EvilPhoEniX

An honest, bleak, chilling and awesome crime drama/thriller with a touch of the 80s from the director of Wild Tales. Awesome acting! Shailene Woodley plays a likeable, determined and intelligent policewoman recruited by FBI Commander Ben Mendelsohn, who literally shines! He steals all the scenes for himself with his acting and great dialogue and is a joy to watch and listen to. From the opening minutes, the film won me over to its side. It takes place during New Year's Eve in Baltimore, where the main villain starts killing random people with a sniper rifle and starts a decent chaos in the streets, followed by a pretty intense and atmospherically dense FBI manhunt, that made me feel that this is what honest police work is supposed to look like. We follow the two protagonists as they try to catch the main scumbag, practically never leaving the screen, and I liked that. No unnecessary side characters, no extra filler and plot lines, just honest investigative work by smart cops who step by step build a profile of the main enemy. The killer also has an interesting background from his childhood (anyone who has peeked at serial killers knows that most are driven by some sort of childhood trauma), and he has army skills, so this is no Dahmer, but more like a deranged Breivik chasing a body-count! The film also has a decent pace, it holds the audience's attention well, it's atmospherically dense and has some action (a shootout in a mall!), people scream a lot and I have very positive feelings about it. I haven't seen a better crime film in a while. 8/10.

Paul Urkijo Alijo, the director of the fairy tale hell horror Errementari, now comes up with a dark fantasy tale that draws on Basque folklore and has the feel of fantasy films from the 1980s, and is definitely magical and unconventional. The film is set in the year 778, in a mythical and world with fantasy creatures like water sprite a a cyclops, Christians and Muslims, a lost treasure, beautiful forests and nature, engaging music, practical effects and interesting characters. A nice film to watch, but I think the potential of that world was greater, there could have been more of the creatures and it could have been more brutal and darker. The best scene is in the cave with the cyclops, which looks properly creepy, and the atmosphere there could be chopped up. The opening medieval joust with the knights is also interesting – even if it had some weird editing. I was expecting a more epic finale. It's definitely an interesting and unusual film that has its charms and is worth seeing, but I can't shake the feeling that it could have been better. 6/10.

Finally, a great film from South Korea, quite close to the Amsal in its period setting. These spy movies are about 50/50 for me, but Phantom is definitely one of the more successful additions. The first half could also be described as a Korean variation on Knives Out. Set in 1933 during the Japanese colonization era, the film tells the story of five suspects who are isolated in a hotel where one of them is a mysterious “Phantom” spy. Interrogation, distrust, fights, torture, betrayal and surprise. The film has excellent visuals to fall back on, technically Phantom is really polished, all the characters are interesting, properly mysterious and well acted. The biggest star is Kjong-gu Sol, but I've seen the rest of the cast elsewhere. The atmosphere is also good, there’s plenty of suspense and once the spy's identity is revealed it's one big ride and fight for life, with no shootouts spared. There could have been more action and it is not the pillar of the film, but it is still an engaging and well made movie with an engaging story that manages to surprise and not get boring. 8/10.

A laid-back gangster comedy about how an ordinary woman becomes the head of a mafia family from one day to the next. Funny, well acted and swingingly Italian. However, the action is mediocre and it doesn't excel on any level, unfortunately, but it doesn't offend. Pure average.

I wasn't too impressed with the original either, but I found this one a bit more digestible thanks to Tom Hanks. It's still just a drama though, nothing more, and I'm certainly not going to root for them and give them plus points for nothing either. The occasional humor is fine, but there's little of it, the pacing is slower, and the whole thing just flows along without much interest or enjoyment on the part of the viewer. The most interesting scene for me was the gentleman's fall onto the tracks. Some people are warmed by this, others by Gore!! :)

A nice Swedish ordeal. Anyone waiting for aliens might as well delete this film. It is a pure drama about a teen girl looking for her missing father and suspecting he has been abducted by a UFO. Two hours of uninteresting dialogue, unlikeable characters, slow pacing. I was both physically tired and tormented, and stopped caring somewhere around the halfway point. Nah, this hurt. I'm surprised at the high rating. 2/10.

In 2019, Lee Won-Tae proved himself with the acclaimed hit The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil, which is sete to get an American remake, so any new film of his is definitely expected and this one, also with the Devil in the title, is unfortunately disappointing. It's not that it's a completely bad film, he just chose a the topic of politics and elections that I don't find interesting, and mixed in gangsters, so nobody can say is a bit boring (Korean audiences will probably enjoy the film more). There's an election coming up and some candidates are willing to get their hands dirty to win. There's very little action and not much of anything, a few people do scream, but we don't see any outright violence. It's more of a political thriller involving manipulation, blackmail and power struggles, and I don’t enjoy that at all. For me, barely average for the traditional good visuals and fine actors. 5/10.

An enjoyable psychological horror film with an interesting theme. The main character is a likeable and attractive woman who does not want to have children. She thinks her biological clock is broken and so she signs up for a clinic to help her, but it takes its toll. The craftsmanship is surprisingly decent, the actors and dialogue aren't bad either, the premise itself is interesting, and the fine design of the tall ghost is appropriately creepy (but plays more of a minor note, which is a shame because adding more scares could have been pretty intense). The process at the clinic itself is quite engaging and the aftermath, including the paranoia and hallucinations of the main character, is interesting too. In short, this will be an uncomfortable watch for women. The most interesting scene is definitely the baby swinging on the umbilical cord and then the finale. With a better director, it could have been a big hit, but it's still an inoffensive one-off. 6/10.

Emil Křížka crucified, tortured and burned a Phoenix at the stake! The Czechs are trying to do something different, but we can see how absolutely unable they are. Better go back to comedies and fairy tales, because this is a disgrace and an embarrassment. Everything is so wrong here that I threw up five times while watching it. There’s almost no talking, nothing makes sense, the narrator mixes plot lines as he pleases (probably according to the shot he just had), it's boring as shit, the characters are unlikeable and the only thing to watch here were the tits of Pavla Gajdosikova. I wished for the ending like I haven't in a long time. I haven't anything worse this year. 1 Star for mercy.

The cinematographer of The Lost Bullet brought in the famous Alban Lenoir and made a gangster debut that doesn’t put him to shame. It's a decent ride! I have a soft spot for French films be it comedies, crime dramas, thrillers, action or gangster, in short they excel on any level (like the Poles and the Spaniards, for example) and I am happy for any new filmmaker on the scene. AKA may not bring anything new to the genre, and anyone who expects only story and script from films should avoid it (read fuck off), but if you like honest action, great actors, thick atmosphere, great craftsmanship and gangster films in their own right, this is the way to go! The story focuses on a Special Ops agent tasked with infiltrating a crime syndicate to tear it apart from the inside, only to unexpectedly befriend the son of the head mobster and soon have to decide whose side he's actually on. I was entertained from the very beginning, where the film opens with a shootout somewhere in Libya, and then we watch the main character trying to befriend the dreaded gang (by beating the crap out of five guys from a rival gang!). Alban Lenoir is a sharp guy who definitely knows how to fight and he fits the action role very well. In short, it's got a very entertaining and brisk pace, the characters are engaging and you will care about their fate; the craftsmanship is of a high standard and the action itself, shot in one take, took my breath away. It is realistic, authentic, unpleasant, brutal! The bloody head-shots are more delicious than in Wick, and at one point I thought I was watching a live match in Tsk. I haven't enjoyed a shootout like this for a long time and when it came to machetes and contact fights, it felt like an European version of The Raid! I had a great time, AKS hit my mood a lot, this is exactly my kind of movie and I thank Dalibert! 8/10.