Tag Archives: Gerard Butler

Review: Greenland 2 – Migration (dir. by Ric Roman Waugh)

Posted on by Arleigh

Greenland 2: Migration is a sequel that mostly leans into “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” for better and for worse. It delivers sturdy spectacle, a committed Gerard Butler, and a tense family-through-hell journey, but it also rehashes a lot of the first film’s beats and pushes the plausibility envelope more often this time around. If you were on board with Greenland as a grounded, human-scale disaster movie, this one feels like the more bombastic, road-movie expansion pack rather than a full evolution.​

Set about five years after the comet strike that wiped out most of civilization, Greenland 2: Migration finds the Garrity family still holed up in the Greenland bunker complex, part of a fragile community waiting for the surface to become livable again. John (Gerard Butler) now works as a scout/engineer, Allison (Morena Baccarin) has stepped into more of a leadership role within the bunker, and their son Nathan is older, restless, and itching to prove himself outside the relative safety of underground life. When escalating quakes, electromagnetic storms, and general planetary chaos literally collapse the bunker around them, the film quickly turns into a survival trek across a devastated Europe toward the Clarke impact crater in southern France, rumored to be the one spot on Earth that has actually healed.​

As a premise, the film works; it gives the story a clear A-to-B structure and justifies the shift from the contained panic of the first movie to a post-apocalyptic road odyssey. The script keeps the stakes straightforward: reach the crater region or die trying, while dodging unpredictable weather events, territorial military forces, and desperate survivors who are just as dangerous as the environment. There is something appealingly old‑school about how it plays as a throwback survival picture—less interested in intricate worldbuilding and more in reaction, improvisation, and narrow escapes.​

The downside is that you can feel the film constantly echoing Greenland’s structure: another long, peril-filled journey, another series of escalating close calls, another parade of briefly sketched side characters who exist to either help or threaten the Garritys for a single sequence. The first film had novelty on its side and a sharper sense of dread as the comet approached; here, the formula is familiar enough that you can often tell who will live, who will die, and roughly when another set piece is about to kick off. That predictability doesn’t kill the tension outright, but it does flatten the emotional peaks, especially if you walked in hoping for a genuinely new angle on this world.​

Gerard Butler remains the anchor, and this is squarely in his comfort zone. He plays John as perpetually exhausted yet stubbornly practical, the kind of guy who will grumble his way through heroism, and there’s an easy, weathered charm to that. Morena Baccarin gets a bit more agency this time, with Allison often driving decisions instead of just reacting to them, though the movie still stops short of really turning her into a co-lead with equal interiority. Roman Griffin Davis steps in as the older Nathan, and he brings a nervous, teenage energy that fits the “kid who grew up in a bunker and wants to see the world” vibe, even if the character’s arc hits pretty familiar notes about bravery and responsibility.​

The script does flirt with heavier themes: the psychological toll of surviving the end of the world, the guilt of those who made it into the bunkers versus those left outside, and the question of what “home” even means when the planet itself has effectively turned against you. There are moments—like the chaotic clashes around remaining bunkers or the wary interactions with other survivor groups—that suggest a more morally murky, Children of Men‑style story lurking underneath. But the movie rarely lingers on these ideas; it tends to touch them, nod, and then hurry back to the next escape sequence or visual spectacle.​

Visually, though, Greenland 2: Migration is where the sequel justifies its existence. Director Ric Roman Waugh and the crew make great use of European locations and Icelandic landscapes to sell a world that has been carved up by tectonic violence and choked with ash, but is slowly, unevenly rebuilding. The dried-out English Channel, the ravaged coastlines, and the eerie, storm‑lit skies give the film a distinct apocalyptic texture that feels different enough from the North American focus of the first movie. While some of the physics and survival odds strain credibility—especially as the Garritys walk away from setpiece after setpiece—there’s no denying the spectacle is engaging on a big screen.​​

The pacing is generally brisk; at around an hour and a half, the film doesn’t overstay its welcome, and it’s usually onto the next problem before you have time to overthink the last one. That said, the middle stretch starts to feel a little modular, like a video game where each region is an encounter: Liverpool bunker standoff, English Channel crossing, roadside bandits, insurgent ambush, and so on. Each of these sequences is competently staged, but because the emotional throughline is fairly simple—protect the family, get to the crater—the movie risks becoming a string of obstacle courses rather than a journey that deepens the characters in meaningful ways.​

Where the film does land emotionally is in its treatment of sacrifice and the long-term cost of survival. John’s cumulative radiation exposure, picked up over years of scouting the hazardous surface, is a smart, quietly tragic detail, and the way the story gradually brings that to the forefront gives the third act a genuine sense of finality. The losses along the way, including allies who join the trek and do not make it, often feel a bit telegraphed, but they at least reinforce the idea that survival in this world comes with a steep bill that keeps coming due. The film’s ending, at the Clarke crater, delivers a cautiously hopeful image without completely sugarcoating what it took to get there, and that balance of bleakness and optimism fits the series well.​

On the more mechanical side, the editing and sound design do a lot of heavy lifting. The cross‑cutting in the disaster scenes keeps geography mostly clear, and the low, grinding rumble of shifting earth and sudden storms adds tension even when the visuals are mostly people running or driving. The score is functional rather than memorable, but it meshes with the film’s focus on constant forward momentum instead of big thematic musical statements. It’s the kind of craft that doesn’t call attention to itself, which suits a movie that wants to feel like a direct, unpretentious survival yarn.​

In terms of how it stacks up to the original, Greenland 2: Migration is solid but clearly a step less distinctive. The first film surprised people by grounding its spectacle in everyday logistics—pharmacy runs, traffic jams, family arguments—and by keeping the camera mostly at human scale during an extinction‑level event. The sequel, by comparison, nudges closer to standard disaster‑franchise territory: bigger vistas, more action, and a stronger sense of franchise‑building, but less of that “this could be you and your neighbors” feeling that made Greenland stand out. Depending on what you want from a sequel, that may be a selling point or a letdown.​

Overall, Greenland 2: Migration is a competent, occasionally affecting continuation that doesn’t embarrass the original but also doesn’t redefine it. If all you’re looking for is another round of grounded‑ish apocalypse survival with Gerard Butler grimly shepherding his family through increasingly wild scenarios, this delivers exactly that, with a few striking images and some sincere emotional beats along the way. If you were hoping for a more daring thematic leap or a significantly different narrative shape, this will probably feel like a polished retread with a new coat of ash and ice. Either way, it’s an easy recommendation for fans of the first film and a decent mid‑winter disaster flick for anyone in the mood to watch people crawl through the end of the world one more time.

Review: Greenland (dir. by Ric Roman Waugh)

Posted on by Arleigh

“But sometimes you just gotta suck it up. Push through, right? Even when you’re super scared.” — John Garrity

Greenland is one of those disaster movies that sneaks up on you a bit. It sells itself like another “stuff blows up while Gerard Butler scowls” kind of ride, but what’s actually on screen is a more grounded, road-trip survival story about a fractured family trying to stay together as the world quietly ends in the background. Originally slated for a wide theatrical release, the film dropped right as the COVID pandemic shutdown began in early 2020, forcing theaters to close and tanking its box office hopes before it even started. That quick pivot to video-on-demand and streaming services gave it a real second life though, letting it find an audience at home when everyone was hunkered down, doomscrolling real-world chaos that felt eerily similar to the on-screen panic. It’s not a genre reinvention, but it’s a solid entry that balances tense set pieces with surprisingly sincere family drama, even if it leans hard on contrivances and some uneven effects along the way.​

The setup is simple: John Garrity (Gerard Butler), his estranged wife Allison (Morena Baccarin), and their young son Nathan are thrown into chaos when a supposedly “spectacle only” comet called Clarke turns out to be a civilization-ending event. The family receives a government alert selecting them for evacuation, which kicks off a desperate scramble through crowded bases, riots, and crumbling infrastructure as they try to get to a classified bunker system in Greenland before impact. The structure is very much “point A to point B with escalating obstacles,” and if you’ve seen any road-movie apocalypse story, you can probably predict the broad strokes: separation, dangerous strangers, moral compromises, last-minute reunions, and a hopeful-but-not-too-happy ending.​

What makes Greenland stand out, at least compared to louder fare like Geostorm or the Emmerich filmography, is the way it shrinks the perspective down to the family level. The script keeps the camera glued to people on the ground instead of spending time with scientists in war rooms or presidents giving big speeches, so the apocalypse feels like a series of frightening news alerts and glimpses of distant fire instead of a nonstop CGI showreel. That choice works in the film’s favor; the tension comes less from “how big is the explosion?” and more from whether this specific kid gets his medication in time or whether this specific couple makes it through a checkpoint together.​

Gerard Butler reins in his usual action-hero mode and plays John as a somewhat worn-down, very fallible guy who’s been messing up at home long before the comet showed up. He’s not the indestructible savior archetype; he panics, he makes mistakes, and he ends up in violent situations that feel ugly instead of triumphant, especially during a grim sequence on a truck full of evacuees where a man tries to take his wristband and everything spirals. Butler’s limited but believable emotional range works here, and you can see why some viewers singled this out as one of his better recent performances in a genre that usually just uses him as a gruff mascot.​

Morena Baccarin gets a bit more to play than disaster-movie wives usually do, which is a pleasant surprise. Allison’s arc runs parallel to John’s for large chunks of the film as she navigates looters, manipulative would-be rescuers, and the absolute nightmare scenario of having her child kidnapped by a couple trying to pass him off as their own to gain access to evacuation flights. Baccarin sells the mix of desperation and competence; she’s constantly stuck in situations where the “right” moral call is murky, but the film never reduces her to someone who just waits around for John to fix things.​

The emotional spine of the story rests on the family dynamic and the small, very human interactions they have with strangers along the way. You get scenes with compassionate people—like the FEMA workers who listen to Nathan when he insists he’s been kidnapped—that remind you the apocalypse doesn’t instantly turn everyone into a villain, even as the script also leans into the uglier side of survival instinct. That push and pull between kindness and cruelty keeps Greenland from feeling completely nihilistic, and it lines up with the recurring idea that the real threat is less the comet itself than what people are willing to do to outrun it.​

On the disaster side of things, the film works with a mid-sized budget, and you can feel that restraint in both good and bad ways. When the CGI is kept at a distance—comet fragments streaking across the sky, distant impacts lighting the horizon, a sudden shockwave rolling through a neighborhood—it does a solid job of selling scope without drawing too much attention to its limitations. Up close, though, the seams show: some of the destruction shots and digital fireballs look cheap, which undercuts moments that are clearly meant to be awe-inspiring or terrifying, something multiple viewers have criticized as “not consistently convincing CGI effects.”​

Pacing-wise, Greenland rarely slows down, which is both a strength and a drawback. The film opens with domestic tension and immediately starts ratcheting things up: news of impacts, sudden evacuation notices, airport chaos, violent confrontations, and constant travel. That forward momentum keeps the film from dragging, but it also leads to what some viewers see as “too many plot twists and always new obstacles to overcome,” a sense that the script keeps piling on one more crisis just to keep the adrenaline high.​

Because the film tries to have it both ways—grounded survival and genre thrills—it occasionally betrays its own realism. The amount of coincidence needed to reunite characters after brutal separations, or to get the family to exactly the right airfield and exactly the right plane, feels contrived even by disaster-movie standards. By the time the story reaches its final act in Greenland, complete with last-minute sprinting toward bunkers while the worst of the comet hits, you can feel it edging closer to the “unfortunately genre-typical heroic towards the end” vibe that some reviewers pointed out.​

Where Greenland does feel a bit different from many peers is in tone. It’s not quippy, it’s not self-aware, and it does not pause for big “cool” shots of landmarks getting obliterated just for spectacle. The destruction is mostly glimpsed from the vantage point of regular people, via news broadcasts or distant views, which makes the apocalypse feel weirdly more intimate and plausible, like something you’d doomscroll rather than watch unfold from a helicopter. That seriousness is refreshing if you’re tired of disaster movies that treat mass death as a theme park ride, but it also means the film can come off as dour if you were hoping for more escapist fun.​

Reception-wise, Greenland landed in that “better than expected, still not amazing” territory with both critics and audiences. Some viewers praised it as “one of the best disaster movies” of recent years specifically because it prioritizes human drama over “weightless CG spectacle,” calling out how tense and emotionally engaging the smaller-scale approach feels. Others shrugged it off as “usual disaster film fare,” pointing to its predictable structure, familiar character beats, and lack of a truly clever story, saying it’s fine for passing time but not particularly memorable. Its streaming surge during lockdowns only amplified word-of-mouth, turning what could’ve been a forgotten theatrical casualty into a go-to comfort scare for pandemic viewers craving controlled chaos.​

Ultimately, Greenland sits in a comfortable middle lane. It’s not trying to reinvent the genre, and it doesn’t fully escape its clichés, but it does care more about its characters than its body count, and that goes a long way. If you go in expecting a grounded, on-the-road family survival story with occasional bursts of large-scale chaos, the film mostly delivers, bolstered by committed performances from Butler and Baccarin and a tone that takes the end of the world just seriously enough. If you’re looking for jaw-dropping effects or a genuinely surprising narrative, it will probably feel like a solid, slightly grim, one-and-done watch that does its job and quietly exits before wearing out its welcome—especially resonant for those who caught it streaming while the real world felt a little too apocalyptic itself.​

Review: Law Abiding Citizen (dir. by F. Gary Gray)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Christ! Whatever happened to right and wrong!? Whatever happened to the people!? Whatever happened to justice!?” — Clyde Shelton

Law Abiding Citizen is one of those thrillers that grabs you right from the start and refuses to let go, even as it spirals into moral chaos. Directed by F. Gary Gray and released in 2009, the film pits two central performances—Gerard Butler as Clyde Shelton and Jamie Foxx as Nick Rice—against each other in a brutal chess match of justice, revenge, and control. On the surface, it’s a revenge thriller about a man wronged by a broken justice system. But dig a little deeper, and it becomes a dark commentary on the limits of law, the manipulation of morality, and the ethics of punishment. It’s not perfect—it veers toward implausibility at times—but it’s undeniably gripping, stylishly cold, and lingers in your mind long after the credits roll.

The film begins with a horrifying scene that immediately sets the tone for what’s to come. Clyde Shelton, an inventor and family man, watches helplessly as his wife and young daughter are brutally murdered in their home. When the killers are caught, Assistant District Attorney Nick Rice cuts a deal that lets one murderer go free in exchange for testifying against his partner. The decision, made in the name of efficiency and legal pragmatism, destroys Clyde’s faith in the justice system. Ten years later, when the murderer is executed under mysterious and gruesome circumstances, Clyde resurfaces—not as a grieving victim but as a brilliant, calculated force determined to expose the system’s corruption in the most explosive way imaginable.

What makes Law Abiding Citizen so effective early on is its sympathy play. The audience initially feels the same fury Clyde does. We understand his pain and disillusionment, and for a brief moment, we want him to succeed in making the system accountable. Butler captures that emotional transition perfectly—from quiet devastation to methodical vengeance. The scene where Clyde calmly watches his first victim die, having orchestrated the man’s death with near-surgical precision, is shocking yet disturbingly satisfying. This is where the film hooks its audience: it asks whether revenge can ever be justified when justice fails.

But as the killings pile up and Clyde’s plan grows more elaborate, that empathy begins to slip. The real tension of the film lies in that moral gray space—where Clyde’s righteous anger turns monstrous. His war isn’t just against the criminals but against the entire justice system, targeting judges, lawyers, and anyone he sees as complicit. Nick Rice, on the other hand, becomes the face of that system. He’s young, successful, and smug—a prosecutor obsessed with his win-loss record. Jamie Foxx’s performance gives Rice an icy veneer of confidence that slowly cracks as Clyde’s campaign escalates. The interplay between these two men—the avenger and the pragmatist—is the film’s heartbeat. It’s less about who will win and more about whether either man can still claim moral authority when the dust settles.

From a narrative standpoint, Law Abiding Citizen is structured like a dark puzzle. Each scene unveils another layer of Clyde’s intelligence and ruthlessness. The tension comes not from knowing who’s doing it—we know—but from wondering how he’s doing it. The film’s most audacious twist is that Clyde continues orchestrating murders even while locked in a high-security prison cell. This push toward psychological warfare turns the story into a cat-and-mouse game with shades of Seven and The Silence of the Lambs. However, where those films maintained a clear thematic direction, Law Abiding Citizen sometimes stumbles under the weight of its ambition. The logic of Clyde’s omnipotence starts to stretch believability, and the film sacrifices realism for spectacle. Still, it’s hard to look away when the spectacle is this sharp and aggressive.

Visually, F. Gary Gray directs with a crisp, metallic style. The cinematography uses muted tones and sharp contrasts to reflect the film’s moral ambiguity. The more the story dives into Clyde’s schemes, the colder and more sterile the visuals become, echoing his detachment from human empathy. The editing is snappy and kinetic, especially during the interrogation scenes and courtroom exchanges. Brian Tyler’s score underscores the tension with brooding, pulsing beats that heighten the sense of dread. Every technical element supports the emotional core—revenge as obsession, intelligence as a weapon.

Gerard Butler, best known for roles that highlight his physicality, delivers one of his most controlled performances here. His portrayal of Clyde is chilling because of how calm it is. He doesn’t yell or flail; his menace is intellectual. Even in scenes where the dialogue leans toward theatrical monologues about justice and morality, Butler maintains focus, grounding the performance in conviction rather than chaos. Jamie Foxx, meanwhile, brings subtlety to Nick Rice. His transformation from ambitious lawyer to shaken moralist is gradual. By the final act, Nick’s self-assurance has eroded into doubt—about the system, his choices, and his own complicity. Foxx and Butler’s dynamic never feels forced; it’s built on escalating tension, mutual respect, and bitter irony.

Where Law Abiding Citizen truly provokes is in its ethical questioning. What does justice mean when the system serves convenience instead of truth? Is it right to play by the rules if those rules protect the guilty? Clyde’s crusade, as twisted as it becomes, emerges from a very real frustration—one viewers can sympathize with, especially in a world full of technicalities that favor the powerful. But the film also serves as a warning. In trying to dismantle corruption, Clyde becomes its reflection. His vigilante justice ultimately mirrors the same indifference he condemns. By the time the film reaches its explosive climax, viewers are left torn—not cheering for Clyde’s punishment, but not wanting him to win either. This ambiguity gives the film an edge that lingers long after the credits roll.

That said, the story’s final act is where opinions tend to divide. Once strategy gives way to spectacle, the film trades nuance for action. The ending, while satisfying in terms of closure, feels somewhat abrupt and simplified compared to the build-up. The moral complexity that defined the first two acts begins to blur into a conventional revenge-thriller showdown. Still, even in its imperfections, the film sustains a dark fascination. It never feels lazy or hollow—it’s just that its ideas might have deserved a slightly more refined execution.

Despite its narrative stretches, Law Abiding Citizen remains a standout in the late-2000s thriller landscape. It’s unapologetically intense, dramatically charged, and philosophical enough to make its explosions feel earned rather than gratuitous. The film thrives on its contradictions: it condemns violence while indulging in it, critiques the system while sensationalizing its collapse. For all its over-the-top plotting, the emotional truth stays intact—when justice becomes negotiable, vengeance becomes inevitable. And whether viewers side with Clyde or Nick, the uneasy feeling the film leaves behind is its greatest triumph.

At its core, Law Abiding Citizen is less about revenge and more about control—who wields it, who loses it, and how the pursuit of it can consume both sides. F. Gary Gray’s direction, backed by two commanding performances, turns what could’ve been a formulaic thriller into something more charged and psychological. It’s a film that asks uncomfortable questions about morality, justice, and the price of vengeance, even if its answers are messy. And maybe that’s the point—justice, like humanity, rarely fits into a clean equation.

Brad’s Musical Number of the Day – Gerard Butler sings “The Music of the Night” from THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (2004)!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

I’m a big fan of Gerard Butler, mainly because of his macho performances in action films and thrillers. I also appreciate his ability to sing. I remember being surprised and impressed with his performance in Joel Schumacher’s version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. I really enjoy the song “The Music of the Night,” and since I reviewed one of his thrillers today (SHATTERED), I thought I’d balance it out with a video of him belting out a tune. Enjoy!

Brad reviews SHATTERED (2007) starring Pierce Brosnan, Gerard Butler, and Maria Bello!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

My wife and I decided to watch SHATTERED (2007), also known as BUTTERFLY ON A WHEEL, on a whim tonight. We were browsing through Amazon Prime when I saw Gerard Butler on the preview, and that was enough for me to watch it. Sierra likes cheesy thrillers, which this definitely gives off that vibe, so she was all in as well. 

SHATTERED is set in Chicago and opens on the Randall’s, a seemingly perfect little family, made up of Neil (Gerard Butler), Abby (Maria Bello), and their beautiful daughter, Sophie. Neil’s a successful, if somewhat ethically challenged businessman on the verge of a big promotion, and life is good. That is, until a stranger (Pierce Brosnan) literally pops up in the couple’s life out of nowhere, tells them that he’s kidnapped Sophie, and forces them to do whatever he says or he’ll kill the girl. One moment they’re emptying their bank accounts only to see the stranger burn the money, and the next they’re delivering incriminating business documents to the competition that will destroy Neil’s company and his career. As the demands escalate, we learn that Neil and Abby’s lives aren’t quite as perfect as initially presented. But who is this stranger, why is he doing this, and how far will he force them to go to save their daughter?

I enjoyed SHATTERED quite a bit. It’s one of those movies that rope you in with its intriguing premise… a mysterious stranger puts a happy couple through hell, and we don’t know why he’s doing it, but we want to! This type of story, if done well, always pulls me in even though we’ve seen it done many times before. It’s helped by the game cast. Pierce Brosnan is appropriately intense and menacing as the stranger, helping us believe that he’ll hurt their daughter if they don’t follow his orders. James Bond, he is not! I’m a big fan of Gerard Butler, and he’s good here. His character is not the badass that we’ve come to expect from him these days, and he’s not that great of a guy either, but he does a good job of portraying a morally compromised guy whose life is spiraling out of control. Maria Bello is equal to the task as well, as the desperate mother who’s forced to deal with her husband’s failures at the same time as she’s dealing with any mother’s worst nightmare.

At the end of the day, these types of thrillers live and die based on their “twists” at the end. I have to admit that I was able to figure out the first twist about halfway through the movie, but SHATTERED isn’t content with just one twist, and it seems to stumble somewhat as it continues on after the first big reveal. I don’t blame the writers for trying to come up with something unique to close us out, but it doesn’t feel entirely successful in light of all that’s transpired before. It might actually be worth a rewatch just to see how well it stacks up. 

I’m glad I watched SHATTERED. It’s time-tested storyline and fast pace make it worth a viewing, especially if you’re a fan of the cast like I am. Just keep your expectations in check, and you should enjoy the ride!

Behold the Live Action How to Train Your Dragon Teaser!

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

It’s been almost 15 years since the original How to Train Your Dragon was released. Taking a page out of Disney’s playbook, it looks like Dreamworks’ & Universal Pictures have decided a Live Action version was in order. Whether it was just to keep the story fresh in the minds of audiences, or to refresh the copyrights, here we have it. This was wild surprise on the big screen for me, because at first I thought it was a commercial for a possible theme ride at Universal Studios or something. It wasn’t until Gerard Butler showed up (reprising his role as Stoick the Vast) that it hit me – this is an actual movie. I have mixed feelings about this. With director Dean Deblois returning to the helm, there’s no way they can mess this up. I’ll be there for this. I’m totally sold. Then again, if it’s a shot-for-shot remake like Gus Van Sant’s Psycho or Jon Favreau’s The Lion King, would it still be entertaining? To Universal’s credit, Toothless and the other dragons look pretty good.

Universal/Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon, starring Mason Thames (The Black Phone), Nico Parker (The Last of Us), Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz) and Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2) will be released next year in Cinemas.

Film Review: Plane (dir by Jean-François Richet)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) is a pilot for Trailblazers Airlines.  When he arrives for his flight from Singapore to Honolulu, he is not thrilled to discover that one of his passengers is going to be the recently captured fugitive, Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter).  However, that soon turns out to be the least of his problems as his plane ends up flying straight into a storm.  With the plane damaged, Brodie is forced to land on an island.  Unsure of how long it’s going to take the airline to find the plane, Brodie heads into the jungle to find help.  Accompanying him is Louis, who turns out to be the not that bad of a guy at all.

Unfortunately, there are some actual bad guys on the island.  In fact, it turns out that the island is controlled by Datu Junmar (Evan Dale Taylor), a vicious terrorist who is implied to be connected to ISIS.  Junmar and his men plan to take the passengers and crew hostage.  In New York, a mysterious man named Scarsdale (Tony Goldwyn) has arranged for a group of mercenaries to travel to the island and rescue the crew and the passengers.  However, it’s not clear whether the mercenaries are going to make it to the island in time.  Can Brodie defeat the terrorists and help everyone escape from the island?

Fortunately, Brodie Torrance may just be a pilot who works for an admittedly third tier airline but he’s also Gerard Butler.  From the minutes we first see Brodie, we know that there’s probably more to him than just flying commercial planes.  And indeed, it does turn out that Brodie knows how to throw a punch.  He also knows how to fire a weapon and how to run someone over on a landing strip.  Again, he’s Gerard Butler.  Gerard Butler really doesn’t get enough credit for being an actor who is believable as both an action hero and a normal human being.  Someone like Dwayne Johnson is always credible when he’s fighting someone or shooting a weapon or delivering a one liner but it’s always difficult to picture him as someone who goes to the mall or gets his oil changed every year or who does anything else that feels remotely like everyday life.  Gerard Butler, on the other hand, is credible whether he’s punching out a villain or shopping at a grocery store.  He’s the everyday action hero and Plane makes good use of his talents.

Plane is a simple and admirably straight-forward film.  Brodie lands on an island that’s full of terrorists.  Brodie has to defeat the terrorists and escape from the island.  There aren’t a lot of unnecessary complications or attempts to fool the audience into thinking that Plane is something more than it is.  Instead, Plane embraces its status as an action movie and it tells its story in a brisk 107 minutes.  It’s entertaining and it’s undemanding and, even though it was released way back in January, it’s a good film for the summer months.  In the past, straight-forward, well-made action films were so common that we took them for granted.  Today, in this age of bloated, CGI-heavy cinematic universes, messy continuities, and movies that often run closer to three hours than 90 minutes, a film like Plane is a cause for celebration.

Here’s The Trailer For Plane!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s the trailer for Plane, starring Gerard Butler!

Sadly, this is not a sequel to the 30th best film of 2020, Money Plane.

Still, it’s always nice to see Gerard Butler doing stuff.

The film will be in theaters on January 13th!  That’s actually Friday the 13th so make sure that you don’t end up sitting next to the Voorhees kid.  He likes a windows seat, from what I hear.

Here’s The Trailer for Last Seen Alive!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

If Liam Neeson ever retires, Gerard Butler will be there to take his place as the best actor to regularly appear in violent and somewhat formulaic thrillers about men doing what they have to do to save the members of their family from being abducted and sold to the highest bidder.

Here’s the trailer for Last Seen Alive, which is due to be released next month.  In this one, Butler plays a man whose wife vanishes at a gas station.  It was originally titled Chase, which was a bit of a generic title.  I prefer Last Seen Alive.  Butler not only stars but he also produced.

Film Review: Den of Thieves (dir by Christian Gudegast)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Den of Thieves is quite simply one of the most exhausting films that I’ve ever sat through.

It’s not just that the film itself is overly long, though that’s definitely an issue.  (Den of Thieves last 2 hours and 20 minutes.  For the sake of comparison, that’s 17 minutes longer than last year’s best picture winner, The Shape of Water.)  Instead, the real problem is that there’s really not a single unexpected moment to be found in Den of Thieves.  Every cliché imaginable shows up in Den of Thieves and, after a while, the film’s predictability becomes a bit much to take.

It’s a bank heist film.  We know that because it opens with a strangely portentous title card that informs us that more banks are robbed in Los Angeles than anywhere else in the country.  This is one of those heist films where a self-destructive police detective goes head-to-head with a ruthless yet sympathetic criminal mastermind.  If you’re thinking that this sounds a lot like Heat, you’re right.  In fact, imagine if they remade Heat without any of the stuff that made Heat more than just another crime film and you have a pretty good idea what you’re going to get with Den of Thieves.

The detective is named Big Nick O’Brien (Gerard Butler) and we know he’s a badass because he’s got a lot of tattoos and a beard and when he’s not busting criminals, he’s either getting drunk or getting served with divorce papers.  Nick’s an asshole but that’s okay because Nick … NICK GETS RESULTS, GODDAMMIT!  Nick has a crew that’s devoted to him.  Of course, a lot of them will be dead by the end of the movie.  That’s just the way things go when you’re living in a clichéd crime film.

Big Nick wants to take down Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber), who is a former marine turned bank robber.  We know that Merrimen is a badass because he’s got a beard and he’s got even more tattoos than Nick!  In fact, his entire crew is covered with tattoos!  You have to wonder how smart these criminals are, all getting body art that will make it very easy for the police to identify them.  But they’re a good crew.  In fact … THEY’RE THE BEST!  THEY GET RESULTS!  And only Nick can take them down because … ONLY THE MOTHERFUCKING BEST CAN TAKE DOWN THE MOTHERFUCKING BEST, GODDAMMIT!

Sorry, am I yelling a lot?  This is one of those films where everyone yells a lot.  Basically, this entire movie is drenched in testosterone.  This is one of those films where no one gets interrogated with getting knocked around beforehand and where every meeting is some sort of confrontation.  When the end credits rolled, I was shocked to learn that some of these people actually had names.  Just from listening to the dialogue, I assumed everyone in the film was named “Motherfucker.”

And again, it just all gets exhausting after a while.  Maybe if Den of Thieves had been a 90 minute action flick or had featured any of the self-aware humor of Baby Driver, it would have been entertainingly dumb.  But 140 minutes is a long time to spend with a bunch of thinly drawn stereotypes.

Now, there are two positive things that can be said about Den of Thieves.

First off, one of the thieves is played by O’Shea Jackson, Jr. and he’s got enough screen presence that he can overcome some clunky scenes.  (A scene where he’s interrogated by the police literally seems to go on forever.)

Secondly, the film itself looks great.  The film’s opening scenes do a good job of capturing Los Angeles’s unique mix of grit and glitz.  The opening shootout is pretty well-done and briefly suggests some promise on which the film ultimately doesn’t deliver.

Anyway, Den of Thieves came out this January and despite middling reviews, it did well enough at the box office to earn itself a sequel.  So, in 2020, look forward to more scenes of Gerard Butler … GETTING RESULTS!