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Flash Movie Review: The Killer’s Game
I KNEW TWO INDIVIDUALS, A FRIEND and an acquaintance, who chose to ignore their mortality. It was some time after they had received the news about their medical test results that I met them; so, if they acted differently prior to the news, I had no knowledge. My friend and I met at a party we were both attending. We had a similar sense of humor which made our conversation easy, which led us to hang out together. The acquaintance was a friend of a friend despite my friend wishing she could have more than just a platonic relationship with this guy. Both guys were extreme extroverts. My friend told me about his health status early in our relationship; the other guy never divulged his health status until it became obvious something was seriously wrong with him based on the physical changes taking place with his body. Over several months, my friend was acting more extreme and outrageous. If everyone was having a couple of cocktails at a party, he was having several until he was numb in the throes of drunkenness. I noticed the same behavior with the acquaintance. If there were drugs at a party, he was taking the most until he was either bouncing off the walls or falling asleep in mid-sentence. Both became heavy risk-takers. The friend’s friend got sicker and sicker until they died while walking down the street one night. My friend took a job offer out of state and no one ever heard from him again. So, I do not know if they are dead or alive. A DIFFERENT EXAMPLE OF A PERSON dealing with their own mortality was a relative of mine. After receiving their dire medical results, they chose not to do any treatments because they were known to have bad side effects. Instead, my relative chose to have a decent quality of life for as long as they could last. Being around them, one would never know something was wrong; they chose to enjoy every second of living, from meeting friends for dinner, to going to concerts, to hosting family events. Instead of ignoring their condition, they would acknowledge it whenever anyone asked how they were doing. I was in awe of her strength and commitment to enjoy everything they could while they were alive. A common phrase they would say is. “Don’t leave with any regrets.” If I were in a similar situation, where I was to receive negative health results, I would like to think that I would be strong and fight it. However, until one is in that situation, I honestly do not know if I have that inner strength to fight it to the best of my abilities. I for sure know I would not choose the option the main character did in this action, comedy, thriller. AFTER RECEIVING THE RESULTS OF HIS medical tests, a hired assassin decides to hire a hit on himself. When the assassins started going after his girlfriend, he had only one option, to protect her. With Dave Bautista (My Spy franchise, Glass Onion) as Joe Flood, Raffaello Degruttola (Rush, Unlocked) as Dr. Kagen, Sofia Boutella (Star Trek Beyond, Kingsman: The Secret Service) as Maize Arnaud, Ben Kingsley (Night Hunter, Sexy Beast) as Zvi Rabinowitz, and Antonia Desplat (Witchboard, Shantaram-TV) as Aimee; this film based on the book felt like a John Wick wannabe. However, I was pleasantly surprised that Dave’s character had a love interest because his imposing presence normally would not lead him to such roles. The action scenes were intense and there were multiple scenes with blood and violence. There really was nothing new about the story/script, but I still enjoyed watching it. There were a couple of times where I chuckled and other times where I cringed from the violence. The main draw for me was watching Dave and I was entertained by his and Sofia’s acting. There were multiple scenes of blood and violence throughout this film.
2 ½ stars
Flash Movie Review: Run All Night
I have learned never agree or add my opinion to someone who is in the middle of a rant about someone close to them. Let them carry on with their derogatory remarks, their name calling and variety of colorful adjectives; unless you know the history those two share, it will be better to be the thoughtful supportive friend. Time after time I have seen where the individual says whatever they want about the person; but when someone else utters a disparaging word they will scold them, telling them not to talk that way about their friend or relative. In a way it is sort of comical to me. Though I have to tell you, the thing that really gets me is when newscasters are reporting on a suspected criminal and they interview a relative of the suspect. More times than not the relative will say something positive about the suspect, like he was a good boy or she always got good grades in school. First of all what does that have to do with the crime? I hope this does not sound judgmental but I cannot imagine what it must feel like for a parent who has a child that brings them heartbreak or trouble. Even when that is the situation, there still is some truth to that saying, “Blood is thicker than water.” Liam Neeson (The Grey, Taken franchise) played Jimmy Conlon, an infamous mob hit-man. When his estranged son Mike, played by Joel Kinnaman (Safe House, RoboCop), was targeted by childhood friend and mob boss Shawn Maguire’s, played by Ed Harris (The Abyss, Snowpiercer); son Danny, played by Boyd Holbrook (A Walk Among the Tombstones, Gone Girl); Jimmy had no choice but to protect his son. This action, crime drama had some well done chases and fight scenes. There was one particular chase scene that was intense and well orchestrated with excitement and thrills. Liam was not too different from his past tough guy with killer skill roles, though he was a little more broken with this character. To be honest I felt it has really run its course; it is time for Liam to do something different. Besides Liam the other heavyweight in this film was Ed’s character. I so wished the writers would have given the two more screen time together because it would have made this a better film. After a while I started to get bored with the same things happening over and over again. If the script had been stronger this could have helped Liam avoid what has now become another of his movies that had a disappointing opening box office weekend. There were scenes with violence and blood in them.
2 stars
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