Monday, March 18, 2013

'Spring Breakers' and 'Reality' Disappoint, but 'The Call' is a Genuine Surprise

So, that headline sort of sums it up. Brad Anderson's "The Call," a creepy and well crafted B thriller, is the surprise winner of this week's cinematic lottery.

The picture proves that Halle Berry can still carry a movie and it's a pretty solid little genre film, despite that it often requires some pretty significant leaps of faith on behalf of the viewer.

The week's semi-well received indies - Harmony Korine's "Spring Breakers" and Matteo Garrone's "Reality" - were both letdowns, if not exactly failures.

Korine's film had energy to spare and a completely bonkers performance by James Franco. But the film felt too unfocused and, often, repetitive. It's worth a look for hardcore moviegoers and those who like their cinema a little on the, shall we say, bizarre side. But it didn't exactly work for me.

And Garrone's "Reality" starts out pretty well, easing into its "The King of Comedy" scenario until, towards its end, it just sort of, well, ends. It's not a bad film, but it's a far cry from Garrone's 2008 gangster movie "Gomorrah."

Here are my Patch reviews.

This coming weekend, I'm going to see "Admission" and "Olympus Has Fallen."

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