Weekend Watch: Hit Man, Bad Boys: Ride Or Die, The Acolyte
Glen Powell's on target, while Will Smith shoots wide and Star Wars journeys a longer time ago
Image Credit: Netflix
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, where I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Glen Powell’s a fake assassin, Will Smith is back on the beat and the Jedi face a killer problem. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite and Threads/Instagram: @jammerwhite
Despite the hilariously viral efforts of his parents, Glen Powell is most certainly happening right now. Having paid his dues in smaller roles, he broke out bigger thanks to Top Gun: Maverick (which I reviewed here) and has since climbed the ranks of stardom via Anyone But You and now his latest collaboration with writer/director Richard Linklater.
Hit Man (nothing to do with the benighted video game adaptations that tend to lose the space between the words) sees Powell pulling double duty as co-writer with Linklater, drawing from a Texas Monthly article of the same name by Skip Hollandsworth, which details the extraordinary career of a college-professor-turned-fake-hitman named Gary Johnson.
Powell and Linklater have naturally taken some liberties with the story, but it’s astonishing enough as it is, the mild-mannered Johnson tasked with sting operations designed to ensnare those looking to hire a contract killer (a concept the film is at pains to point out doesn’t really exist outside of cinema and TV). Naturally, he gets in over his head, but not in the way you might expect –– instead he falls for one of the people, Madison Masters (Adria Arjona) looking to hire him. She’s after someone to off her abusive asshole of a husband.
Linklater and Powell don’t turn this into an all-action story, it’s much more a quirky drama comedy about one man’s extraordinary story (with some fictional tweaks). It’s largely to give Powell the chance to play a variety of quirky characters in his fake hit man guises. Arjona is also great value, imbuing Madison with more than just a damsel in distress energy. Her chemistry with Powell also sparkles.
Hit Man enjoyed a brief, well-earned cinematic run, but works just as well on Netflix’s TV screens and is one of the better films of the year.
Hit Man is on Netflix now.
Image Credit: Sony Pictures
“Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do…” In this case, your reaction might depend on how well you’ve enjoyed this distinctly over the top and often silly action franchise. Like the Fast & Furious films, this Will Smith/Martin Lawrence series is more about ridiculous stunts and the pair having fun than great cinema.
Still, with Bad Boys For Life directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah back for this new effort, Ride Or Die, the feeling is very much of continuation from that previous outing (with some connective tissue stretching back to earlier films).
Ride Or Die initially finds main duo Mike Lowery (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) on their usual nonsense –– Mike’s getting married, and Marcus suffers a health crisis that leads to a near death experience. But soon the duo is thrown back into a case when the late Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) is accused of corrupt links to drug cartels. Forced to go on the run to prove their and their old boss’s innocence.
With the directors’ kinetic shooting style, Ride Or Die doesn’t offer too much that’s new, but is still mostly entertaining. Lawrence is the MVP here, Marcus as usual able to be vulnerable and silly, while Smith’s Lowery remains the usually stoic action hero (in between one or two wisecracks). A panic attack subplot for the latter just feels tacked on and Smith rarely sells it.
Alexander Ludwig and Vanessa Hudgens return as Dorn and Kelly from the previous film, and get some fun moments, but the likes of Tiffany Haddish (as a strip club owner) and particularly poor Rhea Seehorn are wasted in small roles. Seehorn in particular, so great in Better Call Saul has less a character, more just a scowl.
Taken as a whole, though, the movie is disposably fun enough –– and worth it for fans.
Bad Boys: Ride Or Die is in UK and US cinemas now.
Image Credit: Disney+
Despite seemingly eons of galactic history available to the creative teams, Star Wars has largely –– on TV and film, at least –– with the period between the events of The Phantom Menace and The Rise Of Skywalker. And on the small screen, a lot of the shows have been focused on Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s Mandalorian time period.
There have some truly outstanding shows in the current era –– Andor as a particular high –– and some seriously troubled examples: The Book Of Boba Fett was a crushing low.
On the basis of the first four episodes, The Acolyte falls squarely between the two. Created by Russian Doll showrunner and Bachelorette filmmaker Leslye Headland, it’s set in an era that the series have yet to explore (the end of the High Republic, roughly 100 years before the rise of the Empire). The focus here is on sisters Osha and Mae (both played by Amandla Stenberg), one a former Jedi padawan-turned-mechanic, the other a warrior bristling with vengeful fury against the Jedi order.
It’s a meditation on the nature of power and who gets to utilise it; and explores the issues of the Jedi, who at this point have enjoyed a considerable period of peace, which sets them up for a fall when a new threat arises.
The cast that Headland has assembled are a mixed bag, but they give their all. Squid Game lead
Lee Jung-jae is Jedi Master Sol, a haunted but noble type, leading a group of Knights and Padawans. As it turns out, Sol, fellow Masters Indara Carrie-Anne Moss), Torbin (Dean-Charles Chapman), and Kelnacca (Joonas Suotamo, playing another Wookiee) were all involved with an incident on Mae and Osha’s home world.
While the mystery element isn’t the most compelling part of the story, Headland has built an agreeable sense of nuance into the story –– the seeming villains aren’t just evil schemers looking to destroy everything and the Jedi aren’t exactly the perfect heroes. The action, meanwhile, is also impressive, blending more of a kung fu style in with the usual clashes found in the franchise.
Will it please everyone? Unlikely, especially in this era of increasingly polarised Star Wars fandom. And is it on the same level as Andor? Also, no. Yet The Acolyte is an entertaining –– and entertainingly diverse peek into a hitherto underserved (at least on screen) corner of that galaxy.
The first two episodes of Star Wars: The Acolyte are on Disney+ now. I’ve seen the first four.