Movies I Watched in January, Part 1

We're running late (February is almost over, and it’s a short month besides), so I’m going to zip through these as quickly as I can. Please don’t take it as a comment on their quality – there were some good movies viewed during January, 2018…


After hearing this praised on a couple of podcasts and seeing it was available for free on Amazon Prime, I couldn’t resist checking it out … and I was damn glad I did. With a plot so simple it’s practically primordial (convict ordered to kill another convict to save the life of his unborn child), writer director S. Craig Zahler delivers a stripped-down, brutal, yet somehow heartfelt exploitation movie that delivers some of the most gasp-inducing onscreen violence I’ve ever seen (and believe me, I’ve seen a lot). Vince Vaughn is nothing short of a force of nature as Bradley, our “hero,” and Don Johnson shows up halfway through to play the scariest warden you’ve ever seen. Bonus points for a scene involving a face you won’t soon forget and an ending that is brutal, abrupt and perfect for the movie that preceded it. Highly recommended, but brace yourself before you press “play.”


I’ve covered this one more than once on this blog, so I’ll just say that while I don’t think it quite hits the heights of the first “Guardians,” it’s still a lot of fun, and the sequence at the end with Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son” playing gets me choked up every single time.


I sort of stumbled onto this movie on cable one night, and damned if I wasn’t trapped in front of the TV for the next couple of hours, enjoying one of the most purely entertaining sci-fi movies ever made. Everything works, from the submarine movie template to the themes of aging and rebirth to the last minute, Enterprise-saving sacrifice. And though Kirk’s cheating on the Kobayashi Maru test is treated as a joke in the reboots, I always thought the concept worked best when played seriously: Kirk, for all his bluster and arrogance, truly does not believe in the no-win situation and will never, ever give up. It’s amusing, sure, especially played by Shatner at his Shatner-est, but it’s also a fascinating (and oddly inspiring) character trait.


Released in Russia (in 1993) as “Chtoby Vyzhit” and here in the west as “Red Mob,” this is a crude-but-compelling action epic about an Afghan war veteran forced to lead a caravan of gun smugglers through a desert impasse in order to save his kidnapped son. As is usually the case in movies like this, the plot is just an excuse to stage some jaw-dropping action scenes – scenes that were apparently filmed with little regard for the safety of the cast, crew or anyone in the vicinity of the shoot. It’s not a great movie, in other words, but it’s one that will have you frequently hitting the rewind button to figure out how they filmed it without anyone (everyone?) getting horribly maimed. There’s a helicopter battle at the end that, as far as I can tell, uses no models and (obviously, given that it was 1993) no CGI – just giant, actual helicopters being flown within an inch of their lives.

Up next: Family fun with The Rock, Jewish conspiracies with David Mamet and other conspiracies with a cast of thousands.