Thieves Highway: Modern Day Cattle Rustling

The Wild West still gets pretty wild in the same ways it always did. “Old West”-style crimes like cattle rustling might sound archaic and quaint, but they still happen quite a bit. In fact, cattle rustling often devastates small ranchers and raises the price of beef for everyone (through contracted supply and increased insurance premiums). Unfortunately, the victims are usually red state residents and red meat eaters, so the press doesn’t care. However, Frank Bennett cares and not just because it is his job in Jesse V. Johnson’s Thieves Highway, which is now playing in theaters (and releases Tuesday on digital).

Bennett carries a badge and a gun, but he works for the Department of Agriculture. He will need that gun, judging from the savage attack on his colleague during the prologue. His partner Bill will also transfer to a desk job next week, for the sake of his pregnant wife. That always tempts the movie fates. Sure enough, they are nearly run off the road by three tractor trailers loaded with rustled cattle.

Being out-manned and out-gunned, Bennett will need the help of Aksel, a crotchety old-timer with serious libertarian inclinations. He might take some convincing, but at least he is comfortable handling firearms.

There is a common prejudice that only “serious” “art” films or “truth-telling” documentaries can raise awareness for an important issue. However, working-class action movie like Thieves Highway can arguably do so much more effectively. Frankly, after watching Johnson’s latest, viewers will be convinced one of the most effective things the Federal government could do to lower beef prices would be an increased effort to prevent and prosecute rustling. (Just google “modern cattle rustling.” It’s a thing and it’s a problem.)

The screenwriter Travis Mills’ narrative is pretty simple, but it is definitely evokes the beats of traditional westerns. Aaron Eckhart has the right dignified swagger and the appropriate brooding strength to be the Will Kane of cattle. The bad guys are also colorfully villainous, including Devon Sawa as the stone-cold ringleader, Jones. However, he is overshadowed midway through by the gang’s flamboyantly fierce “surprise” collaborator. Plus, rapper Tracy “The D.O.C.” Curry is entertainingly grizzled and grouchy as old Aksel.

Muzzle: City of Wolves

Most movie patrons wouldn’t care much if Jake Rosser dies, but if anything happens to his partner, there will be a riot in the theater. Rosser retired from the force, but he still trains police dogs like Argos. It will be good to have Argos around when a cartel comes looking for revenge in John Stalberg Jr.’s Muzzle: City of Wolves, which opens Friday in theaters.

Rosser went a little rogue at the end of the first film, but it seemed like he got away cleanly. Apparently not. In addition to some serious cartel enemies and an internal affairs investigator snooping around, Rosser has some serious post-traumatic stress. He had tried to maintain a normal family life, but the home invasion that culminates in an explosion greatly strains his marriage to Mia. Rather ominously, the assailant was a Mexican investigative journalist who tried to expose the cartel. Instead, they captured and tortured his family.

Before long, the cartel tries to extort Rosser in a similar way. Exploiting his not-so-secret PTSD, the shadowy cult-leader drug lord tries to frame him as a racist cop pushed over the edge. A real corrupt cop will do all the dirty work. Again, Rosser will be lucky to have Argos riding shotgun.

The first Muzzle was a solid B-movie procedural, elevated by its sensitive portrayal of the handler-K9 bond. Like the original, City of Wolves explicitly calls out China’s complicity with the illegal fentanyl trade. However, that is about as far as it goes. The first film was unabashedly hardboiled, but the new sequel is somehow even darker. Yet, it is not such a smooth ride, due to some rather choppy editing.

Classified, Starring Aaron Eckhart

This is why its not a bad idea to go into the office at least a few days a week. Evan Shaw thought he was doing jobs for an ultra-double-secret division of the CIA. He was recruited by an old trusted colleague, but it turns out he has been under new management for several years. Upon learning the truth, Shaw decides to file a grievance in Roel Reine’s Classified, which is now available on VOD.

Shaw almost left the assassination business, but his old friend Kevin Angler lured him back. He was ready to walk away and spend the rest of his life with Monica Walker, but after her accidental death (which are usually suspicious in his secretive world), Shaw doubled down on the lone wolf lifestyle. Now, Shaw travels from one port-of-call to another, picking up his coded instructions from newspaper classified ads. However, in recent years, his targets changed from cartel bosses and warlords to corporate tycoons and scientists. Yet, he needed a maverick MI6 agent like Kacey to put the pieces together for him.

Of course, he initially refuses to believe, until he starts verifying much of her intel, including Angler’s obituary. Soon, they are off to Malta, where the Shaw was originally recruited. Unfortunately, the super-stealthy assassin never realized his duplicitous employers GPS-chipped him, so they know he is coming.

Frankly, Malta is the perfect setting for Classified, given it was recently governed by PM Jospeh Muscat, whose government was found “collectively responsible” for the political assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Carauna Galizia. If there is a capitol of corruption, it would be Malta.

The tiny EU nation also apparently hands out production tax-credits like candy, while allowing films crews to stage all kinds of pyrotechnics around the islands most picturesque tourist attractions. One thing Classified has going for it is scenic locales—and it is pretty much the only thing.

To be fair, Aaron Eckhart is reliably grizzled as Shaw. However, it is glaringly obvious Abigail Breslin had zero firearms training. Her one-handed grips with absolutely no recoil would even raise the eyebrows of Amish pacifists. Breslin’s rapport with Eckhart isn’t great, but it is horrible either, but it hardly matters in a film like this.

Chief of Station: Aaron Eckhart’s Next CIA Movie

Many movies depict CIA officers as the bad guys, but in the real world, several CIA station chiefs have been assassinated while serving their country. Tragically, Farrah Malloy will be the next to die in the line of duty. However, her widowed husband is also a CIA officer, with the know-how to find her killers and extract retribution in Jesse V. Johnson’s Chief of Station, which releases tomorrow in theaters and on-demand.

Ben Malloy just ran circles around the FSB (the former KGB) intercepting a courier drop on the streets of Budapest, where his wife is Chief of Station. Then he met her for their anniversary, but it was interrupted by an explosion. Supposedly, it was a gas leak, but Malloy soon suspects otherwise. Since the agency’s general inspector clearly has it in for him, Malloy only trusts Dez, his wife’s former colleague in the cyber division, with his findings.

Technically, he also trusts Nick, who will also soon start working in agency IT, but Malloy does not want him involved. Of course, the mysterious terrorists will inevitably target the son to get to the father.

Much like Aaron Eckhart’s last CIA movie, The Bricklayer, Chief of Station starts with a promising premise, but quickly reverts to standard issue payback VOD action. In this case, Chief is worse, because it chickens out quite cowardly, by making the FSB “friendly” rivals rather than the true bad guys. Just ask Ukraine how the FSB really conducts their business. This is not the mid-1990s. Audiences are craving Russian and CCP Chinese villains, because they want to finally see payback for their oppressive crimes. Instead, the producers apparently cared more about sales in some of most despotic territories on earth.

It is a shame, because Eckhart has the perfect cerebral grittiness for a vengeance-seeking CIA officer like Malloy. Olga Kurylenko has instant action credibility Krystyna Kowerski, an agent Malloy’s wife used to handle. However, screenwriter George Mahaffey literally drops her into the film from out of nowhere, after a full hour of Malloy lone-wolfing, just in time to save his butt.

Renny Harlin’s The Bricklayer

Greece is situated smack dab in the middle of a sensitive geographic area, with easy access to the Balkans and Turkey. It also has a history of a particularly childish strain of leftism. (Remember their threats to leave the Eurozone, because they were shocked to learn they had to balance their budgets once they relinquished control of their monetary policy? Any econ major could have told them so.) That makes Greece the perfect location for a scheme to discredit the CIA in Renny Harlin’s The Bricklayer, which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.

Things got a bit messy while Steve Vail was assigned to Greece, so he resigned from the agency, returning to his blue-collar roots laying brick for construction sites. Unfortunately, Radek, the contact he supposedly liquidated, is alive and well, framing the CIA for the assassinations of leftist “journalists” with a history of investigating Agency operations. Ostensibly, he is extorting the CIA for 100 million in Bitcoin, but his vendetta runs deeper than that. Regardless, Kostas, a demagogic leftwing Greek politician is shamelessly exploiting the killings to undermine America and NATO.

Reluctantly, Vail secretly returns to Greece, along with Kate Bannon, a Jack Ryan-esque analyst, who gets her first field assignment, because her politically astute boss O’Malley wants to limit the circle of agency personnel with knowledge of the affair. Initially, the by-the-book Bannon clashes with the rogue Vail, but after they save each other’s necks a few times, they hash out a degree of mutual trust.

Hanna Weg and Matt Johnson’s adaptation of Paul Lindsay’s novel (written under the name Noah Boyd) has a sophisticated premise that is shrewdly realistic and incredibly timely. Unfortunately, their screenplay emphasizes routine action over international intrigue. Harlin was always an action-oriented filmmaker, so this plays to his strengths, but it is a missed opportunity for something smarter.

Muzzle: K-9 Officers Fighting Fentanyl

Chinese exports have fallen drastically recently, except their illicit fentanyl trade. One brave LAPD officer will be killed trying to fight a gang of Mainland-connected fentanyl traffickers. He happened to have four legs, but as a K-9 officer, he is due the same honors as his two-legged colleagues. Naturally, his partner-handler is keen to avenge him in John Stalberg Jr.’s Muzzle, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Of course, Officer Jake Rosser has PTSD, because every veteran character must have PTSD. Hollywood simply refuses to consider any other aspect of the military service experience. Fortunately, partnering with Ace has been therapeutic for Rosser. Consequently, when Ace is murdered in the line of duty, Rosser starts spiraling downward again.

According to the autopsy, Ace was really killed by fentanyl poisoning, not the injuries he sustained from the fugitive drug dealer. Even though Rosser is suspended pending a clean psych evaluation, he starts following the leads back to a new fentanyl gang, with convenient connections to a Chinese pharmaceutical company. He also starts training a new partner.

Rosser can relate to Socks. She was badly mistreated by her last handler, whose identity is shrouded by an Internal Affairs investigation. Socks will be more of a project than Leland, the department’s senior trainer, recommends for Rosser, but they quickly form a bond. Rosser also deduces Socks’ murky past involves the same fentanyl gang that killed Ace.

Clearly, Muzzle is considerably darker than Turner & Hooch, since there is an Old Yeller moment within the first ten minutes. Yet, we get to know Ace sufficiently well for his funeral, with full departmental honors, to be darned emotionally crushing. Screenwriter Carlyle Eubank never cops out or opts for easy sentimentalism. This is a tough, gritty police story that features K-9 cops on nearly equal footing with their human counterparts. It also has the honesty and guts to call out China for its role in the fentanyl trade.

Wander: Consider it Conspiracy-Town

It turns out Roswell isn't the craziest town in New Mexico. In this film, the fictional dirt village of Wander is way more sinister. Nobody would want to go there, but apparently those there have a hard time leaving. Arthur Bretnik, a barely licensed PI and trafficker of conspiracy theories will go there hoping to find answers in April Mullen’s Wander, which releases today on VOD.

Bretnik was once a cop, but he lost his job and his family when he wouldn’t back off investigating an irregular murder, even after the body mysteriously disappeared. Obviously, Bretnik still suffers from emotional and neurological damage caused by the convenient accident that finally sidelined him, but he fared better than his late wife and their now brain-damaged daughter. These days, Bretnik co-hosts an Art Bell-ish podcast with his conspiracy theory-mongering crony, Jimmy Cleats and mostly chases down low-rent insurance cheats for money.

Cleats brings him a client who might be a little too perfect. Her daughter died at Wander’s city-limits, under suspicious circumstances she would like Bretnik to investigate. She can also pay pretty good money for his services, even though she is in the country illegally. Of course, Bretnik is totally hooked when he discovers the body had a mysterious non-bullet hole, much like his victim back in the day. He is the last to believe it was a coincidence his client came to him, but he also believes he finally has a chance to uncover the “truth.”

It is hard to figure who this film was really intended for. The shadowy extra-governmental conspiracy Bretnik chases is the sort of yarn that could appeal to the wacky QAnon crowd (seriously, does anyone think Trump could keep his mouth shut about it if he were really fighting some global child abusing cabal?), but the victims are largely illegals, whom the film bends over backward to express sympathy for.

Okay, so whatever. The surprising part is Wander functions pretty well as a thriller (notwithstanding the terrible title). In many ways, it is like a redo of Richard Donner’s Conspiracy Theory, with Aaron Eckhart taking on the Mel Gibson role and Heather Graham serving as the Julia Roberts analog (in this case, Graham represents an upgrade).

Line of Duty

There is nothing the media enjoys more than tearing down police officers. An internet wannabe like Ava Brooks hardly qualifies as media, but she certainly shares all their biases. However, she will learn just how dangerous it can be to serve as a uniformed officer in Steven C. Miller’s Line of Duty, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Officer Frank Penny was officially cleared of wrong-doing in a prior shooting incident, but his career has still suffered. He really was blameless, but he remains wracked with guilt, due to the acutely agonizing circumstances. He walks a beat these days, fatefully putting him in the perfect place to intercept a fleeing kidnaping suspect.

Unfortunately, Penny is forced to shoot the perp before he can disclose any information on the victim’s whereabouts. Awkwardly, she happens to be the daughter of the police chief. As a further complication, Brooks captures the entire shooting on her live-cast, as well as Penny’s subsequent dressing down. Of course, he goes rogue to rescue the young girl and she does her best to keep up with him, until things start getting violently real. Soon, the odd couple realizes they will have to work together to save the victim and stay alive.

If Line of Duty had been released during the peak of premium cable movie channels, it would have been a mainstay that we would have frequently re-watched. It is no classic, but it is slick, professional, generally reassuring, and highly watchable. Frankly, it is enormously refreshing just to see such a positive portrayal of a police office on-screen. Penny is no superhero, but Aaron Eckhart’s lead performance and Jeremy Drysdale’s screenplay cast him in an acutely human light that actually makes him more sympathetic than an unrealistically perfect action hero.

Erased: Eckhart vs. Kurylenko

For the CIA, no good deed goes unpunished.  When they finally take on a Hollywood-approved villain, it causes the violent destruction of their Belgian station.  A former agency operative and his estranged daughter will have to figure out why in Philipp Stölz’s Erased (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Ben Logan is a security consultant doing contract work for Halgate, a soulless multinational corporation.  Unfortunately, he is too good at his job.  After inadvertently uncovering something incriminating, Logan suddenly finds his office has been emptied, his bank account and email wiped clean, and his recent coworkers lying in the morgue as John Does.  Only a timely bit of bad parenting saves Hogan and his daughter, Amy, sending them to the emergency room during that fateful night, instead of their flat.

Logan does not know his daughter very well.  He only assumed custody after the death of his ex-wife.  Perhaps life on the run will help bring them together.  However, he knows Anna Brandt only too well.  He used to report directly to the corrupt CIA official—and he wasn’t working as a security analyst.  He has “special” skills.  That is why she will have to take charge of the manhunt personally.

Despite Brandt’s betrayal, Erased depicts the CIA in a reasonably positive light.  As a policy, the agency is conscientiously working against the bad guys, rather than with them.  Sure, Logan obviously worked for some kind of CIA hit squad, but based on the events that unfold, the agency seems to have a legit need for such specialists.  Even Brandt has her moments down the stretch.

The fact that she is played by Olga Kurylenko does not hurt either.  Smart and chic, she is more of a super-spy than a femme fatale, but she is always a worthy antagonist.  Indeed, this might be Kurylenko’s year, following-up her starring role in Malick’s To the Wonder with a nice villainous turn.  Some enterprising distributor ought to pick-up her powerful Chernobyl drama Land of Oblivion.

For his part, Aaron Eckhart makes a credible square-jawed hard-nose, carrying off his action scenes pretty well.  As Amy, Liana Liberato is slightly less grating than she was in the clumsy Nic Cage vehicle Trespass.  At least, that constitutes progress.  Unfortunately, Stars War alumnus Garrick Hagon (Biggs Darklighter, sans moustache) largely phones it in as bland corporate baddy, James Halgate.

Erased (a.k.a. The Expatriate, a much cooler title) is indeed a bit of a departure from Stölz’s previous German language historical dramas, the so-so Young Goethe in Love and the superior North Face, but he shows surprising affinity for the material.  Granted, screenwriter Arash Amel never cooks up with anything truly new and different, but Stölz’s execution is polished and pacey.  Not bad by B-movie standards, Erased opens this Friday (5/17) at the Village East and is already available through Radius-TWC’s VOD platforms.