Category: 2010s

After the best cops in New York City Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson die in a stupid accident, mismatched partners Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell stumble into their case, putting together clues that have alluded better policemen. The underlying mystery is obvious and filled with ridiculous coincidences. The humor, typical of McKay-Ferrell pairings, is mostly stupid and generally borderline offensive. It’s not without entertainment value, but I would have rather watched more of the Jackson-Johnson pairing.     

With the crash of ADC Airlines Flight 053 in October 2006, Nigeria had experienced three major airline accidents within the span of a year. This film puts some context to those crashes through the fictional crash of a flight from Lagos to Abuja. Beginning with the crash, it quickly flashes back to the circumstances that brought each of the passengers onto the plane. Like the American disaster films of the 1970s, it’s a bit low budget looking, but has a large, appealing cast, each with a compelling story. Once getting a hand of who is who and how they relate to each other, it’s a pretty entertaining ride.    

After a shooting in one Nigerian district leaves a number of election officials dead, the voting results in that district are nullified. A popular candidate who has thus lost the election declares herself the legitimate winner and sues her opponent. My interest in Nollywood films grew with how tight this violent political thriller is. The stench of political corruption blanketed the entire election and until the last moments, it’s impossible to know who is telling the truth and who is in the right, if anyone is.

Scientist Martin Donovan, who has created a device that allows for the recording and playback of memories, dies under mysterious circumstances. Peter Dinklage, whose brother died in a car accident a year previously, attempts to use the device to solve the murder. I watched this in my attempt to see more of Dinklage’s major roles and he’s strong here, but sadly the film muddily concentrates more on the theoretical concepts of the device over the murder mystery.   

During the violent 1980s, Oscar Isaac runs a New York heating oil company that he inherited from his corrupt father-in-law, fighting pressures from multiple fronts: his trucks are being robbed regularly, he’s struggling to complete a time-sensitive deal to buy a new property, and the District Attorney’s office is breathing down his neck on potential charges of price fixing, tax evasion, and other illegalities. Isaac plays a believably tortured hero against a cast that is almost universally less heroic and much more ruthless, including wife Jessica Chastain. It’s weirdly a very competent film, but also mostly forgotten by the time the credits roll. 

In violent post-Apartheid South Africa, Forest Whitaker and Orlando Bloom are two homicide detectives still effected by scars from their pasts who are called in to investigate the violent deaths of two young women. It’s an intricate crime story that touches on many aspects of the South African underworld and the dark shadow of Apartheid that continues to darken the country. Whitaker and Bloom work well together and both fantastically portray the complex layers of their individual characters.