Hammer, Armie

Subterms

    Latest story

    113 Shares159 Views

    ‘Death on the Nile’ Review: Dead in the Water

    by

    Kenneth Branagh’s second adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot stories forgets the simple pleasures of ensemble excess and pure messing about.The trickiest part of a murder mystery isn’t solving the crime. It’s keeping the intrigue and fun alive until then. “Death on the Nile,” Kenneth Branagh’s second adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot stories, forgets the simple pleasures of ensemble excess and pure messing about.After Poirot’s lavish origin story set in World War I, we’re whisked away to a London music club with some spicy dancing, and then to an Egyptian wedding holiday. There, a love triangle fans the flames for a blowup. The preening heiress Linnet (Gal Gadot) and her beau, Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) can’t shake Simon’s lurker ex, Jacqueline (Emma Mackey), who follows them onto the fateful Nile riverboat.As in many Christie screen adaptations (this one written by Michael Green), a motley bunch awaits accusation on board. The former comedy duo Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French reunite as Linnet’s socialite godmother and companion. Sophie Okonedo and Letitia Wright play Salome, a blues singer, and her business-savvy daughter (a nice reimagining of Angela Lansbury’s Salome, a tippling erotic novelist in the 1978 version). There’s also a criminally underused Annette Bening as a painter, and Russell Brand as a doleful doctor.But their byplay remains rather airless, except for Okonedo, Mackey and Thomas Bateman as Poirot’s hapless, vaguely Wodehousian pal. Round and round Poirot goes, as does the circling camerawork, before he performs the reliably satisfying triple-axel-twisty feat of exegesis in front of the suspects.More often than not, Branagh’s Poirot simply lacks personality, and the film’s absolutely smoldering epilogue oozes more mood than all the rest put together.Death on the NileRated PG-13 for violence (it’s a murder mystery) and sexual material. Running time: 2 hours 7 minutes. In theaters. More

    More stories

    • 63 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Crisis’ Review: Finding a Fix

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Crisis’ Review: Finding a FixNicholas Jarecki’s new crime drama, which examines the opioid epidemic from different angles, is well-paced but often strains credulity.Michelle Rodriguez and Armie Hammer in “Crisis.”Credit…Jan Thijs/Quiver DistributionFeb. 25, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETCrisisDirected by Nicholas JareckiDrama, ThrillerR1h 58mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Applying the panoramic approach of Steven Soderbergh’s “Traffic” to the subject matter of, well, “Traffic,” “Crisis” examines the intractability of the opioid epidemic through a three-pronged narrative. The writer-director, Nicholas Jarecki, who made the engrossing, “Bonfire of the Vanities”-ish thriller “Arbitrage” (2012), awkwardly pretzels a checklist of social problems into the form of a drama.The issues — from addiction itself to the flawed incentives at institutions that might prevent it — demand a more expansive treatment. Compared with the HBO series “The Wire,” which covered similar material, almost any pretzel would seem too small.[embedded content]The most suspenseful thread in “Crisis” involves Jake Kelly (Armie Hammer, who has recently been accused of sending bizarre messages on social media and other troubling behavior; he has denied wrongdoing). Jake is introduced as a drug importer but quickly revealed to be an undercover D.E.A. agent planning a bust that straddles both sides of the United States-Canada border. His sister (Lily-Rose Depp) is an addict herself.In almost the flip side of that story, Claire Reimann (Evangeline Lilly), a hockey mom and recovering opioid addict, turns sleuth and potential vigilante after a tragedy related to her son.Finally, Gary Oldman plays Dr. Tyrone Brower, a professor who challenges a longtime corporate patron, a pharmaceutical company, on a claim that a new painkiller is not addictive. Turning whistle-blower means competing with Big Pharma’s immense resources.Hopping between Detroit and Montreal, the film is well-paced but often strains credulity. Jarecki brings Claire out of character to juice the plot, and Dr. Brower’s fate is resolved in an unconvincing coda at odds with the preceding cynicism.CrisisRated R. Violence and drug use. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More