BAD EDUCATION (US - 2020) Directed by Cory Finley. Written by Mike Makowsky. Cast: Hugh Jackman, Allison Janney, Ray Romano, Geraldine Viswanathan, Alex Wolff, Rafael Casal, Stephen Spinella, Welker White, Annaleigh Ashford, Hari Dhillon, Jeremy Shamos, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Catherine Curtin, Kathrine Narducci, Ray Abruzzo, Kayli Carter, Jimmy Tatro, Pat Healy, Victor Verhaeghe, John Scurti, Larry Romano. (Unrated, 109 mins) Based on Robert Kolker's 2004 New York Magazine article "The Bad Superintendent," BAD EDUCATION chronicles what stands as the largest school system embezzlement--upwards of $11 million-- in US history, a scandal that broke at Roslyn High School in Long Island in 2002. What's so jaw-dropping about what's depicted here is how it was more or less in plain sight, with numerous parties involved, with no one really paying attention to things like a treasurer owning three homes and driving a Jaguar to work every day. Roslyn is a school district on the rise and getting national attention, leading to some rapidly increasing property values, with by-the-book school board president Big Bob Spicer (Ray Romano) a millionaire from his day job selling real estate. But the star of Roslyn is beloved, charismatic superintendent Dr. Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman), an almost god-like figure who's the face of the school system, a former English teacher with a passion for Charles Dickens, and a dedicated educator who always makes time for any student. He offers a quick pull quote about a heavily-hyped, multi-million "skywalk" construction project for the high school to Rachel Bhargava (Geraldine Viswanathan), a junior doing grunt work on the school paper. She says it's just a puff piece because seniors get all the good stories, but the always-inspiring Dr. Tassone reminds her that "it's only a puff piece if you let it be a puff piece," and that a good journalist can turn anything into a substantive story. Curious about some contractor bids on the skywalk contract (and being curtly dismissed when she asks why some of that money isn't going toward replacing the numerous moldy and rotting ceiling tiles throughout the school), Rachel is given the key to the records room by treasurer and assistant superintendent Pamela Gluckin (Allison Janney) and she starts noticing financial inconsistencies, payments for vaguely-defined services to companies with non-existent phone numbers, payments for work that was never done, etc. She keeps digging despite being scolded by senior editor-at-large Nick Fleischman (HEREDITARY's Alex Wolff) that "we're just a school paper...not the New York Times."
But then the shit hits the fan. Gluckin's dumbass son (Jimmy Tatro) makes thousands of dollars worth of purchases at several Ace hardware stores over the course of a day, all for an expensive remodeling project at one of Gluckin's three homes. A store manager alerts Spicer, who has no idea why Gluckin's son would have a school credit card in his own name. An initial probe finds a minimum of $250,000 in misappropriated funds, but that's not counting all of the lost and discarded receipts. Gluckin is thrown under the bus, forced to resign, and deemed a sociopath by Tassone, but her transgressions are only scratching the surface of what's going on with some administrative staff at Roslyn. That's especially true with Tassone, who's also been living on the school's credit line for years and has an endless list of secrets and a partially fabricated past--no spoilers, but no one seems to have any recollection of his wife who "passed away a long time ago"--that he desperately tries to keep a lid on but can't quit behaving in a reckless and stupid fashion. And like Gluckin, he wants the wealth and privilege that Roslynians like Spicer are enjoying, and has grown so accustomed to getting away with it because everyone is so happy and complacent that he's become sloppy and isn't even bothering to cover his tracks anymore.
Oozing charm and slick confidence, and constantly maintaining Tassone's impeccable appearance, Jackman turns in one of his best performances, a complex balancing act that shows Tassone juggling several illusions for years on end while keeping his dark secrets hidden behind a mask--a mask that he symbolically maintains with a touch-up facelift over Christmas break (of course, he puts it on the school's credit card). An indie screened at last year's Toronto Film Festival and picked up by HBO, BAD EDUCATION was written by Mike Makowsky, who attended Roslyn High a few years after the scandal, with the aftershocks still being felt years later. Makowsky and director Cory Finley (THOROUGHBREDS) tell the story in a straightforward and darkly comedic fashion that recalls Alexander Payne's ELECTION, though its humor is less cynical and more just the shock of the events that transpire. It stays generally faithful to the story, though Viswanathan's "Rachel Bhargava" is a fictional composite of several student reporters who secretly did the digging, checked and corroborated their sources, uncovered the extent of the criminal activity, and broke the story in the school's own Hilltop Beacon newspaper.
Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Steven Zaillian. Cast: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Kathrine Narducci, Welker White, Jesse Plemons, Jack Huston, Domenick Lombardozzi, Paul Herman, Louis Cancelmi, Gary Basaraba, Marin Ireland, Sebastian Maniscalco, Steven Van Zandt, Lucy Gallina, Bo Dietl, Aleksa Palladino, Jim Norton, Daniel Jenkins, Paul Ben-Victor, Patrick Gallo, Jake Hoffman, Barry Primus, Vinny Vella, John Cenatiempo, Action Bronson, Danny A. Abeckaser, India Ennenga, Kate Arrington, John Scurti, Louis Vanaria. (R, 208 mins) A few years ago, it would've been ludicrous to imagine that the most eagerly anticipated film of the year would be a Netflix Original, but here's THE IRISHMAN, Martin Scorsese's long-in-the-works return to his gangster movie glory days of GOODFELLAS, and his first collaboration with Robert De Niro since 1995's CASINO. It's the most ambitious undertaking of Scorsese's career, a story that spans nearly 60 years, with a budget said to be $160 million but possibly as much as $200 million, and a year-and-a-half of post-production that utilized extensive CGI technology to "de-age" the film's stars, allowing them to play their characters as younger men. In various stages of development since 2007, THE IRISHMAN is based on Charles Brandt's 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses, which chronicled mid-level, Philly-based Irish mobster and labor union figure Frank Sheeran's post-WWII rise from truck driver to right-hand-man and trusted muscle of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. Years later, an elderly Sheeran (1920-2003) would claim to be directly involved as the reluctant trigger man in Hoffa's still-unsolved 1975 disappearance and certain murder. Sheeran's story remains speculative and with no body ever found, it isn't any more or less plausible than Hoffa being buried in the end zone of Giants Stadium, but THE IRISHMAN takes the Sheeran-Hoffa story and turns it into an often profoundly moving examination of friendship, regret, betrayal, guilt, and mortality. It's a film that Scorsese only could've made at this point in his life. THE IRISHMAN is the gangster genre seen through the eyes of life experience, a stark contrast with the brash cockiness of 1973's MEAN STREETS or 1990's mob-glorifying GOODFELLAS, arguably the most influential gangster movie ever made. In hindsight, CASINO's third act, where Ace Rothstein's Vegas dream collapses and everything goes to shit, definitely hints at things to come in THE IRISHMAN, but this latest film largely serves as Scorsese's UNFORGIVEN by way of that devastating deathbed monologue Jason Robards gives at the end of Paul Thomas Anderson's MAGNOLIA. The characters in the world of THE IRISHMAN aren't rich guys with a luxurious lifestyle. There's no glitz or glamour here. And whether they're whacked or somehow make it to old age, they all die alone.
Running just two minutes shy of three-and-a-half hours, THE IRISHMAN opens with an 83-year-old, wheelchair-bound Sheeran (De Niro) in an assisted living facility, breaking the fourth wall to tell his story. He uses the framing device of a flashback to a 1975 weekend where he and his wife Irene (Stephanie Kurtzuba) are traveling with Sheeran's longtime friend Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) and his wife Carrie (Kathrine Narducci) to a wedding in Detroit. The trip--mapped out in great detail by Sheeran and prolonged by the wives' frequent smoke breaks since Russell doesn't allow smoking in his car--takes them across Pennsylvania to Toledo and north to Detroit, and along the way, Sheeran spots the very location where he first met Russell 30 years earlier, when his truck broke down and Russell was a good samaritan stranger who helped him fix it (this means THE IRISHMAN is set up as flashbacks-within-flashbacks, and at one point, by my count, Scorsese goes four flashbacks deep as Sheeran recalls an incident killing some German officers in Italy during WWII). After the war, Sheeran found employment as a truck driver and got involved in some minor skimming and side deals involving some steaks with mob bosses on his route, including Frank "Skinny Razor" DiTullio (Bobby Cannavale), an underboss with powerful Philly capo Angelo Bruno (Harvey Keitel). When Frank gets busted by a supplier for a missing shipment, he's successfully defended by lawyer Bill Bufalino (Ray Romano), who introduces him to his mob boss cousin Russell--small world--the very man who helped him out a couple of months earlier. Sheeran starts working for Russell as a bagman and hit man, which eventually brings him into the orbit of Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), the controversial head of the Teamsters, who has connections with Bufalino crime family and likes that Sheeran is one of his own in the Teamsters brotherhood.
What follows is a labyrinthine saga involving labor unions, the FBI, the CIA, Castro, JFK, Richard Nixon, E. Howard Hunt, Watergate, and everything in between. Hoffa becomes a target of JFK's brother and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (Jack Huston) and refuses to lower the Teamsters' building's flag to half-staff following JFK's assassination. Hoffa is eventually convicted of jury tampering and goes on a scorched earth campaign against Teamsters rivals Frank Fitzsimmons (Gary Basaraba) and Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano (Stephen Graham). Once he's released and given a Presidential pardon by Nixon in 1971, Hoffa, with Sheeran at his side, attempts to regain control of the Teamsters, which seals his fate with both the union and their mob partners. By 1975, it's decided by the powers that be that Hoffa, who confidently boasts to Sheeran that he's untouchable ("I know things they don't know I know!"), is a problem that needs to go away.
For its first hour or so before the Hoffa plot kicks into gear, THE IRISHMAN feels like a Scorsese victory lap of sorts, a greatest hits package with a "Hey, the band's back together!" vibe with a familiarity that's predictable yet welcome. There's the rapid-fire editing (Thelma Schoonmaker still the best in the business), the voiceovers, the music (drink every time you hear The Five Satins' "In the Still of the Night" and you'll be unconscious before Pacino even appears) and everything else that says "vintage Scorsese." He also includes shout-outs and callbacks not just to his earlier films but those of his stars. You'll spot the overwhelming remorse inherent to both Pacino's Michael Corleone, haunted throughout THE GODFATHER PART III after ordering his brother Fredo's death at the end of THE GODFATHER PART II, and De Niro's aging Noodles and the guilt over ratting on his friends in Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. Hoffa's false sense of invincibility recalls Pacino's Tony Montana in Brian De Palma's SCARFACE and his doomed Carlito Brigante in De Palma's CARLITO'S WAY. There's even a fleeting appearance by Dave Ferrie (Louis Vanaria), the terribly-toupeed Lee Harvey Oswald acquaintance that Pesci played in Oliver Stone's JFK. It's also this stretch of the film where the CGI de-aging is most obvious, and while it plays better in motion on the screen than individual still shots would initially indicate, it doesn't always work (and even with all the digital trickery, there is nothing more distracting in THE IRISHMAN than Scorsese's inexplicable casting of rapper/chef Action Bronson as a casket salesman). Fortunately, the scenes with 76-year-old De Niro playing a 25-year-old Sheeran (with Pesci calling him "kid") are brief, and no matter how much the lines on his digitally-tweaked face are smoothed, he's still walking like a guy in his mid 70s. But once Sheeran hits his 40s and 50s, the effect is much less jarring and your eyes make the necessary adjustments, even if De Niro's eyes too often look like Johnny Depp's Whitey Bulger contact lenses from BLACK MASS. The de-aging of Pesci and Pacino is significantly less drastic since they aren't at any point required to portray themselves 50 years younger: 79-year-old Pacino plays Hoffa from his 40s to his death at 62, and 76-year-old Pesci plays Bufalino from his 40s to his death at 91.
THE IRISHMAN probably doesn't need to run 208 minutes, but with Scorsese and this cast, it's not exactly wasted time (one wishes Keitel had more to do, though he does get one great scene reminding a young Sheeran that he fucked up and Bufalino basically saved his life). It's such pure cinematic joy seeing De Niro, Pacino (his first time working with Scorsese), and Pesci inspired and doing their best work in years that they're instantly forgiven for the likes of DIRTY GRANDPA, HANGMAN, and 8 HEADS IN A DUFFEL BAG. De Niro carries the emotional weight and is in nearly every scene, and Pacino does his shouty Pacino thing but keeps it in check and accurate to the character (and he's a more credible Hoffa than the prosthetic nose attached to the face of Jack Nicholson in 1992's HOFFA). Another complex performance comes from an unexpected source: as the soft-spoken Bufalino, the semi-retired Pesci, in just his third film appearance in 20 years, plays it subdued and totally against type, often as the voice of calm even when he's being ruthless and manipulative. It's a smart approach for a film that already has a bloviating Pacino, but by dialing down the "Funny how?" routine that defined his volatile performances in GOODFELLAS and CASINO, Pesci makes Bufalino even more subtly intimidating. That feeling is never more apparent than in his interactions with Sheeran's daughter Peggy (Lucy Gallina as a child, Anna Paquin as an adult), who is never receptive to "Uncle Russell"'s affections no matter how hard he tries. She knows what he and her father do for a living and lets them know it with her silence, and in his reactions, Bufalino is both angry and hurt. There's been some criticism leveled at Scorsese and screenwriter Steven Zaillian (SCHINDLER'S LIST, GANGS OF NEW YORK) for giving Peggy almost no dialogue, but that ends up being another example of film writers and bloggers missing the point to score woke cred--Peggy's silence and her withering glares are reminders of their criminal misdeeds. Bufalino is a cold, calculating, powerful mob boss who desperately wants Peggy's approval and will never have it, much like Sheeran will never be granted forgiveness after an adult Peggy can instantly see in her father's demeanor and his nervous drinking that he had something to do with Hoffa's disappearance. She can see it when the news breaks on TV, registering her disgust that it's been several days and he has yet to even call Hoffa's wife Jo (Welker White, so memorable as Lois in GOODFELLAS, refusing to go on Henry Hill's drug run without her lucky hat). When she finally spits out a terse "Why haven't you called her?," it cuts right through Sheeran.
THE IRISHMAN is always compelling, but it's a slower and more meditative piece than GOODFELLAS or CASINO. In many ways, it can be seen as a spiritual relative to De Niro's own 2006 directing effort THE GOOD SHEPHERD, though it's not somber and serious all the time (there's a great running gag where each new gangster character is introduced with a caption detailing when and how he was eventually killed). It really becomes something special in the last half hour when age, time and guilt take their toll on Sheeran. This home stretch packs an emotional wallop and helps put a lot of what's happened over the preceding three hours into perspective. And it's that perspective that a younger Scorsese wouldn't have had the life experience to create circa MEAN STREETS or GOODFELLAS. Ranging in age from 76 to 80, Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino, Pesci, and Keitel all appear to be well and with hopefully much more to give (even though this feels like the perfect career capper for all the major players), but at the same time, there's the inevitable. They're still here but these are their autumnal years. They could've done a convincing job of acting that in their younger days, but their advancing ages and their own sense of mortality give THE IRISHMAN a poignancy and an added resonance--for them and for the fans who have followed them over the decades--that just isn't there in any of their past gangster films.
Loosely based on Jose Saramago's novel The Double, but not to be confused with the recent Jesse Eisenberg film THE DOUBLE, Denis Villeneuve's ENEMY is one of those frustrating cinematic puzzles where the set up and the placement of the initial pieces prove much more challenging and engaging than the actual solution. ENEMY excels in its early stages in its depiction of the ennui-drenched L'AVVENTURA, RED DESERT, and THE PASSENGER alienation of vintage Antonioni fused with the cold Cronenbergian chill of Toronto high-rises that recalls everything from SHIVERS to CRASH and even Fernando Mereilles' underappreciated BLINDNESS, itself an adaptation of another Saramago novel. There's also an overt DEAD RINGERS vibe that begins with quiet, withdrawn history professor Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) suffering through small talk with a colleague, who recommends a movie called WHERE THERE'S A WILL, THERE'S A WAY. Adam rents the movie and it's a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy, but something catches his attention: cast as "Bellhop #3" is one Daniel Saint Claire, who happens to look exactly like Adam. Adam researches the doppelganger's other roles, which are limited similar bit parts in two other forgettable films from a decade earlier, and eventually goes to the office of the agency representing Saint Claire and is mistaken for him, which gets him Saint Claire's phone number and address. Adam calls the actor, whose real name is Anthony Claire, and though Anthony is initially hesitant, they meet. Their features are identical and they even have the same scar. Adam freaks out and regrets meeting, but Anthony, who has a history of cheating on his now-pregnant wife Helen (Sarah Gadon), forces Adam to go along with a swap so he can spend some time with Adam's girlfriend Mary (Melanie Laurent).
There's such an eerie, unsettling, Hitchcockian, De Palma-esque by way of Antonioni and Cronenberg feel to the first hour of ENEMY (at times, you might think it's a horror film) that it's almost enraging when you realize it's gone to such intriguing and fascinating lengths to tell such an ultimately banal story. And I haven't even gotten into the ham-fisted symbolism of spiders and webs, which wasn't part of Saramago's novel. ENEMY is borderline brilliant for 2/3 of its running time, but the back end of the script by Javier Gullon (who also co-wrote the intriguing 2007 thriller KING OF THE HILL) has all the depth and insight of someone's first and quickly-discarded draft in an Intro to Creative Writing course. The film is very well-directed by Villeneuve, who also teamed with Gyllenhaal on last year's more commercial PRISONERS (ENEMY was shot first, but released after). Villeneuve is a director who brings out the best in the actor, who was riveting in PRISONERS in a performance that deserved more attention than it got. Gyllenhaal delivers two strong performances here, even as the film starts collapsing around him in the closing sequences as--you guessed it--the lines between real and fantasy become impossibly blurred, not to mention hopelessly hackneyed. Still worth seeing for that opening hour and the powerfully dread-filled slow build...at least until it starts sabotaging itself. (R, 91 mins)
ROB THE MOB (US - 2014)
There's a slight sense of TRUE ROMANCE redux in this somewhat fictionalized account of Tommy and Rosemarie Uva, a Queens couple trying to stay on the right path after jail stints for armed robbery. Struggling in their 9-5 jobs, they started robbing mob-owned bars and social clubs. In one of their jobs, they managed to obtain a list that thoroughly detailed the Gambino and Bonnano family hierarchy, and as they got increasingly cocky and overconfident, they used it to guarantee their safety which, of course, backfired and the couple were whacked on Christmas Eve 1992. In ROB THE MOB, directed by Raymond De Felitta and written by Jonathan Fernandez, Tommy (Michael Pitt) and Rosie (Nina Arianda) aren't married, for some reason (they're planning to get married on Christmas Day, so perhaps it was a dramatic decision), and some of the names are changed, but otherwise, it mostly sticks to the story. The none-too-bright Tommy has a lifelong grudge against the local gangsters, who strong-armed, shook down, and eventually killed his florist father, so once they get desperate and he starts toying with the idea of ripping them off, Rosie can't talk him out of it, and when the money starts rolling in, she's OK with it as well. During one robbery, they get "the list" from inside the wallet of aged and slightly feeble mobster Joey D (Burt Young), and all hell breaks loose in the family, run by the reclusive Big Al Fiorello (Andy Garcia), a composite of Bonnano boss Joseph Massino and underboss Sal Vitale.
ROB THE MOB does a good job of mixing lighthearted and serious moments, as Tommy's early, haplessly clumsy attempts at pulling a social club stick-up get a reaction from the mobsters that's not unlike Richard Pryor's famous "Mafia Club" bit. But as things get serious and the stakes get higher, the shift to drama is smooth and organic. De Felitta (who previously worked with Garcia on 2009's enjoyable CITY ISLAND) does a superb job with period detail and other than some CGI effects in the closing scene, the whole film has a vivid sense of time and place and feels like it could've been made 20 years ago. The film takes place during the trial of John Gotti, whose 1992 conviction was essentially the beginning of the end for the old-school glory days of the American Mafia, and it deftly ties in an elegiac feeling for that era, though only Big Al seems aware that things are about to change. Most of the goodfellas in ROB THE MOB have seen better days but there's a comfortable complacency that's set in for them. It's a period of Mafia history that isn't glorious and hasn't been covered much in popular culture and ROB THE MOB offers a unique perspective in the "working-stiff gangster" subgenre with films like DONNIE BRASCO (1997) and KILLING THEM SOFTLY (2012). Fine performances all around from Pitt, Garcia, and Ray Romano as NYC crime reporter "Jerry Cardozo," presumably based on Gotti biographer and Mafia historian Jerry Capeci, in addition to colorful supporting turns by familiar faces like Michael Rispoli, Griffin Dunne, Cathy Moriarty, Yul Vazquez, John Tormey, Joseph R. Gannascoli, and Frank Whaley (Aida Turturro is prominently-billed but her role was cut from the film). The standout however, is Tony-winning Broadway actress Arianda in what would be a star-making big-screen breakout had Millennium released ROB THE MOB on more than 30 screens. Arianda is a ball of fire throughout, in her interaction with Tommy ("You bought me flowers!"), chewing people out on the phone at her collection agency job, or overcome with visions of fame and talking way too much when Cardozo wants to interview her. She handles the "tough moll" role in classic fashion and has a very natural, streetwise 1970s presence (these small-time Queens would-be gangsters always seem a little behind the times) that sets her apart from a lot of young actresses today, who probably would've appeared mannered and playing dress-up. It's the kind of showy role that could've easily been turned into a caricature, but Arianda keeps it under control and nails it, and if this movie had gotten any exposure at all, there's a good chance she'd be getting some legitimate Oscar buzz. On the whole, ROB THE MOB wanders a bit and isn't as ambitious or as focused as it should be, but it's a solid little film, and Arianda's performance is a big reason why. (R, 104 mins)
WOLF CREEK 2 (Australia - 2014)
In the horror genre, nine years is an unusually lengthy wait for a sequel, and after that amount of time, you might wonder why writer/director Greg McLean took so long to get to the follow-up to 2005's WOLF CREEK. And after you watch the absurdly tardy WOLF CREEK 2, you'll wonder why he even bothered. When it was released, WOLF CREEK got the attention of hardcore horror fans with its mercilessly bleak vision and its instantly iconic performance by veteran Australian character actor John Jarratt as gregarious Outback serial killer Mick Taylor. As Mick, Jarratt came across as the terrifying doppelganger of Crocodile Dundee, and the grueling film wasn't for horror amateurs. Indeed, it didn't go over with mainstream audiences (earning a rare F from the ludicrous CinemaScore), and was lumped in with the then in-vogue torture porn craze (which, to be fair, it shared some aspects), but horror scenesters embraced it and McLean was hailed as a major new talent in the genre. He returned with 2008's surprisingly good killer crocodile flick ROGUE, buried by Dimension Films after the similar and inferior PRIMEVAL beat it to theaters and bombed. McLean's been off the radar since ROGUE, and the pointless WOLF CREEK 2 isn't likely to re-establish his career momentum.
Jarratt is back, and rather than play Mick in the sinister, unsettling way he did nearly a decade ago, McLean instead has him crank it up to 11 and beyond, turning the character into a relentless killing machine with his endlessly-quipping Freddy Krueger zingers and asides ("Welcome to Australia, cocksucker!"). WOLF CREEK 2 eschews the nightmarish qualities of WOLF CREEK to go for broad horror comedy augmented by over-the-top splatter effects. Shifts in tone in a sequel are nothing new: Sam Raimi did it with 1987's EVIL DEAD 2 and it's the same approach Tobe Hooper took for 1986's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2. It doesn't work here, nor does McLean's decision to attempt a "shifting of the protagonists" move from the PSYCHO playbook. The first hour is essentially one long chase as we spend a bunch of time with two likable German backpackers, Rutger (Philippe Klaus) and Katarina (Shannyn Ashlyn), only to have them exit as Mick's focus turns to British tourist Paul (Ryan Corr). Mick plays road and head games with Paul, eventually getting him back to his vast HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES torture dungeon. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where WOLF CREEK 2 implodes beyond repair, but Mick plowing over kangaroos to the tune of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is as good a location as any. It doesn't really matter in the end, because this only exists to be THE JOHN JARRATT SHOW, with the actor's overbearing histrionics turning his second interpretation of Mick into an extended tribute to the career of Bill Moseley, whether he's screaming at the top of lungs, shouting Aussie jingles and limericks, or mowing down a friendly old couple to "The Blue Danube Waltz." Some nice cinematography and a tense opening sequence aside, the ill-advised and badly-executed WOLF CREEK 2 is just uninspired, stupid, and lazy. Here's to hoping McLean gets his mojo back before he has to shit out a WOLF CREEK 3 in desperation seven or eight years from now. (Unrated, 106 mins, also available on Netflix Instant)
