With the Ocean’s Eleven franchise long folded, Scott Caan isn’t getting the calls from Hollywood he used to (and deserves), so he’s doing something about it. In One Day as a Lion, he’s written himself a meaty part as a man so desperate to save his teenaged child from a life behind bars, he’s willing to murder a stranger. Caan’s taken the word-processor route thrice before; the difference here is he’s ceded the director’s chair to someone else: John Swab, the on-the-rise filmmaker behind 2022’s impressive sex-worker thriller Candy Land (which gets a visual and an aural Easter egg).

Caan’s cash-strapped Jackie Powers has three days to hire a lawyer for his wrongly arrested son’s juvenile detention hearing. Luckily (?), a local “degenerate cowboy” (J.K. Simmons, Spider-Man) has gambled himself into $100,000 debt to an Oklahoma crime lord (Frank Grillo, The Purge: Anarchy), so Jackie reluctantly agrees to commit the hit. He fails, spectacularly, accidentally killing a bystander in the process. This sends Jackie with nowhere to go but on the run, kidnapping the lone witness, Lola (Marianne Rendón, Charlie Says).

Did I mention this is largely played for laughs? And would you believe it largely works? (Unmemorable and potentially problematic title notwithstanding.)

Looking more and more like his father by the day, Caan is gracious and likable, despite shooting that innocent man to death in the opening scene. (It helps you never see the victim once he takes the bullet — outta sight, outta mind, right?) However skewed Jackie’s moral code may be, he at least tries to do the right thing, thereby earning the audiences’ goodwill. At his side, not always willingly, Rendón’s dry, droll waitress gets the Lion’s share of the best lines. Where the pair ends up isn’t warranted, in part because the ending is so abrupt and anti-climactic, it feels like a penultimate scene that somehow got freeze-framed. Cue credits!

With a mix of actors known and not, the cast is solid. Brief bits by Virginia Madsen and Taryn Manning as, respectively, Lola’s mom and Jackie’s ex-wife, enliven an already fun film. It almost goes without saying Simmons is never not terrific. Shot in Swab’s Sooner State hometown of Tulsa and surrounding small towns, A Lion for a Day aptly uses its setting to serve the story, and the orange-and-yellow saturation of scenes help viewers feel Oklahoma’s oppressive summer heat.

Those triple-digit degrees are brutal, trust me. They’re to blame for Sylvester Stallone’s Tulsa King TV series retreating to L.A. for season 2. Come to think of it, A Lion for a Day’s tale of cowboys and criminals shares so much DNA, it could be a backdoor pilot for a secondary Tulsa King character’s spin-off. That’s not a knock; it’s a recommendation. —Rod Lott

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Single mom Karen has a new gig as a factory’s night-shift custodian. Day 1 is a doozy — and not because she has to scrub toilets. Rather, the warehouse is infiltrated by a few Halloween-masked men who want to punch her clock for good. You probably guessed as much from the film’s title, Hunt Her, Kill Her. I presume the tweak of the military term “hunter-killer” is intentional, as these guys clearly are on a mission; the reason, simple to suss out.

Played by Natalie Terrazzino in her first feature credit, Karen is not the most relatable protagonist. Then again, co-directors Greg Swinson and Ryan Thiessen (Five Across the Eyes) didn’t construct the movie for depth. A simple stalking exercise, the well-shot Hunt Her, Kill Her would work better if the warehouse were more labyrinthian or better spatially established to liven the routine. I’m certain it’d be tiring to chase or be chased by someone for an hour, but now I know it can be tiring to watch, too. —Rod Lott

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Directing the sequel to a film you previously starred in? Makes sense given Pitch Perfect’s formula. How about reviving America’s most recognizable trio of woman super-spies? Sure, singing and espionage go hand in hand. But helming the origin story of one of the weirdest roadside attractions … fuck it, why not?

Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear is — perhaps needless to say — a strange beast. Imagine if Kangaroo Jack mated with Final Destination, and then the baby blew at least 200 rails. What follows is a mostly fun romp with a few too many storylines that sobers the woodland rage before it really takes off.

Cocaine Bear wastes no time getting its truth out of the way. A drug smuggler accidentally plummets to his death while offloading hundreds of ounces of Colombian sugar. Shortly thereafter, a black bear eats it. And thus ends the film’s historical ties. Instead of dying from a massive overdose, the bear (aka “Pablo Escobear”) goes on a daylong rampage that would make Tony Montana jealous.

Meanwhile, a mother tries to find her school-ditching daughter; three delinquents stumble upon a portion of the coke; a grieving widower goes on a recovery mission with his drug-pin father’s muscle; a detective tries to execute the biggest narcotics bust across Tennessee and Georgia; and at least three other tangents too many rounds out this black comedy of errors.

When Cocaine Bear’s at its best, it’s a gorgeous, gory and gag-filled mess. Dismembered legs, tragic timing and a monster coked out of its gourd is hilarious, albeit rarely terrifying. By the time the film’s star crashes into premature hibernation, fatal whoopsies might have a higher body count than the bear itself.

Unfortunately, screenwriter Jimmy Warden’s compulsion to build intrigue through needless characters detracts from what the tagline asked we “get in line” to see. It has as big a cast as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World with about an eighth of the charm. It’s saved by a few clutch performances, notably comedian Scott Seiss, Margo Martindale and the late, great Ray Liotta.

Cocaine Bear’s first hit is hard to beat, but each subsequent line is met with diminishing returns, save a ridiculous ambulance chase. The film is a reminder, however, that creature features should never take themselves too seriously. Plus, it opens up the door for other insane, drug-induced animals to follow. Ketamine Koala or Shroom Shark, anybody? Hell, Tusko, an elephant that died after being injected with 279mg of LSD in 1962, could very well be Cocaine Bear’s spiritual successor. —Daniel Bokemper

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You’ll be happy to hear Knock at the Cabin isn’t The Happening’s spiritual successor. But it is a prime example of M. Night Shyamalan getting in his own way. Again.

Subtlety, ambiguity and refrain were never the director’s forte, but they didn’t always sabotage his films, either. Here, Shyamalan chips away at an otherwise solid premise courtesy of Knock’s solid source material, Paul Tremblay’s 2018 novel, The Cabin at the End of the World. What’s left isn’t exactly a bad flick, but it’s leagues below what it could’ve been.

It’s easy to dismiss Shyamalan. After all, we’re far removed from what made Unbreakable and Signs endearing. Even so, it’s not unreasonable to hope with the right character, the director still can manage to tug heartstrings between his hallmark twists. Wen, a young girl played by Kristen Cui, could share a cubby with The Sixth Sense’s Cole.

One morning collecting grasshoppers, she’s approached by Leonard, an utter brick shithouse played by Dave Bautista (2021’s Dune). Along with a mismatched trio of colleagues, Leonard forces Wen into her parents’ cabin, trapping the family inside. Once there, Leonard’s group offers them a simple choice: Sacrifice one of themselves to prevent the apocalypse.

Tension builds immediately, and the cinematography does well to make a seemingly cosmic scenario much more intimate. Overall, how the film was shot could’ve been more consistent, but that’s minor. The horrendous news footage, however, can’t be overlooked. These segments are both poorly animated and actively crush the air of doubt that animates the story’s conflict. Shyamalan finds a creative way to nullify that, too, but not before the fake CNN asides do it first.

Pair those with crashing planes on par with Birdemic’s nosediving doves, and it becomes hilariously hard to take Knock seriously. It’s baffling — and frustrating — to see the director deliberately muddle a natural sense of mystique.

This isn’t even considering the inevitable, poorly executed twist. Doubting the power of his symbolism, Shyamalan delivers nothing short of an insult to the audience as character after character painstakingly break down the meaning of their ordeal. Meanwhile, elements that would serve the film’s soft mystery are asides, sometimes brought up once and never to be alluded to again.

Knock at the Cabin is far from Shyamalan’s worst film. What makes it painful is how promising it was. It has all the pieces to match and possibly exceed his best work; if only he didn’t twist his ankle when trying to stick the landing. —Daniel Bokemper

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Prostitution’s a tough gig, even for Santa Monica’s finest. You might contract an STD or, per The Banker, a laser-guided crossbow arrow through the noggin. Even if the film didn’t reveal right away that titular man o’ finance Spaulding Osbourne is the killer, we’d know it because he lives in a warehouse, watches a wall of 16 television sets and keeps a Little Golden Book of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on his coffee table.

On the other hand, he has one redeeming quality: no love for cocaine bros in bolo ties.

Hunting Osbourne (Duncan Regehr, The Monster Squad’s Count Dracula) is police detective Sgt. Dan Jefferson (Robert Forster, Jackie Brown). It’s only a matter of time before Osbourne targets Jefferson’s ex-wife, TV reporter Sharon (Shanna Reed, TV’s Major Dad), who’s recently ditched segments promoting the Magic Sandcastle Jamboree for on-air editorials against the murderer.

Luckily for the good guys, Osbourne leaves a calling card at each homicide: a blood pattern on the wall that looks kinda like Wilson the volleyball from Cast Away. As Jefferson tells his lieutenant (Richard Roundtree, 1971’s Shaft), “We’re looking at one strange son of a bitch!”

William Webb’s directorial follow-up to the ho-hum Party Line, The Banker hums along nicely. It certainly helps going from Leif Garrett (who cameos here) to Forster. In a variation of his role in Alligator, Forster’s Dan is likely an alcoholic and lives in a treehouse. This allows Forster to give what he was so gifted at: a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. Dana Augustine’s screenplay aids and abets with appropriate dialogue, including the concluding anti-quip, “I’m Dan, I’m a cop and you’re fucked!”

All in all, The Banker is the type of sleaze that’s polished just enough that you don’t feel a need to shower afterward. Who could’ve guessed that in 1989, Forster was less than a decade away from a career-reviving Academy Award nomination? Or that Roundtree would end the millennium returning as the iconic cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about? Or that former Playboy centerfold Teri Weigel and her Tupperware breasts were about to turn to porn? Or that Jeff Conaway could still run? —Rod Lott

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