Matt Shapira | Through the Shattered Lens

2021’s Love On The Rock definitely has something going for it. It was filmed on the island of Malta.

Malta is a beautiful island nation, sitting between Sicily and North Africa. I spent the summer after I graduated high school in Europe and Malta was one of the many beautiful places that I visited. Along with its gorgeous architecture and the beaches, Malta is also known for being the island where St. Paul and St. Luke were shipwrecked for three months. Paul, it’s said, healed every sick person on the island.

Love On The Rock may be a comedic action film with a religious subtext but, far more importantly, it’s a bit of a travelogue as well. David A.R. White plays Colton Riggs, a former Chicago cop who moved to Malta after the death of his wife. He has his own boat and he makes his living giving tours. (He even has a pre-recorded narration that he plays while navigating the boat.) This allows for several scenes that give us a chance to take in the stunning beauty of the island. Colton also has a friend named Rev. Yearwood (Jeff Fahey), who oversees a church that overlooks the ocean. Again, the view is lovely.

As for the plot, it has to do with the search for a serum that can, in theory, cure any and all diseases. International criminal Claudio Fairbanks (Steven Bauer, who appears to have been dubbed by someone else) wants control of the serum so he sends his associates to raid the Maltese laboratory where it’s being developed. One technician gets away, carrying a vial of the serum with him. Wounded during his escape, the dying man secretly hides the vial on Colton’s boat.

Claudio sends his people, led by Halston Hallstrom (Matthew Marsden), to find the serum. Meanwhile, the head of the CIA (Jon Lovitz …. wait, Jon Lovitz?) sends Josie (Lauriane Gillieron) to Malta to seduce Colton and discover if he knows where the serum is. Of course, Josie actually does fall in love with Colton and eventually, Colton does find the serum and it all ends with a surprisingly laid back confrontation between the bad guy and the good guys.

The film is also a comedy and it’s got a religious message as well. (Josie is offended when Colton acts surprised that a spy would also be religious.) Surprisingly enough, it’s actually pretty adroit when it comes to juggling all of its different genres. David A.R. White and Laurianne Gillieron make for a cute couple and both of them turn out to have good comedic timing. For that matter, I also liked the performance of Nathalie Rapti Gomez, who played a trigger-happy mercenary named Plaza and who gave an entertainingly unhinged performance. In the end, even that stuff that shouldn’t have worked — like casting Jon Lovitz as a spymaster — actually did work. Maybe Lovitz should be the next James Bond.

Love On The Rock is an entertaining and unpretentious action spoof. If nothing else, it’s worth seeing for the beauty of Malta.

With apologies to Brad Crain, I’ve never been a basketball fan.

I’m not really a team sports fan in general but basketball truly gets on my nerves. My main issue, of course, is that all the squeaky shoes make it difficult for me to watch a game. The constant squeaking is headache-inducing. My other problem with basketball is that people who like basketball tend to really, really, really like it, to the extent that they can’t handle the fact that some of us don’t really care. Finally, I get tired of being expected to pay attention to whatever it is the coaches say after the game. How many times have I come online to see breathless stories about a basketball coach giving his thoughts on current events? Like seriously, who cares? Why would I care what a coach thinks about tariffs? Why are we even asking basketball coaches for their opinions? Aren’t basketball coaches just supposed to yell at people until they get kicked out of the game? I’ve seen Hoosiers, which I will acknowledge is a very good movie despite my feelings about the game. Gene Hackman was constantly getting kicked off the court and everyone loved him for it. Temper tantrums, that’s what we need from basketball coaches. We don’t need to know your thoughts on the cost of bread.

What’s the point of all this? Before I talk about 2022’s Nothing Is Impossible, I thought you deserved to know my own bias against the game. Nothing is Impossible is a movie that loves basketball.

Nothing is impossible? Try telling that to former basketball-star-turned-high-school-janitor Scott Beck (David A.R. White). Scott, we’re told, could have been a star in the NBA but it didn’t pan out. Instead, Scott works as a janitor and volunteers as an assistant high school coach. While NBA players and their coaches are answering questions about who they voted for in the last election, Scott is looking after his alcoholic father and regretting the fact that he left Ryan Aikins (Nadja Bjorlin) at the altar.

Ryan is now the owner of a basketball team and, when the team announces that it will be holding live tryouts for anyone who wants to try to make the team, Scott finds himself tempted to try to achieve his dream of playing in the NBA. Can Scott do it? Can he still compete at a competitive level? Actually, could he ever compete at a competitive level? Listen, I know this is a PureFlix film and David A.R. White can probably appear in any one of their films that he wants to because he’s one of the founders of the company but White is never particularly convincing as someone who could make a professional basketball team. He’s not particularly tall. He doesn’t come across as being particularly athletic. He’s middle-aged. Nothing is impossible the title tells us but the idea of an unathletic, middle-aged, 5’10 white guy dunking on a bunch of NBA superstars truly tests that claim.

The important thing, of course, is that Scott and Ryan discover that they’re still in love and White and Bjorlin manage to generate enough romantic chemistry to make a believable couple. The other important thing is that Steven Bauer shows up as a heartless executive. It’s always nice to see Bauer destroying dreams. Otherwise, the film did not change my opinion about basketball.

Seriously, those shoes are just too damn squeaky….