Quick Takes

The Weed King of London

After a lackluster stint helming mainstream commercial fare (‘Sherlock Holmes,’ ‘King Arthur,’ ‘Aladdin’), Brit director/producer/screenwriter (and Madonna’s ex) Guy Ritchie returns to his gangster comedy roots in ‘The Gentlemen.’  And why not?  It is what he does best after all.  ‘The Gentlemen’ is clever, snappy and packed with the black humor we’ve come to miss from such earlier works as ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,’ ‘Snatch’ and 'RocknRolla.'  You can just tell that its ensemble cast of schemers and one-uppers including Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Jeremy Strong, Colin Farrell, Hugh Grant and Henry Golding was having so much bullet-ridden fun.

Grade: A- 

The Turning of the Shrew

I’m a sucker for horror movies, especially “gothic” horror set in dark and foreboding creaky old mansions.  Floria Sigismondi’s (‘The Runaways’) latest feature film ‘The Turning,’ based on Henry James’ 1898 short story ‘The Turn of the Screw,’ just proves how big of one I am.  Boring, plodding and lacking in anything even remotely scary, ‘The Turning’ is further plagued by a head-scratching “WTH was that???!!!” final scene.  Because by that point, I was way beyond caring if nanny/tutor Kate’s (Mackenzie Davis) gone all “cuckoo for cocoa puffs” like her institutionalized mom or not.  Really.

Grade: F 

Not a Civil War Movie

It’s just as well that Jeff Shaara’s last novel concluding his father’s ‘The Killer Angels’ civil war trilogy isn’t going to be adapted on the big screen after the disappointment that was ‘Gods and Generals,’ because ‘The Last Full Measure’ is now the story of USAF PJ (pararescue jumper) William Pitsenbarger, who was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor (the nation’s highest distinction for valor and sacrifice) 32 years later after a prolonged fight to have his heroic actions in ‘Nam recognized by Uncle Sam for saving – at the cost of his own life – many GI’s of the legendary “Big Red One” 1st ID who found themselves pinned down at a hot LZ in 1966.  It is a respectful story well told, even if it lacked the compelling you-are-there visceral quality of 2016’s WWII war drama ‘Hacksaw Ridge.’

Grade: B  

  

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