Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (2025) * *

 

Directed by:  Christian Gudegast

Starring:  Gerard Butler, O'Shea Jackson Jr.

The original Den of Thieves (2018) was a crime thriller with several twists and a dynamic character in Nick O'Brien (Butler), the cheerfully corrupt cop on the trail of bank robbers looking to rob the Federal Reserve in Los Angeles.  Nick wants to bust the thieves and counts on informant Donnie Wilson (Jackson Jr) to assist him.  It turns out after a Heat-like shootout that Donnie was the mastermind behind the crime and escapes scot-free to England where he's planning his next heist.

As Den of Thieves 2 opens, Big Nick is still salty about Donnie getting the best of him and tracks him down following footage of a heist somewhere in Europe.  Nick doesn't want to bust Donnie, though, but instead wants him to take him along on his next job so Nick can rake in enough of the fortune to retire on.  Donnie is awfully trusting.  A cop he burned years ago in LA finds him and wants to join him in thievery, and Donnie doesn't suspect a plot is afoot?  Donnie doesn't strike me as someone so willfully blind to Nick's intentions, especially since he's good at accents and pretending to be a French businessman to infiltrate the Diamond Center which is where he and Pantera (a group of criminals) will be targeting.

I won't go into specifics, except to say that the heist itself is Donnie and Nick climbing up and down ropes and scuttling around in the darkness to break into safety deposit boxes.  It's the 2020's.  Haven't they heard of cyber theft?  It's a lot easier, so I'm told.  You can just sit at a computer and steal untold fortunes.  If this doesn't happen, then why do we hear so often about data breaches from major corporations who have no idea how their firewalls were breached.  

Den of Thieves 2 is a bloated two hours, twenty five minutes, similar to the first one, but the majority of the movie is killing time until we wait for the twist which isn't really a big one as far as Big Reveals go.  

Is This Thing On? (2025) * *

 

Directed by:  Bradley Cooper

Starring:  Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Bradley Cooper, Andra Day, Sean Hayes, Peyton Manning, Christine Ebersole, Ciaran Hinds

Is This Thing On? makes stand-up comedy seem to be the easiest hobby to take up.  It certainly works out that way for Alex Novak (Arnett), a 40ish man recently separated from his wife Tess (Dern) who one night decides to watch some comedy at a Manhattan comedy club.  He doesn't have the cash on him to pay for the $15.00 cover charge but if he signs up for the open mike night, he won't have to pay it.  

Alex takes the stage and after a long pause, he starts talking about his divorce and gets a few laughs.  From there, Alex is hooked on performing stand-up, not only as a hobby but as therapy.  Alex is the beneficiary of awfully patient and forgiving audiences to be sure.  The worst reception he receives is silence later in the film when he goes on a rant after fighting again with his ex and the shocked crowd doesn't quite know how to respond, including Alex's father (Hinds) who drops in unannounced.  Earlier in the film, Tess goes to the club on a date with a colleague (Manning) and learns of Alex's new passion the hard way.  We see closeups of her face and her expressions range from shock to elation.  Then, she and Alex meet up outside and begin a passionate love affair. 

For reasons known only to them, Tess and Alex keep their "affair" a secret.  Why?  Who knows?  By the time this occurs, we don't much care either.  Writer/producer/director and co-star Bradley Cooper knows how to make a movie look good and pulls very engaging performances from his actors, but with both Maestro and Is This Thing On?, the movies drag on.  The emotional stakes aren't there.  When Alex first takes the stage and takes an eternity to even utter a word, the crowd doesn't heckle or show any impatience.  Alex is never heckled or booed.  I'll bet every comedian wishes he or she encountered such patient audiences when they first started out.  

The best performance in the movie, however, belongs to Cooper in a supporting role as Balls (yes, that's his name), a middling actor whose beard is always changing and composes himself in an offbeat manner.  He's operating on a different playing field than the rest of the cast, and the movie sorely needed more of him. 

We Bury the Dead (2025) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Zak Hilditch

Starring:  Daisy Ridley, Brenton Thwaites, Matt Whelan, Mark Coles Smith

We Bury the Dead contains elements which almost transcend the fact that it is indeed a zombie apocalypse movie.  In this case, it's only confined to Tasmania and not the entire world, but the atmosphere is sufficiently creepy as you would expect.  Despite this, zombies aren't interesting villains and they are picked off like video game targets.   

Daisy Ridley plays Ava, a recently married woman whose husband is traveling on business to Tasmania (of all places) when an electro-magnetic weapon detonates off the coast and instantly kills the island's population.  The living become the dead in milliseconds, and are either frozen in place or just fall to the ground.  Ava comes to the island ostensibly to join crews searching for victims so they could be properly buried, but it turns out some of the dead randomly came back as zombies.  If Ava and her search partner Clay (Thwaites) find a zombie, they are to shoot off a flare which will alert the military to put a bullet in the zombie's head.  What if the troops aren't in the exact area?  A small quibble, but an important one.

Ava decides to light out to the coastal resort hotel where her husband Mitch (Whelan) was staying at the time of the disaster.  Flashbacks reveal marriage troubles caused mostly by Ava's cheating, and part of Ava's journey is hopefully to try and rectify her guilt in some way, even though Mitch is likely dead or at best zombified.  On the way, her life is saved by a military officer (Smith) who has secrets of his own, including a zombie pregnant wife.  Ava's marriage problems began with their disagreement over having children.  You can easily put two and two together.

The performances work, with Ridley providing enough gravitas for us to understand that there will be no happy ending for her as far as Mitch is concerned.  She is grieving and guilty, with Ridley giving us room to sympathize.  With all of this said, We Bury the Dead is a near-miss, mostly because we've seen plenty of movies (as recently as 28 Years Later) in which zombies lumber towards the heroes and have their heads blown off.  Zombie movies have been action movies, heavy dramas, and even comedies, but the end result for the zombies is the same.  

Click (2006) * * *

 

Directed by: Frank Coraci

Starring:  Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale, David Hasselhoff, Henry Winkler, Julie Kavner, Christopher Walken, Sean Astin

Click stars Adam Sandler as an overworked architect and harried family man who visits Bed, Bath, and Beyond one night in search of a universal remote control for his television.  What he receives is a "universal remote" but one that will control his universe and not just the TV.  He can mute the dog if he's barking too loud, fast forward past uncomfortable confrontations, and wants a promotion so bad he fast forwards to the point in his life when he finally receives it...one year later.  

Sandler's Michael Newman is forever torn between work and family, with family usually taking a back seat to his work ambitions.  Morty (Walken), the helpful but sinister clerk in the "Beyond" section of Bed, Bath, and Beyond who introduces Michael to the remote shows Michael the features including segments in which James Earl Jones can narrate Michael's life.  Some of this is amusing while the other slapstick gags fall flat, but the best parts are when Click turns sentimental and Michael learns the cost of his choices with the remote.  He misses out on years of his life and various events.  He wakes up one day to learn he is divorced and another day he learns his father passed.  Other issues come up which blindside Michael and Morty can only stand by and tell Michael that his life was the sum of his choices. 

Sandler's Michael is an amiable fellow whose pressures are relatable while Beckinsale, as Michael's long-suffering wife Donna, is also in an unenviable position.  Click is a mixed bag with the humor Sandler made his bones from and sentimentality which works better.  Sandler is an actor capable of depth, and we've seen it in previous movies and others following Click.  We see the beginning of an evolution here, and some of it is pretty moving. 

Nobody Wants This (2024/25-Seasons 1 and 2) * * *

 

Starring:  Kristen Bell, Adam Brody, Timothy Simons, Justine Lupe, Jackie Tohn, Tovah Feldshuh, Paul Ben-Victor, Stephen Tobolowsky, Arian Moayed, Seth Rogen

Nobody Wants This started slowly and then grew on me.  What started as a typical mismatched couple romcom became richer and more intriguing as the episodes went on.  The supporting players gained more depth and focus.  The conflicts, mostly caused by Noah's (Brody) potential ascension to senior rabbi at his temple and the need for Joanne (Bell) to convert to Judaism, take on weight.  I was reminded of the Sex and the City episodes in which Charlotte fully converted to Judaism in order to marry Harry.  Charlotte was certain of her choice, while Joanne is wishy-washy on the subject because she is not fully informed on what being a rabbi's wife will entail.

Joanne and her sister Morgan (Lupe) host a sex and relationship podcast which apparently makes them both pretty good money.  Noah and Joanne meet at a party and they are attracted to one another, even though Joanne is a self-proclaimed agnostic and Noah is a rabbi.  Joanne at first thinks Noah can't have sex, but he assures her he's not a priest so rabbis can have relationships.  In the first season, Noah's meddlesome family does its best (except for Noah's brother Sasha) to keep Noah and Joanne apart since the thought of a rabbi having a non-Jewish girlfriend is unacceptable in their eyes.  Especially since Noah recently broke off a long-time relationship with a Jewish woman they all assumed would become Mrs. Noah.  

In season two, however, Noah's family becomes more accepting but there is still the lingering question of whether Joanne will convert.  Noah leaves his temple after being passed over for the senior rabbi position due to the uncertainty surrounding Joanne, and he finds what he thinks will be a godsend in a progressive temple run by Rabbi Neil (Rogen), but he finds he doesn't like the job even though it will allow him to be with Joanne without her converting to Judaism.  The final episode of the season contains three potential breakups and intriguing story arcs from there. 

Bell and Brody are a likable couple but Nobody Wants This also succeeds with its supporting cast who were thankfully allowed more to do as the series moves on instead of simply existing to either support or ruin Joanne and Noah.  

Song Sung Blue (2025) * * *

Directed by:  Craig Brewer

Starring:  Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson, Michael Imperioli, Ella Anderson, Jim Belushi, Fisher Stevens

Like Dolemite Is My Name and Hustle and Flow, Craig Brewer creates another movie about ordinary people using art to rise above their station in life and give themselves temporary fame.  Mike "Lightning" Sardina (Jackman) and his wife Claire "Thunder" Sardina (Hudson) met during a concert of musical impersonators where Mike covers Don Ho's Tiny Bubbles and Claire does her best Patsy Cline.  Mike, a recovering alcoholic celebrating this 20th year sober, wants more.  Claire suggests he alter his hair style and sing Neil Diamond songs.  Mike, who holds Diamond above all others in the musical hierarchy, at first wouldn't dare insult Diamond by trying to impersonate him, but then decides to go for it.  

Because Jackman and Hudson are great singers, they give the musical performances a lot of gusto, even though we tire of hearing Sweet Caroline over and over.  Like Mike says, Neil Diamond is more than Sweet Caroline.  I would've loved to have heard America, Love on the Rocks, Hello Again, and even You Don't Bring Me Flowers, but none of those are heard.  Song Sung Blue, based on a true story and a 2008 documentary about the couple, is like many biopics in that it isn't meant to be taken as gospel.  Many of the events of the film were truncated into a few years when in fact the story lasted over a decade.  Thunder and Lightning became Milwaukee institutions, even opening for Pearl Jam when they played Milwaukee. 

I didn't exactly research the back story, but I'm sure there are exaggerations and dramatic license galore taken.  While it is true that Claire lost part of her leg in a freak accident, I'm not sure how much I buy another car nearly hitting her again in the exact same spot in front of her home, which sparks her out of her doldrums and inspires her to take up singing with Mike again.  Jackman and Hudson are terrific performers and their spirit makes Song Song Blue worthwhile, although it does help to be a Neil Diamond fan. 

Escape from Alcatraz (1979) * * * 1/2

 

 

Directed by:  Don Siegel

Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan, Fred Ward, Jack Thibeau, Roberts Blossom, Paul Benjamin, Larry Hankin, Bruce M. Fischer, Frank Ronzio

Frank Morris (Eastwood) is shipped off to spend the rest of his sentence in Alcatraz federal penitentiary circa 1962 after escaping from other prisons,  Upon his first meeting with Warden Dollison (McGoohan), Dollison tells Morris that "no one has ever escaped from Alcatraz, and no one ever will,"  Famous last words.  The warden thinks this is a deterring sentence.  Morris takes it as a challenge and spends the rest of his time there digging through the prison's weakened walls and with help of fellow prisoners John and Clarence Anglin (Ward and Thibeau), devising a plan to escape Alcatraz.  

Of course, even if they get beyond the walls, they need to get off the island and swim one mile plus to the mainland in freezing, choppy waters.  The escape is a fool's errand, but the prisoners figure it beats the alternative of spending the rest of their days in prison.  Morris' file lists him as having a superior intellect, and he also finds a way to be handy with the small tools on hand, many of which are helpfully available in the prison's woodworking facility.  One of the prisoners, Doc (Blossom) is a skilled painter whose painting privileges are removed by the sadistic warden and decides to chop off his own fingers in response.  I think providing hardened, violent criminals with access to a hatchet is probably a bad idea. 

Eastwood's Frank Morris is a strong, silent man of few words but who is always observing and thinking.  He's so smart, we wonder how he's not a scientist working to cure diseases instead of a lifelong criminal, but Escape from Alcatraz is based on a true story of three prisoners who indeed escaped The Rock in 1962.  There whereabouts from there were never determined.  Were they likely drowned in the bay?  No matter, the escapes led to Alcatraz being closed forever in 1963 and turned into a popular tourist attraction.  

Eastwood's innate intelligence makes Morris compelling, and most of the movie captures the rhythms of daily prison life where Tollison runs a tight ship and Morris evades the advances of rapist Wolf (Fischer), who has chosen Morris to be his future victim, which of course ain't going to happen to Morris.  Escape from Alcatraz is populated with perhaps the most likable group of violent criminals in movie history until The Shawshank Redemption came along fifteen years later.  But, Escape from Alcatraz is told with suspenseful skill and we find ourselves rooting against the warden, whose job is to "make good prisoners, not good citizens," and is actually on the right side of the law.  Then again, so was Sheriff Buford T. Justice and we found ourselves enjoying the Bandit making a fool out of him.