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thomascoker
Reviews
Double Jeopardy (1999)
This woman is too stupid to be left alive.
This movie is almost unwatchable. Every decision that she makes is almost incomprehensible. Do yourself a favor and watch literally any other movie with these actors.
Tusk (2014)
Trust your instincts.
At first blush, this movie looks like a waste of time. It's been out for five years, and I keep putting it off. I've been told over and over from a hundred different sources how weird and different and interesting it is, and I finally broke down and watched it. Imagine my shock when it turns out to be a complete waste of time.
It's competently filmed, reasonably acted, and an utter mess. The tone is all over the place, the writing is atrocious, there isn't a single functioning joke in the whole thing, nor any true horror. If you're trying to decide whether to watch this movie, trust your instincts. Watch something else.
16 Blocks (2006)
Pleasantly surprised.
The plot is one you've seen a hundred times before, and the token twists and turns are a little predictable if you're familiar with the genre.
That said, it's elevated by subtlety in a way that I almost thought was accidental the first few times. It's a movie that doesn't beat you over the head with how clever they think they're being. The Chekhov's Gun is a container of breath mints, and a little rattle is all it takes to tie a neat little bow on the story while not feeling blatant or overplayed.
***MINOR SPOILER***
I dropped my cynical attitude about this movie about a half hour in, when an extended action sequence drops off our pair of protagonists in an apartment where it is implied that someone important to Bruce Willis's character lives without him. Willis directs Mos Def to the bathroom, reminding him to put the seat up. This small nod to the idea that this burned out drunk still cares about someone is undercut when Def mentions that the seat is already up. Then the scene moves on. They don't dwell on it to make a point, they just drop a hint, let you make a few assumptions, and let the story keep rolling.
For a medium-budget, dime-a-dozen cop flick, this movie boasts some pretty above-average writing and direction with passable performances by all the main players. If you're looking for a way to kill a couple hours, you could certainly do worse than 16 Blocks.
Borderless (2019)
Surprising and Effective
Southern has a tremendous achievement with her second major documentary. If anyone can watch this documentary without being perched on the edge of their seat, they should be declared legally dead.
Southern gets out of the way of the story unfolding, and lets despairing refugees, human traffickers, and corrupt executives tell the tale in their own words. Whatever your best or worst intentions, the places that Borderless takes you will surprise you.
As a long-standing critic of Southern and the provocatively conservative viewpoints with which she was long aligned, I anticipated a bent and biased narrative, intertwined with a few disturbing facts to keep things grounded. I was wrong.
Borderless takes a compassionate but realistic look at what can only be described as a crisis forming at the edges of the Western world. Any argument that we're currently engaged in the most humane solution is crippled by the experiences of Turks, Gambians, Afghans, and many, many more.
If you don't let yourself see the truth of a sad and violent world that Borderless exposes, you're doing yourself a true disservice.
Watch it, and let the truth speak for itself.