Islands: Adrift

Islands (2025) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five); Unrated, but deserving a PG-13 for dramatic intensity, drug use and fleeting nudity

Available via: Amazon Prime and othr VOD options

By Derrick Bang

Sigh.

 

It starts so well.

 

Writer/director Jan-Ole Gerster’s brooding character piece initially radiates curiosity. 

 

Partly out of kindness, partly out of sympathyfor the clearly unhappy Anne (Stacey Martin),
Tom (Sam Riley, right) impulsively offers to spend a day touring her, her husband
Dave (Jack Farthing) and their young son around the island of Fuerteventura.

Tom (Sam Riley) wakens one morning, clothed and prone on beach sand; cinematographer Juan Sarmíento G. emphasizes the bright, blazing sunlight. Tom stumbles to his feet, slides into his nearby vehicle, and drives to his day job as a tennis instructor at a swanky resort hotel.

The disapproving receptionist, Maria (Bruna Cusí), hands him the week’s schedule, noting that he looks as rough as he feels. But Tom is popular — the schedule is fully booked — so his behavior apparently is tolerated by the Folks In Charge.

 

Tom spends the day cheerfully — but mindlessly — tossing tennis balls, lobbing and returning serves. He heads each night to Waikiki, a rowdy techno nightclub where he dances, smokes too much, drinks too much, does some drugs, and sometimes winds up in bed with a lovely lady (or two). He’s a blackout drunk, waking each morning with little (if any) memory of recent past events.

 

Lather, rinse, repeat: every day, apparently stretching back quite awhile. There isn’t much else to do, on this island setting of Fuerteventura. Tom is stuck, for reasons we don’t yet know.

 

(We rarely see him eat anything, which seems an odd oversight.)

 

Tom sees a fresh group of tourists arrive one day; one woman pauses, while stepping from the bus, and shoots him a contemplative glance. She appears later at his ramshackle office — where he keeps a concealed bottle of vodka, for occasional daytime snorts — having been directed there by Maria.

 

She introduces herself as Anne (Stacy Martin), and explains that she’d like tennis lessons for her 7-year-old son, Anton. Tom suggests his twice-weekly children’s group classes, but she insists on private lessons. Tom hesitates, then acquiesces, knowing that the French couple booked for the next day’s 9 a.m. slot rarely shows up.

 

Anne and Anton (Dylan Torrell) arrive on time, and Tom is impressed by the boy’s ability. Future bookings are made; on the next one, Tom meets Anne’s husband, Dave (Jack Farthing), quickly revealed to be a horse’s ass. Tom does the family a favor; Dave offers a cash thank-you, which Tom refuses. Instead, clearly liking Anne and Anton, Tom allows himself to be drawn into their island activities; he encourages as much, by spending a day touring them throughout Fuerteventura.

 

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice: Definitely unique

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (2026) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five); rated R, for drug use, frequent profanity and strong, bloody violence

Available via: Hulu

By Derrick Bang

File this one under Violent Guilty Pleasure.

 

That said, writer/director BenDavid Grabinski’s darkly comic crime thriller gets considerable mileage from star Vince Vaughn’s deadpan delivery of numerous quite funny lines. The dialogue also gets additional punch from the story’s wildly fanciful premise.

 

Nick (Vince Vaughn, foreground) contemplates his next move, while his companions
— from left, Alice (Eiza González), Mike (James Marsden) and Future Nick (Vaughn) —
try to decide what to do with him.

The result is an improbable love child between “Pulp Fiction” and “Back to the Future.”

Grabinski sets this saga during a single, body-strewn evening within The Organization, a contemporary criminal empire headed by no-nonsense Sosa (Keith David). As befits this genre, his gang members are known by descriptive names such as Roid Rage Ryan, Quick Draw Mike and Dumbass Tony.

 

Nick (Vaughn) and Mike (James Marsden), longtime buddies, have done Sosa’s dirty work for years.

 

Everybody has gathered in a swanky hotel to celebrate the return of Sosa’s beloved son, Jimmy Boy (Jimmy Tatro), just released from a six-year prison stretch. The festivities promise to stretch long through the night: beginning with a party that’ll be followed by an after-party, then an after-after-party, and finally an after-after-after-party. (Each becomes a titled chapter in this increasingly manic narrative.)

 

First, though, a prologue focuses on genius inventor Symon (Ben Schwartz), as he dashes between banks of computers, controls and mad-scientist displays, while bopping to Billy Joel’s “Why Should I Worry?”

 

Alas, Symon should have worried. He doesn’t last long, after an encounter with Nick.

 

At the party, Sosa has learned that Jimmy was set up, all those years ago, by a rat among their numbers: Mike. Sosa orders Nick to snatch Mike and hand him over to a stone-cold contract assassin known as The Barron, who has a reputation for (ahem) eating his victims after killing them.

 

Nick heads to room 801, where he knows Mike can be found. Nick cajoles him into an assignment, warning that they’re on a “tight schedule.” Mike briefly balks; he has had enough of this life of crime, and wants out. Just this one last thing, Nick insists.

 

They drive to a lovely home in a quiet neighborhood, where Nick hands Mike a rag and a bottle of chloroform, with which to subdue the guy inside.

 

Don’t hesitate, Nick emphasizes. Just do it.

 

Mike duly knocks on the door ... and is stunned when Nick opens it.

 

(By this point, sharp-eyed viewers will have noticed that Nick’s wardrobe keeps changing, back and forth.)

 

So ... what the heck?

 

A Magnificent Life: An animated charmer

A Magnificent Life (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five); rated PG-13, for occasional profanity, dramatic content and brief violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.29.26

Sylvain Chomet has made one of the most delightfully whimsical animated biopics you’re likely to see.

 

French novelist, playwright and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol — 1895 to 1974 — was an imaginative, forward-thinking Renaissance man in every sense of the term.

 

Whenever Marcel gets stuck, trying to extract a key event from long-ago memories, he's
assisted by a ghostly apparition of his adolescent self, who vividly recalls every detail.

In addition to being recognized as one of France’s greatest 20th century writers, he also was an early advocate of cinema upon seeing his first talkie, back in 1929. After coaxing Paramount Pictures to adapt his play Marius into what became one of the first French-language talkies, Pagnol founded his own film studio in 1932, where he often served as producer, financier, director, screenwriter, studio head, distributor and foreign-language script translator.

After shrewdly dismantling everything during World War II, in order to keep his work out of Nazi hands, in 1946 Pagnol became the first filmmaker elected to the prestigious Académie français.

 

And he wasn’t done yet, by any means.

 

Chomet continues to be remembered in this country for two marvelously imaginative animated films, 2003’s The Triplets of Belleville and 2010’s The Illusionist. Long an admirer of Pagnol, Chomet was delighted when asked by the man’s grandson, Nicolas Pagnol, to make a film based on Sylvain’s four-volume memoirs, published between 1957 and 1977 (the last one posthumously).

 

This film is the result: not quite full documentary, and not quite docudrama, propelled by a charming gimmick.

 

Events begin in 1956 Paris, as Pagnol (voiced by Laurent Lafitte) is approached by the editor-in-chief of a women’s magazine, who desires a literary serial that will recount the events of his childhood, his memories of early 20th century Provence, his first loves ... and everything else that captivated him, at the time.

 

Pagnol initially declines, musing “What’s the point of writing things, that people no longer wish to read?”

 

But that statement underestimates both the evocative, emotional power of his writing, and the degree to which he’s admired by the entire French population ... along with a rising fascination with the process of trying to recall all of his important moments and feelings.

Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger — Another gleeful underdog saga

Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five); Unrated, and suitable for all ages

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang

Back in 2023, director Chris Foggin’s delightful Bank of Dave depicted how England’s Dave Fishwick rose from a working-class bloke who parlayed his one-man car repair shop into Britain’s largest minibus supplier, and then — enraged by what the 2008 financial crisis did to ordinary folks — set up his own lending company.

 

After Dave Fishwick (Rory Kinnear, foreground) publicizes the predatory tactics of payday
lenders, they fight back in a way that drags him into court and threatens the existence of
his bank. His colleagues — from left, David (Pearce Quigley), Oliver (Amit Shah) and
Jessica (Chrissy Metz) — offer words of encouragement.

He vowed to do what bank CEOs had forgotten or ignored: to help people and do no harm.

Scripters Piers Ashworth and Clare Keogh shaded some events — it was a film, not a documentary — but the core jaw-dropping details were accurate. (Channel 4’s actual 2012 documentary is readily available via YouTube.)

 

But Fishwick wasn’t finished.

 

Foggin and Ashworth are back, with the just-released Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger, which delivers an equally entertaining and provocative account of what Fishwick did starting in 2013, after learning that some of his customers were being bled dry by the usurious interest charged by payday lending firms.

 

(We’re warned, as was the case with the first film, that this one’s narrative is “true-ish” at best.)

 

Rory Kinnear and Jo Hartley return as Dave and his wife, Nicky, who make the perfect team. Events kick off quickly, when — during a chat show — Dave hears from a caller who is being buried beneath crippling interest rates on a payday loan. 

 

He’s stunned to discover that the British government has done nothing about this predatory business model. Dave then allies himself with Oliver (Amit Shah), a Citizen’s Advice & Law Center counsellor who can lead him to numerous victims. 

 

But unlike Dave’s earlier battle, which was limited to British entities, he and Oliver learn that the two largest payday offenders — dubbed Quickdough and Snapcash Advance — are overseen by a dodgy wealthy American named Carlo Mancini (Rob Delaney). This prompts Dave to cajole Jessica (Chrissy Metz), a New York-based financial journalist, into joining them in his Lancashire home town of Burnley.

 

Their subsequent crusade runs into serious roadblocks. None of the victims is willing to testify in court, for fear of being slapped with even higher interest rates. And while interviewing such folks, Dave learns that both operations are run solely online ... meaning that there’s no physical place for borrowers to pay back in cash, even if they have the necessary amount.

 

That really annoys him ... but it also prompts the ingenious manner with which he decides to channel public outrage, social media being more of a force than it was, back in 2008.

War Machine: Badly built

War Machine (2026) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five); rated R, for profanity and strong, gory violence

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

Alan Ritchson can’t be blamed for parlaying his success on television’s Reacher into a bigger career, but he needs to be more selective.

 

Surely he can do better than director Patrick Hughes’ laughably ludicrous, hyper-violent sci-fi cartoon.

 

With an unstoppable, massive killing machine pursuing rapidly, Staff Sergeant 81
(Alan Ritchson) does his best to save himself and his badly injured companion
(Stephan James)

In fairness, Hughes and co-scripter James Beaufort establish a reasonably solid first act. A prologue, set in Kandahar, Afghanistan, introduces an unnamed Staff Sergeant (Ritchson), who arrives with a support team to help a broken-down convoy under the command of his younger brother (Jai Courtney). The two are tightly bonded, and discuss a long-ago promise to apply to the Army Ranger program.

That conversation doesn’t get far; the Americans are hit by Taliban insurgents, and everybody is killed except the Staff Sergeant.

 

Two years pass. The Staff Sergeant is among a large cluster of hopeful recruits who enter the Ranger Assessment Selection Program, at a Colorado training base supervised by Sergeant Major Sheridan (Dennis Quaid) and First Sergeant Torres (Esai Morales). Everybody is assigned a number, by which we know them from this point forward; the Staff Sergeant becomes 81.

 

He carries baggage, both physical — a lingering knee injury, inflicted during the Taliban strike — and mental. He’s withdrawn, and refuses to socialize with the others (perfect for Ritchson’s signature bottled-up emotions). He also suffers from PTSD nightmares, blaming himself for having failed to save his brother.

 

Some of 81’s fellow trainees stand out, starting with 7 (Stephan James), sensitive to this big guy’s issues, but with a perceptive gaze that suggests he knows something of the man’s past. 15 (Blake Richardson) is a wisecracking smart-mouth; 44 (Alex King) is a plucky young woman who keeps up with the guys.

 

That’s about it, in terms of development; Hughes and Beaufort don’t care enough to give any of these characters a back-story, or even much of a personality.

 

The training sessions are punishing, with Ritchson’s driven 81 often outdoing everybody else. But Sheridan and Torres worry about his mental state, and his refusal to accept a command position. As a “last chance,” they make him team leader during the final “death march” exercise: a simulated mission in the nearby mountainous forest.

 

Meanwhile, ongoing radio reports have described an asteroid-like object approaching Earth, then orbiting and breaking off into pieces.

The Choral: Makes beautiful music

The Choral (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five); rated R, for profanity and sexual candor

Available via: Apple TV+ and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.5.26

During an impressive partnership/friendship that goes back to 1994, director Nicholas Hytner and writer Alan Bennett have collaborated on four films: The Madness of King George, The History Boys, The Lady in the Van and this new one ... along with far more stage productions.

 

Ellis (Taylor Uttley, center left), Lofty (Oliver Briscombe, center right) and Mitch (Shaun
Thomas, far right) listen soberly as Clyde (Jacob Dudman) describes his war experience.

Both are BAFTA, Olivier and Tony Award winners, and their films are beloved by viewers and critics alike. The films are quintessentially British, depicting well-crafted characters who often just try to get by, while facing some sort of challenge, amid events beyond their control.

The Choral is no different. This period charmer was essentially lost earlier this year, amid the post-holiday crush of Academy Award contenders: another lamentably unsung film scarcely granted theatrical release before being shuttled to the purgatory of streaming services.

 

Because, honestly, how is one supposed to find such a film, amid the cacophony of streaming titles ... unless somebody calls attention to it?

 

Consider this such a call.

 

The year is 1916, the setting the small (fictitious), working-class Yorkshire mill town of Ramsden. The war with Germany has raged for two years, during which time the initially patriotic fervor has been replaced by resignation, worry and sorrow. Too many lives have been lost, with — as everybody now realizes — no end in sight.

 

The story opens as telegram boy Lofty (Oliver Briscombe) delivers the worst kind of news to families desperate for their boys’ safe return. He’s accompanied by best mate Ellis (Taylor Uttley), tagging alongside on his bicycle. Lofty is solemn and kind, well aware of the grim news he bears; Ellis is more lighthearted and jokey. But both exchange a telling glance each time a door opens to a woman who crumples upon seeing what Lofty holds.

 

Both boys are 17. Although the British army was all-volunteer during the war’s initial 18 months, earlier this year an Act of Parliament mandated conscription at age 18. Both boys thus are fully aware of what soon awaits them.

 

Alderman Bernard Duxbury (Roger Allam), who owns the mill, also is chairman of the local Choral Society. The group traditionally mounts an annual performance of J.S. Bach’s The St. Matthew Passion. But the war has drastically reduced the choral’s male section — and Duxbury’s work force — which, at one point, prompts a grim warning, “No mill, no music.”

 

Duxbury lost his only son to the war; his wife, Margaret (Eunice Roberts), has retreated into wordless grief, unwilling to abandon her black clothing. But Duxbury, carrying on, recognizes that encouraging the choral’s remaining singers and musicians to produce a concert far beyond their means grants purpose and camaraderie.

Project Hail Mary: Overcooked

Project Hail Mary (2026) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five); rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fleeting suggestive references

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.22.26

This sci-fi epic has much to admire: two nail-biting challenges woven into an unsettling premise; well-sculpted characters brought to life by a top-notch cast; sensational special effects; and occasional dollops of cheeky humor.

 

Alone aboard an interstellar starship, filled with unanswered questions concerning a
mission he doesn't fully remember, Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) is further surprised
by something entirely unexpected.

All of which are sabotaged, because co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller overwhelm everything with unrelenting blasts of Daniel Pemberton’s overloud score, with its bombastic droning synth and weird choral touches.

This pounding, so-called “music” pretty much ruins the film.

 

What the heck were Lord and Miller thinking?

 

In some ways, this film — adapted by Drew Goddard, from sci-fi author Andy Weir’s 2021 novel of the same title — feels like a third-generation descendent of 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. But director Stanley Kubrick knew how to use music ... and, more importantly, what kind of music, and when not to use it, thereby allowing the unfolding story to speak for itself.

 

Even so, this saga’s hook is a corker. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakens abruptly, and uncomfortably, in some sort of cocoon. After thrashing his way out, frightened by the autoboots attempting to help, he stumbles aboard what we realize is some sort of deep-space ship. But Grace has amnesia: no idea how he got here, and initially not even who he is. 

 

To make matters worse, he discovers that his only two shipmates — also cocooned — are dead, something having failed in their life-support system.

 

Grace is alone. And terrified.

 

His memory returns in fits and starts, establishing the many flashbacks that eventually supply answers; these continue to be intercut, throughout the entire film, with Grace’s ongoing present-day predicament.

 

He recalls being a junior high school science teacher, beloved by his students, one of whom hits him with an uncomfortable question. We thus learn of the “Petrova line” of particles radiating from our Sun to Venus, draining the former’s intensity. Unless something is done, the dimming heat will plunge Earth into a catastrophic ice age within 30 years.

 

Grace is approached by Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), accompanied by stern government types who include Carl (Lionel Boyce). Stratt, who introduces herself as the head of a multinational task force assembled to solve the problem, knows Grace’s back-story: He’s a brilliant molecular biologist blackballed after boldly insisting that one of his field’s leading researcher’s work is stuffed full of wild blueberry muffins.