One Night In Miami: Amazon Prime Video Film Review

Cast: Eli Goree, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Leslie Odom Jr, Aldis Hodge, Lance Reddick

Director: Regina King

Regina King's four guys shooting the breeze film just about manages to transcend its play roots to deliver a compelling and depressingly timely take on African-American culture in the world, despite being set in the 60s.

Based on Kemp Powers' own stage play, the film takes in a fictionalised meeting of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke in a Miami hotel room in February 1964.

Fresh off a victory over reigning heavyweight boxer Sonny Listen in February 1964, Cassius Clay (Goree) is heading to a Miami hotel at Kingsley Ben-Adir's Malcolm X's behest. Also along for the visit is Leslie Odom Jr's Sam Cooke and NFL star Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge).

Each of them has something they're battling with and each of them has something to get off their chest - but One Night In Miami is not a confessional film in that traditional kind of manner.

The hook is that Cassius Clay is pondering a switch to the Muslim lifestyle - but what transpires as these four friends meet up is a series of simmering tensions and minor resentments bubbling up and threatening to boil over.

One Night In Miami doesn't really do much with its play origins - a few early boxing scenes set the stall out for Cassius Clay, and there is a truly memorably shocking scene involving a genial Beau Bridges, but other than that, this is just four men interacting and talking with each other.

But it's oddly compelling stuff that has a potency hidden in its wings - and as mentioned, depressingly culturally familiar. 

If anything, One Night in Miami is really a damning expose of how little American race relations have actually progressed as each reveals how they're faring in the shadow of the white man or under the yoke. 

Yet, not once is the film ever preachy, or King's relaying of the message overdone. Sure, it takes somewhere upwards of 50 minutes to really unleash its potency and a degree of righteous indignation, but when it does, the power is truly there on show for all to see, thanks largely due to Ben-Adir's restrained but emotive performance.

There may be philosophies at stake here, and differing viewpoints that generally don't deviate from what's expected, but what King weaves together thanks to some well-reasoned and well-set out ideological clashes makes One Night In Miami something deeply thoughtful and deeply engrossing.

One Night In Miami begins streaming on Amazon Prime Video on January 15th.

Win Bill and Ted: Face the Music

To celebrate the release of Bill and Ted: Face The Music, thanks to Madman Home Entertainment, you can win a copy!

About Bill and Ted: Face The Music

Bill & Ted Face The Music

The stakes are higher than ever for the time-traveling exploits of William “Bill” S. Preston Esq. and Theodore “Ted” Logan. Yet to fulfill their rock and roll destiny, the now middle aged best friends set out on a new adventure when a visitor from the future warns them that only their song can save life as we know it.

Along the way, they will be helped by their daughters, a new batch of historical figures, and a few music legends – to seek the song that will set their world right and bring harmony in the universe.

All you have to do is email your details and the word EXCELLENT!

Email now to  darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com 
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Win Total Recall on Blu Ray

To celebrate the 30th anniversary re-release of Total Recall on Blu Ray, thanks to Sony Home Entertainment, you can win a copy!

About Total Recall

Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a bored construction worker in the year 2084 who dreams of visiting the colonized Mars. 

He visits “Rekall,” a company that plants false memories into people's brains, in order to experience the thrill of Mars without having to travel there. 

But something goes wrong during the procedure; Quaid discovers that his entire life is actually a false memory and that the people who implanted it in his head now want him dead.

All you have to do is email your details and the word TOTAL!

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Win Better Call Saul Season 5 on Blu Ray

To celebrate the release of Better Call Saul Season 5, thanks to Sony Home Entertainment, you can win a copy.

About Better Call Saul Season 5

Make the call…

The trials and tribulations of criminal lawyer Jimmy McGill in the time before he established his strip-mall law office in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“Better Call Saul is just like that proverbial dropped dessert: flavorful, chilling, its colorful sweetness melting and devoured in the unforgiving desert sun.” - Entertainment We­ekly

“As usual, "Saul” operates with confidence and impeccable craft, sticking to its always steady pace while reminding the audience how far these characters have come, and in many cases, fallen." - Den of Geek

All you have to do is email your details and the word SAUL!

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Richard Jewell: Neon NZ Movie Review

If Richard Jewell achieves anything, it'll be proof that the best performances come from unshowy actors determined to fall into their roles and make the best subtle use of their time on screen.

Clint Eastwood's tale of one man caught in a maelstrom is perfect for his ageing Libertarian views, as he aims a salvo at the media and pushes the old ways of the American dream.

Hauser plays Jewell, a vulnerable oaf caught in his belief of authority and his inability to see the system is out to get him and manipulate him when he's accused of bombing Centennial Park during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

With his profile fitting the FBI's suspicions he's not the hero he's hailed as after he saved many in the park, Jewell finds his life - and that of his mother's - caught in the headlights.

Richard Jewell benefits from terrific turns from Hauser as the wronged man, Rockwell as the lawyer who decides to take the case after years of friendship, and Kathy Bates' silently-stoic-but-ultimately-rising-to-the-occasion mother.

When it concentrates on this triumvirate, the film packs a power punch that's subtle, unshowy and ultimately engrossing.

Which is why it's a shame that those swirling around Jewell's escalating plight, and those plotting his downfall, are nothing more than once-over-lightly stereotypes and caricatures.

From Wilde's contentiously sleazy reporter Kathy Scruggs who's made to trade sex for scoops (something the film's been slammed for) to Hamm's just bad FBI agent who was caught off guard when Jewell discovered the bomb, the film's outer edges damage the relatively engrossing tale that ensues.

Throw in Confederate flags, a scene of the US flag being waved in full camera that Roland Emmerich would be proud of and the whole mix starts to feel a little queasy, a touch of retro jingoism of the worst order.

Ultimately, Richard Jewell deserves to be seen for Hauser and Rockwell's performances alone, their character moments dazzling quietly under the ensuing heavy-handedness that Eastwood and his writer deploy.

It may be following Eastwood's desire to laud the common man caught in the unstoppable force of

the Government crusade his latest films have pushed, but the more powerful moments of Jewell, thanks largely to Hauser's understated and overwhelming performance, soar high above some of the other misdeeds of the rest of the film.

From The Vine: Film Review

Cast: Joe Pantoliano, Paula Brancati, Wendy Crewson

Director: Sean Cisterna

There's little to say about From The Vine that the words "genial" and "inconsequential" don't cover.

Joe Pantoliano stars in this gentle and somewhat pedestrian tale of Mark Gentile, an automotive boss who suffers a crisis of conscience and ethics, abandons his family, empties his retirement account and goes to his hometown of Acerenza in Italy to purchase an old family vineyard that's fallen into disrepute.

What happens is entirely predictable (though the talking vine leaves is a surprise, something guaranteed to shake you off of your stupor) and while the film's beautifully shot, as is befitting of any film that uses an idyll as its location, there's little in there to fully dramatically grab the throat.

In fairness, the usually brusque Pantoliano is a fairly affable bedfellow throughout, a man whose faults don't define him and whose actions, weirdly, don't alienate the audience. His journey is an acceptable one to many of the older audience who will be engaging with this piece.

But there's little context as to how Gentile's crisis of faith comes about, save for some brief and heavy exposition, and little reason to fully ever worry about any potential outcome.

Maybe in some ways, that's the point of Sean Cisterna's film - a gentle journey that's supposed to sooth the soul in troubling times, as well as to remind of the kindness and unending heart of strangers and family.

Inoffensive in many ways, but ultimately instantly forgettable, From The Vine is less a full bodied drop of cinema, more a taster about mid-life crisis that feels like there could have been more in the bottle to satiate viewers.

Monster Hunter: Film Review

Cast: Milla Jovovich, Tony Jaa, Ron Perlman, Some CGI creatures, A lot of sand
Director: Paul W S Anderson

Resident Evil director Paul W S Anderson gets his hands on another Capcom gaming franchise with the idea of turning it into a long-running cinema series.

Jovovich plays Lt Artemis, the leader of a team searching for another military team which went AWOL in the desert, leaving nothing behind. When Artemis and her team are swept up in an electrical storm, they find themselves transported to another dimension, where ships surf the sand and nasty creatures lurk at every moment waiting to take them out...

A lack of characterisation, some solidly executed CGI sequences, and some low key cultural racism masquerading as bonding permeate a large proportion of Monster Hunter, a film that narratively is merely the sum of its parts and nothing more.

Held together by the finest of narrative strands, the film basically delivers little on the character front, robbing of you feeling anything as various members are picked off early on. Thankfully, Jovovich proves to be a strong bedfellow for the action as it unfolds as she executes the video game script mentality that lurches from one set piece to the next.

At times, Monster Hunter feels like an extended VFX reel, complete with repetitive directorial choices such as cameras swirling and drone shots from up on high. Normally, these wouldn't be an issue for a film such as this, given basically, one knows what to expect from a solidly executed action cum leave your brain at the door piece.

But with character being stretched so thin, you can't help but pick up on the film's fallacies and shortcomings. There's little meat on the bones outside of some well-choreographed fight scenes and some nicely shot action.

Which is a shame because some of the early set pieces evoke some incredible atmospherics guaranteed to be nightmare fuel for some (even if they are Aliens rip-offs).

Jovovich is solid enough, and Jaa's part is almost culturally insensitive, a foreigner whose interaction with the white saviour is little more than grunting (even if this becomes largely redundant later on as the wider narrative reveals itself) - even if this is a Chinese co-production (or aimed to satiate the market), there's much to be done on the writing for the character - regardless of how many cool slow mo shots they get.

Ultimately, Monster Hunter may be a three star affair, but it's a disappointing one at that. Frustratingly hinting at a sequel that would be streaming bound, its narrative webs dangle by the slightest of threads, and even though it's solidly executed, there's a tantalising feeling that there could have been more to the Monster Hunter than a parade of video-game style cinematic levels.