Extract (2009) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Mike Judge

Starring:  Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig, Clifton Collins, Jr. Mila Kunis, Dustin Milligan, David Koechner, Gene Simmons

Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead and terrific movie satires like Office Space, gives us an uneven and sometimes funny comedy about people who go out of their way to make things hard on themselves.  Our protagonist is the sexually frustrated owner of a bottling plant who finds himself in lust with new employee Cindy(Kunis) who is secretly involved with one of Joel's employees who was involved in a most-gruesome work-related injury.  Joel is married to Suzie (Wiig), and their marriage has devolved into routine dullness and not much sex.  

Joel's bartender friend Dean (Affleck) poses a solution to Joel's moral dilemma:  Joel doesn't want to outright cheat on Suzie, but if Suzie is seduced by a "gigolo" hired by Joel, then Joel will be free to pursue Cindy because Suzie already cheated.  It's Mike Judge-universe morality and logic writ large, with erratic results.  Joel is being wooed to sell his company, but the workers comp case may hinder that, especially with the employee's ambulance chaser attorney (Simmons) who suggests a bizarre way to have the case dropped.  It involves a door and Joel's testicles.  

Meanwhile, the gigolo posing as a pool boy indeed succeeds in seducing Suzie.  It would've been funnier if the gigolo only thinks he seduced Suzie but maybe seduced the neighbor.  Joel tries to call off the gigolo, who thinks he and Suzie are falling in love.  There are many moving parts in Extract, and the actors are up to the challenge, but the fault lies at the plot or screenplay level.  It's not as funny or stinging as it needs to be, but hey it's better than the overrated Idiocracy.  

The Strangers: Chapter 3 (2026) *

 

Directed by:  Renny Harlin

Starring:  Madelaine Petsch, Richard Brake, Gabriel Basso, Ema Horvath

The Strangers saga comes to a merciful end (hopefully) with Chapter 3.  The opening scenes provided a challenge for me in that I tried in vain to recall anything about Chapter 2.  Chapter 1 wasn't any great shakes, but I do recall it had at least a little suspense to it.  I gave it two stars.  The ensuing sequels don't provide much in the way of suspense.  There are a lot of killings and an attempt to display that our protagonist (Petsch) is somehow transformed into a killer herself thanks to the violence she's endured. We've seen that before too, and it isn't exactly revelatory.

Renny Harlin is a skilled director who is better than this material.  I know, I've seen examples of this.  The movie isn't shoddily made, just pointless and disengaging.  There are ample jump scares for those who go to horror movies to experience those and a lot of blood for those who to go watch that.  Those audience members will get what they came for.  

As for the rest of us, The Strangers, Chapter 3 runs only about ninety minutes and still feels like a slog.  I did admire, for what it's worth, some of creepy performances and I wished they were in the service of a better movie and series.  

Crime 101 (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  Bart Layton

Starring:  Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Halle Berry, Monica Barbaro, Tate Donovan, Barry Keoghan, Nick Nolte

Crime 101 lends itself to comparisons to Heat and it wouldn't have it any other way.  We have a thief named Mike (Hemsworth) who does jobs with efficiency and without hurting anyone.  He is in command, knows how to perform the heist with maximum speed and effectiveness, and then disappears onto the 101 freeway.  Grizzled detective Lou Lubesnick (Ruffalo) detects a pattern and tries to convince his bosses that this thief only strikes near the 101 because of its easy access to and from the crime scenes.  

Mike works alone, except for when he retrieves his latest assignments by underworld boss Money (Nolte), and he also lives alone and we sense his need to connect to someone.  After his last attempted jewel heist goes awry, Mike wants out, and a young woman named Maya who meets Mike after rear-ending him in a traffic accident provides the catalyst to come out of his shell.  However, explaining what he does for a living is understandably not part of this change.  His apartment is sleek and stylish, but doesn't feel lived in.  There are no photos of his family.  Maybe he doesn't have one.

Lubesnick is the opposite of Mike.  He smokes, drives an old car, looks like he slept in his clothes, doesn't shave, and his wife is leaving him.  But he's smart and determined.  His superiors just want him to close cases and show little interest in his theory on the "101 robber".  They just want the cases solved.  Even the LAPD has metrics it needs to hit.   However, Mike knows he needs one more big score to retire forever, maybe even with Maya. 

I won't give away further details, but Crime 101 is Heat with a happier ending for its characters.  There is a psychotic criminal (Keoghan) who wants to take over Mike's territory because Money thinks Mike is losing his nerve, but Keoghan's character is unstable in more ways than one.  Crime 101 doesn't strike as deep a nerve as Heat, in which its characters realize they need each other in complex ways.  There were no easy payoffs and most of the people were killed or left behind.  Crime 101 does run a tad too long at 140 minutes, but we wind up caring and that's more than half the battle.  

Solo Mio (2026) * *

 

Directed by:  Charles & Daniel Kinnane    

Starring:  Kevin James, Kim Coates, Jonathan Roumie, Nicole Grimaudo, Alyson Hannigan, Julee Cerda, Andrea Bocelli, Julie Ann Emery

Solo Mio is a lackluster romantic comedy in which there is no new ground covered, which isn't always a bad thing, because romantic comedies tend to follow certain ground rules and rarely deviate from them.  We're on familiar terrain in Solo Mio, in which the likable but introverted Matt (James) is left at the altar by his fiancee Heather (Emery) during their wedding in Italy.  The humiliated Matt decides to take his honeymoon trip alone, since it's already paid for and he can't receive a refund, and naturally he falls in love with a local barista who helps him to come out of his shell.  Will the fiancee return at some point to try and reconnect?  Does a bear do his business in the woods?

Since Solo Mio isn't going to win any points for originality, we have to review how it's made and the energy it brings.  Solo Mio, even with the cast trying its hardest, is flat and limp.  James is as dependable a comic actor as there is, but even he seems weighed down by the material.  There isn't a lot of chemistry between he and the kind Gia (Grimaudo, who could be Catherine Keener's twin).  They're both very nice people indeed, but they just don't click.  The other couples who are part of the honeymoon tours Matt and Heather were supposed to attend as a married couple also intervene in Matt's love life, with their entire existence centered around prodding Matt and Gia toward eternal coupledom.  

Solo Mio (which means mine alone as Gia points out) is not hefty and isn't meant to be.  But it should be more amusing and delightful than it is.  We aren't stirred by the belief that Matt and Gia belong together.  The scenery of Rome and the Tuscan countryside is gorgeous and Andrea Bocelli (who is related to Gia) drops in to play and belt out some songs (and riding a horse). It's a shame these aren't in service of a better movie.  

The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4 (2026) * * 1/2

 

Starring:  Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Neve Campbell, Becky Newton, Angus Sampson, Jazz Raycole, Cobie Smulders, Elliott Gould

The Lincoln Lawyer is still a serviceable courtroom drama series, but it won't elevate into anything greater.  That's fine.  It doesn't need to.  However, this season's case involves Michael Haller (Garcia-Rulfo) on trial for murdering a former client who was found in the back seat of his convertible at the end of last season.  Fast forward to this season, and Haller is in county jail awaiting arraignment while serving as a pro bono attorney for other prisoners.  It's a good way to keep others from messing with you. 

Meanwhile, Haller's pending trial is causing his clients to drop him and his associate/ex-wife Lorna Crane (Newton) to try and scrape for clients just to keep the practice going.  Haller is still equipped with his loyal staff which includes Lorna, investigator Cisco (Sampson), paralegal and part-time driver Izzy (Raycole), and Haller's other ex-wife Maggie (Campbell), who joins the team to defend him in court.  The quasi-family vibe here works well, and the best scenes are the courtroom ones because of the inherent drama involved as Haller tries to defend himself while also figuring out who set him up and why.

Of course, Haller gets away with legal maneuvering that doesn't seem plausible nor would a judge continue to allow it.  Garcia-Rulfo remains a solid lead, but he's not the Michael Haller from the 2011 movie.  That is Matthew McConaughey and McConaughey will continue to be the actor people think of first when The Lincoln Lawyer is mentioned, but Garcia-Rulfo is smart and slick.  Newton is also a standout as the tireless, loyal Lorna, who is married to Cisco and we scratch our heads as to why a spark plug like Lorna would be married to the monosyllabic Cisco whose hygiene is suspect, although he is quite a good investigator.

The case itself doesn't wrap up satisfactorily.  It is anti-climactic with no true stunning developments or a suspect out of left field we didn't anticipate.  Instead, the final moments hint at a crossover with Bosch, which I never saw but I heard was entertaining.  I hope I don't have to catch up on multiple Bosch seasons in order to enjoy next season's Lincoln Lawyer.  Don't make me work so hard. 

Shelter (2026) * *

Directed by:  Ric Roman Waugh

Starring:  Jason Statham, Bill Nighy, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Naomie Harris

Shelter is the latest in what seems to be the annual Jason Statham action movie dumped into theaters in mid-January.  It will attract his built-in audience, but may not necessarily bring in newbies to the fold.  I didn't dislike Shelter, but it's not anything new or special.  Statham is capable of bringing us stellar action movies like Wrath of Man and even decent ones like A Working Man, but Shelter is strictly Statham by the numbers, which means he kicks a lot of ass, shoots many others, and utters as few words as possible.  

Statham is Mike Mason, a retired (and officially dead) former MI6 assassin who is drawn out of retirement to protect himself and a young girl (Breathnach) from being hunted down by current government killers who are trying to erase him as part of a cover-up.  Mike is a man with a particular set of skills who uses them in lengthy action sequences in which you wonder how his hands aren't killing him after delivering so many punches and how his guns never seem to run out of ammo.  He also develops fatherly instincts for the young girl and emotes as best he can when speaking to her. 

I've seen movies where Statham can deliver some dimensions such as Wrath of Man, The Bank Job, and The Italian Job, and no The Bank Job is not a sequel or prequel to The Italian Job.  He's rarely called on to do so anymore, but he's certainly capable of it.  Instead, we get Shelter, which is competently made but not likely to last long in your memory more than a few hours after seeing it. 

Saturday the 14th (1981) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Howard R. Cohen

Starring:  Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss, Jeffrey Tambor, Severn Darden, Kari Michaelsen, Kevin Brando

I saw Saturday the 14th recently on a B-movie channel for the first time since I saw it in theaters decades ago.  I knew it was a cheap horror comedy, and I didn't expect any Oscar-caliber production values or performances, but maybe it would be amusing and silly.  It's silly, yes, but Saturday the 14th is simply not good even with the low expectations. 

The movie barely clears 75 minutes of running time (thank goodness).  The plot is:  The clueless Hyatt family inherits a spooky house in Eerie, PA (get it?) with the parents John and Mary (real-life married couple Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss) not seeming all that concerned that supernatural goings-on are happening.  Meanwhile, Dracula (I assume that's who he is) and his wife want the house because it contains a book of evil which they want to get a hold of.  Meanwhile, Van Helsing (Darden), a supernatural exterminator, also wants the book for his own nefarious reasons.  Both want to rule the world, although I always thought Van Helsing was supposed to be a hero.   Here is a worse villain than Drac. 

I guess Saturday the 14th was meant to be a spoof, but there aren't any laughs.  There are talented actors in it who are set adrift.  Maybe they thought the project would be fun.  They try.  They really do, but the whole enterprise just doesn't work.   I even tried to view it nostalgically, hoping I could maybe enjoy it on that level.  Unfortunately, that's not the case.