Photo © Paramount Pictures
'Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning'
Tom Cruise in 'Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning'
The Flood
(Limited Theatrical Release & Streaming on VUDU, July 14)
Combining elements of The Deep Blue Sea, Crawl and Hard Rain, this action-monster flick pits a group of convicts, cops and prison guards against a mob of hungry gators. Set in Louisiana as a hurricane bears down, we meet a bus full of prisoners seeking shelter from the storm in a small-town jail. Russell Cody (Casper Van Dien) is a good-guy convict, unaware that his fellow inmates plan to escape during the backwater layover. The inmates and guards are greeted by a pretty, very tough Sheriff Jo Newman (Nicky Whelan), who informs her guests, “You’re in my house now,” as she cocks her rifle.
All hell breaks loose when the prisoners rise up against their keepers only to find their escape route blocked by a throng of huge alligators who aren’t picky about who they eat. Brandon Slagle directs this modestly budgeted, 90 minutes of R-Rated mayhem as he admirably wrangles his actors and grapples with limited CGI funds to conjure his monsters. Well-paced and featuring the usual assortment of those deserving a gruesome fate, during the quieter moments, you’re bound to wonder how Casper Van Dien manages to look virtually unchanged since starring in Starship Troopers, 26 years ago. (Lisa Miller)
Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning, Part One
(In Theaters, July 12)
In this seventh installment, released 27 years after the first “Mission: Impossible” film, 60-year-old Tom Cruise continues performing as many impossible stunts as the studio will tolerate. Taking a cue from Alfred Hitchcock’s seven-memorable-scenes treatise, screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen hurl the seemingly omnipotent Ethan Hunt (Cruise), off cliffs, buildings, trains and more. This is part one of a two-parter, and its $236 million dollar budget buys fantastic special effects that look even better thanks to old-fashioned stunt work.
The story is timely, if overly convoluted. An Artificial Intelligence calling itself The Entity, has decided to dominate humankind. It uses a villain named Gabriel (Esai Morales) as its facilitator. Having calculated that Hunt is the only person capable of stopping its plan, the A.I. endangers anyone Hunt cares for in order to make him vulnerable. Ving Rhames returns to Hunt’s team as a hacker extraordinaire while Simon Pegg is back as a wise-cracking tech genius. Rebecca Ferguson reappears as an MI6 agent and Hayley Atwell turns up as a gifted pickpocket recruited by Hunt. Director Christopher McQuarrie ensures the action sequences top what’s come before during two-and-three-quarter hours filled with OMG moments. (Lisa Miller)
A Radiant Girl
(Film Movement DVD/Digital)
A Radiant Girl opens with Irene, the protagonist, auditioning for a spot in a theater academy. Only the clothing hints that we are in another time, the 1940s. And there is no indication that Irene’s country, France, is under Nazi occupation until several scenes later when Irene’s father mentions, casually but with worried eyes, that JEW will soon be stamped across their ID cards.
Director Sandrine Kiberlain’s A Radiant Girl (2021) is remarkable for its low key depiction of the terror that gradually creeps into the lives of Irene’s upper-middle class Paris family. There are no visible signs of German occupation for the longest time, no troops on the streets or antisemitism from the neighbors—but then, the film’s perspective is from a naïve 19-year-old whose head is full of love letters and dreams of a theatrical career. The performances are remarkable all around, especially newcomer Rebecca Marder as Irene. Unlike Hollywood dramas, there is little reliance on heart-rending music to tell the audience how to feel. In A Radiant Girl, it’s done with dialogue and acting. (David Luhrssen)
