My Review: Sunlight Jr. (4/10)

"It's all you wanted to do, just cry. And now look at you. There's two men out there in the kitchen fightin' over you."

Sunlight Jr. is director Laurie Collyer's follow up to Sherrybaby and once again she creates a strong leading female character, but her script is weak and despite showing the reality and hardships of life it doesn't seem to be saying anything. It is just a depressing vision of lovers who are struggling to survive and keep their love afloat. We usually don't get to see this side of society represented on film, but despite her efforts and Naomi Watt's excellent performance we don't actually get anything special or revealing from Sunlight Jr. The film doesn't have anything to say and it just puts us right in the center of the lives of two people who are barely making a living and who are basically hopeless. Despite giving her lead female character a lot of substance, the rest of the cast are pretty much one dimensional. Collyer doesn't seem to like men very much as none of them in this film have any redeeming quality. Watts however had a lot to work with since her character has a lot of depth and is determined to overcome her struggles. Everyone else is just there to bring her down, and in a way they bring down the entire film as well. The storyline is just too grim for my taste. I'm not being fair with Matt Dillon, he gives a strong performance, it's just that he didn't have much to work with and like his character he is disabled by the script. 

Melissa (Naomi Watts) and Richie (Matt Dillon) are happy together despite their economic struggles which force them to live at a small motel in Florida. Melissa works as a clerk at a nearby convenience store (Sunlight Jr.) winning minimum wage, while Richie who is a paraplegic is unemployed. He receives a monthly check for his disability, but it's not much. Despite the harsh conditions Melissa and Richie seem happy together, and when she finds out she's pregnant they both have something to look forward to. However their situation changes when Melissa loses her job and it takes a toll on their relationship. They are forced to move back with her alcoholic mother, Kathleen (Tess Harper), and the tension builds. There is also Melissa's ex boyfriend, Justin (Norman Reedus), who has been stalking her and complicating things even more. That is about all the drama you will get from Sunlight Jr, which doesn't really seem to explore any issues.

Sunlight Jr. might be a very authentic and realistic portrayal of an underrepresented side of society, but it really doesn't have anything to say either. It is grim and realistic, but there is no message. It's as if we got to catch a glimpse of someone's life, but we don't learn anything we haven't already seen before.  The performances from Watts and Dillon are what make this film slightly tolerable, but the pacing and lack of narrative hurt this film. It is just a sad film that fails to connect with you. Sunlight Jr. can be described as a slice-of-life drama, but there isn't really much more to this indie. It is a very slow and depressing film to sit through and I think that was Collyer's intention. She's not aiming to entertain, she wants us to see the struggle these people go through, but she does so without giving us any hope whatsoever and leaves us depressed.

My Review: Takers (4/10)

¨We`re takers, gents. That’s what we do for a living. We take.¨

There is a scene in Takers where a group of sophisticated criminals have just successfully finished robbing a bank and are walking away in style from an exploding helicopter. This scene can summarize what I thought about the movie: Very stylish and cool looking, but very poor in content, story, and acting. The cast seems entirely focused on trying to look cool and outshine one another, but none of them are actually worried about giving a decent and realistic portrayal of their characters. They may act tough and cool, but they’re all two dimensional. The script is bad, but I wouldn’t blame the acting entirely on that because the truth of the matter is that most these actors can´t act even if they were given an Oscar winning screenplay. Director John Lussenhop also collaborated with the screenplay along with Peter Allen and Gabriel Casseus, and the truth of the matter is that there are several plot holes. There was however some interesting action sequences, like a foot chase around New York City involving Chris Brown and Matt Dillon which had some really cool stunt work. Some viewers might be hypnotized by the look and style of the film because the visuals are actually pretty decent, but I really couldn’t get around the poor plot and acting. Zoe Saldana is probably one of the best actresses in the film and she doesn´t even get hardly any screen time. Some of the other characters in the film seem to have served no purpose at all (Naomi for example).

John Rahway (Paul Walker), A.J. (Hayden Christensen), brothers Jesse (Michael Ealy) and Jack Attica (Chris Brown), and Gordon Cozier (Idris Elba) are part of a five man team of bank robbers who successfully completed their latest heist after a spectacular and calculated escape involving a News Station helicopter. They are sophisticated criminals who enjoy a life of luxury; they have big houses, drive Range Rovers, and wear stylish clothes. Their comfortable lives come to an end when a former member of the team, known as Ghost (Tip T.I. Harris) is released from jail that very day and shows up with a new plan for a heist involving two armored trucks and twenty million dollars. The problem is that they don’t have much time to plan for the job and they don’t know if they can really trust Ghost. Jack´s girlfriend, Lilly (Zoe Saldana), used to be Ghost`s former love interest so Jack really doesn’t want to accept the job, but there is a lot of money involved so they accept. The other problem the team has to deal with is that police officer Jack Welles (Matt Dillon) and his partner Eddie (Jay Hernandez) are closely behind their backs linking several pieces of evidence against them. Jack has to deal with some trouble of his own due to the fact that his obsession with his job has pushed him away from his daughter, and Eddie has been accused of stealing some evidence money. Sooner or later the paths of these criminals will cross with those of Officer Welles.

My main issue with this film was the acting. T.I. is a terrible actor. His performance as Ghost is just nauseating. Paul Walker and Hayden Christensen aren’t really known for their acting skills although they do have some charisma. In this film with everything that is going on they don’t have much screen time for us to sympathize with their characters. Idris Elba gives a decent performance, but his whole relationship with his drug addict sister is pointless if you ask me. I know that she is the reason why Welles becomes suspicious of Gordon, but they could have done without that entire story. Zoe Saldana`s character is also misused and actually pointless in this film. The one memorable moment for me was the scene where we get to see Chris Brown in action trying to escape from the police. The stunt work was great. The rest of the film is pretty much forgettable although I can’t deny being seduced by some of the camera work. The look of the film was great, but the content was just not there at all. I was actually disappointed with Takers, it could have been so much better because it did have some interesting moments, but the pieces just didn’t seem to fit together. I wouldn’t recommend this movie, there are other more interesting and smart heist thrillers out there.

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My Review: Armored (3/10)

¨Not everybody is a hero Soldier boy.¨

(3/10) Laurence Fishburne´s character, Baines, tells this to his partner after a heist that he has been planning with his coworkers. He is right, not everybody is a hero. That is just as certain as saying that not every good actor makes a good movie. This film has a very talented cast, but the script and story were so bad that it made these actors look like amateurs. I really thought this was a waste of a talented cast with such names as Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus in the Matrix trilogy), Matt Dillon (There´s Something About Mary, Crash), Jean Reno (Ronin and The Professional), Skeet Ulrich (Scream), Amaury Nolasco (from the TV series Prison Break), Milo Ventimiglia (from the TV series Heroes), and Columbus Short (who is probably the least known actor and ironically had the main part in this movie). I was really disappointed with this film because I know most of these actors have made excellent films although they are in a slump right now (Jean Reno has had to settle for two appearances in The Pink Panther, Matt Dillon hasn`t made anything noteworthy for quite some time, and Fishburne has stuck with his TV role in CSI). Hungarian director Nimrod Antal who became famous for his local film Kontroll, which received several foreign film awards, now had the chance to make his second American film after he debuted with Vacancy. He has received much more critical acclaim with his Hungarian films than he has so far with these two movies, and perhaps he is not ready to work with such big time actors or he doesn`t have as much freedom as he did with his other films. Whatever it is, he will have to go back to his roots next time if he wants to have a better reception from critics and audiences alike.

The movie begins with three security guards transporting money in an armored truck from one bank to another. Baines (Laurence Fishburne) is the driver while Mike (Matt Dillon) and Ty (Columbus Short) are in charge of loading the money into the vehicle. When they finish loading, Baines tells them to be on the lookout because a suspicious van has been circulating the area. While they are in the truck, the engine suddenly shuts down because it seems someone messed with the gas tank and they end up stuck under a bridge with no form of communication. A black van comes to a stop right behind them and three masked men come straight towards them and put a bomb on the armored truck. The guards have no time to react but all of a sudden fireworks begin to come out of the device which seemed to be a bomb. Baines and Mike can`t stop laughing while Ty still doesn`t get over what is happening. It is all a prank because Ty is new to the job and that is the way his partners welcome him. The masked men are coworkers from the other armored truck, Quinn (Jean Reno), Dobbs (Skeet Ulrich), and Palmer (Amaury Nolasco). After the scare they all go out and have some drinks in a bar where we get to know each character a little better. Ty is a former soldier who has recently lost his parents and has to take care of his little brother. Mike is a friend of the family and promises to take care of them. We discover that Ty is having a lot of economical troubles and is about to lose his house. At first, Ty tries to get his boss Ashcroft (Fred Ward) to give him some more hours, but it isn`t possible. Mike tells Ty about a plan they all have of stealing a big transaction that is going to take place the next day and they want him to be a part of it. It is supposed to be a simple job where no one will get hurt and they will all walk out with a lot of money which just happens to be from the bank that is trying to take Ty`s house away. The heist turns out to go nothing as planned and the action begins.

I was really disappointed with this film because it had so much potential, but these talented actors performed under my expectations due to a weak plot and bad direction. The story had too many plot holes and unbelievable elements, the actors were unconvincing, the action was predictable, the characters seemed to change moods from one moment to the next, and the main character was someone I really didn`t care for that much. This is one of those movies that you forget about a few days after you see it and will have no memory of it at all. There is nothing positive I can say about this except that it is just cheap entertainment. I really feel bad for some of these actors who have much more to offer but can`t seem to find a decent script. Armored is probably one of the weakest heist movies out in the last few years. The film just makes you wish these armored trucks had a GPS system or something so we didn`t have to watch the silly plot unfold.