In The Line Of Fire (1990)

What I like about Wolfgang Petersen's action thriller is how human it is, about an assassin (John Malkovich) determined to kill the President: Clint Eastwood's security guy fulfills his action hero duties, hanging from the edge of buildings and leaping into the path of bullets, but all the while he grizzles like the old man he is, has clumsy sexual encounters, gets sick, crankily dismisses the psychological games his quarry plays, and generally stays down-to-earth, which is refreshing given all the other bionically- and super-power-enhanced heroes saturating our cinemas.

★★★★☆

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Beowulf (2007)

With the exception of Ray Winstone in the title role who is transformed into the legendary, muscly Geatish warrior Beowulf, this computer-animated version of the Old English epic poem is populated by incredibly realistic animated versions of actors like Anthony Hopkins as King Hrothgar and Angelina Jolie as the mother of the marauding troll-like monster Grendell whom Beowulf is asked to slay, but far from eliciting wonder, the movie mostly leaves you feeling that director Robert Zemeckis' purpose for using such ultra realistic animation and not using the actors themselves was simply to be able to stage a series of peculiar nude fight scenes.

★★☆☆☆

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Deepwater Horizon (2016)

It comes across as a rather simplistic account of what caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010, especially with John Malkovich playing a corporate Dastardly Whiplash whose amoral calculations - on - the - day - cause the blowout and Gulf of Mexico oilspill, but as a glimpse at life on an offshore oil platform, Deepwater Horizon is gripping and as a tribute to those that died, it succeeds wonderfully.

★★★☆☆

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Ripley's Game (2002)

You can easily imagine this is Matt Damon's Tom Ripley grown up and comfortable in his sociopathic skin, no longer scared of what he can't control, now living in Italy with his wife and surrounding himself with frescoes, antiques, harpsichords, Baroque music and art and eating soufflés and truffles and still manipulating the people around him to achieve his own goals which, in this adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's third book in the Ripley series, is simply to avenge a neighbour's slight at a party - the high body count, the trips back and forth across Europe, a siege with Balkan gangsters, are all just part of that sociopathic game of revenge that fills time while really we watch this wonderful thriller to see if John Malkovich's Tom Ripley will make it to his wife's harpsichord concert or not.

★★★★☆

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Bird Box (2018)

Sandra Bullock does her best with stupid material that tries to do A Quiet Place with sight-deprivation rather than voice-deprivation affecting the survivors of a never clearly elucidated apocalyptic event - these characters, either blindfolded or with eyes clenched tightly closed, are left unable to do anything (the most exciting thing that happens over the course of 48 hours blindfolded on a boat is one character falls overboard only to be plucked back out of the water a moment later) or the characters do manage to do things and it is ludicrous, like driving to the supermarket or running around a forest for the first time, blindfolded.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS