Thriller

Dashcam (2021)

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On Halloween night in New York City, TV news editor Jake (Eric Tabach, What We Found) races to complete an exclusive package on the high-profile death of former state attorney general (indie-horror icon Larry Fessenden, We Are Still Here) by a police officer who pulled him over in a routine traffic stop.

Or was it? As Jake’s almost-edited piece shows, conspiracy theorists believe the AG’s death was an assassination at the order of their vengeful governor. All Jake has left to do is drop in the police car’s dashcam footage, due to arrive in his inbox any moment. Once it does, it’s immediately followed by a second email — this one accidental and containing highly classified info, such as the officer’s bodycam footage, which the public was told did not exist. When Jake notes a discrepancy between the reported number of gunshots and what the secret video reveals, his Spidey sense tingles big-time.

Thus, Dashcam — the lower-profile of two concurrent films bearing that title — follows Jake as he clicks, copies, drag-and-drops, imports, enhances and other-action-verbs files on his Mac to forensically figure out the truth. Not unlike Unfriended or Searching, screen time gets lots of screen time, with Adobe Creative Cloud inadvertently something of an indispensable supporting player here.

Known for the buzzy short Unsubscribe, another desktop-based drama, filmmaker Christian Nilsson branches out to full-length features with Dashcam, fairly successfully, as he’s able to keep viewers engaged — albeit at a consistently low wattage — even though they’re literally watching his protagonist work a keyboard and mouse. That said, with the prodding of his girlfriend (Giorgia Whigham, MTV’s Scream: The TV Series), Jake hits the streets to find the answers he so desperately seeks. Where that lands underwhelms — not because of what occurs, but because it’s what you expect to occur. For the innovation Nilsson applies elsewhere, its absence from the conclusion can’t help but register as a letdown, even for the mildly invested. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

Mona Lisa (1986)

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When I was a kid living in small-town Blooming Grove, Texas, my father would get two papers everyday: The Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times Herald. While he was usually concerned with the news part of the paper, he always pulled aside the entertainment section for me, offering a two-color invite to a world of movies I thought I would never experience.

Obsessed with the advertisements, I was intrigued by a Dallas theater known as the Inwood. Even though it was the exact definition of an arthouse theater, their ads always had a “no one under 17 allowed” line on each, making its films feel like something that would always be beyond my reach, with Mona Lisa being one I vividly remember.

Directed by Neil Jordan, this HandMade Film (produced by Beatle George Harrison!) was, I thought, a love story between a prostitute and her driver. Like many films from my youth, I had an absolutely dreamy version of it playing in my head; in reality, it’s a dank and dirty story of a recently released from prison Bob Hoskins and his unknowing entry into the world of realistic prostitutes and their pimps.

I can see why they wanted no one under 17 to view the film.

Playing the criminal opposite of his ganglord in The Long Good Friday, here Hoskins is the dull-witted George, an emotionally vulnerable criminal who is used, pathetically, by mob boss Denny (an outstanding Michael Caine). Needing a job, George becomes a driver to Simone (Cathy Tyson), a high-class call girl who, in their time together, he falls for.

She, however, needs his help to find her smack-addicted girlfriend. Even though he’s in love with Simone, he helps her find her; it leads to a bloody shootout at the beautiful British oceanside, both literally and — in the course of his explosive feelings for her — figuratively.

Masterfully filmed by Jordan, this film — much like Friday — cemented Hoskins as the British go-to guy for slovenly criminals in an absolutely career-defining performance that I feel I would have totally understood at the tender age of 8 or 9 — and one that I absolutely understand get at 43, perhaps more than I should. —Louis Fowler

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Horror

Grave Intentions (2021)

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Courtesy of Death Cat Entertainment, the horror anthology Grave Intentions presents a quintet of tales hosted by voodoo retailer Magical Madam Josephine (Joy Vandervort-Cobb). Before each, she spotlights a relevant product in her shop, including charm pouches, voodoo dolls, crystals, talismans and even a candelabra prestuck with a Rainbow Coalition of candles. Josephine addresses the viewer with lines like, “Most believe bravery is a good t’ing,” “Oh, I pray this customer uses puppet magic wisely” and “Are you the hero … or the villain?”

While Jocelyn and Brian Rish’s wraparound is new, the stories Josephine introduces are not, being unrelated independent short films as old as 2014. Moreover, coming from half a world away is Matthew Richards’ The Disappearance of Willie Bingham. Easily Grave Intentions’ highlight, the Australian short is a blackly comic look at a child killer (Kevin Dee) used by the judicial system as an experiment for scared-straight schoolchildren and other would-be offenders; rather than put Willie to death for his crimes, he is gradually relieved of appendages, limbs, organs and then …

Running a not-so-close second in quality is James Snyder’s Violent Florence, whose title character (Charly Thorn, 2020’s Relic) demonstrates why it’s not wise to mess with a stray black cat. Meme immortality awaits.

I wish the rest of Grave Intentions were as appealing as this pair. Lukas Hassel’s The Son, The Father … gets close, but its tit-for-tat scenario of a boy (Lucas Oktay) whose alcoholic mom (Colleen Carey) to die on his 11th birthday is more depressing than entertaining, despite good performances.

Another abused child is at the center of the final segment, Brian Patrick Lim’s Marian, which stands alongside the first, Gabriel Olson’s The Bridge Partner, as the portmanteau’s weakest links. Ironically, Olson’s film is the only one with star power, as sultry newcomer Olivia (NYPD Blue’s Sharon Lawrence, vamping up a European accent) vows murder to the Moss Harbor Bridge Group’s mousiest member, Mattie (Beth Grant, Southland Tales), unprovoked. I really expected to click with this, especially with the late, great Robert Forster (Jackie Brown) aboard as Mattie’s husband — but its ending is as flat as day-old Tab, and Forster appears only in one short scene. That minor and painless disappointment aligns with Grave Intentions being an overall mixed bag — neither hero nor villain. —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

I Am Toxic (2018)

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With its Americanized name change, I’ll admit I was more than ready to pass up I Am Toxic. But, still, the idea of Mad Max meeting The Walking Dead, per Hollywood News’ cover blurb, piqued my interest enough to give it, at the very least, a 10-minute viewing just to test the diseased waters.

Seconds after popping it in, however, it became evident the film’s original title was Soy Tóxico and, even better, it was from Argentina. Realizing this wasn’t the same straight-to-video dreck I’m used to, I stuck around a bit longer. And the longer I stuck in, the more I got sucked into this brutal world of disease and death, not in that order.

It’s way in the future and the southern hemisphere has become one large garbage dump. A haggard man wakes up in the middle of a pile of corpses, unable to remember who he is or what he’s doing there. As he’s attacked by sun-beaten corpses, he’s momentarily rescued by an old scavenger in a tricked-out apocalypse-mobile.

The old scavenger takes him to his walled-in dump of a living situation with his two sons and, supposedly, a daughter. Of course, the nameless man is immediately taken prisoner and always on the verge of death; with a tattoo on his wrist providing the only key to his future, he starts to remember things as he goes through changes, mostly in his face.

With a final act that ties it all together ’til it bleeds, I Am Toxic is directed by Pablo Parés. With a seemingly shoestring budget, he’s able to turn what could have been a nonsensical mess into a rather pulse-pounding zombie (if they even are zombies) flick with only a handful of characters and even fewer locations. —Louis Fowler

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Action

No Time to Die (2021)

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In the opening moments of No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s fifth and final time as James Bond, the iconic spy visits the grave of Vesper Lynd, the woman who died for his love. Because Eva Green’s Vesper had a hand in 2006’s Casino Royale, Craig’s 007 debut, the gesture feels like the finishing stroke of a full circle representing his 15-year run. That feeling only deepens when he faces the rock slab — and, by camera placement, the audience — and says in an earnest near-whisper, “I miss you.”

Then, just as Bond spots a business card emblazoned with the SPECTRE organization’s ominous octopus logo, Vesper’s resting place explodes into rubble. It’s the filmmakers’ way of saying, “Time to upend your expectations.” All things considered, they mostly make good on that unspoken mission statement. (On the negative side of that, Billie Eilish’s theme song is a tepid bore.)

Now retired and committed to Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux, returning from 2015’s Spectre), Bond is coaxed back into the field when an MI6-manufactured virus is stolen from the agency’s off-the-books lab. Dubbed “the Heracles Project,” the bioweapon is genetically engineered to impact only the DNA of its possessor’s choosing — peculiar functionality that means everything to its warped thief, Safin (Rami Malek, The Little Things), a terrorist with a taste for revenge and a burnt face. Safin initially hides behind a Japanese Noh mask — a chilling image and one of the movie’s most indelible. With stakes standing at an all-time high, 007 resorts to consulting ol’ archenemy Blofeld (Christoph Waltz, reprising his Spectre role in a Hannibal Lecter-style cameo).

While much hype surrounds No Time to Die being not only Craig’s last time in the tux, but the 25th official film in the series, I’ve seen no writing on the wall regarding its stature as the franchise’s longest entry, at an eon of 163 minutes. Truth be told, its machinations run a level or two too complex than necessary.

That said, what would I cut? Certainly not a second from the action set pièce de résistance: a chase through the cobblestone streets — and up the stairs — of Matera, Italy. Definitely not Bond’s firepower-packed pas de deux in a Cuban nightclub with cleavage-bearing CIA contact Paloma (Knives Out’s Ana de Armas, bringing a wonderfully disarming comedic presence). In both sequences (and more), director Cary Joji Fukunaga exhibits a control as comfortable as the series’ best, even if none quite approximates the blood-pumping tension of his CV’s highlight thus far: that six-minute tracking shot from True Detective season one, episode four.

I might be persuaded to cast my vote against a rather overstuffed ending that sucks all the fun out of the room … but not when we have Malek treating Safin like Shakespeare once No Time to Die says “yes” to cribbing from Dr. No by jetting to its villain’s island lair.

But I come to praise 007, not to bury him. Through more highs (Skyfall) than lows (Quantum of Solace), one thing remained consistent: Craig, cucumber-cool and captivating. Sean Connery aside, nobody did Bond better.

Already, I miss you. —Rod Lott

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