TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG (full review at Screen Realm)

Too Old To Die Young is a crime thriller co-written by Nicolas Winding Refn and comic writer Ed Brukbaker. Directed by Refn it’s streaming in ten episodes on Amazon Prime.

In the aftermath of his partner’s death, Los Angeles police officer Martin Jones (Miles Teller) is promoted to the detective division and simultaneously indebted to local drug dealer Damian (Babs Olusanmokun). He finds himself as both law enforcement and contract killer. Martin’s underage girlfriend Janey (Nell Tiger Free) and her father Theo (William Baldwin) provide him a life outside of work, outside power dynamics and death, although we hesitate to call it ‘normalcy’.

Viggo (John Hawkes) is a retired F.B.I. agent in the employ of crisis counsellor Diana (Jena Malone), dispensing homicidal justice to the perpetrators of abuse, who have exploited loopholes in the legal system.

Jesus (Augusto Aguilera) is the heir to a drug cartel territory. He is grieving for his mother while he learns the family business from his relatives in Mexico, where he meets the beautiful and deadly Yaritza (Cristina Rodlo). 

Too Old To Die Young is the story of how these three sets of lives intersect.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/too-old-to-die-young-review-nicolas-winding-refn-miles-teller-amazon-series/

IMDB: Too Old To Die Young

POINT BLANK (full review at Screen Realm)

Point Blank is a Netflix produced crime thriller from director Joe Lynch and a remake of the French thriller A Bout Portent, by Fred Cavayé.

The story sees emergency room nurse, Paul (Anthony Mackie) tending to unnamed man brought in to the hospital with injuries sustained from a car accident. It transpires that the man is Abe Guevara (Frank Grillo), who is wanted by police in connection to the assassination of a district attorney. While Abe is under police guard, Paul’s pregnant wife, Taryn (Teyonah Parris), is abducted by Abe’s brother, Mateo (Christian Cooke), who gives Paul an ultimatum. Free Abe from the hospital or his wife will be killed.

With no choice but to do as he is asked, Paul takes Abe on the run, with two seasoned cops, Lewis (Marcia Gay Harden - The Mist, Miller’s Crossing) and Masterson (Boris McGiver – House Of Cards) in their tail. The story leads us down a winding path of corruption and duplicity.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/point-blank-movie-review-frank-grillo-anthony-mackie-netflix/

IMDB: Point Blank

DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE (full review at Screen Realm)

Few filmmakers working today are as crucial as S.Craig Zahler. Novelist, screenwriter and with Bone Tomahawk and Brawl In Cell Block 99, the director of two of the best films this decade has seen so far. A renaissance man for pulp cinema, he’s even had time to scratch out an excellent column for Fangoria magazine on home made horror. In this reviewer’s opinion, only Jeremy Saulnier and Ben Wheatley can really give him a run for his money.

So with that in mind, it’s safe to say the bar is set quite high for Dragged Across Concrete, another foray into the type of pulpy crime universe Zahler is making his own. Unfortunately, instead of clearing that bar with ease, Concrete ducks just underneath it.

Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and Anthony Lurasetti (Vince Vaughn) are two detectives, suspended from active duty after being captured on video using excessive force on a suspect. Ridgeman needs to move his family out of their bad neighbourhood and Lurasetti has an expensive wedding on the horizon, so with their ability to earn taken away from them, they turn to a less legal income stream. Working off a tip, they stake out a local drug lord, soon discovering what they thought would be a routine drug trade, is fact the preparation for an elaborate and savage bank robbery.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/dragged-across-concrete-movie-review-vince-vaughn-mel-gibson/

IMDB: Dragged Across Concrete

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (full review at Screen Realm)

You Were Never Really Here is the fourth feature from Lynne Ramsay and is an adaptation of the novella by Jonathan Ames.

Joaquin Phoenix stars as Joe, a deeply traumatised ex-soldier who lives with his elderly mother and works as the hired muscle for a private investigator. A lucrative case comes his way as he is employed to locate Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), the runaway daughter of a local Senator. He is given an address and a request to exercise both discretion and brutality. To divulge any more plot would be to enter spoiler territory but suffice it to say, the plot takes us into some dark territory and violence is ever present.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/you-were-never-really-here-movie-review-joaquin-phoenix/

IMDB: You Were Never Really Here

THE BLOOD OF WOLVES (KORO NO CHI) (full review at Screen Realm)

The Blood of Wolves (Korô no chi) is a Yakuza movie from director Kazuya Shiraishi, based on a 2015 novel by Yûko Yuzuki.

Set in 1988 it follows rookie cop Hoika (Tori Matsuzaka) as he is assigned to partner gang squad legend Ogami (Kōji Yakusho). Their beat is the streets of Hiroshima, and they must mediate the uneasy balance of power between the city’s two powerful Yakuza gangs, the Kakomura-gumi and the Odani-gumi.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/the-blood-of-wolves-movie-review-japan/

IMDB: The Blood Of Wolves

WHEELMAN (full review at The Reel Word)

Wheelman, written and directed by Jeremy Rush and starring Frank Grillo (Captain America), is a hard boiled crime drama, distributed by, and currently screening on Netflix.

Grillo plays a getaway driver, fresh out of prison and in debt to the mob. He juggles his responsibilities to work and his debts, with the more conventional problems of having a rebellious teen daughter and prickly ex-spouse. Uncomfortable sharing anything other than professional information with his gun carrying passengers, and particularly keen to withhold his name, we know him only as the Wheelman. While driving for a heist crew, things go predictably wrong and the Wheelman finds himself with a trunk full of money, and a situation spiralling rapidly out of control.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:

https://www.thereelword.net/wheelman-movie-review-netflix-frank-grillo/

IMDB: Wheelman

HOUNDS OF LOVE (full review at The Reel Word)

Set in Perth in 1987, Hounds of Love is a horror/crime story dealing with the abduction, torture and imprisonment of a young girl by a sadistic couple, John and Evelyn White. Vicki Maloney is taken from the street at random one night, and with no clue as to her whereabouts and in the face of an apathetic response from local law enforcement, her distraught family face an uphill battle to find her.

Read the full review at The Reel Word:
https://www.thereelword.net/hounds-of-love-movie-review/

IMDB: Hounds Of Love

CUT SNAKE (full review at The Reel Word)

Sparra Farrell (Alex Russell) is living an idyllic lifestyle with a new job, a new house and beautiful soon-to-be wife, Paula (Jessica De Gouw). Just as things appear to be going well for them both, their life is interrupted by the arrival of Sparra’s old friend, Pommie (Sullivan Stapleton), an ex-con fresh out of prison and a link to Sparra’s secretive past.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/cut-snake-review/

IMDB: Cut Snake