D. J. Caruso

  • Redeeming Love (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) If ever you find yourself wondering what the heck kind of gosh-darned film Redeeming Love is supposed to be, don’t worry: there are plenty of explanations to offer. The biggest piece of the puzzle is that it’s not only an adaptation of a novel, but a novel that explicitly attaches itself to the Christian romance subgenre. As such, it’s prone to tropes that may feel baffling to viewers who aren’t immersed in American Biblical/Christian subculture. The first few moments of the film may lead you to believe that it’s a hard-hitting feminist fable about the exploitation of women during the Gold Rush—but no: suffering is how this subgenre builds character, and the protagonist’s arc is to go from sinner to saint. You may have your doubts about the man who virtuously takes it upon himself to rescue her from the fate as a whorehouse star yet ensures that she can leave at any time—but no, he is the Anti-Manic Anti-Pixie Anti-Dream Anti-Girl but he is the pretext she needs in order to become more virtuous. As Redeeming Love’s episodes accumulate and zig-zag all over the place, a few things will become clearer: The film is dearly in love with itself, for one thing. For another, it should have been a miniseries. Or, for a third, it should have taken far more liberties with the source material. Still, the biggest surprise here is to see that D. J. Caruso co-wrote (with the original author) and directed the film—Caruso is nowhere as bankable or well-known as he was in the late-2000s for directing a few well-received thrillers, and it’s a surprise to see him work in the Christian subgenre. Also surprising, but welcome: Famke Janssen’s deliciously evil performance as a brothel madam, against whom the leads of the film are not even worth mentioning. The technical credentials of the film are pretty good, and Caruso can still capture an image nicely. Unfortunately, Redeeming Love is built on a quicksand foundation—unlikable female lead, objectified male lead, bits and pieces of sexual abuse, incest and pedophilia thrown in the mix for thrills, a tone that shifts every fifteen minutes, and some really weird quirks that make no sense until you find out it’s from the Christian publishing enclave at which point you go—oh, right. Not everything makes sense, but at least there’s an explanation.

  • xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017)

    xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) Sometimes, you don’t fully appreciate what you’ve got until it goes away, and that’s a bit how I feel about xXx: Return of Xander Cage considering that it’s a blatant throwback to the kind of silly overblown action movie that they were making in the early 2000s with the original xXx and xXx: State of the Union. Those movies kind of went away while we weren’t looking, replaced by grittier, meaner, shakier but not necessarily better Bourne knockoffs. And now here are Vin Diesel and xXx: Return of Xander Cage, unapologetically renewing with the style and content of the first two films. Our xXx hero, as it turns out, never died despite misinformed reports to the contrary: He just travelled around the world and stands ready to be reluctantly recruited once more when hacky-wacky mumbo-jumbo stuff needs fixing once again. However, this time he gets to team up with slightly-less grandiose archetypes in order to fight for freedom and all that good stuff. So it is that we don’t just get Vin Diesel, but the always-watchable Ruby Rose as a sharpshooter, action sensation Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev in a very cute nerdy-girl role, Toni Colette and Samuel L. Jackson walking on and off the screen to make sure the plot mechanics are set up properly, and none other than Ice Cube back in a return engagement through an absolutely classic introduction featuring his own music. If you’ve read this far without realizing that xXx: Return of Xander Cage is not a great movie, I question your attentiveness. It is, however, an increasingly enjoyable film especially if you saw its predecessors. Diesel and Cube both try to out-surly each other, while the supporting cast knows that they’re not going for subtlety. The action sequences are just fine thanks to director D. J. Caruso’s competency with the form. (It had been a while since he helmed good genre movies; it’s good to have him back.) Of course, the conscious decision to ape the original film’s methods means that xXx: Return of Xander Cage does feel like a throwback to 10–15 years ago. But there’s no school like the old school, and as a fan of that particular era of action filmmaking, I truly had unexpected fun watching it all happen again. I’m not necessarily demanding another sequel, but I’d be good with it.