BLOOD FATHER Review

There is nothing particularly new or even original about Blood Father and yet there are still signs of life within what would appear to be a corpse of a movie. Every actor over the age of fifty that once counted on their name above the title to bring in box office returns has attempted an action/revenge picture that can be traced back to Liam Neeson's success with Taken. Of course, that film worked because Neeson was playing somewhat against type and in a caliber of film he often didn't appear in. Neeson himself has ridden that success through two terrible sequels, a number of entertaining Jaume Collet-Serra flicks, and other B-movie actioners that have given the esteemed actor a brand new phase in his career (though that phase does seem to be coming to a close). We had the inevitable Nicolas Cage attempt in Stolen, Kevin Costner tried his hand with 3 Days To Kill, Sean Penn had The Gunman, Pierce Brosnan even took up the action mantle again to get in on the game with The November Man, and Mel Gibson naturally tried his hand with 2010's Edge of Darkness. Remember that one? It wasn't bad, really, but it certainly didn't match Neeson's success (hardly making back its $80 million production budget in its late January release slot) and it certainly wasn't enough to overshadow the storm of controversy Gibson garnered himself that year or four years prior. In that film Gibson played a homicide detective investigating the death of his activist daughter, but in Blood Father Gibson's character, much like in real life, has ended up on the other side of the law. An ex-con who only comes to reunite with his estranged seventeen year old daughter after she kills her drug dealer boyfriend. Gibson strangely enough plays Mike Link who we find at a point of acceptance with his shortcomings. It obviously parallels where many imagine Gibson is at with his career and life in general-Link's opening scene leading him to comment that, "You can't be a prick your whole life and then say never mind." While Blood Father may utilize our idea of current Mel Gibson to emphasize both the desperation and hope in its protagonist's plight the film outside the presence of Gibson is very much a generic action thriller that sees a dad in need of redemption kicking ass, taking names, and risking it all for the sake of his misguided daughter.

HELL OR HIGH WATER Review

Hell or High Water opens with a 360° shot of a small, West Texas town that is more or less deserted. Panning what looks to be one of the main roads through town the audience is meant to note the several for sale signs, the others offering loans, and most prominently a piece of graffiti that states, "3 tours in Iraq, but no bailout for people like us." Hell or High Water immediately tells us its stance on the story it will be relaying in that it concludes this opening, single take with two masked men entering the small town's bank and requesting only loose bills, no stacks or, in other words, the banks money and not the peoples. In this expertly crafted opening sequence director David Mackenzie (Starred Up) displays a knack for visually highlighting exactly what he wants us to focus on. Beyond the visual style Mackenzie adopts for this story that captures the flatlands of West Texas and its expansive plains in gorgeous hues is his adeptness at capturing the necessary atmosphere to complement the specific kind of tone which naturally influences the overall mood of his film. In short, everything falls into place perfectly with the pacing of the picture which is as close to a perfectly paced film as anything I've seen this year. We are thrown into the action of a bank robbery that is quickly undermined by the inherent humor that comes from human interactions while noting specifically the mentality of these Texans in which the movie will very much hang its trust and pride. The setting is established, the framing of this setting's attitude and character is made apparent, and only then we are introduced to the men behind the ski masks-brothers Tanner (Ben Foster) and Toby (Chris Pine). As with the setting we can see who these two brothers are from very early on. Foster's Tanner is the free-wheeling, living in the moment sort that will take whatever action makes him feel good whereas Pine's Toby lives more by a moral code with his eyes firmly planted on the end goal rather than what feels best in the moment. Toby doesn't like to deviate from the plan, but Tanner couldn't be more primed to be unreliably ecstatic as he's just been released from prison less than a year prior to the events we're seeing. It is in these two characters that Hell or High Water finds its most valuable assets; relaying its many ideas through the guise of two desperate men sticking it to the man.

REGRESSION Review

Ethan Hawke seems like the type of actor who does as much work as he can no matter the genre, or the paycheck simply because he loves the idea that he gets to make movies for a living. What's it matter, really? He can justify it all by saying one never knows what will catch on and he'd be right. After all, he made a low budget horror flick in The Purge three years ago that will see its third installment be released this year. Of course, it was also around this time that Hawke began to seem to give into the temptations of making more pure genre flicks outside of what is largely an independent filmography. With Sinister, Getaway, and what feels like a handful of direct to DVD releases Hawke has become the actor we wouldn't be surprised to see turn up in anything. His presence no longer signals whether what we're watching might be a horrible film or a near masterpiece as he's arguably starred in films on either end of that spectrum. With Regression the actor wanders back to the territory of the horror genre with what are nothing but honorable intentions, but unfortunately that willingness to commit to almost anything lets him down here. Written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar, who shared those same duties on both 2001's The Others and 2004's The Sea Inside that garnered him a barrage of rave reviews and what was undoubtedly a large amount of good will and momentum, Regression is inspired by a rise in the suspicion of Satanic cult-related activities in the early nineties and how such acts began making their way into the mainstream as well as what were apparently many a police investigations. Of course, through this guise the narrative feels all the more familiar given the number of horror films we've seen that get their "in" through a tortured official investigating these claims that are always scoffed at initially. While Amenábar certainly has an interesting approach to this type of story it might have aided his film even more had he come at it from a different perspective. As it is, there are both some beautifully haunting and cringingly cheap images on display with a few cool period details, but ultimately we've seen this all before and in much better, more effective fashions.