Malarkey

An unusually industrial French drama full of gloom and depression. I’m calling it industrial because the director serves us many shots of a huge harbor, which is definitely not nice and enhances the grim feel of the already very sad story.

Netflix once again stumbled upon a good director and a solid premise. Add in the superb acting performance by Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson and you will think that a quality viewing experience is guaranteed. Too bad that given its two-and-a-half-hour running time, the film is very slow-paced, which in the second half of the movie becomes quite a hindrance. Anyhow, the premise is great. I liked it. It’s definitely worth watching. Several scenes are really wonderful, but cutting it short by an hour wouldn’t hurt.

I noticed that recently there’s been this trend in romantic movies that something happens to one of the people in love in the beginning, and then the film tries to be very awareness-raising, showing everyone that it is possible to live with a handicap of some kind. Difficult, but possible. And at this moment these films based on a tragic event become positive and nice… and it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt to see that a handicap or sickness doesn’t mean the end of your life; it can be quite the opposite. And it’s beautiful when such a film is based on a real story. I liked it; the story is very romantic so girls should get their tissues ready because it’s a tear-jerker, and the acting performances are also nice. Andrew Garfield gave his best and I was glad to see Claire Foy in a good movie.

After coming home from watching Women on the Run, I immediately became a man on the run, put on my sneakers, shorts and a hoodie and made a run for it. After the jog, I realizedI was feeling just as good as when I was watching this classic “feel-good” movie, which was very nice to watch. And the same goes to the good-looking actresses and nice shots of Prague. Nice! I’m happy to see that Martin Horský is good at his job and over the years, he has learned to make these very pleasant comedies, which keep getting better with his every next film.

I had think long and hard about rating this film because I didn’t quite know how to approach it. However, I ended up with just two stars, because I won’t give a film good rating just because it takes place in nice locations with beautiful shots of the Alps when the 105-minute-long running time fails to provide much in the way of plot, the director doesn’t explain anything and some characters are rather annoying than interesting.

I suspect Kenneth Branagh of shooting this film only to show how well he can speak Russian-accented English in his role of a Slavic oligarch. Otherwise I don’t understand why he cast so many good actors in this mediocre B-rated spy movie with terrible action scenes.

DC tries its best and Aquaman is definitely not bad. James Wan was a good choice for the director’s stool and Jason Momoa as lead was also great. I can’t imagine anyone playing such character in a different and better way. I only add that the biggest surprise for me was Dolph Lundgren, who was having fun in his role and I can imagine him playing more similar parts. The problem of this film lies in the scenes that try so hard to be funny that they end up being painfully awkward. Jason Momoa tries to emulate Chris Harmsworth’s Thor’s humor, and in the beginning he didn’t manage to convince me. Over the time, however, I’ve become used to him and it wasn’t so bad. Patrick Wilson, too, is a rather ridiculous adversary, I don’t understand why everyone praises him so much. You see that when I’m writing this review it surprises me how many faults I’ve found with the film. I don’t even know why I’m so critical as I was actually more or less happy with it. It was a pleasant surprise from DC, even though it’d be a routine standard had it been made by Marvel.

It's been six years since the last season, but in reality nothing has changed at all. Karel Roden in the role of the therapist is still a damn good actor, and in addition, he is still approached by interesting weirdoes you meet in your everyday Prague life, who are no less well played by the best contemporary Czech actors and actresses. Everyone delivers a superb performance, which together with the psychological analyses and therapeutic speeches by Karel Roden (who doesn’t talk in vain and knows when and how to hit with his words), creates a solid third season that was once again a joy to watch. There is no point in analyzing each of the characters that appear here. Some of them I liked more, some less. Certain episodes were worse than others, but that can’t be helped. Not every therapy must necessarily be fun for the viewer. Perhaps I will just add that the most interesting storyline for me was the one with Marek Taclík, which also had the most intriguing ending.

I started to watch Native Son without knowing what the film was about. But in the middle of the film, I experienced quite a nasty shock, which really spoiled the rest of the film for me. Which sucks, because the whole plot was revolving around the thing that shocked me. The film begins as a story of a young boy – it should be noted that he is black – who is quite intelligent, but has a hard life. He gets a chance to change his life and he takes it. Everything works, the film is quite fun. That is, until one moment, which presents such a brutal and unexpected plot twist, and at the same time is so very dumb, that you simply do not want to believe that this otherwise intelligent boy would get tangled in something like this. The story then loses all logic and everything going on becomes somehow animal-like. I watched it to the end but I admit to being annoyed about what the creators had done to the main character. It’s been a long time a script made me this irritated. It was like watching two different movies with two different protagonists, albeit played rather well by the lead actor.

The attractive theme is conveyed in the form of a slowly narrated and strongly old-fashioned film, which in many respects is not bad, but overall, at times I had trouble to keep watching this till the end. There is nothing to complain about actor-wise. On the contrary, I must pay tribute to Robert Redford and Sissy Spacek for delivering superb acting performances. But each of the characters is in a way very peculiar. I don’t know if it’s because that the older we are, the more eccentric we become, but surprisingly the strangest was not Robert’s character (although it’s actually about him), but that portrayed by Casey Affleck, who plays a brutally apathetic investigator who doesn’t give a damn about much of anything. And yes, in these days there’s this trend to cast acting legends in important dramas with quality storytelling, but this is unfortunately not the case.