High Heat, Starring Olga Kurylenko and Don Johnson

As they say on cooking shows, Ana Abramov has “knife skills.” She trained at the Cordon Bleu and the KGB. When mobsters try to ruin her restaurant’s opening night, she chops them instead in Zach Golden’s High Heat, which releases Friday in theaters and on VOD.

Abramov manages the kitchen, keeping a sharp eye out for broken sauces, while her roguish older husband Ray spreads his smarmy charm around the front-of-the-house. Their partnership works smoothly, until Mick and his goons show up. It turns out, Ray maybe sort of borrowed money from Mick’s father Dom, promising to repay it by torching the restaurant for the insurance money. Of course, he neglected to tell his wife that part, but she skipped over her KGB past too, so he figures they are even. He also assumed Dom would give him more time to pay-off his debt, but something came up for the gangster, requiring some quick ready cash.

Of course, Abramov can easily handle the initial handful of thugs sent to firebomb the place after closing. However, as Dom sends in more and more henchman, Abramov calls in a risky favor from Mimi, her estranged former KGB partner, now living as a suburban merc with her henpecked husband and partner, Tom. There is a good chance Mimi might kill Abramov too. She’ll make up her mind when she gets there. Regardless, Abramov can only really trust her husband. He might be a screw-up, but they still have that spark.

High Heat is definitely a meathead movie, but it is a quality meathead movie. Olga Kurylenko and Don Johnson are perfectly cast as the restauranteur couple and they share some likable chemistry together. Dom and Mick are rather run-of-the-mill gangsters, but Kaitlin Doubleday is spectacularly unhinged as Mimi. Likewise, Chris Diamantopoulos counterbalances her as Tom, the bundle of nebbish neuroses she deserves. (When watching High Heat, always try to remember Diamantopoulos is the current voice of Mickey Mouse.)

Knives Out: Daniel Craig Investigates Famous Suspects

If a suspicious character is not played by someone famous, chances are that person is not the murderer. That is why Agatha Christie movies used to have little pictures of the cast running along the bottom of their lobby posters. It showed off how many suspects there were. Winking homage is paid to those films in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, which opens today nationwide.

Johnson’s screenplay is all about its twists, so some caginess is in order, to prevent spoilers. It is safe to say Harlan Thrombey, a celebrated mystery novelist and patriarch of a wildly dysfunctional and elitist family is about to die a premature death. Marta Cabrera, his private nurse is probably the only one who truly mourns him. The cops assume it is an open-and-shut case, but Benoit Blanc, an eccentric Southern gentleman private detective has reason to suspect otherwise. An unknown client hired his services to investigate, which is rather suspicious in itself.

Much to her surprise, Cabrera finds herself pressed into service as Blanc’s Watson. Of course, it becomes increasingly awkward for her, because she harbors her own secrets. Needless to say, everything is not as it seems.

There is quite a bit of clever misdirection going on throughout the film. It would be no fair telling, but rest assured the big reveals are all quite satisfying. The knowing humor is also mostly rather sly, but there are times when the scoldy class warfare messaging should have been throttled down. This is supposed to be larky fun, not a Theodore Dreiser adaptation.

Fortunately, Daniel Craig always keeps things snappy when he is on-screen, delighting viewers with Blanc’s impossibly lazy drawl. Honestly, that accent deserves some kind of award. It is also great fun watching him effortless shift from genteel charm to gleeful cunning.

Frankly, it is rather impressive that Ana de Armas can keep up Craig and the rest of the colorful ensemble as the almost fatally nice Cabrera. Of course, only Blanc can withstand the withering attitude Jamie Lee Curtis projects as the tartly cynical eldest daughter, Linda Drysdale. She is a totally believable chip off the block that is Christopher Plummer’s uber-yankee Thrombey (and really ought to have more screen time, but she makes the most of what she gets). Likewise, Plummer has the appropriate lordly presence, but he has some surprisingly engaging humanizing moments with De Armas.

Yet, Don Johnson might just score the biggest laughs as the venal and pretentious son-in-law, Richard Drysdale. Honestly, Johnson has yet to get the credit he deserves for his comedic chops (check out his razor-sharp cornpone turn in Cold in July, if you doubt it).

Brawl in Cell Block 99: Vince Vaughn Goes Up the River

Evidently, most convicts sent to the big house fantasize about doing time in Austria’s luxurious looking Justice Center Leoben, but not Bradley “Don’t Call Him Brad” Thomas. He is determined to be transferred to the maximum-security, pre-war Red Leaf hell-prison, as soon as possible. He has his reasons in S. Craig Zahler’s Brawl in Cell Block 99 (trailer here), which releases today on DVD.

Thomas was an ex-boxer trying to make and honest and peaceful living, but the recession forced him to return to work as runner for his drug lord pal Gil. He could tell something was wrong with their new Latin American connection, but he does his duty, accompanying two jittery thugs on a multi-million-dollar run. When things go sideways, Thomas wastes his cartel companions to save the drastically out-gunned cops. Of course, he is still sentenced to serious time, but at least it is a medium security facility.

On his second day, Thomas gets a visit from the mysterious “Placid Man” pretending to be his mega-pregnant wife Lauren’s OBGYN. In reality, he is a representative of the cartel, who holds him responsible for the loss of their shipment. They have kidnapped Lauren and will do awful things to her unborn baby unless he murders Christopher Bridge in Red Leaf’s hardcore Cell Block 99. To get there, he will have to be transferred twice, once from the more livable Franklin and then again into the subterranean dungeon. That will require a lot of bad behavior, but Thomas has the skills and the fortitude.

Brawl is one of the grittiest prison movies in years that deliberately evokes a 1970s vibe with its tunes and muscle cars. It doesn’t give you much faith in rehabilitation or the criminal justice system in general. Warden Tuggs and the Red Leaf guards definitely count as bad guys, but they are not even the worst of the worst. Regardless, just about everyone at Red Leaf deserves whatever comes their way, except for Thomas and maybe the inmate across the hall, who looks like Julian Richings.

About the last time Vince Vaughn had a stretch of serious dramas going was the late 1990s, when he appeared in the Malaysian prison drama, Return to Paradise. It was a good move for him to step away from wise-guy comedy and return to the prison setting, because Brawl is without question his best work in years. He is quietly intense, but his visceral physicality says plenty.

Don Johnson adds some southern fried villainy as the sadistic warden. He has probably reached the point of type-casting, but to his credit, Tuggs is less cliched and more realistic than his racist plantation owner in Django Unchained or the Joe Arpaio caricature in Machete (but sadly, he is nowhere near as flamboyant as good old Jim Bob Luke in Cold in July). Jennifer Carpenter also adds a bit depth and dimension as Lauren Thomas, which is impressive considering she mostly serves as the hostage-victim. For extra bonus points, Udo Kier brings his eccentric movie magic as the Placid Man.

Both Brawl and Zahler’s previous film Bone Tomahawk clocked in over two hours, which is ridiculous in both cases. Seriously, he has a good handle on genre elements, but he needs to work with a more assertive editor. Brawl is particularly slow out of the gates, but it pays off with more interest than Tomahawk. Recommended for fans of prison movies and 1970s throwbacks, Brawl in Cell Block 99 is now available on DVD and BluRay.

Sundance ’14: Cold in July

In Texas, they do not need “stand your ground laws.” Instead, they apply the “did he have it coming” standard.  As a result, not too many people are concerned when Richard Dane accidentally kills a home intruder, least of all the police. However, the deceased’s ex-con father seems somewhat put-out by it all in Jim Mickle’s Cold in July, which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Dane is hardly an action hero. He truly did not intend to kill Freddy Russell when he interrupted the burglar at work.  The situation just made him understandably jumpy. Ray Price (the cop on the case, rather than the Nixon speechwriter) is happy to sweep the entire incident under the rug, but not Ben Russell. Released just in time for his estranged son’s funeral, he soon starts threatening Dane and his family. At first, Price assumes he is just posturing, but things escalate quickly.  Then the first game-changing shoe drops.

Adapted from Joe R. Lansdale’s novel, July starts out as a conventional home invasion-revenge thriller, but radically shifts gears in the second act, veering into Andrew Vachss territory.  While it appropriately has the dusty noir look of Jim Thompson films, it is way darker than even The Killer Inside Me. There are scenes here that sensitive viewers might wish they could “unsee.”

Regardless, it is brutally effective when it gets down to business. The late 1980’s period details also help the film’s thriller dynamics, taking the internet and cell phones (aside from a running Gordon Gekko style gag) out of the picture. It all ends in a bloody and ironic place that should satisfy genre fans.

Michael C. Hall does decent work as Dane, but he is simply overwhelmed by the seriously hardboiled Sam Shepard, seething like mad as the senior Russell. Yet, Don Johnson chews more scenery and out hardnoses everyone as Jim Bob Luke, a sort of gunslinger recruited into the bloody family feud. As a further bonus, Mickle’s co-writer Nick Damici adds some distinctively noir seasoning as Price, the shady copper.

Stylish, intense, and at times blackly comic, July is a slickly executed criminal morality play. However, it might be too strong for Lifetime and Hallmark Channel viewers. Recommended for hardy film noir connoisseurs, Cold in July screens today (1/20) in Salt Lake and tomorrow (1/21), Thursday (1/23), and Saturday (1/25) in Park City, as part of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.