May 4, 2022 “Dual” (** out of four) was a joyless character melodrama about a terminally ill young woman (Karen Gillian) who opts for a cloning procedure to ease the pain in her family; when she makes a miraculous recovery, she attempts to have this clone decommissioned but they refuse which results in a court-mandated dual to the death to decide who really deserves to stay alive. Interesting story of cloning and death is halted by grim execution as film is cold-to-the-touch and thus doesn’t engage you emotionally. Even the final showdown is weirdly aloof. Writer/director Riley Stearns is trying for something akin to early David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick but it doesn’t quite translate with this material. Continue reading →
May 1, 2022 “Hustle Down” (*1/2 out of four) was a numbingly ugly underworld melodrama about the driver (Tom Sizemore) for the Baja drug cartel who finds himself on the run for his life from a merciless assassin (Kevin Gage) when he mistakenly steals a car and cash that was meant for his boss (Raymond J. Barry); along the way he crosses paths with a sultry dancer (Bai Ling) who has much more invested in all this than he realizes. Good cast is wasted on a story with more double-crosses and backstabbings than you can count but it all counts for little since you don’t care about any of the characters (or much else). Film marks the reunion between Sizemore and Gage but let’s just be kind and say this doesn’t quite measure up to the artistry or adrenaline of their first collaboration “Heat.” Continue reading →
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