Rourke, much like this is the same for Anderson.
Of course, it doesn't even remotely come close to the powerful effectiveness of "The Wrestler," but it has some moments, is reasonably compelling, and has an appropriately short running time.
While Anderson is fine, not great, in the lead, it's her co-stars that really shine in this passable drama. Brenda Song, Billie Lourd, Kiernan Shipka, and Dave Bautista (who has never been better) are all quite good, but it's Jamie Lee Curtis as a former showgirl-now-waitress who absolutely steals the show. It's yet another stellar performance to add to the impressive run she has been on since before she won the Oscar for "Everything Everywhere All At Once." - ⭐️⭐️1/2
5) SEPTEMBER 5
From the talented Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum comes this intense film that chronicles the Munich Olympic massacre of 1972 from the perspective of the ABC sports crew and their coverage of the events as they happened.
This taut and tight filmmaking steers clear of the usual things you would expect to see in this story: the hostages, the militants, the violence, or even the negotiations. Instead, the story focuses almost entirely on the journalists who are forced to alter their lives and practices to cover the breaking story, eventually changing how breaking news is presented forever after.
In recent years, some pretty great films about journalism based on true stories have lit up the screen. Titles like "Spotlight," "The Post," "Kill the Messenger," "The Report," and the incredible "Shattered Glass" have shown that the world of news reporting can be turned into terrific dramas and outstanding thrillers in the right hands.
The results of "September 5" are a bit problematic but still quite effective. Moments of nail-biting tension and strong performances add hugely to the drama's effectiveness. It's also sharply directed and consistently well-crafted as it barrels to the startling climax.
The cast, led by the always incredible Peter Sarsgaard (also amazing in the aforementioned "Shattered Glass"), as president of ABC Sports Roone Arledge, do remarkable work here. John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, Georgina Rich, Rony Herman, and Benjamin Walker, playing real people, are standouts.
The editing, a nice music score, and a tightly focused screenplay all work together with clever use of technology (the real Jim McKay and Peter Jennings appear through archival footage from the Wide World of Sports) to bring a very intense true story to the screen that had me on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next.
It is a terrific piece of history, a taut thriller, and an intelligent examination of the job of television reporting and the role of journalism in the real and very scary world. A solid film all the way around. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
I know that I saw the original "Den of Thieves" back in 2018, but I seriously have no memory of it whatsoever, except that I thought it sucked.
Seven years from now, I will be saying the same exact thing about this sequel—actually, make that seven minutes, not seven years.
The always irritating Gerard Butler is back as lawman Nick O'Brien, who, at the beginning of this one, is drunk, slovenly, freshly divorced, and ready to hunt down the elusive international diamond thief Donnie Wilson (a wildly miscast O'Shea Jackson Jr.).
After finding Donnie in Europe, Nick decides to switch teams and actually join Donnie in a big heist involving an international diamond exchange and a stolen gem that must be returned to the Mafia.
The team is assembled, the job is prepped, and the action is set to begin, only it doesn't, for another 80 minutes or so.
In the meantime, we are forced to get to know the one-dimensional stereotypes standing in as characters, as though they are the guys from "Ocean's Eleven" instead of a bunch of dorks from a Z-Grade-should-have-gone-straight-to-the-USA-Network-timewaster, which is exactly what they are and what this is.
Writer/director Christian Gudegast lets us know early on that he is making a very serious international heist film. In the first ten minutes alone, there are about twenty location subtitles and swirling helicopter shots of people walking into buildings. Yeah, this is a real heist movie, alright. People speak in French!
When he's not loading the screen with every possible tired cliché in the business, his characters babble on about their checkered past and incredible stealing skills while going through the motions of creating tension between the "team."
It's all been done a million times before with absolutely nothing new added, leading to the inevitably boring heist and the inevitable twist ending.
Butler has a monologue about his dad's limp, and Jackson Jr. prattles on about his childhood in which he cased out his neighborhood to rob the rich. They are both the least convincing thieves ever. It's all really fascinating if you've never seen a movie before.
Butler's forced "Gruff American," who is so uncouth that he can't correctly pronounce the word "croissant," is supposed to be our amusing guide through the film. But the divorce backstory (he literally throws his wedding ring in the garbage after his very first appearance on screen—peeing), the unfunny humor with the boys, and the non-existent sexual tension between him and Evin Ahmad don't amount to anything.
It's a terrible movie on every level, with zero suspense, a boring heist, and exactly one action sequence. The most entertaining moment in the entire film is when, during a scene involving some drinking and toasting, Butler says, "Fuck the police!" and Gudegast immediately cuts to a close-up of Jackson Jr. doing a huge double take. You see, his dad, Ice Cube, famously wrote a song called "Fuck tha Police".....get it?
That is the level of creativity we are talking about here. Oh, this also ends with a setup for another sequel. So, I'll see you in seven years when I review that one, and I have absolutely no memory of this one. - ⭐️
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