CHICAGO – In anticipation of the scariest week of the year, HollywoodChicago.com launches its 2024 Movie Gifts series, which will suggest DVDs and collections for holiday giving.
Guns
Fate of a Nation is Contemplated in ‘Fahrenheit 11/9’
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 22, 2018 - 8:22pm Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – You might think that “Fahrenheit 11/9,” the latest advocate documentary from provocateur Michael Moore, is all about Donald Trump and his diffident administration. But that’s not the whole thing, which is the strength of the film. Moore goes back to hometown Flint, Michigan, and other places in the USA, which exposes the symptoms rather than the Trump disease.
‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’ Didn’t Need the Spy Part
Submitted by PatrickMcD on August 2, 2018 - 8:39pm Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a film completely stolen by a supporting character, but Kate McKinnon in “The Spy Who Dumped Me” managed to do just that… which was fortunate because the “spy” part of the story is a seen-it-before kill and gun fest that felt like the first draft of a James Bond knock-off.
Tom Cruise in ‘American Made’ Never Gets Off the Ground
Submitted by PatrickMcD on September 29, 2017 - 9:24am Rating: 2.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Tom Cruise was once a Top Gun, but his newest film “American Made” never really takes off. It wants to be a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction kind of satire where commercial airline pilot Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) winds up getting involved in the Iran Contra Affair and the Medellín drug cartel, but it never creates an enthralling place or story.
'Free Fire' Knows That Happiness is a Warm Gun
Submitted by PatrickMcD on April 26, 2017 - 1:21pm Rating: 4.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – In a film that had a sassy, arbitrary perspective on its own flipped-out story, “Free Fire” sought to out-Quentin Tarantino in freaky funny characters and ammo-splurging gun battles. Director Ben Wheatley (“High-Rise”) took an ensemble cast to rarified heights of insult comedy, revenge dynamics and bullets that hit the bone.
‘xXx: Return of Xander Cage’ is Action as Phantasm
Submitted by PatrickMcD on January 20, 2017 - 10:23amRating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The true miracle of “xXx: Return of Xander Cage” – besides constantly breaking the law of physics – was making the sonorous line readings of Vin Diesel almost palatable. This over-the-top action fantastic turns up every implausibility dial to the red zone, but satisfactorily entertains.
‘The Purge: Anarchy’ Can’t Decide What it Wants to Be
Submitted by PatrickMcD on July 17, 2014 - 7:26pm Rating: 3.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – “The Purge: Anarchy” is a cake-and-eat-it film. On one hand there is a monotonous display of firepower, courtesy of a suspension of laws for one night a year, but it also wants to temper this lawlessness with indictments of government, the rich and the law itself.
