Riders of Justice

2020 was a strange year for the world, and somehow I missed this film. Riders of Justice stars Mads Mikkelsen as Markus, a highly skilled military veteran who has some deep-seated anger issues. He has a poor relationship with his daughter Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg), which he is trying to correct. He finds himself pulled back home to investigate a crime along with three nerds, who give off an X-Files Lone Gunmen/Big Bang Theory vibe. They are hilarious. One of them, Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), believes that an accident was no accident, but the police won't believe him. He enlists the help of two of his nerd friends and Markus to help take down a motorcycle gang, the Riders of Justice, who he believes are behind the crime - the killing of an informant a week before the case is to go to trial. I have tried to convey the plot without actually telling you anything because I would like you to go in blind, without knowing anything. I simply had a ball with this movie. I love Mads Mikkelsen, and this is one of his best and funniest things he has done because he plays the role straight. The three other gentlemen get into silly arguments over nerd stuff, and it's fantastic. I howled with laughter. Everyone in this movie has trauma, or some form of mental baggage/illness. In fact, the three nerds pretend to be therapists working with Markus on his anger issues so his daughter Mathilde doesn't know what they are really up to - killing motorcycle gang members. It's violent and thrilling and funny as hell. This is the therapy you need. I simply loved Riders of Justice. Catch it streaming or go rent it from Movies 'N Stuff. 

The History of Concrete

John Wilson. A generic enough sounding name. I had never heard of him or his HBO series How to with John Wilson. He must have some sort of cult following because I saw his documentary The History of Concrete on a Sunday night at the Mayfair Theatre and it was full of people; the most I had seen in a very long time. I went because I had seen the trailer and it looked amusing. It's not, it's hilarious. I haven't laughed as much since Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. It's not really the history of concrete. I mean, technically, yes, sort of. But really, it's a portrait of America in the same way Borat is a portrait of America. Although there are no fictional characters. This is John Wilson interacting with all the strange and silly that America has to offer. The film starts with him attending a Hallmark movie seminar about how to make a Hallmark movie. Bizarre, funny, and somewhat sad. This pretty much describes all the different segments which make up The History of Concrete. To name just a few, he covers the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race; an annual race in Queens, New York, consisting of 5,649 laps around a single city block over two months. This is run on concrete. He goes to a concrete convention where there are brick-wall-making competitions (like a firefighter thing). Wilson, to acquire more funding for his documentary, is required to make his film a music biography, so he finds Jack Macco, a rock musician who has a cover band and sells liquor as his day job. Bizarre, funny, and somewhat sad. Wilson's narrations that join all his segments are paired with quick visual gags that come as fast and as corny as Airplane! jokes. He is clever and very funny. The film also serves as a warning about the crumbling infrastructure of America and the environmental disaster of the world's coastlines caused by the consumption of sand for China's rapid concrete growth. Some heavy facts here. Bizarre, funny, and somewhat sad. It will hit you like a ton of cartoon bricks. Catch it in theatres now or rent it from Movies 'N Stuff when available. 

Resident Evil

My second favourite film of last year was Weapons, written and directed by Zach Cregger. He has followed that film with this, a remake and a reimagining of Resident Evil - the long-running franchise that was written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and starred the pouty Milla Jovovich. I have a soft spot for these films, although I can say, I don't believe I saw more than the first three. Anyway, I was happy to see a fresh take from someone like Cregger. What he has given us is something like Martin Scorsese's After Hours crossed with Carolie Fargeat's The Substance. After Hours was a story of an average Joe just trying to get home. Resident Evil is a story about an average Joe, in this case, Bryan (Austin Abrams - who played the junkie in Weapons), trying to deliver a package. Scorsese and Cregger both place their protagonists in absurd situations, and this is what provides the comedy, how they react to the crazy situations they find themselves in. Yes, Resident Evil is a horror film, and it is scary at times, but it's also hilarious. I had a ball watching Austin Abrams who can play a goofus like nobody else. He brings a naive buffoonery to his character and I love watching him. I think he is a brilliant actor. So there is that, but then there are the monsters and the blood. John Carpenter's The Thing has a famous scene of a man's head detaching and turning into a bug/spider. In Resident Evil they reattach and form a tornado ball of Cirque du Soleil spinning limbs. Then there is The Substance level of blood and gore. It's pretty wild. The nursery scene is something else; code red. Resident Evil is no Weapons but it's still a bloody good time. Catch it in theatres now or rent from Movies 'N Stuff when available.  

The Weight

Ethan Hawke is one of those actors I will follow wherever he chooses to go. Those destinations have landed me at The Purge, Born to Be Blue, Maudie, First Reformed, The Black Phone, Leave the World Behind, and Blue Moon, just to name a few great ones of the last thirteen years of Hawke's career. There have been a few flat tires and dead ends along the way, but Hawke is someone who consistently picks interesting material to star in. And now we have The Weight. Life changing? No. Highly entertaining? Yes. Hawke plays Samuel Murphy, a single dad who is down on his luck during the Great Depression in 1933. Kicked out of their apartment, Samuel and his young daughter find themselves looking for a home. Samuel gets thrown into the slammer for assaulting a cop and his daughter is thrown into foster care. Samuel is sentenced to hard labour, building a road, breaking rocks with a sledgehammer. The big bad boss man of this prison outfit is J.J. Clancy (Russell Crowe). J.J. finds out quickly that Samuel is one smart cookie - he can fix all aspects of a car and can move a massive stone using his noggin. J.J. offers Samuel early release so he can get his daughter back if he illegally moves (steals) some gold from point A to point B. Samuel agrees and picks a crew to help him, all with the promise of early parole. Thus the adventure ensues. It's kind of like Cool Hand Luke meets Sorcerer, with maybe a little Deliverance and Sometimes a Great Notion thrown in. Violent and bloody at times, I found myself squirming as Samuel tries to remove the wedding ring from his swollen hand. It's a prison-heist-thriller and it's worth its weight in gold (see what I did there?). Catch it in theatres now or rent it from Movies 'N Stuff when available.  

The 47

Having watched movies now for over fifty years, I have learned a few things, mostly about myself. Maybe. I enjoy underdog stories and stories of people fighting against repression, tyranny, and authority. Maybe it stems from Star Wars, rebels fighting against the Empire or Indiana Jones punching Nazis in the face. Whatever the case, adult me seems to gravitate towards similar, but less cartoonish, versions of this type of story; films like I, Daniel Blake, Milk, or Philadelphia. The 47 gives us the true story of Manolo Vital (Eduard Fernández) who plays a bus driver from the mountainous Barcelona suburb of Torre Baró. It was built by hand in the 1950s and '60s by migrants. By the mid-'70s, the well-established area still had poor electricity and a dismal water supply. There was no bus service. Manolo and his daughter, and the rest of the Torre Baró inhabitants had to traverse the mountainside up and down to go to blue-collar jobs or school. Manolo and his friend would travel into town and paint slogans on the wall of city hall, slogans about justice for Torre Baró (the rebel in me cheers!). Manolo's daughter is ashamed of where she lives. When a firetruck can't climb the hill to a burning building, it becomes the tipping point for Manolo to take action. He becomes determined to get bus service for his people. The film is about social justice, but it's layered. His daughter Joana (Zoe Bonafonte) is in the school choir, and she is subjected to almost Whiplash levels of cruelty. Her performance is a standout. The 47 is a bus ride you want to catch. Watch it at a repertory theatre if possible or rent it from Movies 'N Stuff when available.  

Boorman and the Devil

This is a documentary about the making of Exorcist II: The Heretic, a film directed by John Boorman. It's also a film retrospective of Boorman's work. If you are a film nerd, you will love it. But even if you're not, or maybe you just haven't seen any of his work yet, the film serves as commentary on why we make art in the first place. What are we doing as artists? What does success look like, and in this case, what is a failure? Exorcist II: The Heretic was one of the biggest film flops that Hollywood has ever seen. A disaster. The Mayfair was showing it on alternate nights with the Boorman documentary. (I went and saw it. Not entirely disastrous. I actually enjoyed a good portion of the film.) Before The Heretic, Boorman had made Deliverance, and it was nominated for Best Picture of 1973. After that, he was Hollywood A-list material. If anyone could make a sequel to the ginormous smash hit that was The Exorcist, it was Boorman. However, he didn't want to make a traditional sequel; he wanted to go in an all new direction. Something completely different. And he did. Audiences hated it. The production of the film was shut down for over five weeks because Boorman fell ill due to inhaling some bacteria found in dirt. It was brought in for swirling wind scenes set in Africa. Boorman could have died. The film was running out of time and the ending was rewritten. Multiple times. More disasters. A mess. Then it opened and critics and audiences hated it. Boorman almost quit making movies. Thankfully he didn't. As a writer and artist myself, I appreciate those who are willing to take risks and give us something new, something we have never seen before. It takes guts. Boorman is such an artist. This portrait of failure is a success. Catch it in a theatre if you can or rent it from Movies 'N Stuff here in Ottawa.  

Insidious: Out of the Further

If you are claustrophobic or don't like going to the dentist, well this is the horror film for you! This one is going to put you into the tight cavity of a rotten tooth with an exposed nerve. This is the sixth installment of the Insidious franchise and you would think it would be out of gas. The tank is full! Full of monsters, that is. What's it all about? Well, first off, you don't have to know anything about the previous films to understand this one. It follows the story of Gemma Hall (Charli Penton) who has The Sixth Sense ability to see dead people, just like the character Haley Joel Osment played. When Gemma grows up (Amelia Eve) she has become a dental hygienist, has a kid of her own, and still sees dead people. And these dead people, they want to come back from their Insidious purgatory world of the Further. They have a leader who looks like a cross between Emperor Palpatine and a just-before-death Ozzy Osbourne - he often wears a blindfold for extra creepiness, or maybe he plans to dress up as Justice for Halloween. Whichever. He would like to bring his army of the undead to, and I paraphrase, "Rip apart our world." Not so nice of him. The demons look like something out of a Clive Barker film. And there are three old folks who look like they borrowed red getups from Jordan Peele's Us - they are fantastically scary. Gemma, with the help of a tattoo artist and an old lady, must stop them. Insidious: Out of the Further has some fantastic and fresh ideas and images. Gemma exploring a couch fort is Backrooms fun. And the dental office sequence will have you brushing extra hard before bed. This ranks up there with one of the best horror features of 2026. So go get yourself a dental checkup at the cinema, or rent it from Movies 'N Stuff when available and watch it peeking out from your couch fort.