The Last Frontier, on Apple TV+

Alaska would be a terrible state to be a fugitive in. The weather is cold, gun ownership is high, and probably one out of every ten residents has their own reality TV show. Nevertheless, that is exactly where a special prison transport plane crashes. It will be Federal Marshal Frank Remnick’s job to coordinate the massive manhunts. In addition to the FBI, he has the dubious help of a scandal-tarred CIA officer thrust upon him as well in co-creators Jon Bokenkamp & Richard D’Ovidio’s ten-episode The Last Frontier, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

For some reason, the transport was diverted to Alalska, where a mystery prisoner, later identified by the codename “Havlock” was loaded Hannibal Lecter-style. Shortly thereafter, the plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness. Remnick and his men have no idea regarding any of this when the land to investigate the remote crash-site, which soon becomes the scene of an ambush. Frankly, this might be one of the most spectacular and brutal action sequences ever filmed for television (directed with verve by Sam Hargrave).

Barely surviving, Remnick quarterbacks the search, ordering a statewide lockdown. He intuitively distrusts Sidney Scofield, who initially won’t even admit her CIA credentials. Eventually, she concedes she was reluctantly dispatched by the corrupt Deputy Director Bradford, because she was Havlock’s handler back when he was an asset, not so long ago. Obviously, she is supposed to make the problem go away, but Havlock always seems to be two steps ahead, especially when he kidnaps Remnick’s wife Sarah, an ER nurse treating the recovered survivors.

Honestly, The Last Frontier starts off amazingly, but eventually deflates into a stagnant puddle. Beyond the super-charged action set pieces, the early episodes have a lot of insight into Alaskans’ “frontier” identity and what community means up there. At one point, Remnick’s deputy Hutch, memorably portrayed by Dallas Goldtooth, explains to a suspect that Alaska is hard country, so if you aren’t connected to a wider community you will die up there. Likewise, Remnick utterly shames Scofield for her elitist Beltway snobbery.

Unfortunately, later episodes embrace juvenile “deep state” paranoia and a rather cynical “ends justify the means” approach to problem-solving. Frankly, Bokenkamp and D’Ovidio end up glossing over a whole lot of dead law enforcement officers and innocent civilians, just because “CIA bad.”

There is also a gross imbalance between the two co-leads. Jason Clarke is gritty and forceful as Remnick, but also appealingly grounded and almost “down home.’ In contrast, Hayley Bennett’s shallow, one-note charisma- and energy-challenged portrayal of Scofield probably does more than any of the stilted, conspiratorial agency backstabbing to undermine confidence in the CIA. However, there is a lot of good, earthy work from those portraying Alaskans, including Goldtooth and Simone Kessell, as Sarah Remnick.

Black Site, on Redbox

Peace must be breaking out if Jordan is okay with the presence of a Mossad agent assigned to a Five Eyes black site hidden in the kingdom’s desert. Of course, it is not like Jordan has a lot of civil liberties to hinder its operations (Freedom House gives it a 34 out of 100, ranking it “Not Free”), but of course, we’re the bad guys in Sophia Banks’ Black Site, which releases tomorrow via Redbox.

When terrorists blew up a hospital in Ankara, they also killed the husband and daughter of Abby Trent, a CIA analyst. Why would a high-level analyst be doing in-country station work you might wonder? Well, don’t, because one year later she will be attached to the black site responsible for interrogating persons-of-interest, with respects to the bombing. Okay, some think it is a bad idea to have her on the case, but there she is.

Unfortunately, Trent is due to be shipped out soon, but right before she leaves, “The Hatchet” arrives. Supposedly, he was the terrorist mastermind behind the bombing that Trent now suspects was a drone strike. He also inconveniently let himself get captured, so he could wipe out Trent’s team and their incarcerated assets. The Hatchet seems to have inside help, but at least Trent can rely on Uli Wasserman from the Mossad (whereas not so much cocky American contractor Raymond Miller).

Jinder Ho and John Collee’s screenplay explicitly argues the CIA is more dangerous than international terrorists. Yet, it is produced to serve as an old school, bullets-flying VOD action movie, that even emblazons Old Glory across its on-sheet. The question remains, who is the intended audience expected to be entertained this film?

By far, the most interesting thing about the film is the character of Wasserman and Phoenix Raei’s portrayal of him. In this murky world, the Mossad guy is the moderate pragmatist (which could very well be true in the real world as well). On the flip side, Jason Clarke looks visibly bored going through the motions as The Hatchet, who must be the world’s most sullen and depressed terrorist ever.

Similarly, Jai Courtenay spewing anti-authority attitude as Miller makes no sense in this context. Anyone in a sensitive post like this would get bounced real fast for challenging the chain of command.

Pet Sematary (2019): Maine is a Terrible Place to Raise a Family

Fans have a strange relationship with the 1989 adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. The author’s readers were so delighted to finally have a half-decent King horror movie after the mid-1980s doldrums (remember Silver Bullet?) they developed more affection for it than it probably deserved. On the other hand, hard-core Ramones fanatics resented their title theme song as a Hollywood sell-out (as it sort of was). Serious horror watchers were encouraged when the up-and-coming team of Kevin Kölsch & Dennis Widmyer signed on to direct the remake, but the distinctiveness of their previous films is absent from the latest Pet Sematary, which releases today on DVD.

The Pet Sematary novel and subsequent films will annoy your spell-checker to the point of exasperation. The deliberate misspelling matches that of the pet graveyard the Creed family finds nestled away on the property behind their new Maine home. You would think the realtor would be legally obliged to disclose something like that. Behind it is a deadfall built by the Micmac tribe to keep people away from a hilltop burial mound with a serious reputation for causing heebie-jeebies. Reportedly, it was the Wendigo’s old stomping grounds. That definitely should have been covered in the mandatory disclosure.

Nevertheless, Dr. Louis Creed and his wife Rachel are still all smiles moving in with their eight-ish-year-old daughter Ellie and toddler son Gage. Since Jud Crandall, the crusty old codger living next-door turns out to be an nice old softie, they think the only down-side to their new home are the big rigs that constantly come barreling down the highway right in front of their driveway. Alas, “Church,” the family feline is flattened by one of those eighteen-wheelers a few days later. That night, Creed and Crandall set out to bury Church while Ellie is asleep, but instead of planting her in the Pet Sematary, Crandall leads Creed up the deadfall, to bury Church atop the mini Devil’s Tower. Within a matter of hours, Church comes back—changed.

And that should be enough to foreshadow the rest of the story. Of course, you know some mortal remains are going up there sooner or later. Mild spoiler: in a departure from the book and Mary Lambert’s movie, it will be Ellie who follows Church under the wheels of a speeding truck (but honestly, the evil looking little girl on the key art kind of gives that away already).

In fact, most of the changes from King and Lambert are not for the best. Lambert’s film recounts the prior history of Timmy Baterman, a recently returned WWII veteran, who also died prematurely and took a sinister detour through the Micmac burial ground, which gives the film a vibe of ancient evil hanging over the woods. Kölsch & Widmyer only show an old Baterman news headline brought up by an internet search (how Millennial). Conversely, the flashbacks featuring Rachel Creed’s late sister Zelda Goldman (who suffered from Spinal Meningitis) are expanded in ways that are exploitative and distasteful.

Frankly, the best part of this Sematary is John Lithgow playing old Crandall, but Fred Gwynne was still better in the Lambert film. In all fairness, Jete Laurence is terrific as Ellie Creed, even if a lot of her impressive third act work was a mistake in narrative terms. Jason Clarke also does a credible job portraying Dr. Creed’s descent from everyman to self-deluding psycho-tool-of-the-Wendigo. However, Amy Seimetz, a horror movie veteran, seems weirdly aloof as Rachel Creed.

Kölsch & Widmyer maintain a creepy, moldering-forest-smelling atmosphere, but this is just an unnecessary film to remake. Plus, the Starcrawler rendition of the Ramones’ “Pet Sematary” will be galling for the band’s fans, no matter how they felt about the original tune. Basically, this is just a time-killer for horror watchers that does not live up to the standards of the co-directors’ Starry Eyes and their Valentine’s Day contribution to Holidays. Not recommended for deliberate intentional viewing, Pet Sematary releases today (&/9) on DVD and BluRay.

Sundance ’14: The Better Angels

That log cabin business was no joke.  Abraham Lincoln’s formative years put the “hard” in hardscrabble. Yet, they shaped him into the commanding and compassionate leader our nation needed. Young Master Lincoln comes of age in A.J. Edwards’ impressionistic The Better Angels (trailer here), co-produced by Terrence Malick, which screens as a New Frontier selection of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Narrated by Lincoln’s cousin reminiscing shortly after his assassination, Angels chronicles three years of his life as a gangly youth in the back hills of Indiana.  His devout but illiterate mother Nancy Lincoln recognizes her youngest son’s remarkable intellectual gifts, but his gruff father sees no value in a bookish education. Nancy Lincoln would die at a tragically young age, but her religious convictions clearly shaped her sensitive son’s ethical values.  A short while later Tom Lincoln remarries.  Sarah Lincoln also takes a shine to young Abraham, finally convincing her husband to support his education.

Throughout Angels, Malick protégé Edwards maintains a style consistent with that of his mentor, but scene after scene resonate with far greater emotion than the austere To the Wonder. This is a simple story, but it is deeply moving.  Aside from the exquisitely beautiful opening shots of the Lincoln Memorial, Angels never leaves the Indiana Hill country, circa 1817. Yet, Lincoln’s later significance is unambiguously stamped upon the film.

Visually, Angels is a true work of art.  Each and every frame of Matthew J. Lloyd’s black-and-white cinematography is suitable for framing. As sort of an illustrative tone poem-tribute to Lincoln, Angels fits comfortably enough in the New Frontiers rubric.  Nevertheless, the film boasts several very fine performances. Diane Kruger’s turn as Sarah Lincoln is wonderfully sensitive and finely wrought, but Jason Clarke’s work as the demanding but ultimately loving Tom Lincoln sneaks up on viewers, landing a total knockout punch.

Yes, Angels is deliberately paced, favoring sensory stimulus over narrative drive. It is also an unusually powerful and evocative film. There will be plenty of people who just won’t get it, but they will be wrong. Elegantly crafted, it is one of the high-end high-points of this year’s Sundance. Enthusiastically recommended for patrons with adult attention spans, The Better Angels screens again today (1/22) and Saturday (1/25) in Park City.

Swerve: Australian Noir

The whole honesty thing does not seem to be working out for an Australian veteran driving cross country for a job interview.  He tries to do the right thing with the briefcase full of cash he finds at the site of an accident, but the local cop is a bit on the dodgy side.  It turns out he has issues, largely revolving around his wife Jina in Craig Lahiff’s Swerve (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Jina will walk away from the crash unscathed, but the other party will be leaving feet first.  Considering he had just pulled off his own murder-double cross, karma certainly came back around for the drug dealer quickly.  However, it is a safe bet someone will come looking for the case of dirty money Colin, the innocent bystander, turns over to Frank, the local law, after driving the strangely composed Jina home.  As a fellow veteran, Frank insists on putting Colin up at his place, which leads to the awkward realization Jina is the copper’s wife.

Needless to say, it is not a happy marriage.  Both husband and wife appear to be hatching schemes against each other that will start to involve the stash of cash in Frank’s jail cell. Colin will try to avoid getting entangled in their drama, but yeah right, good luck with that.

Anyone who has seen Body Heat or The Postman Always Rings Twice will have a pretty idea what twists and turns lay ahead, except Lahiff’s screenplay is relatively demur by the standards of sexually charged thrillers.  In fact, it is a modest film in many ways, seemingly mindful it has not reinvented any cinematic conventions.  Yet, its thriller mechanics are pretty solid and all three sides of the central noir triangle have above average presence. 

While the entire cast (even the smaller supporting figures) is well known in Australia, Jason Clarke will be the most recognizable to American audiences from Zero Dark Thirty.  He does the swaggering small town crooked cop well, playing his problematic nature more in terms of erratic recklessness than outright evil. Emma Booth looks more like a girl next door than a femme fatale, but she vamps it up in style.  Rounding out the trio, David Lyons makes a reasonably credible everyman and a refreshingly sympathetic on-screen portrayal of an Iraq War veteran (even if Clarke’s Frank is considerably less so).

As if in observance of film noir tradition, Swerve culminates on a night train headed out of town.  Trains might not automatically come to mind when you think of Australia, but they have them. It’s a big country, after all.  Regardless, Lahiff hits all of the chamber thriller bases, usually with a fair degree of authority.  Swerve is the sort of film most viewers will say is “pretty good,” which is not bad at all, considering the rubbish that gets released.  It could well have been acquired with the home viewing market in mind, which is exactly where it should have a long and prosperous life.  Recommended accordingly (particularly for those who follow Australian cinema), Swerve opens this Friday (12/6) in New York at the AMC Loews Village 7.