Frank grillo

  • Paradise Highway (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2022) How can such an interesting premise lead to something so dull? In Paradise Highway, Juliette Binoche plays a world-weary veteran trucker who gets mixed up in a sordid human trafficking ring. Much of the film takes place in dimly lit truck stops, open highways and run-down remnants of American infrastructure. Morgan Freeman plays a weary FBI agent without much energy, while Frank Grillo briefly shows up as well. It’s all shot in gritty, dirty, near-incidental style (except for the glamour shots reserved for the trucks driving down the highway). There are a few things that work, or at least deliver more than the strict minimum—the insider’s look at the life of a professional trucker, for instance, or the underbelly of criminality taking minors across state lines. But while writer-director Anna Gutto may have started with the best of intentions, the result at the end of the process feels like a dull underpowered uninteresting third-rate thriller. There’s little energy to Paradise Highway, almost no action whatsoever and (predictably) little humour to make it interesting. Some effort to build character and sympathy for the victim is admirable but ultimately wasted in a film that doesn’t have what it takes, either for a serious drama or for an exploitation thrill ride.

  • Shattered (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) Note to film producers tempted to add John Malkovich to a film simply to salvage the result: Malkovich remains merely human, and there’s a limit both to the number of films he can be in, and to the amount of work he can do to save an otherwise poor show. Shattered is a case in point, as not even his hammiest work in a disposable role can quite raise the result’s interest. Not only is the film unable to benefit from what could be called adequate production values, it starts with a terrible idea for a script. Yes, indeed, in this era where we’re getting increasingly conscious of the moral worthlessness of the utterly rich class, we are asked to sympathize with a robotic protagonist (Cameron Monaghan, maybe not acting) whose entire characterization is that he’s a multimillionaire. Taken hostage in his own isolated mountain house by a gold-digging woman (Lilly Krug) working with an accomplice (Frank Grillo! Woo!), he doesn’t show any redeeming quality by himself—alas, the film eventually puts both his ex-wife and his daughter in danger, which happens too late for us to care. Shattered isn’t without its exploitation elements—much of the first half-hour languishes over a naked woman and sex scenes, while the ending gets increasingly bloody and gory. But what’s missing is a reason to care: the protagonist (and his ex-wife, to a lesser extent) are ultra-privileged, the villains are out for filthy lucre and the supporting characters are fodder for kills designed to keep impatient audiences satiated until the blood-soaked finale. Malkovich himself plays an eccentric older man who almost comes in to save the day, but shows up 45 minutes before that would have been appropriate. You can guess what happens to would-be saviours who show up too early. The film, already on shaky ground before his exit, becomes even less interesting after. There are good thrillers to build on the gulf between haves and have-nots—but Shattered isn’t it, and it throws away its best asset as an afterthought.

  • This Is the Night (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2022) There’s plenty to admire in the idea of a filmmaker using the medium to deliver a semi-autobiographical period piece – it’s common enough in written fiction, but films are expensive enough to produce that it takes clout to be able to swing such a project. So, if writer-director James DeMonaco -fresh off the box-office returns of a few Purge movies- wants to take us back to 1982 Staten Island for a low-stake day-in-the-life coming-of-age family drama, the least we can do is being open-minded about it. Alas, there’s a limit to the amount of indulgence we can give to what This is the Night becomes. There is, certainly, a good sense of time and place to this take on May 28, 1982 – not so coincidentally the opening night of Rocky III, a cultural event which seems to bring the Italian-American borough to a frenzy. It’s against that landmark that the family drama is set, with overlapping stories about the male members of the Dedea family:  The youngest son has teen-movie issues with a crush and public humiliation; the older son has gender-conformity problems; and the father struggles to keep the mob at bay when his restaurant is in financial trouble. (The family also features a mom, played by Naomie Watts, but her only role is to be supportive of her elder son’s coming-out.)  This is not unpromising material, but various decisions made during the execution of This is the Night limit its effectiveness, starting with using such a milquetoast film as Rocky III as a cornerstone. Blending genres from silly implausible teen comedy to attempted sensitive trans-coming-out drama (in 1982 – but this film is hardly unique in imposing modern sensibilities to period pieces) doesn’t work on a tonal level, let alone confronted with the triumphant machismo of the milieu in which the story takes place. The movie’s screenwriting is often more puzzling than effective, with implausible scenes building on top of each other until there’s no mistaking DeMonaco’s overwhelming contrivances. Putting it bluntly, there are plenty of examples to show that while DeMonaco can deliver a commercial horror script, he doesn’t have the subtlety, sensitivity or wit to carry out something that doesn’t rest on a wildly implausible premise and a very indulgent teenage audience. But, hey, Frank Grillo gets to beat up a guy in the course of a single night so, at least, This is the Night isn’t too far away from DeMonaco’s Purge comfort zone. It isn’t a terrible film, but it fails at being good and ends up somewhere in suspicious mediocrity. There’s a much better movie to be made out of many of the bits and pieces brought together here, but it’s not going to come from DeMonaco himself.

  • The Gateway (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2022) In some ways, The Gateway is a solid, routine thriller—a man trying to save a woman and her daughter from an abusive ex-spouse, with a plot that devolves around drugs and organized crime. It’s just distinctive enough to avoid becoming undistinguishable from similar films. For one thing, our character (a solid performance from Shea Whigham) is not a super-powered operative: just a social worker, albeit one who acts as if he represented the full weight of the law—with enough complexities in the character’s backstory to make it a dramatically interesting role. Much of the film is gritty and unglamorous, presenting an interesting showcase for Olivia Munn to show up as the woman in need of help. Frank Grillo also stars, although as a supporting crime boss rather the kind of tough-guy protagonists he often plays. Much of The Gateway feels a bit too long and unfocused—with an action scene late in the film that suggests that the film has trouble finding a way between thriller and drama. Still, the result is slightly more interesting than your run-of-the-mill low-budget crime movie, simply because it looks at a familiar story through a slightly different protagonist.

  • Boss Level (2020)

    Boss Level (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, October 2021) It’s been interesting to see time-loop movies making a comeback, but being shaped by videogame tropes rather than philosophical considerations. Explicitly taking us where Edge of Tomorrow suggested, Boss Level wallows in familiar videogame metaphors, as it shows us the protagonist’s attempts to survive a looping day in which a group of assassins is sent to kill him. Directed by Joe Carnahan (whose latest films inevitably end up delayed by years) and headlined by the dependable Frank Grillo, Boss Level proves to be an energetic Science Fiction action comedy in which much of the dark comedy comes from the protagonist taking a decidedly casual approach to mortality after 140 brutal deaths. Bloody rather than gory (although I’d like to see far fewer decapitations in my comedies—zero being the ideal number), this is clearly for older audiences. There’s a bit of a lull in the action once the initial rush of establishing the situation goes by, although the film’s third-act display of sweetness is definitely deserved. The conclusion probably could have been stronger, but there’s some inventiveness in how the film structures itself through repetitive actions and gradual progress. (It’s also fun to see Michelle Yeoh in any role, even small ones.)  Grillo’s been hovering near the edges of A-level filmmaking for a while and may get there if he keeps taking on such roles and doing a good job with them. Carnahan, meanwhile, continues to show why he’s one of the most undeservedly underused directors in the business, with another distinctive, funny, fast action comedy in the footsteps of Stretch and other distinctive films. Boss Level amounts to a fine action movie with enough SF and comic elements to make it worth remembering.

  • The Purge: Election Year (2016)

    The Purge: Election Year (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2017) Every successive film in The Purge series has done better justice to the concept of its premise. Unfortunately, every successive film’s impact has also been blunted by our familiarity with the series, to the point where The Purge: Election Year almost does justice to the enduringly dumb premise, but it still feels like a re-hash given that we’ve seen the first two films anyway. While it flirts with heavier political ideas than the previous film, it undercuts its own material by bringing in quasi-religious snippets that feel tired and cartoonish. Still, the emphasis here remains on the heroes living through the night, blending high and low society in-between a presidential candidate, a shopkeeper and a notorious EMT whose backstory remains blessedly obscure. Frank Grillo’s character returns, but the links between this and the previous installment remain tenuous. Elizabeth Mitchell and Betty Gabriel both make good impressions, but this remains a premise-centric show with a horror film’s fondness for gruesome set-pieces. Exactly the kind of movie that’s dulled by too-frequent repetition. I’m neither too enthusiastic nor too critical of The Purge: Election Year, but it’s a good thing I didn’t watch all three films back-to-back-to-back, otherwise I’m not sure I’d like it as much. This being said, mark me down a nominally interested in a remake ten years from now, but only on the condition that it actually explores some of the ideas of The Purge in greater details and consistency than what we’ve seen so far.