Posts Tagged ‘Jovan Adepo’

To Catch a Killer

Director: Damian Szifron

Cast: Shailene Woodley , Ben Mendelsohn, Ralph Ineson, Jovan Adepo, Jason Cavalier, Rosemary Dunsmore, Mark Camacho

Running Time: 1 hour and 59 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

PLEASE NOTE THIS FILM MIGHT ALSO BE KNOWN AS MISANTHROPE

IN OTHER WORLD TERRITORIES.

Argentinian Oscar winning director of Wild Tales, Damian Szifron directs his first English Language film: a murky and bloody detective story, To Catch a Killer starring Golden Globe nominee Shailene Woodley (The Descendants, Big Little Lies) as a rookie cop Eleanor Falco in Baltimore, Maryland who teams up with veteran FBI investigator Lamar, brilliantly played with a maverick style flair by Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom, The Dark Knight Rises).

The pair team up with an arsonist investigator Mackenzie played by Babylon star Jovan Adepo when a lone marksman shoots 29 people dead in various Baltimore skyscrapers on New Year’s Eve.

The Trio upon increasing pressure from the FBI and city authorities are racing against time to find the perpetrator before another massacre occurs. That happens very soon in a city shopping mall, whereby the suspected killer is cornered in a food court and resorts to extreme violence to escape.

To Catch a Killer is a relevant film to watch at the time when America is experiencing its worse wave of gun violence in US history, with mass killings happening on a weekly basis in almost every state of the country. This film asks relevant questions. Why should individuals with severe mental illness or disabilities be allowed to carry heavy guns and deadly rifles? Why aren’t the laws in America strict enough? It’s a complex issue for a country of that size whereby the gun laws differ from state to state.

As a film, Szifron keeps the cinematic palette dark and saturated with murky colours adding a sombre ambience to a film about death and mass killings. Fortunately both Shailene Woodley and Ben Mendelsohn are talented actors to keep this distressing detective film engaging and thrilling. The best scenes in the film are between the two main leads.

Woodley is superb as the recovering drug addict turned investigator and Mendelsohn is excellent as the flamboyant lead detective on a prolific case which ultimately consumes his personal and professional life.

To Catch a Killer has enough plot twists to keep audiences guessing and when the killer is finally revealed, his blandness and ordinary status as an ex-abattoir worker makes his final confession even more chilling and psychopathic. In this case, the banality of evil is done for its own sake without any moral justification or redemption.

This film highlights the epidemic of gun violence currently sweeping America, the role that the media plays in this and the devastating personal cost which happens to the victims who are senselessly murdered and to the survivors that are traumatically left behind.

As Lamar says to Eleanor at the film’s beginning, “Opinions never caught anyone, but good detective works does”.

To Catch a Killer is an exciting but bleak look at gun violence, microscopic detective work and the toll that mass killings takes on a society. The film gets a rating of 7 out of 10 and will appeal to audiences that enjoy a gritty American detective story.

Babylon

Director: Damien Chazelle

Cast: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Jean Smart, Diego Calva, Jovan Adepo, Lukas Haas, Tobey Maguire, Samara Weaving, Katherine Waterston, Eric Roberts, Max Minghella, Li Jun Li

Running Time: 3 hours and 9 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Warning: This film is extremely explicit featuring graphic violence, nudity, drug use and scenes that will upset sensitive viewers.

Set between 1926 and 1932, as Hollywood was transitioning between the silent film era into talkies or films with sound, Whiplash and La La Land director Damien Chazelle makes his boldest, bravest film yet: Babylon.

The lavish Babylon is a Feliniesque epic set in Hollywood in the early days during this fascinating transition whereby Chazelle chooses to shock his audience with the absolutely debauched and decadent party scene in the opening sequence, introducing his three main characters, silent screen stars Jack Conrad, Nellie LaRoy and producer Manny Torres played respectively by Oscar winner Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Oscar nominee Margot Robbie (I, Tonya, Bombshell) and the impressive newcomer Mexican actor Diego Calva amidst a drunken orgy featuring elephants, dead starlets and absolute chaos.

The eye-catching opening of Babylon is followed by some amazing set pieces of directors and actors trying to make silent films including an expansive medieval battle sequence which goes horribly wrong. Massive crowd sequences are cleverly orchestrated to the brilliant jazzy musical score of Oscar winner and frequent collaborator Justin Hurwitz (La La Land) who should win again for his inventive score.

Behind the lavish parties and the crazy antics involving rattlesnakes in the desert is Damien Chazelle’s love and hate relationship with Hollywood in which he does not hold back in showing the extremely dark and violent underbelly of the City of Angels in a very bizarre scene featuring Tobey Maguire involving a dungeon, an alligator and some SM dwarves.

Despite all the debauchery, there are some superb scenes particularly between the frenetic, tough as nails Nellie LaRoy and the passionate Manny Torres and between the suave Jack Conrad and Hollywood gossip columnist Elinor St John played by Jean Smart.

There are repeated scenes of the main characters buying movie tickets and going into a packed cinema which is an allegory of how scriptwriter and director Chazelle feels about the next seismic shift in film entertainment, streaming which is threatening the viability of cinemas as a palace of enjoyment, as a collective experience of an audience watching their favourite stars onscreen.

Damien Chazelle wants the cinema ritual to continue even though he repels and delights his audience simultaneously in this shocking and brave allegorical epic about the changes in the entertainment industry brought about recently by streaming services.

Set almost 100 years ago, Babylon is a cinephile’s film, a tribute to cinema goers and film enthusiasts but unlike Steven Spielberg’s glossy The Fabelmans, Babylon is a Ken Russell inspired orgy of a film featuring brilliant performances by Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt and Diego Calva. There are lots of cinematic gems in this film, which you can look for in between the chaos, the predators and the debauchery.

The production and costume design is stunning and Babylon despite its length should get acknowledged for this effort.

This epic 1920’s film is a sensuous simulacrum of Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, Fellini’s Satyricon (1969) and Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Love it or loathe it, Babylon is an exceptionally daring homage to cinema and gets a film rating of 8 out of 10. See it for the visual spectacle.

Fences

Director: Denzel Washington

Cast: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, Mykelti Williamson, Stephen Henderson

Viola Davis gives a career defining performance in Fences, the big screen adaptation of the Pulitizer Prize winning play by August Wilson directed and starring Oscar winner Denzel Washington (Training Day, Glory). Davis whose previous credits include The Help, Eat, Pray, Love and Doubt recently won all the major acting awards including the Golden Globe, the Bafta and the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress at the 89^th Academy Awards in February 2017.

Her performance in Fences is a testament to her immense talent. Davis plays Rose Maxson opposite Denzel Washington as Troy Maxson, a 1950’s African American garbage collector in Pittsburgh who punishes his sons for his own failed dreams.

Denzel Washington inhabits the screen in his larger than life portrayal of Troy, the Pittsburgh patriarch who is intent on demonstrating how hard he has worked to keep his family together, only to reveal far deeper character flaws and underlying fragility which comes out in the play’s stunning second act.

Troy’s sons Lyons and Cory, played by Russell Hornsby and Jovan Adepo are continually chided for pursuing their own dreams. Lyons, a son from Troy’s first relationship wants to be a jazz musician while the teenage Cory wonderfully played by Adepo is constantly held back from participating in the city’s football league merely because his father’s dreams of becoming a major football player were dashed at a young age.

Wilson carefully scripts the conflict scenes between Troy and Cory as they clash over ambition, careers and what is holding them back. Fences is about a working class African American family held together by Rose, as the mother figure who has to contend with all this male egotism and bravado, only to stoically continue when she is unforgivably betrayed.

Like all films based on plays, the action is limited to the Maxson’s house  and backyard where domestic clashes are played out in brilliant dialogue which requires exceptional acting capabilities. When Rose discovers a serious transgression of Troy, her security is shattered and her devotion to her husband is undoubtedly brought into question, causing a significant rift between Troy and Cory who cannot forgive his father for what he has done to his mother.

Directed by Denzel Washington and featuring brilliant performances by the entire cast, Fences is a superb film adaptation of an American classic elevating the lives of ordinary working class people to extraordinary clarity amidst a time when historically America was transforming through the significant Civil Rights movement. When JFK and Martin Luther King heralded a new decade in American politics defined by radical change and constant upheaval.

When the youth especially Cory and Lyons start questioning the wisdom of their parents decisions and more specifically their spectacular mistakes. Audiences should watch out for a particularly outstanding performance by Mykelti Williamson (Forest Gump, Heat, Con Air) as Troy’s disabled brother Gabriel.

Washington and Davis are electrifying as husband and wife and their screen time is a cinematic gem. Fences is highly recommended viewing, a brilliant film made all the more exceptional by Viola Davis’s unparalleled performance, in which she deserved every award bestowed upon her. Fences gets 9 out of 10.