Film Review - The Little Things (2021)

 The Little Things stars Denzel Washington as Joe Deacon a former Los Angeles Homicide Detective who now works in a small town Sheriff’s office but is asked to come to LA to investigate a series of murders that have happened there which runs him afowl of the detective (Rami Malek) assigned to investigate the case.

 

They say it is the Little Things that make up life.

 

Well, I would say that it’s the Little Things that make a movie like this work such as having a compelling mystery that’s worth giving a damn about which this movie does not have instead it has a pathetic mystery that is so tied up in knots it’s hard to follow.

 

Its also the little things like having a compelling detective hero to get behind and care about as they try to solve the mystery, recent films like Rian Johnson’s Knives Out and the Australian film the Dry not only gave us great mysteries worth following but also really good detective characters here there are two of them Washington and Malek and Malek had no business being in this movie at all.

 

And that’s not to kick him in the teeth which others have had a tendency to do since his Oscar win 2 years ago its that his character feels so superfluous to the story at hand that he should have been removed entirely and it also does not help that he just cannot compete with Denzel Washington in terms of pure star power holding your interest (I heard a few people say yesterday that they were going to see this movie because of him.)

 

And also it’s the Little Things like having a great killer at the centre of it which movies like Silence of the Lambs and David Fincher’s Seven do have but this movie does not have and there’s hardly any killing in the film at all and post Seven which it feels like this movie was written after its just not good enough anymore none of it is.

 

And this movie shouldn’t waste the Little Things like the dollarydoos in your wallet either, rent Silence of the Lambs instead or Seven, 1.5 out of 5.

Film Review - The Marksman (2021)

 The Marksman stars Liam Neeson as Jim Hanson a former Vietnam vet who now lives on a desert ranch tracking IAs (Illegal Aliens) along the US/Mexico Border but when a mother and son comes across the border to flee the cartels who are chasing them Jim feels obliged to help them reach safety in America.

 

There was a time when watching Liam Neeson be an action star and kill people albeit with weapons or his own two hands was fun but no more as this was not a fun action movie in any sense of the word at all and Neeson is first off part of the problem he’s gotten too old to be doing this kind of role anymore and a lot of the movies he’s done as an action star including this one haven’t been any good either, at one point he starts to fight a Cartel person and I sat there thinking “Mate you have no hope of beating this guy” and it became embarrassing.

 

It also doesn’t help that the central storyline of escorting someone to safety has been done better in other movies like Logan just recently and the kid for the most part feels like a blank slate and the villains aren’t very memorable their the usual overly tattooed big beefy thugs with zero personality and without a really good villain these kinds of movies just suffer in a big way.

 

And so that was the Marksman and it doesn’t hit the Mark and shoots a blank, don’t bother with this one, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - News of the World (2021)

News of the World is a new Netflix film directed by Paul Greengrass and stars Tom Hanks as Captain Kidd, a man who travels the post Civil War United States reading the news to people in towns but one day he sees a little girl (Helena Zegel) who is orphaned and must be returned to a distant relative and so the two head off in search of her new home.

 

News of the World is a good film and the second film Hanks has made in the past year the other being Greyhound where I really wish I got to see this at the cinema as Dariuz Wolski did a gorgeous job as cinematographer on this movie with those wide open ranges, a duststorm, night time scenes this movie at times is a real feast for the eyes and like Greyhound it deserved to be seen on the big screen where you could really soak in the visual details in the glory they deserve.

 

Also I think Hanks does a great reliable job as always and I enjoyed his character quite a bit in this film a man who lived through the Civil War and now goes from place to place telling busy people the news of the day and some of the stories he reads have a particular interest to what is going on in 2021 and perhaps not much does change that much with the passage of time.

 

Next I have to talk about the little girl in this movie Ms Zegel who is also very good here, its hard to hold your own against a star like Hanks but like in Captain Phillips and Barkhad Abdi Zegel proves herself to be more than up to the task and she forms a nice chemistry with Hanks that really adds to the enjoyment of the film.

 

Before I do end I will also say that the film towards the end does start to get a little long, the film runs about 2 hours and in the last 25 minutes or so the journey begins to drag in a way that you want it to be over despite the beautiful visuals though I might have felt differently if I had seen this movie at the cinema instead of on my TV at home where movies can have a unnatural drag to them most of the time even if you love the film.

 

And so that was News of the World and I recommend this movie despite the ending feeling a little longer than it should, 3 out of 5.