The Way Back:Neon NZ Film Review

In many ways, The Way Back is a film you've seen before.

One of a broken sports person and alcoholic, not searching for redemption, who's offered the chance to get back in the game and tackle their own personal demons at the time.

But The Way Back suffers from the delicious irony that its central star has battled with these very demons and has slowly fought his way back.

Affleck is Jack Cunningham, a former high school basketball star, who's asked to coach the local team - for no real reason other than they're tanking and he was their next big thing. Initially reticent, the separated Cunningham takes on the mantle and begins his journey back.

Dour and rightfully downbeat, The Way Back sees Affleck reteaming with his The Accountant director to create the sort of sports underdog film that is all too rote and all too familiar. And yet, with a relative career best from Affleck, the film's certainly got some redeeming features.

Sequences wondering if Jack will hit the booze again may ooze familiarity, but tempered with scenes where Jack goes through a 30 pack of beer in one night, with a routine of picking one out of the freezer, returning a fresh one in there ready feeling raw and tempered with the kind of veracity Hollywood rarely siphons for films about alcoholics. There's no doubt Affleck brings a lot of himself to the role, and it wouldn't work without him.

And it's in the central relationships the film rises too - a needling sister who's only doing it out of love, and a coach and head coach relationship that's tinged with respect, admiration and awareness of failing.

Certainly, in the rest of the film, there are a few narrative jumps too many.

The team gets better somehow without any real conviction why, Jack decides to coach them without any real reason why he changes his mind so suddenly - these are the beats which feel off in The Way Back, and which ground the tale of a redemptive blue collar worker with moments that see you more questioning why and lifting you out of the moment.

In the final furlong, the film lapses into lamentable melodrama, and the maudlin elements threaten to topple Affleck's good work, rather than build on it; ending on mawkishness and a message of hope may be central to The Way Back's MO, but unfortunately, it leaves this final drink of drama stinging in your throat.

Win Savage

To celebrate the release of Savage, you can win a copy thanks to Madman Home Entertainment

About Savage

Inspired by stories from New Zealand boys homes and the early history of our gangs, Savage follows Danny across 3 different ages at important junctures that push and pull him towards and away from gang life.

Each chapter of Danny’s life is a complete short story set in a defining time for NZ gangs – from the abusive state-run boy’s homes of the sixties; to the emerging urban gang scene in the seventies where disenfranchised teenagers created their own families on the streets; to the eighties when gangs became more structured, criminal, and violent.

Together the three chapters combine to create a deeper lock at a boy who grows up to become the brutal enforcer of a gang; to understand how he got there.

Savage is about Danny’s search for belonging and connection, and explores the notion of family. Danny is torn between his real family and his gang family, and must choose where he belongs.

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

Email now to  darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com 
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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!

Email now to  darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com 
Or CLICK HERE NOW  

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!

Email now to  darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com 
Or CLICK HERE NOW  

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.