Film Review of the Week

Thriller

How To Make A Killing (15)

Review: Glen Powell trades the money-driven barbarity of The Running Man for accidental anarchy in an exceedingly loose remake of Kind Hearts And Coronets, which jettisons the gimmick that made the 1949 film such a whoop-inducing blast: namely, Sir Alec Guinness playing all eight members of an aristocratic family marked for death. Writer-director John Patton Ford’s contemporary revamp could do with that kind of unabashed, show-stopping theatrics to enliven a plodding script that gives the aggrieved lead character everything he needs to be happy – a loving partner, luxury apartment, well-paid job, caring boss – but still compels him to slide a noose tightly around his own neck.

Becket Redfellow (Grady Wilson) is disowned at birth by his obscenely wealthy family, spearheaded by grandfather Whitelaw (Ed Harris). The patriarch refuses to allow Becket’s mother Mary (Nell Williams) to raise a child conceived out of wedlock under his roof so she rejects the privilege of Redfellow mansion and moves to New Jersey, providing for her boy as a working single mother. On her deathbed, Mary whispers to Becket, “Promise me you won’t quit until you have the right kind of life… the kind of life I raised you to have.” As an orphan, the grieving boy reaches out to his biological family and is rejected again, sowing seeds of rage that just need a little watering.

The day of propagation comes when Becket, now a 30-something tailor’s assistant (Powell), is unexpectedly reunited with former childhood crush Julia Steinway (Margaret Qualley). She is married and remains out of reach since he is only eighth in line to inherit the Redfellow fortune behind various cousins and kin. “Call me when you’ve killed them all,” she jokes. Becket does just that, initially targeting obnoxious stockbroker cousin Taylor (Raff Law) before he starts pruning other branches of the family tree including paranoid pastor Steven (Topher Grace). As the body count rises, Becket acquires a doting girlfriend Ruth (Jessica Henwick) and becomes a person of interest to investigating FBI agents Matthews (Stevel Marc) and Pinfield (Phumi Tau).

How To Make A Killing lacks the acerbic wit and pizzazz of its 1940s inspiration, heavy-handedly introducing a modicum of suspense by having Qualley’s materialistic vamp forcefully insert herself into the plot. Screen chemistry with Powell’s serial killer is lukewarm and their lack of heat is felt acutely in the film’s belaboured final stretch when shotgun bullets start flying.

Harris, Law, Grace and co-stars, who embody the doomed Redfellow bloodline, have limited screen time to make an impact and only one member of the clan, based on what we see, comes close to warranting an unfortunate demise. Powell’s natural charm, which overflows in his other films, barely trickles.

Thriller

One Last Deal (18)

Review: Danny Dyer turns up the heat to boiling point in a pressure-cooker thriller set in the cutthroat world of sports talent management. Shot in one increasingly claustrophobic location – a football agent’s photograph and memorabilia-festooned office on one of the hottest days of the year – One Last Deal relies heavily on its lead actor to deliver the goods as screenwriter Peter Howlett flirts with a yellow card for the inartful use of sexual assault as a key plot point.

Summertime temperatures soar across London to 40 degrees and football agent Jimmy Banks (Dyer) feels the heat in his airless office on a day that will decide his personal and professional future. His only client, Premier League player Matt Gravish (Elliott Rogers), is standing trial for rape and is poised to receive a verdict. If Matt is found guilty, it will mean extinction for an old dinosaur like Jimmy, who is convinced his ‘meal ticket’ is innocent. “He’s a good guy. He’s got a good heart,” Jimmy assures his daughter Stephanie (Natasha O’Keefe) on a telephone call, shortly after realising he has forgotten her birthday.

In between feeding stories to a journalist (Tamsin Greig) and checking financial dealings with his lawyer (Jason Flemyng), Jimmy places an impromptu call to Jerome Sweet (Chip), the second top scorer in the Premier League. Jerome already has an agent but Jimmy promises to connect the young player with Real Madrid’s sporting director Roberto Sanchez (Carlos Bardem). “I stay in his villa every summer,” boasts Jimmy. As fate smiles on Jimmy, an unknown caller concealing their identity with voice-changing software demands £2 million in two hours or they will release incriminating audio files for public consumption, like the recording attached to an incoming email. “That was PG compared to the rest of them,” promises the blackmailer.

Timed almost to the minute to the length of a standard professional football match, director Brendan Muldowney’s picture chips away at the veneer of a swaggering, bullish geezer who has been “blinkered by pound signs” and refuses to accept responsibility for his role in other people’s misery, until it’s almost too late. Sexual and physical violence, audible in recordings peppered with victim-blaming language, have the desired impact. Deducing the blackmailer’s identity doesn’t tax the brain but the sting in the tail of Howlett’s script leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth.

Dyer unravels convincingly, pausing to take deep breaths in between a blitzkrieg of important telephone calls on his Bluetooth headset that swing wildly between shameless schmoozing and faux flattery to potty-mouthed threats. He barrels through a full gamut of expletives with gusto and feels authentically slippery even when the writing bobbles shots wide in front of an open goal.

Romance

Reminders Of Him (12A)

Review: The latest adaptation of an emotionally manipulative Colleen Hoover novel, following in quick succession after It Ends With Us and Regretting You, sparks heavy-handed romance between a female ex-con and a handsome bar owner in the aftermath of the tragedy that she caused. Directed by Vanessa Caswill, Reminders Of Him shamelessly targets tear ducts with two different renditions of Coldplay’s bittersweet lament Yellow and, possibly, the cutest child actor you’ll see all year.

Kenna Rowan (Maika Monroe) emerges from an uncontested seven-year prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter under the influence to return to the home town where she was held legally responsible for the death of her boyfriend Scotty Landry (Rudy Pankow). She is grimly resolved to confront ghosts of the past so she can finally meet the daughter she was forced to give up in prison. Unfortunately, cherubic tyke Diem (Zoe Kosovic) is being raised by Scotty’s parents Patrick (Bradley Whitford) and Grace (Lauren Graham), both of whom angrily blame Kenna for the loss of their son.

Before Kenna can identify herself, she meets Scotty’s former best friend, Ledger Ward (Tyriq Withers), a local bar owner who sacrificed his dream playing American football with the Denver Broncos to a career-ending shoulder injury. There is palpable attraction between the couple but fascination turns to conflict and confusion when Ledger realises his new crush is the source of so much pain. “I want to meet the human that Scotty and I made,” Kenna implores Ledger, who is a doting uncle to Diem and might be the only person capable of bridging the divide between opposing factions.

Adapted for the screen by Lauren Levine and author Hoover, Reminders Of Him is a glossy drama that declares its simplistic intentions from the outset and fulfils them with matter-of-fact confidence. We know exactly where Kenna’s odyssey of self-healing is headed from the first lines of her wistful voiceover and Caswill’s picture doesn’t deviate one inch from that signposted path. A well-thumbed therapeutic journal, which Kenna fills with heartfelt letters to Scotty to help her come to terms with her loss, is telegraphed in neon-lit capital letters as an important plot point that filmmakers can exploit for sniffles at a critical juncture.

Monroe’s layered lead performance burnishes occasionally trite dialogue and she catalyses simmering chemistry with Withers, playing his second embattled American footballer in a row after yesteryear’s horror thriller Him. The speediness of Kenna and Ledger’s mutual infatuation assumes a deeper connection than we get to see on screen. Whitford and Graham are reduced to narrative cogs, steadfastly blocking Kenna’s path to a dewy-eyed reunion with her daughter until their resistance to saccharine sentimentality proves almost as futile as ours.