Month: July 2022

Occasionally chronicling the often dry nature of legislative discourse, this film follows the life of William Wilberforce, portrayed by Ioan Gruffudd, who repeatedly tried to pass anti-slavery laws through the British parliament. Despite the strains it caused on his health, he continued to push forward on what was at the time a very unpopular idea due to the number of vested interests various MPs had in continuing the slave trade. A little slow in its narrative, the film doesn’t shy from providing evidence of the horrors of slavery even as witnessed from far across the ocean and Gruffudd offers a sympathetic character in the fight for abolition.

Years after a nuclear holocaust, Denzel Washington travels westerly across the former United States protecting the last remaining copy of the Bible from people like Gary Oldman who would use the book for his own nefarious reasons. Some nifty action sequences, effective barren cinematography, and a pretty cool twist are marred somewhat by the silliness of the religious aspects. It really begs the extremes of disbelief that a book found in 90% of the households in a country would manage to all be destroyed except for one or that all the Christians would mysteriously disappear in thirty years. Luckily Washington and Oldman both bring their A games though and make the experience worthwhile.   

Reunited after a seventeen year separation, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, his wife Zainab Jah, and teenage daughter Jaymbe Lawson must learn how to again live together in a one bedroom New York City apartment. I always enjoyed Mwine’s character in Treme and he brings the same sensitivity to his role here. It’s a unique take on an immigrant story realistically touching on the difficulty reconnecting with loved one after time has passed and people change even when the love is still there.

While housesitting with his wife Rosemarie DeWitt, Jake Johnson discovers a rusty gun and a bone in the nearby landscape. After Rosemarie goes away to spend time with her parents for the weekend, Jake invites over friends to dig up the yard in search for clues to a mystery that may or may not exist. They both explore affections outside their strained marriage while they are apart and not much of anything else happens. For such a slight movie, it has an impressively well known cast that includes Sam Elliott, Sam Rockwell, and Anna Kendrick, though none of them put to much use.

Having difficulty securing a job after graduating from Memphis law school, Matt Damon finally finds work as an associate for an ambulance chaser. With the help of paralegal Danny DeVito, he becomes deeply involved in a denial of insurance case. There’s no end of courtroom dramas involving little guys taking on Big Whatever and this isn’t one of the better ones. Damon’s skills aren’t yet capable of leading such a film. Additionally a romance with battered wife Claire Danes feels forced and unnecessary to the plot. It really needed more DeVito and judge Danny Glover to hold any interest.

Suffering an identity crisis after the end of her marriage, Talia Shire embarks on a journey to visit old boyfriends, including Richard Jordan and John Belushi, and recreate events from her past. It’s a very weird movie with Shire playing a character who is not completely unsympathetic, but also quite dislikable. She jumps in and out of the men’s lives with no consideration at all for what her sudden appearance does for anyone she encounters. What’s worse is that there doesn’t even seem to be any catharsis for her in doing so.