April 3, 2021

A Serious Man (2009)

Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Writer: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen (Screenplay)

Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed, Sari Lennick, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus

Plot: Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics teacher, watches his life unravel over multiple sudden incidents. Though seeking meaning and answers amidst his turmoils, he seems to keep sinking.

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

There may be spoilers the rest of the review

Verdict: Coen Brothers Middle Ground

Story: A Serious Man starts as we meet college professor Larry Gopnik (Stuhlbarg) whose family life seems to get swept out from under him by his wife Judith (Lennick) wants to leave him and run off with family friend Sy (Melamed). Needing guidance Larry searches for answers in Rabbis and as more obstacles get thrown in his way the more frustrated he gets as he isn’t getting the answers he is searching for.

Thoughts on A Serious Man

Characters – Larry Gopnik is a college professor, happily married with two teenage children. His life unfolds when his wife wants to leave him and he must find the answers to his life through religion and accept the changes which come around. Uncle Arthur lives with the family and has an air of mystery about him and his genius. Sy Ableman is the family friend that wants to marry Judith, he is a serious man that believes he knows everything.

Performances – Michael Stuhlbarg is fantastic in this leading role where he appears to be able to adapt to every situation his character finds himself in. Richard Kind shows he comedy timing in this role without being crazy over the top. Fred Melamed is good in his role too.

Story – The story follows one man as his life starts to unfold on front of him, be it his children getting in trouble or his wife wanting to leave him and the pressure of his job getting to him. It shows how life can change suddenly especially if you thought it was going well at one moment. It does play into mid-life crisis territory too and is told in typical Coen brother style.

Comedy – The comedy works in typical Coen Brothers levels and if you didn’t know they directed this you would work it out because of the comedy.

Settings – The settings bring us to a small town America as we follow the everyday family where things start to go wrong.

Scene of the Movie – Arthur’s breakdown.

That Moment That Annoyed Me – The end, where was it?

Final Thoughts – This is a solid Coen brothers comedy that lacks the most important part, an ending as too much is left to us to decide what we want to happen.

Overall: Collapses in the end.

Rating

ABC Film Challenge – Action – C – Cold Blood Legacy (2019) Movie Review

Director: Frederic Petitjean

Writer: Frederic Petitjean (Screenplay)

Starring: Jean Reno, Sarah Lind, Joe Anderson, David Gyasi, Ihor Ciszkewycz

Plot: A hit-man lives isolated in a cabin at the edge of a lake. One day, an injured woman arrives in front of his house. To save her, he could well risk his own life.

Tagline – You can’t outrun the past.

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Verdict: Unappealing Action Film

Story: Cold Blood Legacy starts as Melody (Lind) travelling through the Rocky’s has an accident in her snowmobile, seeing smoke, crawling to Henry’s (Reno) secret isolated cabin. Henry is in hiding though, after his latest job, which saw him eliminate an important man, with detective Kappa (Anderson) searching for the killer.

As Henry helps nurse Melody back to health, so she could leave the cabin, she finds herself learning about him, while he does have his own motivation for helping her, in her time of need.

Thoughts on Cold Blood Legacy

Characters – Henry is a hitman who has just completed his latest assignment, he is living alone in an isolation cabin in the snow filled mountain range, he helps an injured Melody, knowing why she is visiting him all along. Melody is the woman on the run, injured on her snowmobile before finding herself being bought back to health. Kappa is a detective trying to find the missing hitman, who does seem to unlock more clues of who Henry truly is.

Performances – Jean Reno tries to bring back his the magic from Leon, as a lone hitman, only he doesn’t capture this magic again, while Sarah Lind doesn’t bring anything fresh to the film either, with Joe Anderson with one of the most generic American accents you will ever here.

Story – The story here follows a hitman that decides to help an injured person near his remote cabin, while a detective starts trying to hunt down the person and the reason why the hitman was hired for his latest hit. This story does try to throw together a lot of twists along the way in its attempt to add shock to the story, only nothing feels connected in anyway, leaving the story feeling flat, we whole detective angle does fill in a lot of holes, only it doesn’t seem to have much to do with what is happening elsewhere. The story is trying to hard to bring us a clever twist, rather than getting the basic story telling done strong enough.

Action – The action in the film is very lacklustre, we barely get any and calling this an action film does feel misleading.

Settings – The film uses a couple of settings with the isolation being for the hitman, being the basic and seemingly easier to find than first thought.

Scene of the Movie – The final shot.

That Moment That Annoyed Me – Not enough connection between the stories.

Final Thoughts – This does seem like a mis-sold action film that ends up feeling flat and not having enough connection to itself.

Overall: Disappointing and flat film.