The Host: Next Time Book a Marriott

This film is so hostile to the Airbnb model, it could have been funded by the city of New York or the state of California. Still, it probably has a point when it suggests first-time mules should probably spring for a decent chain hotel when they are in Amsterdam to make a drop that will clear their gambling debts. Instead, Robert Atkinson opts for an over-booked hostel that refers him to a tony private home with rooms for rent, leading him straight into Hell in Andy Newbery’s The Host, which opens this Friday in Brooklyn.

Admittedly, Atkinson faces an unusually dire situation, but it was his own spectacularly bad decisions that brought him so far astray. He was the one who decided to gamble with the cash left in his London bank’s short-term safety deposit and he is the one who lost it all and then some at a triad-controlled Casino. He doesn’t have much choice but to accept Lau Hoi Ho’s offer-he-can’t-refuse. He only has to schlep a locked briefcase to a prearranged exchange. Lau’s assistant Jun Hui and his enforcer Yong will accompany Atkinson to keep him out of trouble, but they do a terrible job of it.

First of all, they let DEA Agent Herbert Summers turn Atkinson during the flight. Actually, this is just fine with Jun, because she is a deep cover plant. However, letting him let a room at Vera Tribbe’s stately townhouse is a huge mistake. She is definitely a weird one—and dangerous. At least everyone will have a chance at a do-over when Atkinson’s responsible family man brother Steve comes looking for him.

This is a strange film, starting with Derek Jacobi’s initially baffling wrap-around cameo as the head-shrinking Dr. Hobson. However, judging from the third act revelations, one could guess it was intended as an homage to Simon Oakland’s brief but defining appearance in Psycho. The Host also takes its own radical turn, shifting from an in-over-his-head thriller to a veritable horror movie.

Newbery does not take us on the smoothest of rides, but he embraces each audacious plot point with relish. He also has the benefit of some colorful and distinctive character actors to help sell it, including Jacobi, Togo Igawa as Lau (a Japanese actor playing a Chinese gangster, but whatever), Tom Wu as the henchman Yong, and Nigel Barber radiating silver-haired authority as Agent Summers.

Everly: Salma Hayek vs. the Yakuza

Even if you believe “violence is never the answer and what the world really needs is more love and understanding,” just keep it to yourself. Everly does not have time for warm and fuzzy liberal new age platitudes and we do not want to hear them. She is simply too busy worrying about escape and payback. For several years, she was enslaved as a prostitute by the Yakuza, but now she will try to shoot her way out of their fortified brothel. It is not a well thought out  plan, but at least she will be able to take a lot of bad guys with her in Joe Lynch’s Everly (trailer here), which opens this Friday in targeted markets.

Everly used to be the favorite of the kingpin, Taiko, but not anymore. An honest cop also lost his head over her. Taiko had it boxed up and presented to her. She had agreed to testify for the late detective, but obviously that will not be happening. Taiko’s men were supposed to do their worst to her, but she was able to stash a gun in the toilet bowl. Bullets will fly—and they will keep flying, but Everly is not immune to them. In fact, she starts the film pretty dinged up, but she is able to patch herself up and keep going.

Unfortunately for him, one of Taiko’s bean-counters gets gut-shot in the first volley. There is clearly no way he will make it. Much to her surprise, the dying paper-pushing gangster offers her some helpful strategic consultation as he slowly expires. Acting on his advice, she makes a risky play, arranging a pretext for her mother and the daughter she never knew to pick up a bag of traveling money from Taiko’s high-rise of hedonism-turned war zone.

To their credit, Lynch and screenwriter Yale Hannon understand the point of a film like this and therefore never cheapen it with a disingenuous take-away about the supposed dangers of firearm possession or the folly of vengeance taking. Taiko and his associates need to die—period. Frankly, some bits are rather disturbingly explicit, particularly those involving the “Sadist” played by the classy Togo Igawa (the first Japanese member of the Royal Shakespeare Company), but that makes it extra satisfying when they get theirs.

It should also be noted the forty-eight year old Salma Hayek looks all kinds of dangerous as Everly. She is in tremendous shape and shows real action chops, but in a grittier, less cartoony way. She conveys the well-armed rage of a desperate mother, which makes each showdown deeply primal. There are real stakes in Everly—and plenty of blood, but her relatively quiet scenes with Akie Kotabe as the dying suit are some of the film’s best.

We have often lamented the dearth of legitimate female action stars in Hollywood and mainstream indie movies. It is so bad, Meryl Streep has laughably been suggested for the female Expendables film in development. With Everly, Hayek blasts herself into contention to lead the whole darned shooting match. Despite its obvious debt of inspiration to Gareth Huw Evans’ The Raid, it is an old school, deliciously sleazy revenge thriller that always delivers the goods right to your doorstep and never expects a tip. Highly recommended for fans of exploitation action, Everly is now available on VOD via iTunes and opens this Friday (2/27) in selected cities.

The Hedgehog: Lessons from a French Super

Paloma Josse feels cursed to be young and bourgeoisie. Everyone should have such a cross to bear. She intends to rectify the situation permanently on her twelfth birthday. However, she receives some inadvertent life lessons that from her apartment building’s frumpy concierge (think “super” in New Yorker parlance) that might change her perspective in Mona Achache’s The Hedgehog (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The youngest Josse daughter thinks her parents are superficial hypocrites. She is not necessarily wrong, but she is unremittingly judgmental in her assessments. To bolster the case for her supposedly impending suicide, she films her family’s embarrassing candid moments, while adding her own withering commentary. Through happenstance, one day she finds herself alone in the ground floor apartment of the prickly concierge Madame Renée Michel, the metaphorical “Hedgehog,” discovering a hidden library of classic world literature.

Finally encountering an adult whose secret self is actually cool, Josse begins to spend time in the concierge’s apartment. Though her family is hopeless, Josse is not the only one who can tell Madame Michel is a woman of substance. The wealthy and sophisticated new Japanese tenant Kakuro Ozu picks up on it right away, confusing her no end with his respectful advances.

Though the reliance on characters talking into handheld cameras as a form of video diary is a shopworn contrivance that should set off audience alarm bells at this point, Hedgehog redeems the practice through an incisive ending that is impossible to discuss, beyond saying it is strangely touching and also so perfectly French. Yet, even before that point, the halting chemistry between Madame Michel and Monsieur Ozu is rendered with such exquisite restraint by Josiane Balasko and Togo Igawa, respectively, it thoroughly holds viewer sympathies. There are no corny swoons or cute banter for them, just honestly smart dialogue.

It also rather helps that Garance Le Guillermic displays considerable screen presence as young Josse, the French Wednesday Addams, though the rest of her family come across as wafer-thin caricatures. Yet, the mature adults, Balasko and Igawa, unquestionably carry Hedgehog, the latter particularly conveying the wisdom of experience so rarely seen in such a charismatic manner on film. Indeed, Igawa’s performance would be considered a front-running Oscar contender in a hipper world.

Hedgehog truly is a film that sneaks up on viewers, in more ways than one. Amongst other things, it turns out to be a wonderful valentine to classic Japanese cinema (though the character Ozu assures Madame Michel he is no relation to the great director). Heartily recommended for the more casual art-house patrons, as well as hardcore Francophiles (and connoisseurs of Japanese cinema), The Hedgehog opens this Friday (8/19) in New York at the Angelika Film Center downtown and the Lincoln Plaza uptown.