Caught Stealing: A third base hit

Caught Stealing (2025) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong violence, pervasive profanity, sexuality, nudity and drug use

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.7.25

You’ll never see a better cautionary tale, concerning the wisdom of seat belts.

 

Charlie Huston’s 2004 crime novel is a slight change of pace for director Darren Aronofsky, whose best-known films — Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan and The Whale — haven’t the slightest trace of humor. But Huston’s scripted adaptation of his book is laden with moments of dark-dark-dark gallows humor, of the sort that makes one feel guilty for each chuckle (not that it’ll suppress the next unexpected giggle).

 

The enemy of my enemy is my friend? When Hank (Austin Butler, center) becomes
sufficiently desperate, he forms an uneasy alliance with Lipa (Liev Schreiber, left)
and Shmully (Vincent D'Onofrio).

That said, this saga involves one Awful Event so beyond the pale, so needlessly mean-spirited, that viewers will be hard-pressed to forgive Huston and Aronofsky.

 

The year is 1998, the setting New York City’s Lower East Side: a time when this neighborhood is at low ebb, with sidewalks and streets strewn with uncollected garbage. Henry “Hank” Thompson (Austin Butler) tends bar at a sorta-kinda dive run by Paul (Griffin Dunne). Amtrak (Action Bronson), a steady customer, constantly ribs Hank about his devotion to the San Francisco Giants. Indeed, Hank calls his mother every day — she lives in Patterson, California — to commiserate or cheer about their mutual passion for the baseball team.

 

Hank has a steady girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), who works at a nearby hospital.

 

But Hank is damaged goods. He suffers nightmare flashbacks of the vehicular accident, at the tail end of high school, which wrecked his knee, blew his chance at a promising baseball career, and killed his best friend. Hank was entirely at fault, driving drunk. He wore a seat belt; his friend did not.

 

Hank now is a full-blown alcoholic, much to Yvonne’s distress. She wants them to “move to the next level,” but only if Hank can get a handle on his drinking problem.

 

On an otherwise average day, Hank’s rowdy punk neighbor, Russ (Matt Smith, most famously of Doctor Who and The Crown), is summoned to London to see his dying father one last time. He abruptly places his cat, Bud, in Hank’s reluctant care.

 

“He’s a biter,” Russ warns, as he sprints away.

 

Yvonne thinks caring for Bud is a marvelous idea; she even moves the cat’s litter box into Hank’s bathroom … much to his disgust. But it’s obvious, even in these early moments, that Hank and Bud will bond.

 

Yvonne heads to work. Moments later, two thugs show up, searching for Russ. Hank unwisely displays attitude, and gets beaten so badly that he wakens in a hospital, two days later, having lost a kidney. Yvonne warns that now — with only one kidney — he really, truly must stop drinking. 

 

That will be a challenge.

 

Dumb Money: Smart movie

Dumb Money (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for drug use, vulgar sexual references and relentless profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.29.23

I haven’t had this much fun with economics and Wall Street misbehavior since The Big Short, which this film resembles on several levels: mostly because both fact-based sagas concern Wall Street corporate heads with more money than humanity, who don’t give a damn how their actions affect “reg’lar folks” like me and thee.

 

When Keith (Paul Dano) worries that his precarious investment choices might obliterate
their hard-earned savings, his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley) — trusting him
implicitly — insists that he should go for it.

And while director Craig Gillespie’s rollicking ensemble piece isn’t quite as sheer-genius captivating as its 2015 companion-in-outrage, it takes an equally audacious swipe at the dark side of capitalism.

More crucially, this is a David vs. Goliath story where the little guys actually come out on top. To a degree. (Some of them.)

 

The villains here are the hedge-fund bastards notorious for swooping in to buy an ailing company — or franchise — for the express purpose of gutting its remaining assets and then departing, leaving bankruptcy and thousands of lost jobs and pensions. They’re also infamous for “shorting” a company’s stock: a skeevy purchasing maneuver that bets said company will do worse in the future than it’s doing currently.

 

(I can think of no better reason to revive public stockades.)

 

Gillespie’s film is adapted from Ben Mezrich’s best-selling The Antisocial Network, his thoroughly researched account of the now-infamous GameStop stock debacle. The sharp, sassy script is by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, both former financial reporters for the Wall Street Journal.

 

(Mezrich has a flair for this sort of ripped-from-financial-headlines material; his previous books include Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, which hit movie screens as 2008’s 21; and The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, which became 2010’s The Social Network. His next book, due in November, is Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History. Can’t wait.)

 

The GameStop chronicle — yes, the mall-based retail stores that sold new and used computer games and equipment — represented one of life’s occasionally wild perfect storms. It likely never would have happened without the convergence of Covid lockdowns, savvy social media users, and a still-festering, street-level desire to somehow get back at those responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown.

 

The unlikely underdog is geeky, mild-mannered Keith Gill — marvelously played, with aw-shucks sincerity, by Paul Dano — an amateur stock analyst and dedicated social media user introduced here in January 2021, as he posts details of his investment activities from the basement of his home in Brockton, Mass. The basement may be a humble setting, but his multiple cameras, computers and screens produce impressively professional visuals.

 

Keith’s YouTube and Twitter handle: Roaring Kitty. (His Reddit username, DFV, is abbreviated from a nom-de-Internetthat cannot be printed in a family-friendly blog.)

The Eyes of Tammy Faye: An appalling gaze

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for sexual content and drug abuse

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang 

I’m hard-pressed to think of anybody whose life story interests me less.

 

Director Michael Showalter and scripter Abe Sylvia’s adaptation of the 2000 Fenton Bailey/Randy Barbato documentary clearly intends a re-evaluation of Tammy Faye Bakker, the more flamboyant half of husband Jim Bakker’s impressively massive PTL (Praise the Lord) broadcasting network and religious empire.

 

With their media empire crumbling amid multiple financial and moral scandals,
Tammy Faye (Jessica Chastain) and Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) make a
last-ditch effort to plead their case on national news shows.

Being dragged once again through their decade of naked avarice and shameless hypocrisy, as they enjoy a lavish lifestyle funded by donations from gullible souls who bankrupted themselves in the belief they were helping God save the downtrodden, is almost beyond endurance.

That said…

 

The agony is intensified by the astonishing persuasiveness with which stars Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield portray the televangelist couple. It’s frankly spooky; more than once, I had to remember that this was a film, and not the 2000 documentary.

 

Chastain’s performance goes much deeper than the surface affectations of Tammy Faye’s clown-worthy makeup, hairstyles and trendy on-air garb. Chastain nails the head tilts, the perky smile, the gently swaying “moments with God” and — most notably — the initially cute Betty Boop voice, which becomes insufferable as Tammy Faye grows older.

 

Garfield, in turn, oozes insincere, egomaniacal smarm from the moment Jim and Tammy Faye meet, at Minnesota’s North Central Bible College. She’s sweet and impressionable; he radiates “stalker.” We see the wheels spinning behind Garfield’s gaze, as the far-thinking Jim immediately recognizes that this plain-spoken but clearly suggestible young woman will be an important asset to his future plans.

 

They marry almost immediately, much to the chagrin of her mother Rachel, played with richly nuanced depth — total honor and heart — by the always magnificent Cherry Jones.

 

The goal of a biographical film such as this — the reason for its existence — should be to explore the background of an individual who grows up to become such an unabashed monster. Alas, Sylvia’s script doesn’t give us much. 

 

A brief flashback introduces us to adolescent Tammy Faye (Chandler Head), Rachel’s only child by a brief marriage that ended in divorce. Although she re-marries, making Tammy Faye the eldest of eight children in a blended family, Rachel remains a pariah in this tiny Minneapolis community, despite total devotion and commitment to her faith. As a result, Tammy Faye is forbidden to attend the Pentecostal church where her mother plays piano alongside a fire-and-brimstone preacher, lest she remind parishioners of the divorce.

 

But Tammy Faye wants to attend, wants more than anything to be part of this environment: to hear the word of God. After watching services from outside, via a window, she shrewdly perceives what is necessary. So she resolutely enters the church the following Sunday, walks up to the preacher, and collapses onto the floor in a rapturous fit, complete with muttered gibberish. The congregation is ecstatic.

Death Wish: A fate this film deserves

Death Wish (2018) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for profanity, dramatic intensity, strong violence and gore
By Derrick Bang

If director Eli Roth is hoping for mainstream respectability, this isn’t the right path.

The original Charles Bronson Death Wish was a cultural flashpoint back in 1974 (its four progressively tawdry sequels, not so much). The political divide was incendiary, with mounting raucous protests ultimately helping to force a corrupt president from office; big-city crime and street violence were out of control; the older generation was dismayed by a younger generation that seemed not to care about much of anything.

While working his way up the bad guy food chain in pursuit of the creep who orchestrated
the invasion of his home, Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis, right) employs rather unsual tactics
to extract information from a thug.

Half the country viewed Bronson’s film as a fascist nightmare; the other half thought his character’s actions fell under the heading of Damn Well About Time.

Things change ... not so much.

There’s no question that Roth and scripter Joe Carnahan’s updated remake is well-timed, but — sadly — reaction to this film is likely to be even more polarized. Half the audience will regard it as an irresponsible NRA recruitment tool; the other half, once again, will smile in satisfaction and think, Hey, that’s a good way to solve some problems.

The third half, based on Wednesday evening’s preview screening, will chortle gleefully each time Bruce Willis dispatches a baddie. And that’s perhaps even more disturbing.

Granted, this updated Death Wish has some mild laugh lines; most, however, derive from the verbal skirmishes between Paul Kersey (Willis) and investigating detectives Kevin Raines (Dean Norris) and Leonore Jackson (Kimberly Elise).

I fail to see how watching some guy’s eyes pop out of his graphically crushed head warrants a chuckle, let alone rip-snortin’ peals of laughter. But that’s to be expected from Roth’s core fan base, which — let us recall — laps up the torture-porn trash for which he is best known: Cabin Fever, The Green Inferno, the Hostel series and others I’ve blissfully forgotten.

Roth may have attracted a solid cast for this outing, and the film may benefit from whatever name-brand recognition its predecessor still delivers ... but as the (original) saying goes, a hog in a silk waistcoat is still a hog.

The core story hasn’t changed much. Dedicated Chicago surgeon Paul Kersey has it all: a hospital practice at which he excels; a loving wife (Elisabeth Shue, as Lucy); a devoted daughter (Camila Morrone, as Jordan), who just got into the college of her choice; and a gorgeous home in an upscale neighborhood.

No sign of a dog. Seems like they should have a dog.

The Magnificent Seven: Guns a'blazin'

The Magnificent Seven (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and somewhat generously, for relentless violence and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.23.16

This premise has been bulletproof ever since Akira Kurosawa introduced it, back in 1954.

It’s not merely a great set-up for an action epic; it also plays to our idealistic belief that everybody — no matter how bad their behavior — yearns for an opportunity to become heroic in the eyes of people not familiar with their past deeds. A chance at redemption, and generous self-sacrifice.

Having determined to transform a community of farmers and townsfolk into a defensive
army of sorts, the "Seven" grimly assess their recruits. From left, Jack Horne (Vincent
D'Onofrio), Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier), Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Goodnight
Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), Josh Faraday (Chris
Pratt) and Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee).

Can’t miss.

Nor does it, in director Antoine Fuqua’s muscular remake of 1960’s American adaptation of Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai. With Denzel Washington top-lining a cast of scene-stealers every bit as engaging as the characters they play, and some narrative tweaks that make their shot at moral salvation virtually impossible — or is it? — this new Magnificent Seven delivers on the promise of the adjective in its title.

That said — and acknowledging the narrative adjustments made by scripters Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk,  in keeping with 21st century sensibilities — all concerned should be ashamed of themselves, for failing to better acknowledge the core story concept by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Pizzolatto and Wenk didn’t concoct this concept out of thin air, and it’s annoying to see them claim sole screen credit during the opening titles, as if the entire inspiration were theirs, and theirs alone.

Humph.

(But I digress...)

The story begins in the tiny post-Civil War community of Rose Creek — a truly stunning set built by production designer Derek Hill and his crew — where the townsfolk have been invaded by ruthless carpetbagger Bartholomew Brogue (Peter Sarsgaard), who has established a destructive gold-mining operation only a few hundred yards from the local church.

Brogue and his hired thugs have made life unbearable, but that isn’t sufficient; he has decided to destroy the community in order to expand his mining efforts ... and he couldn’t care less that this means driving hard-working farmers off their properties. In a prologue that sets new standards for heinous behavior, Brogue and his men hijack a town meeting and make their point brutally clear.

Do we loathe Brogue, in the space of a few swift minutes? Oh my, yes; rarely will you find a villain played with such callous élan. Sarsgaard is coldly, chillingly vile: a truly memorable performance.

Jurassic World: Dino-might

Jurassic World (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi violence and peril
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.12.15

We never learn.

Which is a good thing ... because, otherwise, where would Hollywood find most of its plotlines?

Having managed one narrow escape after another, our besieged heroes — from left,
Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), Owen (Chris Pratt), Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray
(Ty Simpkins) — wind up trapped in a lab when yet another dino-menace appears out
of nowhere. These poor folks just can't catch a break...

In a few key respects, Jurassic World is an honorable sequel to the sensational 1993 film that Steven Spielberg made from Michael Crichton’s riveting, way-clever novel ... not to mention Spielberg’s almost-as-good 1997 follow-up, adapted from Crichton’s own sequel. (Equal credit also goes to scripter David Koepp, who worked on both films.)

We’ll just sorta pretend that the series’ third entry, in 2001, never happened.

Which also seems to be the attitude adopted by this new film’s director, Colin Trevorrow, and his three co-writers: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver and Derek Connelly. Jurassic World does acknowledge the first two films with several nice nods toward those who sculpted this franchise so superbly. Even Michael Giacchino’s exhilarating score references key John Williams themes from the two Spielberg movies.

Visual effects supervisors Tim Alexander and Glen McIntosh also do phenomenal work, further enhancing the “you are there” verisimilitude that made the first film such a jaw-dropping wonder. It’s no imaginative stretch at all, to accept these various beasties as living, breathing ... and highly dangerous.

Trevorrow and editor Kevin Stitt concoct a hell-for-leather third act, with each suspenseful encounter and/or chase building to an even better one. Additionally, the script is laden with perceptive social commentary, taking some well-deserved jabs at our jaded 21st sensibilities, while reminding us anew that — to paraphrase a droll 1970s TV commercial — it’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature.

Sounds great, right?

Well ... not entirely.

Despite its many virtues, Jurassic World is marred by an abundance of unpleasant, mean-spirited and just plain stupid characters who spend the entire film behaving like complete idiots. On top of which, Trevorrow seems to have coached everybody to play at hyper-melodramatic, back row/third balcony opera house levels.

That’s frankly surprising, since Trevorrow’s sole previous credit is 2012’s droll Safety Not Guaranteed, a little sci-fi mystery that gets its oomph from being so deliciously coy, subtle and quiet.

So why switch gears here? Did Trevorrow worry that his human players had to compete with their dino co-stars, when it came to chewing up the scenery?

Whatever the reason, it’s hard to like or admire most of these characters, including the few whom we’re definitely supposed to root for. Brainless behavior demands the opposite; I’d have been perfectly content to watch a few more become dino-chow.

The Judge: Contempt of court

The Judge (2014) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

Some stories, despite an engaging premise and a solid opening act, eventually work themselves into an unfortunate corner.

When Hank (Robert Downey Jr., left) reluctantly agrees to help defend his father (Robert
Duvall, center) against a murder charge, he first must undo the damage unintentionally
caused by inattentive local attorney C.P. Kennedy (Dax Shepard).

Sadly, that’s the case with The Judge, a well-cast and tightly plotted legal thriller that gets considerable mileage from the tempestuous, high-octane pairing of Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr., as a severely estranged father and son.

Tightly plotted, that is, until the film wears out its welcome with an increasingly contrived and deeply unsatisfying third act ... by which point director David Dobkin’s 141-minute drama has become at least half an hour too long.

Dobkin certainly draws excellent performances from his stars and their supporting players: no problem there. But his writing experience hails from broad slapstick (Wedding Crashers, Fred Claus) and popcorn action flicks (Jack the Giant Slayer, R.I.P.D.), which hardly makes him ready for narrative territory inhabited far better by the likes of John Grisham, Michael Connelly and Scott Turow.

Dobkin shares the writing chores here with scripters Nick Schenk (Gran Torino) and Bill Dubuque, and the result eventually feels overcooked: a high-concept proposal likely sold via a tantalizing 25-word pitch that lacked a solid punch line. Hollywood is littered with the forgotten corpses of such projects: promising at first glance, but ultimately disappointing.

And I’m fairly certain most viewers will be quite unhappy with the way this one ends.

Downey’s Hank Palmer is a slick, big-city defense attorney who makes no apologies for employing every possible legal trick to get his wealthy but clearly guilty clients off the hook. (“They’re the only ones who can afford me.”) Although Hank is troubled by neither scruples nor morals, his surface glad-handing masks an arrogant jerk with a miserable home life shared with a hotsy-totsy younger wife (Sarah Lancaster, in a fleeting and thankless part) poised to divorce him, thus turning their adorable little girl — Emma Tremblay, as Lauren — into a reluctant bargaining chip.

Then, suddenly, a crisis: the death of Hank’s mother, which brings him back to his bucolic (and frankly gorgeous) home town of tiny Carlinville, Ind. (actually Shelburne Falls, Mass.). He abandoned this scene years earlier, no longer able to withstand the belittling treatment from his father, Joseph (Duvall), who happens to be the community’s long-presiding judge.

The reunion is hardly cheerful, despite the obvious bond Hank feels for older brother Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio) and younger brother Dale (Jeremy Strong), both of whom remained in Carlinville.

Hank and his father immediately fall into their old, long-established pattern of mutual contempt and rapacious verbal sniping, much to the chagrin of everybody else. It’s a well-established fact that people, no matter how old they get, often revert to a powerless adolescent dynamic when in the presence of their parents, particularly if the setting is a childhood home.

And if the relationship is long-frayed to begin with, the situation is far worse: The unresolved issues that have been held at bay, in the shelter of the well-established lives we’ve built elsewhere, pop right back to the surface.

Escape Plan: A breakout surprise

Escape Plan (2013) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rating: R, for violence and profanity
By Derrick Bang

Sometimes it pays to approach a film with diminished expectations.

After the comic book nonsense of both Expendables flicks, not to mention January’s distastefully trashy Bullet to the Head, I held out little hope for Sylvester Stallone’s recent return to the big screen.

Although trapped in a maximum-security prison that offers little hope for any sort of
escape plan, Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone, left) and Emil Rottmayer (Arnold
Schwarzenegger) have a few ideas ... all of them highly dangerous, of course, and
with little chance of success. But it's not like they have anything else to do...

And although Arnold Schwarzenegger cleverly parodied his advancing age in The Last Stand, also released in January, box-office disinterest made that little action flick’s title seem prophetic, with respect to his career.

I therefore haven’t been surprised by the disinterest in Escape Plan, which arrives in theaters today after a rather lackluster publicity campaign.

Which just goes to show the folly of jumping to conclusions. Swedish-born director Mikael Håfström has uncorked a tidy little thriller, which gets much of its juice from a clever script by Miles Chapman and Jason Keller. The premise is intriguing, the execution is engaging — if occasionally burdened by exploitation flick clichés — and, yes, Stallone and Schwarzenegger acquit themselves honorably.

Indeed, they’re perfectly cast in this twisty prison saga, which seems to have been shaped with their strengths — and acting limitations — in mind. Håfström allows them to do what they do best, and they do it well; the result certainly won’t be more than a footnote in cinema history, but it’s a reasonably entertaining way to spend a night at the movies.

Ray Breslin (Stallone) has a most unusual career: He’s a structural engineer who specializes in prison design, or — more precisely — the weaknesses of such institutions. As the “field agent” half of the Los Angeles-based security firm Breslin-Clark, he allows himself to be incarcerated into various prisons as an apparent felon, in order to escape and thus expose design and (more frequently) staffing weaknesses.

Although ostensibly on his own, Breslin always is monitored by his operational partners: handler Abigail Ross (Amy Ryan) and genius hacker Hush (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson). Partner Lester Clark (Vincent D’Onofrio) acts as the company “face,” securing the assignments and managing the tidy sums that Breslin charges for his talents.

Following the completion of yet another routine assignment, Breslin is offered a tantalizing challenge by CIA operative Jessica Miller (Caitriona Balfe). Wanting to remove the political stink left by a decade’s worth of nasty headlines concerning Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary rendition, shadowy U.S. black-ops agencies have collaborated to construct a top-secret über-prison at an undisclosed location, well away from prying media eyes. The goal is to keep its dangerous occupants locked up, no matter how clever — or desperate — they might be.

That’s where Breslin comes in: If he can’t break out, then All Concerned will be satisfied that their “detention center” lives up to its promise.