On Blu-ray/DVD: INTO THE ASHES (2019) and COLD BLOOD (2019)

INTO THE ASHES
(US - 2019)

The grim rural Alabama indie noir INTO THE ASHES seems to have all the ingredients for a compelling story that's heavy on the bleak hopelessness, but it just never quite manages to get its shit together and become the next BLUE RUIN or BAD TURN WORSE. Nick Brenner (YELLOWSTONE's Luke Grimes) lives a quiet life doing repairs for a local furniture company, but his past is about to come back and bite him in the ass in the form of Sloan (Frank Grillo). Just paroled after serving a several-year stretch because Nick hung him out to dry, Sloan wants revenge, and he doesn't care that Nick has cleaned up his act and built a new life--including buying a home with Sloan's money--with Tara (Marguerite Moreau). Sloan and two associates, Charlie (David Cade) and Bruce (Scott Peat), with the help of a sleazy private eye who learns the hard way that he shouldn't gouge Sloan for more money, end up at Nick's house while he's away for the weekend working on restoring a boat with his buddy Sal (James Badge Dale). When Nick returns, he's greeted by Sloan and his crew, who inform him that they killed Tara before shooting him twice in the back and leaving him for dead. He wakes up handcuffed to a hospital bed under the steely glare of Sheriff Frank (Robert Taylor, taking his LONGMIRE act for another spin), who also happens to be his father-in-law and always knew he was no good. Nick manages to escape from custody when Frank leaves him with his idiot deputy (Brady Smith), and teams up with Sal to go after Sloan, Charlie, and Bruce.

It shouldn't take much to make something like INTO THE ASHES function as an engrossing thriller, but writer/director Aaron Harvey (best known for the dismal 2011 Tarantino knockoff CATCH .44, one of Bruce Willis' earliest forays into the world of straight-to-VOD) keeps the pace at a lugubrious crawl, and repeatedly errs in having significant events take place offscreen, only to have the characters talk about them after. That includes a late-film POV switch from Nick to Frank, who arrives on the scene of a motel shootout, sending him on a search for his son-in-law. Harvey eventually shows what happened in a later flashback, but by that point it doesn't matter, since we know who was killed and whatever minimal momentum was building has been completely quashed by a director trying to be stylish. Grillo (among the team of producers, along with his buddy Joe Carnahan) is an effective bad guy, but he's absent for long stretches, a tell-tale sign that they only had him for a few days. Grimes is sufficiently glum and dour but he remains a blank slate throughout, and only Taylor manages to create a genuinely interesting character, which Harvey of course diminishes by giving him pretentious voiceovers referencing religious parables about Samson in reference to Nick. INTO THE ASHES would've been a lot better if it just told a straightforward story instead of incessantly stalling itself and fumbling around with Creative Writing 101-level subtext in an attempt to be "deep." (Unrated, 97 mins)



COLD BLOOD
(France/Ukraine - 2019)

A thriller so blandly by-the-numbers that it actually fades from your memory while you're watching it, COLD BLOOD could almost qualify as Luc Besson fan fiction on the part of debuting director Frederic Petitjean, right down to the hiring of cinematographer Thierry Arbogast, a frequent Besson collaborator going back to 1990's LA FEMME NIKITA. But the real Besson worship is evidenced by the presence of Jean Reno in what amounts to an alternate universe incarnation of his Leon character from Besson's 1994 favorite THE PROFESSIONAL, only here he's called Henry. The film opens in the snowy nowhere of the Pacific Northwest wilderness, where Melody (Sarah Lind) crashes her snowmobile. Bleeding and unconscious, she's found and nursed back to health by Henry, who lives in quiet solitude in a cabin on the lake. Flashbacks reveal Henry is actually a hit man in hiding after whacking a billionaire CEO (Jean-Luc Olivier) in NYC ten months earlier. The CEO was actually born in the nearest town in Washington state and chose to be buried there (of all the places for Henry to hide), which prompts irate local detective Kappa (BACKDRAFT 2's Joe Anderson) to investigate the murder himself. Other characters exist on the fringe, like an assassin (David Gyasi) hired by the CEO's sinister chief aide (Francois Guetary) and a "surprise" involving Melody that will only surprise you if COLD BLOOD is the first movie you've ever seen.

A French-Ukrainian co-production shot in Kiev, COLD BLOOD never quite looks or feels "American," starting with most of the Ukrainian supporting cast being unconvincingly dubbed. But there's also a ton of awkward, stilted dialogue like Kappa's wizened old partner Davies (Ihor Ciszkewycz) asking him why he transferred from NYC to the middle of nowhere and being told, in a way that suggests a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma that's covered in pretentious bullshit, "Maybe I wanted to get lost." Or a head-scratcher of an exchange that actually sounds like Petitjean fishing for a distribution deal, where Davies asks Kappa "They got Netflix in New York?" and Kappa glowers "You see the things I see in New York City, you won't need Netflix." Or a floridly overwritten scene between Kappa and the CEO's estranged, dementia-stricken ex-wife (DOWNTON ABBEY's Samantha Bond, also Miss Moneypenny in the Pierce Brosnan-era 007 films), who's prone to surprisingly verbose purple prose and mellifluous exposition dumps for someone who can't remember a damn thing. For his part, Reno is Reno. At first, it's nice to see him in lethal assassin mode again, but he looks tired and bored, and after watching COLD BLOOD, one could hardly blame him. (R, 91 mins)

On Netflix: HOLD THE DARK (2018)

HOLD THE DARK
(US/Switzerland - 2018)

Directed by Jeremy Saulnier. Written by Macon Blair. Cast: Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgard, James Badge Dale, Riley Keough, Julian Black Antelope, Peter McRobbie, Tantoo Cardinal, Macon Blair, Jonathan Whitesell, Savonna Spracklin, Maureen Thomas, Sean Hoy, Brian Martell, Beckam Crawford. (Unrated, 125 mins)

Adapted from William Giraldi's 2015 novel, the bitterly cold and endlessly snowy Netflix Original HOLD THE DARK is the latest bleak, grim thriller from BLUE RUIN and GREEN ROOM director Jeremy Saulnier. It's the filmmaker's most ambitious work yet, with some stunning cinematography by Magnus Nordenhof Jonck, jaw-dropping aerial shots that would look incredible on a big screen, and one of the most masterfully-staged and brilliantly-executed shootouts to come down the pike in quite some time. This long sequence, with its tension escalating to unrelenting terror and punctuated by bursts of shocking and extremely graphic violence, is the centerpiece of HOLD THE DARK and as a result, what follows can't help but pale in comparison, especially since Saulnier and screenwriter Macon Blair (the star of BLUE RUIN and the writer/director of I DON'T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE) jettison the more procedural, straightforward plotting of Giraldi's novel to go for something more allegorical and ambiguous. In a way, it's gussying up what could be a 90-minute commercial thriller and turning it into a somber slow-burner that runs just over two hours and veers toward the arthouse, giving it the feel of something A24 would pick and open nationwide just to piss people off. It often doesn't feel too far removed from last year's sleeper hit WIND RIVER, and though it has that distinct sense of Saulnier dread and despair, it could also be seen as what might happen if Taylor Sheridan remade WOLFEN.

In the small village of Keelut in the northernmost reaches of Alaska, three children have been taken away by wolves and are presumed eaten. One grieving mother is Medora Slone (Riley Keough), whose six-year-old son Bailey (Beckam Crawford) is the latest victim. Shell-shocked and alone--her soldier husband Vernon (Alexander Skarsgard) is in Fallujah and she hasn't yet notified him of Bailey's death--she sends a letter to renowned nature writer and wolf expert Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright), imploring him to track down and kill the wolf who took Bailey. Core arrives in Keelut and is almost as much of a broken soul as Medora, estranged from his grown daughter and hoping to visit her in Anchorage, where she teaches. There's an interesting subtext to these early scenes that show man is the interloper and wasn't meant for these parts, and while he agrees to track the wolf pack, he reminds Medora that "the natural order of things doesn't warrant revenge." Meanwhile, in Fallujuh, Vernon--after doing something that's the first of the film's many jolting shocks--is sent home after taking a sniper's bullet in the neck, and...

Well, that's about all the plot that can be summarized without going into significant spoilers. In short, Core has been summoned to Keelut under misleading circumstances. There's also, in no particular order, a padlocked cellar housing something unexpected that sends the story in a completely different direction, Vernon's reaction to his son's death sending him on a quest for revenge with his friend and fellow grieving father Cheeon (Julian Black Antelope), the Eskimo locals deeming the "Nordic-looking" Medora possessed by a wolf-demon known as a "tourmaq," and a melancholy Core reluctantly finding himself teamed with Donald Marium (James Badge Dale), the weary sheriff of Emery, the nearest thing resembling a modern town, and under whose jurisdiction Keelut falls. HOLD THE DARK is a film that's not eager to wrap things up in a conventional way, and that sometimes works against it. The ending is ambiguous to the point of frustration, and Saulnier and Blair seem unsure of where to take the narrative after the truly harrowing shootout that rivals anything in GREEN ROOM and is easily the most impressive single sequence of the filmmaker's career thus far. It's admirable that they don't spell things out like the novel did, particularly when it comes to Vernon and Medora's marriage, but there's clearly something "off" from the start, and that's even before a sleeping Core is stirred awake by a nude Medora wearing nothing but a ceremonial wolf mask as she grabs his hand and forces him to choke her. HOLD THE DARK establishes a parallel with the Slones and the wolf pack, and it's interesting to look back at the film once it's over and see how Saulnier and Blair have laid the reveals in plain sight all along. While that makes for some clever twists, it also feels like HOLD THE DARK is trotting out too many enigmatic bells and whistles in an attempt to be more highbrow than it needs to be. That said, what's here is an impressive step up in scope for Saulnier and Blair, and the cast brings their A-game, particularly Wright (why doesn't he get more leads?) and Dale, who's never been better. Part mystery, part culture-clash drama (Cheeon has a serious beef with the Emery police after it took an entire day for them to investigate his daughter's disappearance), and part horror film, HOLD THE DARK sucks you in and keeps your attention, and its strong points far outweigh its occasional hiccups.

On Netflix: SPECTRAL (2016)

SPECTRAL
(US - 2016)

Directed by Nic Mathieu. Written by George Nolfi. Cast: James Badge Dale, Emily Mortimer, Bruce Greenwood, Max Martini, Cory Hardrict, Clayne Crawford, Gonzalo Menendez, Ursula Parker, Stephen Root, Aaron Serban, Dylan Smith, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Ryan Robbins, Jimmy Akingbola. (Unrated, 108 mins)

After over a year on the shelf, SPECTRAL, a $70 million Legendary Pictures-produced sci-fi horror actioner, was set to open in theaters nationwide in August 2016. That never happened, as it was abruptly yanked from the release schedule a few weeks earlier after Legendary's WARCRAFT bombed and distributor Universal grew skittish about having another expensive summer flop on its hands, even though WARCRAFT was a hit everywhere in the world but America. They shopped SPECTRAL around to other studios and found a taker in Netflix, who are now streaming it as a "Netflix Original." It's not a great movie by any means, and it likely would've ended up tanking in theaters just as Universal feared, especially being a summer movie lacking any big name draws in front of or behind the camera. In that respect, Netflix seems like perfect platform for SPECTRAL, where it's free from box office expectations and can earn the minor cult following it's inevitably going to get. Military-contracted science researcher Dr. Mark Clyne (James Badge Dale, a solid supporting actor, but c'mon, who puts a $70 million summer sci-fi action movie on the shoulders of James Badge Dale?) is summoned to Moldova to help a tactical unit that's been using high-tech "spectral" combat helmet cam goggles that he designed. He's informed by Gen. Orland (Bruce Greenwood) and CIA operative Fran Madison (Emily Mortimer) that the cameras have been picking up images of apparitions--termed "hyperspectral anomalies"--who have attacked and killed several members of the Delta Force team, led by Sgt. Sessions (Max Martini, Dale's 13 HOURS co-star). Orland and Madison believe it's a cloaking device being used by enemy insurgents, which Clyne dismisses since the US hasn't even come close to achieving that capability. Orland orders Clyne and Madison to accompany Sessions and what's left of the Delta team to find another unit that went missing the day before, obviously taken out by the "anomalies," ghostly specters that can only be seen through the combat goggles or the light from a hyperspectral camera that Clyne creates on the fly when most of the goggles are destroyed in a paranormal skirmish.

Written by George Nolfi (a good buddy of Matt Damon's who co-scripted OCEAN'S TWELVE and THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, and wrote and directed THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU) and directed by feature-debuting TV commercial vet Nic Mathieu, SPECTRAL dives pretty deep into hard sci-fi with Clyne's theories on the origin of the anomalies. They're impervious to weapons and can travel through any surface except iron and ceramic, which leads Clyne to believe they're man-made via bosons hovering near absolute zero with a cooled gas of extremely low density and known as the Bose-Einstein Condensate, which is not something Joe Multiplex normally expects to be name-dropped in a big-budget summer action movie. SPECTRAL has some great ideas, but while Nolfi's script talks a big game, it doesn't really have the brains to back it up. The scene where Clyne explains everything to Madison and the soldiers turns into a momentum-killing monologue because Dale has a difficult time selling it when he just keeps anxiously repeating "ceramic" and "condensate." He doesn't sound like he knows what he's talking about, probably because Nolfi doesn't either and should probably be sharing the screenplay credit with Wikipedia. Nevertheless, SPECTRAL is very well-made, and with location shooting in Hungary, Slovakia, and Israel, it definitely looks like a "bigger" movie than one usually associates with "Netflix Original." It also boasts some impressive visual effects and refreshingly coherent combat sequences, and with its stark, ominous Eastern European setting (most of this was shot in Bucharest) and some lighting and cinematography techniques, it would appear that SPECTRAL owes a stylistic debt to Michael Mann's 1983 cult classic THE KEEP. The biggest structural influence is obviously James Cameron's 1986 masterpiece ALIENS, right down to the discovery of a little Moldovan orphan girl (Ursula Parker, one of the daughters on LOUIE) who isn't named "Newt," but might as well be (all that's missing is a scheming Paul Reiser to sabotage the mission). Feeling like BLACK HAWK DOWN retooled as a John Ringo or David Weber military sci-fi novel published by Baen Books, SPECTRAL isn't nearly as smart as it thinks it is, but its ambition is appreciated. It delivers if you're looking for action, special effects, and atmosphere, so this really is custom-made for Netflix streaming.