Just Getting Started
The resident manager of a retirement community (Morgan Freeman), long accustomed to being cock of the walk (in every sense), gets unwelcome competition from the newest resident (Tommy Lee Jones)—then the two must put aside their squabbling when Freeman’s former mob associates show up to try to rub him out. With this cast (also Rene Russo, Elizabeth Ashley, Jane Seymour, Joe Pantoliano, George Wallace and the late Glenne Headley), and with Ron Shelton writing and directing, we might have expected more than the standard geezer-fest out to snag seniors’ spending money—but as it happens, we don’t even get that much. The movie is a ghastly, ramshackle mess, lurching from gag to clunking gag and exacerbated by Barry Peterson’s harsh cinematography, making everyone look considerably older than they are.
Gary Oldman blubbers and bellows from under wads of makeup as Winston Churchill in this lifeless biopic by Atonement director Joe Wright.
Published on 12.14.17
The film clearly holds a weird level of affection for The Room, while stacking the cast with a This is the End-style comedy ensemble.
Published on 12.14.17
Great acting and Vittorio Storaro’s sun-splashed photography can’t compensate for writer/director Woody Allen’s tiresome return to his most distasteful theme: having inconvenient people murdered and getting away with it.
Published on 12.14.17
Playing the title character, Denzel Washington simultaneously anchors and elevates this solid if obvious legal drama, showily disappearing into the title role of a sad-sack civil rights-era relic getting his first taste of temptation.
Published on 12.07.17
The film feels like the work of someone who spent his entire life locked in a dark room, only learning about human nature through the movies.
Published on 11.30.17