Review: No Exit

Image courtesy of Hulu.

"No Exit" is the type of low budget thriller that studios once used to gamble on frequently, but now only appear from time to time in theaters. Originally, the picture - a brisk thriller set primarily in one location - was headed for theatrical release, but has now landed instead on Hulu, most likely to make room for the 10 screens per theater required for any Marvel movie or other previously existing property that has been rebooted.

The film bears some resemblance to the 2003 film "Identity," in which a room full of strangers find themselves embroiled in a mystery. However, in "No Exit," there's only one character who's sleuthing - Darby (Havana Rose Liu), a drug addict whom we first meet in a recovery program. She gets a call from a sister that their mother is dying in a hospital, and when she tries to leave the program her doctor believes it is merely her latest ruse to get out of going through the recovery process.

She manages to break out, but gets caught in a blizzard that leaves her stranded with four others in a secluded visitors center in the middle of nowhere. Shortly after she arrives there, she notices a young girl tied up in a van who has seemingly been kidnapped. Darby thinks she has the kidnapper pegged, but makes a mistake that leads to a tense standoff between the kidnapper(s) and those who aren't in on the scheme.

For a single-setting scenario, "No Exit" does a decent amount with its limited resources. On the one hand, not a lot of time is spent on trying to keep the identity of the kidnapper(s) hidden, and the picture focuses more on how Darby and those who she can trust - which provides for a few twists during the course of the film - try to outwit the villains.

Dennis Haysbert and Dale Dickey (of "Winter's Bone") lend some considerable weight to the proceedings as a couple who has also found themselves stranded during the snowstorm, while Liu gives a solid performance as Darby, the typical heroine with a flaw - in these types of films, there's often a hero with a troubling past who's trying to be redeemed.

This is the type of film you'll likely enjoy more if you are willing to suspend your disbelief a fair amount and not expect much more than the standard thriller tropes. In other words, it doesn't go out of its way in terms of creativity or breaking the mold. It ends on a grim, bloody note, but it's otherwise a film that lays heavy on the suspense and buildup, which isn't a bad thing - mainstream thrillers of this old school variety come fewer and further between these days. 

"No Exit" is by no means a great movie - and, at times, it verges on being a little silly - but those seeking entertainment in which you can take off the thinking cap for a while could do far worse than this.

Review: The Worst Person In The World

Image courtesy of Neon.

An old saying goes, "Life is what happens to us when we are busy making other plans." In the case of Julie (Renate Reinsve), life is what happens when she's busy overthinking her life. The film is the third in Joachim Trier's unofficial Oslo trilogy - which also includes "Reprise" and "Oslo, August 31st" - and is the best of the bunch, and possibly also the best film by the director to date.

The film's protagonist, Julie, is at one of those moments in which she's waiting for her life to officially begin, as the young tend to do. Having recently turned age 30, she notes, "I feel like a spectator in my own life." When we first meet her, she is in medical school, but quickly decides she'd rather be a psychologist than a doctor who operates on patients. Then, suddenly - and to her mother's surprise, she decides she wants to be a photographer. However, she ends up working in a bookstore.

Her love life isn't any more organized. At the film's beginning, she's involved with a guy whom we barely meet because, suddenly, she finds herself in a relationship with a comic book artist named Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) who's just shy of 15 years older than she is. Near the beginning of the picture, she goes to spend a weekend at a secluded and scenic getaway spot for Aksel's family. Julie feels that her presence there is awkward, and the abundance of children present lead to some arguments between Julie and Aksel about whether they want any kids of their own. The clock is ticking for Aksel, but Julie is still young enough to ponder.

Just when it seems as if life has settled down, Julie - much to Aksel's surprise - drops a bomb on him: She wants out of the relationship for seemingly no other reason than that settling down seems to bother her. It also doesn't help that, shortly before, she met another guy - the tall, lanky Eivind (Herbert Nordrum) - at a party she crashed, where the two of them spend the evening "not cheating." This entails them whispering secrets to each other and sitting in one another's company as they use the bathroom, but no physical contact.

Eivind also has a significant other - a woman deeply ingrained with every initiative possible to save the world whose yoga practices end up becoming the film's funniest joke - but when he runs into Julie again at the bookstore where she works, it seems like kismet. She breaks it off with Aksel in a particularly painful scene and gets involved with Eivind. Their adventures include a trippy sequence in which she stumbles upon his stash of magical mushrooms and, perhaps, gets a little out of control in front of some guests.

The film's piece de resistance is a magical moment midway through when Julie wanders into the kitchen to find Aksel pouring the coffee - this is shortly before their break up - and turns on a light, somehow making him freeze in mid-action. She wanders outside to find everyone frozen. She runs through the streets and heads to the coffee shop where Eivind, her soon-to-be new lover, awaits. He's the only other person not frozen in action, so the two share a kiss and spend the day together. When she returns home, Aksel unfreezes and they resume where they were.

Trier's film does a great job exploring what it's like to be at that age when one's expectations can lead to restlessness and, in some cases, recklessness. No longer in her 20s, Julie puts all sorts of pressure on herself - shouldn't she know by now what she wants to do with her life? Shouldn't she have a career path marked out? Shouldn't she have by now met the person she wants to spend her life with? Shouldn't she be thinking of having kids? Shouldn't she have some stability?

This feeling that she's wasting her promise makes Julie an interesting character, not just an impulsive one. The relationships in the film are also compelling. On the one hand, her life with Aksel seems, at times, safe and staid, which obviously bugs Julie - but there's a scene late in the film in which she visits him during a particularly challenging moment, long after they've broken up, and it's easy to see why their rapport kept them together for so long. The relationship between Julie and Eivind is looser and there's more room to breathe, but this quickly begins to grate on her nerves.

Despite some very sad moments late in the picture, it ends on a hopeful note for Julie, who learns the value of another old adage: "The race is long, and in the end it is only with yourself." Trier's film is an engrossing, frequently funny and just as often moving film about trying to put one's expectations aside and just getting along with the business of living.

Review: Death On The Nile

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.

Released hot on the heels of Kenneth Branagh's lovely and acclaimed "Belfast," the director's adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile" (which was previously made into a movie in 1978) follows his 2017 adaptation of the author's "Murder on the Orient Express" (previously made into a film in 1974). In other words, the film - which was supposed to have been released some time ago - is meant to capitalize on the director's possible Oscar winner.

Much like the 2017 "Orient Express," this latest Hercule Poirot (once again played by Branagh) mystery didn't likely need an update, but it's an amiable enough mystery with exotic locales, a solid cast and a few twists and turns, although it's not too hard to figure out who the murderer is early on and why they've turned to crime. 

At the film's beginning, Poirot happens to be in Egypt, where he runs into an old friend, Bouc (Tom Bateman, reprising his "Orient Express" role), and his mother, Euphemia (an acerbic Annette Bening). Poirot witnesses some romantic drama play out in the background as a dashing man (Armie Hammer) seemingly ditches a woman to whom he was engaged (Emma Mackey) and makes advances toward a rich heiress (Gal Godot), to whom he is quickly betrothed.

Godot's character says she doesn't trust the smorgasbord of characters - which includes the aforementioned as well as a musician (Sophie Okonedo), her daughter (Letitia Wright), a lawyer cousin of the heiress (Ali Fazal), an ex-lover and doctor (a surprisingly understated Russell Brand), a personal maid (Rose Leslie) and a godmother (Jennifer Saunders) with a traveling assistant (Dawn French) - who are in attendance and asks Poirot to join a trip down the Nile on a boat with these characters to celebrate her marriage.

Shortly after a trip to a pyramid - complete with a sandstorm - almost ends in death, a character is found murdered aboard the boat. Several other deaths follow and, of course, Poirot finds himself on the case, questioning each of the characters and lingering on why any one of them might have had a reason to commit murder. While these scenes are enjoyable enough, they are somewhat rote.

One element of the picture that gives it a little more meat than its predecessor is a flashback scene at the film's beginning in black and white in which a young Poirot makes a suggestion in the trenches of World War I that leads to a military success, but also a love affair and a permanent scarring. For much of the film's running time, you might wonder why this incident is shown, despite its adding a little more background to Poirot's character, but it once again is referenced in the finale in a satisfying manner.

"Death on the Nile" doesn't stray too much from exactly what one might expect of a big budget period piece murder mystery featuring a famous detective, but it's an enjoyable enough example of one. Just as Branagh's "Orient Express" remake didn't exactly improve upon Sidney Lumet's original, neither does this "Death on the Nile" contain too much in the way of major surprises. It's a well-crafted studio picture that is satisfied with being exactly what it advertises. 

Review: KIMI

Image courtesy of HBO Max.

Director Steven Soderbergh has been on a bit of a tear recently. His "Let Them All Talk" was an acting showcase for a great cast and last year's "No Sudden Move," a crime drama period piece with a little more than thrills up its sleeve, was his best in, perhaps, two decades. He's back already with another film, "KIMI," and it's the type of slow burn thriller that takes a little while - but at 86 minutes, not too long - to get where it's going, but pays off in a really entertaining way.

In terms of plot, it's somewhat simplistic, although I'm not exactly sure I can explain the various technological aspects of it. An agoraphobic young woman living in Seattle named Angela (Zoe Kravitz, very good) spends her days in front of a computer screen filtering through what could best be described as "errors in communication" for a tech company with a revolutionary product known as KIMI, which is essentially a voice-activated device that can do everything for you involving anything that can be controlled technologically.

From brief glimpses of her day-to-day existence, we know that Angela's mother (Robin Givens) wants her daughter to do more with her life (preferably outside of her apartment, which she has left infrequently; first, due to an "incident" that traumatized her, and then second because of COVID-19). Her shrink believes that she's slinking away from facing her problems, while her dentist is frustrated that she won't leave the house to have an abscessed tooth dealt with. She has somewhat of a fling going on with a guy (Byron Bowers) who lives in a building across the street, but they only see each other when he comes to her apartment.

While filtering through files one day, Angela stumbles upon what appears to be an audio clip of a woman accusing a man of rape, and him making threats toward her. She does some research with the aid of a Romanian computer whiz - in the film's one slightly unbelievable turn of plot - and discovers that the man involved in the audio had the woman killed by a pair of for-hire assassins.

As it turns out - and I don't believe this constitutes a spoiler warning - the man plays somewhat of a role in Angela's existence, and her attempts to bring this fact to the attention of a higher-up at the company where she works named Chowdury (Rita Wilson) has some frightening consequences.

As I'd mentioned, the film is a slow burn thriller. It's not until about a third of the film's short running time has passed that we get to the instigating incident that sets everything in motion. From there, it moves at a leisurely pace before becoming a fast-paced nail biter in the final third. There's some foreshadowing early in the picture when Angela has a conversation - on the phone, of course - with a guy who's renovating the apartment above her as to where Angela might turn in a pinch when being pursued by some corporate villains. All I can say is, the finale has some real payoff.

For a while, Soderbergh played the Hollywood game and made some big budget studio films that drew acclaim and made some money - most notably, his "Ocean's 11" series. But at heart, he's a director who likes to experiment. In recent years, he has made comedies ("Magic Mike"), heist films ("Logan Lucky") and horror movies ("Unsane") that include typical elements of their genre, while also giving them a spin that sets them apart from the expectations one might have for those genres. Some of his best films - "Traffic," "Out of Sight" and "No Sudden Move" especially - involve crime stories. "KIMI" involves a number of the various elements one might find in a Soderbergh film.

After an announced retirement from film some years back, Soderbergh returned and he's been cranking out films with a vengeance - although most of them have been on streaming platforms. His recent work has been of especially high quality. 

"KIMI" likely has something to say about corporate greed and the dangers of technology that can spy on you, but here they mostly play second fiddle to a Hitchcockian story of an ordinary - or, in this case, eccentric - character who has stumbled upon a conspiracy. And that's perfectly fine because the film is a lean, mean and very effective thriller.

Review: Bigbug

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Much like Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton, French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a filmmaker whose pictures are often elaborate fantasies in which every frame is filled with images that couldn't be mistaken for the work of any other director. And much like those directors, Jeunet's body of work has seen its hits and misses. At his best, Jeunet's work can be bizarre concoctions like "Delicatessen" or "The City of Lost Children" or, his career high,  the dazzling romantic comedy "Amelie."

So, I'm disappointed to say that his latest and first feature in a decade, "Bigbug," is not in that same company. The film is bursting with the manic energy and quirks one might expect in a Jeunet film, but it's missing something - perhaps, a reason for being or characters to whom we can relate. Instead, it settles on broad farce and is strangely confined to a setting that becomes less compelling as time wears on.

The film is set at some point in the future, and people have become so accustomed to living with robots that when the androids begin to take over, they hardly seem to notice. In the film, Elsa Zylberstein is a woman who has invited her new boyfriend (Stephane De Groodt) and his teenage son (Helie Thonnat) for dinner, where they meet her teenage daughter (Marysole Fertard).

However, her ex-husband (Youssef Hajdi) and his new lover/secretary (Claire Chust) happen to drop by while on their way to a tropical vacation. Add to the mix a neighbor (Jeunet regular Isabelle Nanty) who comes searching for her cloned dog. Zylberstein's character has a live-in robotic maid (Claude Perron) and several other smaller robots who help with household chores.

Just as all of these characters have assembled in the home, it becomes apparent - via images seen on TV - that robots have taken over the government, and humans are being made to be subservient. To continuously emphasize this point, we witness clips of some type of vapid reality show in which humans must debase themselves at the behest of their robotic overlords.

For much of the film's running time, the stakes seem pretty low - the air conditioning won't come on, then once it does the humans suffer near Arctic temperatures; then, the various assortment of humans in the home bicker over their relationships and try to figure a way out of the home, which has locked them all in. The drama finally increases when a sinister male robot shows up to inspect their home, and the humans must use their wits to foil him.

Some of Jeunet's previous films were particularly involving, such as the wartime drama "A Very Long Engagement" or the lovely, bursting-with-energy romance "Amelie." One of the biggest problems with "Bigbug" is that the group of people who are all stuck in the house are various shades of irritating. In some cases - especially the ditzy secretary character - this is obviously intentional. Also, their various dramas aren't that compelling.

The one element that saves "Bigbug" slightly is Jeunet's frenetic visual style and occasional bursts of absurd humor, though as a farce the picture doesn't exactly say anything new about our enslavement to technology or tackle it in a manner that's particularly clever. 

While "Bigbug" may not be a bad film, it's merely an example of a filmmaker with singular abilities not using them on material that rises to his talent level. It's been a while since we've seen a Jeunet film - and, hopefully, we'll see another before long that's better than this one.