Heads of State: Way over the top

Heads of State (2025) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and quite generously, despite strong action violence and profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang 

This relentlessly silly movie will require a lot of patience, even from undemanding viewers inclined to be forgiving.

 

When Air Force One is blown out of the sky during a coordinated drone attack, U.S.
President Will Derringer (John Cena, left) and UK Prime Minister Sam Clarke
(Idris Elba) wonder if the next few minutes will be their last...

It’s basically a live-action cartoon, and the dog-nuts script — by Harrison Query, Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec — has plot holes large enough to swallow Air Force One. I frequently was reminded of Jackie Chan’s goofiest martial arts comedies, and the degree to which this flick succeeds, does so for the same reason: sheer star power.

Idris Elba and John Cena are a lot of fun together, and appear to have a great time in the midst of all the chaos ... so we do, as well. 

 

To a point.

 

Will Derringer (Cena) is the gung-ho President of the United States: a political neophyte after a successful career as an action movie star. Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Governator as the President: Derringer constantly employs Cena’s wide smile as if he’s greeting folks on the Hollywood red carpet, as opposed to anything resembling a statesman.

 

Sam Clarke (Elba) is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a relentlessly serious man who grieves over the state of the world, and quietly despairs over his inability to make things better. He’s refined, well-educated and loathes Derringer’s glib, glad-handed egocentricity; Derringer, in turn, never has forgiven Clarke for a deliberate slight during the U.S. presidential campaign.

 

But we don’t meet them immediately. Director Ilya Naisheller opens with a prologue set amid Spain’s annual Tomatina, a tomato-throwing festival that takes place in the town of Buñol, and is famed as the world’s largest food fight. Senior MI6 agent Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) leads a surveillance team that hopes to capture notorious terrorist Viktor Gradov (Paddy Considine), who has been spotted in the town square.

 

Alas, it turns out to be a trap; Bisset and her entire team are ambushed by thugs led by Viktor’s ruthless pet assassins, Sasha and Olga (Alexander Kuznetsov and Katrina Durden, both impressively nasty).

 

This sequence is typical of the frequent, brutal violence that often works against the story’s humor, and also stretches the generous PG-13 rating.

 

Much as Clarke and Derringer dislike each other, they’re forced to make a public show of togetherness and mutual respect — displaying the long-standing “special relationship” between the U.S. and UK — while attending a NATO meeting in Italy. It’s a crucial gathering, because membership is wavering, in the face of an increasingly hostile and unpredictable world.

Jackpot!: No winners here

Jackpot! (2024) • View trailer

No stars: TURKEY. Rated R, for violence, vulgar sexual content, and pervasive profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

I thought Trap would be the summer’s worst movie.

 

But no; this abysmal, live-action cartoon defies description. (I’ll nonetheless give it a shot.)

 

Although Katie (Awkwafina) and Noel (John Cena) cleverly think to hide in a rich
musician's panic room, there's still the matter of closing the door before their hundreds
of pursuers force their way inside.

The budget apparently came from what all involved pooled from their weekly lunch money. Sets and locations are limited to existing Los Angeles-area venues, each briefly closed for the 15 minutes required to shoot one take of each scene. Most “costumes” go no further than street clothes.

Aside from the top half-dozen roles, all other characters appear to have been cast with random folks snatched from the streets; they certainly can’t act a whit. They aren’t even granted names in the cast list; they’re instead billed as Scary Goth Guy, Baby Puppeteer, Asshole Dad, Food Truck Guy, Bald Alley Cop, and so forth.

 

Paul Feig hardly warrants his credit as director; he appears to have told cinematographer John Schwartzman to point the camera, turn it on, and film whatever each untrained idiot felt like doing at that particular moment.

 

Rob Yescombe similarly doesn’t deserve to be acknowledged for his so-called script, because most — all? — of the dialogue appears to have been improvised on the spot. And quite badly, in most cases. It’s the sort of “banter” that regards relentless F-bombs as the height of comedy.

 

This may be the worst case of lunatics running the asylum ever foisted on an unsuspecting public. Grade-school theater productions are more convincing.

 

Until now, I’d have believed Awkwafina incapable of making a bad movie, and possessing the good sense to avoid anything that smelled of one. (Wrong again.)

 

As a sidebar, I’ve never cared for the tasteless “state-sanctioned murder as a cathartic escape valve” subgenre that has become popular of late. Japan’s Battle Royale, unleashed in 2000, started this dystopian trend;  2013’s The Purge and its (thus far) five sequels turned it into a deplorable franchise. By the time South Korea’s Squid Game came along, three years ago, the concept had become mainstream ... which doesn’t say anything good about human nature.

 

This pathetic turkey joins their ranks. It might be the most shameful yet, since it’s supposed to be a comedy.

 

Ricky Stanicky: Uneven vulgarity

Ricky Stanicky (2024) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for drug use, sexual candor, and relentless profanity and raunch

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

Although director Peter Farrelly has gained respect for serious fare such as Green Book and The Greatest Beer Run Ever, one knows what to expect when he indulges his smuttier instincts: a thoroughly dumb story, and relentless raunch.

 

Rod (John Cena, far right) tries hard to ingratiate himself with, from left, Dean
(Zac Efron), JT (Andrew Santino) and Wes (Jermaine Fowler). The effort fails, but
not to worry; they'll meet again.

Both are boldly front and center in his new film.

That said, Ricky Stanicky gets plenty of momentum from an audacious and absolutely hilarious performance by star John Cena. He’s a veritable force of motor-mouthed, well-timed comedy, and this film would sink into oblivion without him.

 

But we don’t meet him right away. Events begin during a prologue on Halloween night 1999, when obnoxious brats Dean, JT and Wes decide to get even with homeowners who have a reputation for not giving out candy. Their prank goes horribly awry, nearly burning down the house in an appalling and thoroughly unfunny sequence that almost torches this film before it has a chance to start.

 

While fleeing the carnage, the three boys concoct the “alibi” that sets up what is to follow: They write the name “Ricky Stanicky” on a discarded item of clothing, the way a child’s mother would have done, and leave it at the scene. The police therefore focus on trying to find a juvenile delinquent who doesn’t exist.

 

During the next couple of decades — via an animation montage that serves as title credits — the boys use Ricky as the fall guy for all manner of bad behavior. As they get older, Ricky morphs into a “good friend” employed as a get-together excuse for skipping things Dean, JT and Wes simply don’t want to do.

 

Cut to the present day, at which point these guys have become the ultimate arrested adolescents. Over time, they’ve developed a thick “bible” of Ricky’s supposed exploits as a wealthy, tree-hugging do-gooder, along with a litany of childhood and adult achievements and ailments.

 

And yet — as established by this wildly uneven script from Farrelly and seven (!) other hands — Dean (Zac Efron) and JT (Andrew Santino) somehow managed to land high-profile jobs at an investment firm run by Ted Summerhayes (William H. Macy). Dean is blessed with girlfriend Erin (Lex Scott Davis), who hopes to become a respected TV news journalist; JT is married to Susan (Anja Savcic), and they’re expecting their first child.

 

The cannabis-obsessed Wes (Jermaine Fowler), alas, is at loose ends. His half-hearted efforts to write a children’s book haven’t impressed hard-working boyfriend Keith (Daniel Monks).

Argylle: Fails to knock our socks off

Argylle (2024) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and much too generously, for relentless strong violence and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.2.24

I’m not the slightest bit surprised to recall that scripter Jason Fuchs’ early résumé includes 2012’s Ice Age: Continental Drift.

 

Because, after a promising first act, this new spy comedy devolves into an increasingly insufferable — and boring — live-action cartoon.

 

Having discovered a secret stash in an otherwise abandoned London safe house, Aidan
(Sam Rockwell) is surprised to see that Elly (Bryce Dallas Howard) recognizes some
of the concealed tech.

Director Matthew Vaughn has long favored violent, over-the-top material, from 2010’s Kick-Ass to the Kingsman trilogy (with, so it seems, two more on the way). But even by his outré standards, this film’s third act spirals totally out of control.

And not in a way that can be excused as “dumb fun.”

 

This one’s just dumb.

 

A revved-up prologue opens as stylish spy Argylle (Henry Cavill) meets a femme most fatale, who unexpectedly turns the tables on him. A rambunctious chase sequence follows, the woman finally captured with the assistance of colleagues Wyatt (John Cena) and Keira (Ariana DeBose).

 

But the mission has ended badly, and our good guys now are isolated from their agency handlers.

 

At which point the curtain pulls back, and all this is revealed as the visualized final chapter of book five in the popular Argylle spy series, read aloud at a bookstore event by author Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard). Fans adore her and the series; one questioner wonders aloud how she’s able to so uncannily concoct stories that seem to anticipate real-world events.

 

Plenty of dull research Elly replies, with a modest smile.

 

Back at home with her beloved cat Alfie, Ellie has an intriguing “relationship” with her series character; when stuck for a bit of dialogue, or how to move the action along, she “becomes” him — Cavill obligingly reappears — long enough to find the right words. Indeed, she has just finished the sixth novel, which she cheekily intends to conclude on a cliffhanger.

 

(Oh, those merciless authors; they do love to torture us readers.)

 

But Elly’s No. 1 fan — her mother, Ruth (Catherine O’Hara) — having been sent a copy, can’t believe that her daughter would be so cruel. Let’s get together, Ruth proposes, and we’ll brainstorm a final chapter.

 

Bundling Alfie into the world’s cutest hard-shell bubble capsule pet carrier, Elly boards a train. (Flying terrifies her.) She winds up accosted by Aidan (Sam Rockwell), a scruffy fan who proves quite useful when everybody else in their train car suddenly tries to kill them both. 

 

Cue a lively fracas, which is well-staged by fight choreographer Guillermo Grispo.

 

Fast X: Over-revved lunacy

Fast X (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense action violence and mild profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.19.23

This series has long verged on becoming a live-action cartoon, and the newest installment definitely crosses that line.

 

Physics, vehicular stamina and the frailty of the human body aren’t even an afterthought in director Louis Leterrier’s tenth (!) entry in this hard-charging franchise, but I’ll say this: He’s definitely the man for the job, having long ago helmed 2002’s enormously entertaining The Transporter and its 2005 sequel.

 

Confronted by a massive, spherical bomb rolling its way through the streets of Rome —
target: The Vatican — Dom and his comrades desperately try to re-route the threat.

This turbo-charged Fast escapade also gets plenty of momentum from a dog-nuts script by Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin, along with rat-a-tat editing by Dylan Highsmith and Kelly Matsumoto.

As an added bonus, Jason Momoa is a memorably and thoroughly reprehensible villain: a deranged, giggling sociopath prone to outré outfits and a mincing manner that make him even scarier. If he were granted a Snidely Whiplash mustache, I’m sure he’d twirl it with glee.

 

The story opens with a cleverly tweaked flashback to a key event in 2011’s Fast Five, as Dom (Vin Diesel) and his crew steal a massive bank vault laden with $100 million belonging to drug kingpin Herman Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida). Our heroes subsequently drag the vault through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, laying waste to everything in its path, until the audacious climax on the Teodoro Moscosco Bridge.

 

In this “adjusted” version of events, Reyes perishes on the bridge: a demise witnessed by his violently unbalanced adult son, Dante (Momoa), who barely survives.

 

(This sequence also allows us to spend a few minutes with the late Paul Walker’s Brian O’Connor, which is a nice — and respectful — touch.)

 

As things kick into gear in the present day, Dante — who has spent the intervening 12 years plotting revenge — orchestrates the first in an increasingly lethal series of attacks on everybody Dom holds dear. The goal is not to killDom — at least, not immediately — but to make him suffer the deaths of his friends and family, most particularly main squeeze Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and their 8-year-old son, Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry).

 

Meanwhile, Tej (Ludacris), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), Han (Sung Kang) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) jet off to Rome, to handle a heist assigned by the clandestine U.S. government “Agency” that runs off-the-books operations, and until recently has been headed by the equally mysterious “Mr. Nobody” (Kurt Russell).

 

Back home in Los Angeles, Dom and Letty get an unexpected visitor: a badly wounded Cipher (Charlize Theron), the über-nasty who bedeviled our heroes in the series’ previous two installments, most notoriously when she killed Diplomatic Security Service Agent Elena (Elsa Pataky) while Dom watched. 

 

Letty would just as soon put a bullet between Cipher’s eyes, but the latter has just barely survived her own unpleasant encounter with Dante. In a nod to the old mantra — “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” — an uneasy truce is struck.

The Suicide Squad: Totally deranged

The Suicide Squad (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong bloody violence and gore, relentless profanity, sexual references, drug use and fleeting graphic nudity

Available via: Movie theaters and HBO Max

By Derrick Bang

Fans of trash cinema — and their number is larger than you’d expect — fondly remember the 1980s glory days of Troma Studios, which brought us gleefully gruesome low-budget classics such as The Toxic Avenger, Surf Nazis Must Die, Rabid Grannies and Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, among many others. 

 

Having battled their way through most of an island nation, our "heroes" — from left,
Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Bloodsport (Idris Elba),
King Shark and Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) — simply cannot believe what
they now must deal with.

Writer/director James Gunn’s carnage-laden sequel to 2016’s Suicide Squad — this new one adds a crucial “The” — is like a Troma flick with a big-studio budget. That homage clearly is deliberate, since the voluminous end credits include an acknowledgment of The Toxic Avenger.

Which is to say, this is an unapologetically tasteless, offensive, gruesome and profane 132 minutes of hyper-violent gore, made (perhaps) a bit more palatable by equally relentless gallows humor. It’s The Dirty Dozen gone dog-nuts.

 

Gunn and visual effects supervisor Kelvin McIlwain include all possible means of torturing a human body, invariably amid gouts of splattered blood: decapitations, sliced limbs, craniotomies, gouged eyeballs, halfectomies (just what it sounds like), close-range shotgun blasts, and every other imaginable form of slicing and dicing. (Actually, they may have missed defenestration, but I’m not going back to double-check.)

 

Oh, yes: and being devoured by an enraged, land-based shark.

 

Gunn has no shortage of chutzpah. Recognizing that the 2016 film was a grim, joyless affair, he has doubled-down on this one’s unceasing snark. The most ridiculous lines, emerging at the most inappropriate moments, are uttered with straight-faced sincerity … which, of course, makes them even funnier (if your predilections run to such things).

 

And I do love the clever intertitles that bridge events and signal flashbacks (“Eight minutes earlier…”).

 

Gunn also earns geek cred for resurrecting some of the craziest characters ever introduced in DC comic book lore, such as the one updated here as TDK (and played by fan fave Nathan Fillion, although he’s hard to recognize beneath the mask); and the even more unlikely Starro the Conqueror, the first supervillain faced by the original Justice League of America, when that team debuted in early 1960.

 

Unlikely, to be sure … yet also quite creepy.

 

But that comes much later. Events kick off with the clandestine, late-night invasion of the island nation of Corto Maltese, which — thanks to a vicious regime change — suddenly has become a threat to the good ol’ US of A. Our assembled “mercenaries” are misfit, hyper-enhanced villains given this chance to shorten their sentences at Belle Reve, a prison with bragging rights for having the country’s highest mortality rate.

 

These degenerate delinquents are released to the care of Task Force X leader Col. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), with their every move monitored back in the States by government techies supervised by the merciless Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). One false step, and she’ll activate the micro-bomb implanted in the base of each villain’s skull, thereby blowing his — or her — head off.

 

(Yes, of course we get to watch that happen.)

F9, The Fast Saga: Blown head gasket

F9 (2021) • View trailer

1.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and rather generously, for relentless violence and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.25.21

Despite his popular presence in this series’ previous five entries, I note that Dwayne Johnson chose not return for this one.

 

Smart move.

 

No matter how much absurd punishment his car takes, Dom (Vin Diesel) always
manages to retain control. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) counts on it.

And despite the otherwise welcome return of director Justin Lin — who helmed installments three through six — this newest Fast & Furious entry is yet another example of dumb, tedious, wretched excess (as also was the case with 2019’s Hobbs & Shaw). The idiotic script cobbled together by Lin and his co-writers — Daniel Casey and Alfredo Botello — overwhelms its one smart move with an increasingly ridiculous series of action sequences.

 

The smart move: Granting main man Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) a race track-hued origin story involving his tempestuous relationship with a hitherto unrevealed younger brother. Poor, put-upon Dom always gets the lion’s share of angst in these flicks, and Diesel excels at displays of anguish that slowly morph into tightly bottled fury, and then explode into uncontrolled rage.

 

Unfortunately, such moments of actual humanity are few and far between, overwhelmed by the efforts of visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang’s team. Nothing feels the slightest bit real in the resulting vehicular and mano a mano mayhem, which too frequently looks blatantly, howlingly fake. 

 

The nadir? The point at which this cacophonous mess goes way, way beyond jumping the shark? The point at which even Tuesday evening’s eager theater audience succumbed to disgusted jeers?

 

The moment when a 1984 Pontiac Fiero gets blasted into space — with two of our heroes aboard, in vintage, duct-taped bathysphere suits — courtesy of rocket boosters.

 

This waste of celluloid — which clocks in at a butt-numbing, self-indulgent 145 minutes — isn’t a film, it’s a clanging pinball machine. With about that much emotional impact.

 

So:

 

Ongoing mega-villainess Cipher (Charlize Theron), finally captured by CIA mastermind Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell), manages an improbable escape with the assistance of flamboyant aspiring autocrat Otto (Thue Ersted Rasmussen). These events occur elsewhere, while we eavesdrop on Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Dom, living a quiet life off-grid while raising the latter’s young son, Little Brian (distinguished from “big” Brian, referencing the character played by the late Paul Walker).

 

Trainwreck: Not a total disaster

Trainwreck (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for strong sexual content, profanity, nudity and drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.17.15

This film is impressively schizophrenic.

On the one hand, it’s as jaw-droppingly vulgar and tasteless as the average Melissa McCarthy fiasco ... which is to say, pretty much what one should expect from something directed and produced by Judd Apatow (The 40-Year Old Virgin, This Is 40, Bridesmaids).

Although Aaron (Bill Hader) has no experience with being interviewed, he's savvy enough
to know when somebody is blowing smoke up his skirt ... and that's definitely the case,
as Amy (Amy Schumer) feebly tries to persuade him that she knows stuff about sports.

Then again, some of the crude bits are wincingly hilarious.

On the third hand, the seemingly relentless profanity and potty-mouthed sexuality are intercut with moments of tenderness that are touching enough to prompt tears ... as was the case with numerous patrons at Tuesday evening’s preview screening.

In the grand Hollywood tradition, then, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll cringe ... although I rather doubt Trainwreck will change your life.

But it certainly does prove that Amy Schumer has arrived. And how.

Actually, she’s already been around for a little while, as fans of her TV series Inside Amy Schumer are well aware. Her shtick gets its momentum from the juxtaposition between her fresh-faced, doe-eyed, girl-next-door (seeming) innocence, and the breathtakingly blunt and appalling stuff that emerges from her mouth. The goal is shock value, with (she undoubtedly hopes) at least a few belly-laughs along the way.

Trainwreck may be helmed by Apatow, but the script comes solely from Schumer. It’s maladroit, to say the least, and — at 125 minutes — needlessly bloated and self-indulgent. And yet her storyline also possesses (at times) a sparkling sweetness that perfectly suits the gal-desperately-needing-redemption character she has written for herself.

Which is why this film resonates more than McCarthy’s big-screen vehicles, where it’s impossible to engage emotionally with any of the one-dimensional burlesques populating the screen. Schumer still has a lot to learn, when it comes to translating her stand-up routines to the demands of a two-hour narrative, but her big-screen writing debut here is, nonetheless, better than many.

She stars as Amy (not much imagination there), one of the staff writers at New York’s S’Nuff magazine, a slick, deliberately ghastly publication that exists solely to mortify, humiliate and otherwise offend anybody with mainstream sensibilities. Her editor, Dianna, is a superficial bee-yatch of astonishing heartlessness: a role delivered with spectacular cruelty by Tilda Swinton.