Movie Review - Good People

Good People (2014)

Starring James Franco, Kate Hudson, Tom Wilkinson, Omar Sy, Sam Spruell, and Anna Friel

Directed by Henrik Ruben Genz

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

The solid cast in Good People is the sole reason this flick was added to my Netflix streaming queue as I had never even known it existed, let alone was released to a small amount of theaters back in September 2014.  Then again, perhaps there was a reason I'd never heard of it as this one is pretty much as generic as they come.

Tom and Anna Wright (James Franco and Kate Hudson) are two Americans living in England and unfortunately having a rough go of it with Tom's fixer-upper, flipping houses business falling flat.  With an eviction notice on his doorstep, Tom is at a loss as to how to keep things afloat when the tenant living in the basement of his and Anna's flat dies.  Upon cleaning up his things, the couple uncover a large stash of money and are faced with the moral question of whether to keep their discovery or hand it over to John Halden (Tom Wilkinson), the lead detective who is investigating their tenant's ties with drug dealers.

Obviously, Tom and Anna are the "good people" in this scenario, but we all know the saying that "bad things happen to good people" and the couple find themselves caught in a triangulated spider web with multiple bad guys trying to lay claim to the money hidden in their basement.  Unfortunately, as the film progresses, we don't find ourselves caring for the couple's plight mainly because they're given so many opportunities to save themselves from harm's way that their incessant need to keep the cash seems foolishly oblivious.  Franco and Hudson attempt to let us in to their characters' intentions, but the actors can't persuade us that their actions are anything other than to create reasons for a movie like this to exist rather than be steeped in any semblance of reality.  The film's denouement devolves into a Home Alone style house of horrors moment that provokes laughter rather than creating tension.

While I have many qualms with Good People, it certainly isn't the worst barely released theatrical film I've seen.  I can't say I recommend it, however, but it kept my interest even though it was utterly ridiculous thanks to a very short running time (which is yet another reason why I even watched it in the first place).

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Limitless

Limitless (2011)

Starring Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Anna Friel, and Robert De Niro

Directed by Neil Burger

Was the world really asking for a PG-13 version of the gritty, harsh, and absolutely amazing drug addiction drama Requiem for a Dream?  Personally, I think not, but Limitless is kind of like a low-rent version of that 2000 Darren Aronofsky film complete with the same pulse-pounding music, rapid, fast-paced camera movements and edits, and "inside the body" glimpses of drugs entering someone's blood stream.  It's like a toned-down Requiem for folks like my mom (but she didn't like this movie either).  Try as he might and not helping matters in the slightest, I'm not quite sold on the concept of "Bradley Cooper -- Hollywood Star" despite the fact that his cache is certainly rising in the entertainment industry.  Add Robert De Niro into the mix continuing his trend of choosing rather ridiculous roles to garner a paycheck and Limitless just doesn't really have much going for it.

I was a fan of Bradley Cooper when he first appeared on my entertainment landscape via Alias, but I've never quite warmed to his smarmy attitude that's inhibited nearly every one of his movie characters to this date.  In this flick, Cooper is down-and-out writer Eddie who can't seem to get motivated to write his latest novel.  While roaming the streets of New York City, he meets his ex-wife's brother Vernon, a drug dealer who gives him a special pill called NZT that perks up all his senses and activates his brain into remembering nearly everything he's ever learned throughout his life.  Eddie is amazed and goes to meet his ex-brother-in-law for more pills, but finds him murdered and his apartment ransacked.  Someone was looking for NZT, but Eddie somehow magically figures out Vernon's hiding spot and finds a huge stash of pills.  Time passes and Eddie turns from a bum to a ladies man who finishes his novel and manages to become one of the best stock brokers in the industry, working for the famed Carl van Loon (Robert De Niro).

Perhaps I was a little harsh above on Mr. Cooper.  It's not that he's bad here, it's just that I don't quite see him as a "movie star" yet and this film attempts to put him in that role.  That being said, he comes off much better than De Niro who continues slumming it in his later years.  He's really just become a caricature of himself...there was a moment in this movie where his simple presence and squinty-eyed facial expression made me chuckle, ruining what should have been a rather serious moment.

Still, the biggest issue with Limitless is that is has no clue what movie it wants to be.  Is it a mystery surrounding who killed Vernon and why they did so?  Is it a drama about Eddie butting heads with new boss van Loon?  Is it a romance as Eddie tries to win back his ex-girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) who left him when he was a struggling novelist?  Or is it morality tale about our drug-addicted society?  While it tries to be all of these things, it doesn't succeed at any of them.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Land of the Lost (2009)

Starring Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, and Anna Friel
Written by Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas
Directed by Brad Siberling

I'm keeping this brief because this one was horrendously bad.

The problem with this movie is that it doesn't know who it wants its audience to be. It's not raunchy enough to be aimed at an adult PG-13 crowd, but it is certainly too risqué for anyone under the age of 11 to see it. To me, they were marketing this to kids, and parents will be sorely upset if they take their kids to see this. Sex and drug references abound and, while they fall flat on adult ears, they shouldn't be heard by kids.

The worst "big budget" film of the summer by far at this point. Really, everything is awful here...Will Ferrell...the direction...the story...the set design...I could keep going...

The only thing saving it from an 'F' is that I laughed three or four times, Anna Friel is kinda hot (and she was completely wasted in this role...didn't they see her charm in tv's Pushing Daisies?), and the end credit sequence (with music by Michael Giacchino) is kinda cool. Other than that, a waste of time.

The RyMickey Rating: D-