Film Review - On the Rocks (2020)

On the Rocks is the new film written and directed by Sofia Coppola and stars Rashida Jones as Laura, a young Mum living in New York with her 2 young children while her husband Dean (Marlon Wayans) is away a lot on work trips but Laura’s father (Bill Murray) starts to suspect he might be having an affair and wants to enlist Laura to tail him to find out whether he is or not.

 

On the Rocks is perfectly fine, it has some very nice shots of the New York skyline and there are some nice moments overall in the film between Ms Jones and Mr Wayans but I just thought it was a perfectly fine and harmless movie that I wouldn’t be heading out to rave about anytime soon.

 

Mr Murray meanwhile is simply delightful in this movie with many scenes showing that he still has that droll deadpan humour that helped make him such a big star and every scene where he’s telling stories to either Laura or others in those scenes I just felt this sense of calm come over me and it proved like I had forgotten that Mr Murray still has it.

 

As for Ms Jones well I wish someone else had played her part, don’t get me wrong she is perfectly fine but someone as bright and talented as she is deserves better than to play the slightly stuck in a rut housewife that so many others could probably play as well, I would love to know what her Toy Story 4 script was going to be like.

 

And so that was On the Rocks and its perfectly decent and fine but mainly worth it for Mr Murray, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Greyhound (2020)

Greyhound takes place during World War 2 and stars Tom Hanks as the Captain of the ship called Greyhound which is on convoy escort duty through a place known as the Pit where allied ships are without air support and vulnerable to German U-Boats and Greyhound will be no exception as it tries to navigate the choppy waters.

 

Greyhound is a tightly made World War 2 submarine thriller that I found quite enjoyable and a lot of that comes from firstly how tight this movie feels, the film only lasts about 95 minutes or so but it doesn’t waste a moment of it, info is nicely given to the viewer while the ship is going through the waters while the action moments are nice and exciting.

 

Also one thing I did like about the films direction was that it makes nice use of the tight close up shots, yes you do get some wide shots particularly during the battle scenes but the scenes inside the ship are shot nice and tight and it really adds to the effect of what the crew of that ship went through especially with the technology they had at their disposal at the time.

 

Secondly Mr Hanks effortlessly anchors this movie and he’s virtually in every scene yet he’s never boring during this film, he’s calm, collected and its hard to imagine the movie without him.

 

There is one thing that also comes to mind while thinking on this movie and that is this is one that I really really wish I got to see on the big cinema screen with a great sound system (this was one of many that was delayed due to current events) as while watching it at home on my 4K TV was nice and all but this would’ve been a real treat on a booming cinema sound system with the various gun battles and crashing waves and depth charges being dropped you would have really felt it in a dark cinema but alas things went the way they did.

 

And so that was Greyhound it’s a good solid WW2 submarine thriller brilliantly anchored by Mr Hanks and one that I wish had gotten a cinema release, 3 out of 5.

 

Film Review - Rams (2020)

 

Rams is a new Australian film starring Sam Neill and Michael Caton as 2 brothers who run a Sheep Farm who lose their flocks due to a disease outbreak in their community, one of the brothers then hides 3 of his sheep in his house and doesn’t even talk to his brother much but that is soon to change.

 

I didn’t know an awful lot about Rams and I mainly saw it due to the cast and thought “Oh this could be fun” and sadly it wasn’t, the film has some pretty major tonal issues.

 

On the one hand you do get some fun antics with the 2 brothers and those scenes work well enough and Mr Neill and Mr Caton do good work in those scenes but on the other hand it tries to be this serious drama about their farm and bushfires and why the 2 brothers don’t speak to each other much and I wish their character arcs were better developed as the 2 brothers barely talk to each other throughout most of the movie and it really bogs down the film overall.

 

And so that was Rams and yeah despite 2 iconic Australian actors this movie didn’t do much for me I’m afraid, 1.5 out of 5.