Category Archives: Thriller

Uncut Gems (2019)

January 19, 2020Comedy, Drama, ThrillerAdam Sandler, basketball, Benny Safdie, Eric Bogosian, gambler, Idina Menzel, jeweler, jewelry, Joshua Safdie, Judd Hirsch, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, LaKeith Stanfield, Safdie brothers, The WeekndVince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Set in 2012, Uncut Gems is a part crime drama and part character study, following the dealings of Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), a New York jewelry merchant doing business by appointment in his highly secure private showroom. Not all is peachy-keen in Howard’s life, as his marriage is on the rocks, his mistress has begun to make him feel insecure, his lack of work ethic beginning to sour customers, he just might have colon cancer, and his gambling addiction has gotten him into a lot of debt that he can’t pay back easily. He’s a sucker for get-rich-quick schemes to keep him out of trouble; his latest involved the procuring of a large uncut Ethiopian black opal that may be worth up to a million dollars.

Enter Boston Celtics star, Kevin Garnett, who takes an immediate interest in purchasing the rare jewel upon seeing it, but is denied a sale because Howard already has it set up to auction within a few days. Garnett ends up borrowing the opal in exchange for one of his championship rings and has one of the best games of his career on the basketball court, making it the good-luck charm he has to have at the tail-end of his career. In the meantime, Howard has ended up pawning off Garnett’s ring and used the money to bet big on Garnett’s performance.

Directed by Benny and Joshua Safdie.

Knives Out (2019) | Rian Johnson

November 29, 2019Comedy, Mystery, ThrillerAna de Armas, birthday party, Chris Evans, Christopher Plummer, Daniel Craig, Don Johnson, dysfunctional family, Jamie Lee Curtis, LaKeith Stanfield, michael shannon, murder, murder mystery, mystery, New England, nurse, Rian Johnson, suicide, Toni ColletteVince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Set somewhere in New England, the plot of this murder mystery involves the death of the patriarch of the Thrombey family, Harlan (Christopher Plummer). Harlan is a wildly successful mystery novelist who has amassed a small fortune running a publishing company for his and other books. While initially thought to be suicide, several guests at Harlan’s 85th birthday acted quite suspiciously before his death that leaves open the possibility of foul play. Along with the police, an unknown person hires a famous detective named Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to check into the matter beyond the standard police questioning. Our main conduit into the story, however, is Marta (Ana de Armas), Harlan’s nurse that has a strange affliction where she will toss her cookies whenever she lies, making her an instant way to vet the truth, provided that she knows it. With Marta by his side, Blanc finds there may be more to the suicide than he initially thought, though the hows and whys remain elusive. Rian Johnson writes and directs. Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, and LaKeith Stanfield also appear.

The Lighthouse (2019) | Robert Eggers

November 10, 2019Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Thrillerisland, lighthouse, mermaid, New England, Robert Eggers, Robert Pattinson, seagull, set in the 19th century, Willem DafoeVince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

There’s something to Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) that’s been deeply troubling him – an incident in the past that haunts him that his continued existence on the island serves as a persistent reminder. Their shift on the island in the middle of the sea was originally to be four weeks in duration. Due to a leg injury, the boss, Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe), requires Ephraim to do nearly all of the physical labor on his behalf, which the younger man comes to deeply resent, feeling like a slave during the day and treated no better than an animal at night. On his end, Thomas feels like Ephraim doesn’t respect his authority, and his cooking skills, and he’s going to break the lad to fear him if he won’t at least show him the respect of his position., The wall between them is so prevalent, despite being in close proximity to one another, they don’t even learn each other’s names until well into their scheduled stay. From there, things get occasionally better, but often far worse, as Ephraim’s fear, guilt, and paranoia begin to get the better of him, combined with the toxicity of heavy drinking and feelings of overwhelming isolation. Visions come into his head of lusty mermaids, mocking seagulls, and a dead body he seems to know more about than he cares to remember. Robert Eggers directs and co-writes this unique psychological folk tale of a sort.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) | Tim Miller

October 29, 2019Action, Science Fiction, ThrillerArnold Schwarzenegger, artificial intelligence, border, Gabriel Luna, James Cameron, Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, Mexico, Natalia Reyes, Terminator, Tim MillerVince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

As with the other Terminator films, a protagonist and antagonist are sent back to the modern-day from a dark future using a time-travel device. The protagonist (Mackenzie Davis) is a technologically augmented human super-soldier named Grace, who lands in Mexico City in order to try to act as a savior for humanity in the future (Natalia Reyes). The antagonist (Gabriel Luna) is an ultra-powerful Terminator model called a Rev-9, whose mission it is to terminate a young female autoworker living in Mexico named Dani Ramos. Lending assistance to the resistance is the return of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who sees kinship in Dani because she has been thrust into the same position as key to humans surviving the A.I. onslaught of the future. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes an appearance in the second half of the film as a T-800 model Terminator named “Carl” who has assimilated into human society after completing his mission of taking out John Connor. Tim Miller directs.

The Gemini Man (2019) | Ang Lee

October 18, 2019Action, Science Fiction, ThrillerAng Lee, assassin, Benedict Wong, black ops, Clive Owen, clone, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, sniper, Will SmithVince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Will Smith stars as Henry Brogan, a top-notch sniper and skilled combat fighter working for a black ops government agency named Gemini, performing one last kill before retiring from the assassin business at the ripe age of 50. He’s the best at what he does but hates the man he’s become, unable to even look at himself in the mirror without observing disappointment and pain. But just when he thinks he’s pulling out, they pull him back in, discovering that he’s been misled by his superior at Gemini, Clay (Clive Owen), in the nature of his latest assassination, making him feel betrayed. Along with fellow agent and his new ally, Danny (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and his trusty pal Baron (Benedict Wong), Henry soon discovers they are trying to take him out as well, but with a younger, more agile, less angsty version of himself named Junior. Ang Lee directs this futuristic action-thriller.

Joker (2019)

October 13, 2019Drama, Superhero, Thrillerbatman, clown, comedian, Joaquin Phoenix, Joker, Jokes, mental illness, psychopath, Robert De Niro, set in the 1980s, talk showVince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Set in a crime-ridden Gotham City sometime in the early 1980s, Joaquin Phoenix stars as Arthur Fleck, a man who has been dealing with mental challenges his entire life, with little to show for all of his efforts to keep on the sane path. One of his afflictions is his uncontrollable laughter when faced with things that make him anxious, which often gets him into further trouble on its own. He’s living in a Gotham City apartment with his ailing mother, Penny (Frances Conroy), trying to make it on his own either as a clown or as a stand-up comedian, on the hope of getting on the number-one late-night talk show starring Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro). Even with the several medications that he is on, his afflictions often get the better of him, but now he’s lost his job, his therapist, his meds, and his sanity, but finds there may be a new path to an audience when he gains notoriety as a Bernard Goetz-style subway shooter. Directed and co-written by Todd Phillips.

Hustlers (2019) | Lorene Scafaria

September 17, 2019Drama, ThrillerCardi B, club, Constance Wu, J.Lo, Jennifer Lopez, Lorene Scafaria, stripper, theft, thief, Wall StreetVince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Starting off in 2007, Constance Wu stars as Destiny, a newbie stripper trying to make it in the clubs of New York’s competitive environment in order to earn enough money to support her and her ailing grandmother. Backstage she meets and ends up being mentored by a legendary veteran stripper named Ramona (Jennifer Lopez), who completely cleans up in terms of money whenever she appears on the stage or off. However, the great recession of 2008 soon hits, with opportunities completely drying up to earn cash in the strip clubs, with both ladies struggling to make ends meet. That is until Ramona decides to put her skills at working the crowds of men to the test, gathering up Destiny and several other stripper friends to lure in the Wall Street types with corporate accounts to swindle them out of thousands of dollars at a time.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

August 5, 2019Action, Adventure, Comedy, Science Fiction, ThrillerDavid Leitch, Dwayne Johnson, Fast & Furious, Hobbs & Shaw, Idris Elba, Jason Statham, Kevin Hart, Ryan Reynolds, Samoa, Vanessa Kirby, virusVince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Hattie (played by Vanessa Kirby) is an MI6 agent on a mission to keep a deadly virus named Snowflake, which can liquefy the internal organs of humans who contract it, from getting into the hands of a faction of mercenaries under the employ of an evil tech-based organization called Eteon, led by Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), a hi-tech assassin with technology-augmented senses that make him a swiss-army knife of deadly skills, something seen by the company as the future of a humanity soon to die off. In a desperation move, Hattie injects the virus into her own body, giving her only 3 days to get it back out before it actually does what it’s supposed to do, and instantly making her the most sought-after fugitive in the world by bad guys and good guys alike. Hired to find Hattie before Lore finds her first is the titular bickering team of Los Angeles-based single father and retired DSS agent Luke Hobbs and ex-special ops mercenary Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), the latter of whom is soon revealed to be the estranged older sibling of Hattie. But to save Hattie, they also need to secure the services of a genius scientist, who is perhaps the only one with the technology necessary to extract the virus back out of Hattie, making him a target of Eteon’s forces as well. David Leitch directs this comic spin-off from the Fast & Furious franchise.

Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood (2019) | Quentin Tarantino

July 28, 2019Comedy, Drama, Thrilleracting, actor, Al Pacino, Brad Pitt, Charles Manson, filmmaking, Hollywood, Leonardo DiCaprio, Los Angeles, Margot Robbie, murder, Quentin Tarantino, set in the 1960s, stunt manVince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Rick Dalton, a Hollywood star who is seeing his brightness fade in the ever-changing and fickle industry. Brad Pitt stars as Cliff Booth, his dedicated stuntman, chauffeur, and overall sidekick in life. The outlook looks bleaker each time out for both of them, as Dalton goes from leading-man roles in films to heavies on TV shows, mulling over advice to continue his career starring in Italian films rather than take a back seat in Hollywood. Meanwhile, Cliff ends up getting into his own kerfuffles on the side, including a spat with none other than Bruce Lee, a young hippie that he flirts with while out driving around the streets of Los Angeles, and dealing with a past that includes questions on whether he might have murdered his own wife and gotten away with it. Quentin Tarantino writes and directs this pop-culture pastiche love letter to Hollywood at the end to the 1960s.

Shaft (2019) | Tim Story

July 12, 2019Action, Comedy, ThrillerAlexandra Shipp, Jessie T. Usher, Regina Hall, Richard Roundtree, Samuel L. Jackson, ShaftVince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Thirty years ago, J.J. (Jessie T. Usher) was fathered by Samuel L. Jackson’s Shaft, who was immediately estranged from his kid by the mother, Maya, who wants to keep her child’s life from the daily danger that Shaft is surrounded by. Shaft keeps his toe in the water with J.J. by sending presents on birthdays and holidays that often show how out of touch he is, not only in what’s going on in J.J.’s life but also in what is acceptable by standards of our less politically incorrect world. J.J. Shaft works primarily as a desk jockey in the FBI. J.J. learns that his old friend Karim and sometimes protector died from an overdose in Harlem. Knowing that his friend had turned his life around, J.J. thinks the death smells funny and decides to investigate the cause, leading him to ask questions in a drug dealer’s lair that gets him nearly killed. Desperate to move on with his investigation, J.J. reaches out to the father he never knew, currently working as a hardboiled private investigator in town, who readily accepts his role as his son’s new protector and mentor of all things “manly”. They soon discover there is, of course, far more involved in Karim’s death than what the official report says, and soon the men find themselves in the middle of a murder case. Tim Story directs this semi-spoof of its own franchise. Richard Roundtree takes a small role as the original John Shaft.

To the '90s and Beyond!

A retrospective film review podcast covering the movies of the 1990s and the newer movies influenced by them. Hosted by Vince Leo of Qwipster.net

Category Archives: Thriller

Uncut Gems (2019)

Knives Out (2019) | Rian Johnson

The Lighthouse (2019) | Robert Eggers

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) | Tim Miller

The Gemini Man (2019) | Ang Lee

Joker (2019)

Hustlers (2019) | Lorene Scafaria

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood (2019) | Quentin Tarantino

Shaft (2019) | Tim Story