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Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Paycheck (2003) in Movies
Aug 14, 2019
In the year 2007, memories can be erased almost as easily as they can be created. With corporate security being of top concern, this technology is in high demand for corporations who hire people to work on sensitive projects.
Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck), is a master of technology, and as such, is in high demand for his ability to reverse engineer technology. Companies hire him to work in private to unlock technological secrets of their competition and upon completion of his work; Jennings has his memories of his work and time at the company removed. This arrangement protects the companies, as they do not have to disclose how they came about the new technologies and the only person who can attest to the source of the work has no memory of it making the claim valid, and keeping him from being able to recoup long-term profits from the company.
Jennings is well paid for his work, and has recently completed a two-month job when his friend Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart), asks Michael to come work on a secret thee-year project for his company. Michael is told only that it deals with optics and that he will be paid with stock options worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
After thinking about the deal, Michael agrees to the job and sets out to complete the task ahead of him.
In what seems like a few minutes to him, Michael comes to in the office of Rethrick and is stunned to learn that he has completed his work and that it was a huge success.
Pleased, Michael sets out to collect his payment but is surprised to learn that he forfeited his stocks four days earlier and sent himself an envelope containing various mundane items such as paperclips, ball bearings, matches, and keys.
Before long, Michael is running for his life and attempting to unravel the mystery of the missing three years in his memory.
Based on the short story by renowned Sci-Fi author Phillip K. Dick, and directed by famed action helmer John Woo, “Paycheck” is a pleasant and entertaining surprise. The previews do not do this film justice, as it is an entertaining and engrossing film with good supporting work by Uma Thurman and Paul Giamatti.
There are a number of twists and turns to the story and some good action and humor along the way. Affleck does solid work as a man desperate to solve the mystery and struggling to cope with his life spun out of control.
While the ending was a bit to Hollywood for me, “Paycheck” is a solid and entertaining film and worth seeing.
Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck), is a master of technology, and as such, is in high demand for his ability to reverse engineer technology. Companies hire him to work in private to unlock technological secrets of their competition and upon completion of his work; Jennings has his memories of his work and time at the company removed. This arrangement protects the companies, as they do not have to disclose how they came about the new technologies and the only person who can attest to the source of the work has no memory of it making the claim valid, and keeping him from being able to recoup long-term profits from the company.
Jennings is well paid for his work, and has recently completed a two-month job when his friend Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart), asks Michael to come work on a secret thee-year project for his company. Michael is told only that it deals with optics and that he will be paid with stock options worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
After thinking about the deal, Michael agrees to the job and sets out to complete the task ahead of him.
In what seems like a few minutes to him, Michael comes to in the office of Rethrick and is stunned to learn that he has completed his work and that it was a huge success.
Pleased, Michael sets out to collect his payment but is surprised to learn that he forfeited his stocks four days earlier and sent himself an envelope containing various mundane items such as paperclips, ball bearings, matches, and keys.
Before long, Michael is running for his life and attempting to unravel the mystery of the missing three years in his memory.
Based on the short story by renowned Sci-Fi author Phillip K. Dick, and directed by famed action helmer John Woo, “Paycheck” is a pleasant and entertaining surprise. The previews do not do this film justice, as it is an entertaining and engrossing film with good supporting work by Uma Thurman and Paul Giamatti.
There are a number of twists and turns to the story and some good action and humor along the way. Affleck does solid work as a man desperate to solve the mystery and struggling to cope with his life spun out of control.
While the ending was a bit to Hollywood for me, “Paycheck” is a solid and entertaining film and worth seeing.
Lee (2222 KP) rated Get Out (2017) in Movies
Jul 26, 2017
Amazingly, I managed to head into Get Out having not even seen the trailer. It had been appearing more and more frequently on my news feeds recently, usually accompanied by a lot of positive buzz, and usually featuring an image of lead character Chris, wide eyed and terrified, with a tear running down his cheek (note that I’ve continued this trend with my review!). Described as a racial satire/horror it just didn’t really feature high on my watch list, but I booked a ticket to go see it, wanting to see what all the buzz was about. I’m kind of glad that I went in relatively blind as to what to expect though, as I was absolutely blown away by it.
Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris, a young black man dating a white girl called Rose (Allison Williams). He’s preparing to go and meet her parents for the first time but he’s a bit unsure as to what they’re going to think about him, despite Rose assuring him that he’s got nothing to worry about. When they arrive at the huge house out in the country, her parents really are fine with Chris. And they take every opportunity during their conversations to be positive about race and to assure Chris that they’re fine with him too, to the point where Chris (and us) begin to feel a little bit uneasy. This unease isn’t helped by the fact that there are two black servants in the house, neither of whom have very much to say and both acting very strangely. At night, the housekeeper wanders quietly around the house while the groundsman sprints around outside in the dark!
Paranoia and tension continues when a large group of family friends arrives for a party and they all seem very keen to get to know Chris and bond with him. One of the guests even has a black ‘companion’ who is also acting strangely. Despite the assurances from all, things definitely are not OK…
Of the little I read about Get Out beforehand, one of the reviews that stuck with me most described it a little bit like From Dusk Til Dawn in the way that everything suddenly all goes to shit in a hugely enjoyable and unexpected twist. There are definitely no vampires or anything similar in this movie, but I felt that it was a pretty good comparison. The movie spends a long time putting you on the edge of your seat, building up the tension, providing plenty of food for thought on modern day racism and adding the odd bit of welcome comedy relief from Chris’ friend on the end of the phone trying to support him. It’s all hugely enjoyable and even though you can guess pretty early on what’s going on, it’s all still hugely satisfying when the truth finally is revealed and the violence and action take over.
Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris, a young black man dating a white girl called Rose (Allison Williams). He’s preparing to go and meet her parents for the first time but he’s a bit unsure as to what they’re going to think about him, despite Rose assuring him that he’s got nothing to worry about. When they arrive at the huge house out in the country, her parents really are fine with Chris. And they take every opportunity during their conversations to be positive about race and to assure Chris that they’re fine with him too, to the point where Chris (and us) begin to feel a little bit uneasy. This unease isn’t helped by the fact that there are two black servants in the house, neither of whom have very much to say and both acting very strangely. At night, the housekeeper wanders quietly around the house while the groundsman sprints around outside in the dark!
Paranoia and tension continues when a large group of family friends arrives for a party and they all seem very keen to get to know Chris and bond with him. One of the guests even has a black ‘companion’ who is also acting strangely. Despite the assurances from all, things definitely are not OK…
Of the little I read about Get Out beforehand, one of the reviews that stuck with me most described it a little bit like From Dusk Til Dawn in the way that everything suddenly all goes to shit in a hugely enjoyable and unexpected twist. There are definitely no vampires or anything similar in this movie, but I felt that it was a pretty good comparison. The movie spends a long time putting you on the edge of your seat, building up the tension, providing plenty of food for thought on modern day racism and adding the odd bit of welcome comedy relief from Chris’ friend on the end of the phone trying to support him. It’s all hugely enjoyable and even though you can guess pretty early on what’s going on, it’s all still hugely satisfying when the truth finally is revealed and the violence and action take over.
Nymphomaniac Volume I (2014)
6.7
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Movie Metropolis (309 KP) rated Run All Night (2015) in Movies
Jun 11, 2019
Neeson at his gritty best
It’s fair to say Liam Neeson has picked some decidedly dodgy acting jobs since his rise to become an A-list Hollywood action hero. From a disappointing turn in the most recent A Team movie to the laughably bad Taken 3, he seems to have been turned from fan favourite to the butt of so many jokes.
After January’s poorly received Taken 3, Neeson returns to give the genre another go in Run All Night, but does Jaume Collet-Serra’s intriguing direction return him to the top of the food chain?
Run All Night follows the story of Neeson’s Jimmy Conlon as he does his best to keep his son Michael, played by Joel Kinnaman, away from the deadly clutches of Sean Maguire, a brutal underworld gangster portrayed by Ed Harris, after the murder of Sean’s son Danny over the course of 16 hours.
What ensues is a formulaic action thriller featuring by-the-numbers set pieces that are interspersed with some inspiring cinematography and all the actors at the top of their game.
Neeson’s Jimmy is an alcoholic former hit man, previously employed by Maguire, who has decided to move away from his shady past and become a more rounded individual. His interactions with Ed Harris’ brilliant Sean are excellent and the pair have genuine chemistry – it’s just a shame that their backstory isn’t built on a little more.
As the audience follows Jimmy and Michael evading the police, mobsters and professional hired killers, the film traces their backstory, almost using the action-packed set pieces as checkpoints for a bit more history and from a genre that rarely utilises character development, this is a welcome addition.
The cinematography is truly stunning. The sweeping shots of New York City are inspired and the use of tracking and aerial panning instead of simply fading between scenes stylises the film like no other action movie from the last few years.
There is an air of The Taking of Pelham 123 in Serra’s direction, and of course the similarities to Neeson’s Taken and Serra’s very own Non-Stop that also starred the Irish actor are obvious.
Unfortunately, all these comparisons mean that Run All Night isn’t particularly original in premise despite its unique direction. We’ve seen it all before, we saw Neeson running about and shooting bad guys in Taken, Taken 2 and Taken 3. We saw him try to get the bottom of a serious problem in Non-Stop and we saw him take on the role of a troubled alcoholic in The Grey.
Yes, after Taken 3, Run All Night showcases Neeson at his gritty best, but it’s in Ed Harris that we find the most intriguing
character and he puts everything into Sean Maguire – despite his more than familiar name.
Thankfully, Serra and the production crew steered away from creating a film that would please the masses and opted for an often brutal, yet strangely warming action thriller – along the way avoiding the pitfalls of some of Neeson’s previous efforts.
Overall, Run All Night isn’t the disaster it could have been and shows what everyone’s favourite Irish actor is capable of when given the right material to work with. Ed Harris is also on point and Jaume Collet-Serra’s direction goes above and beyond what the genre asks for.
Only an underwhelming final act and a highly unoriginal story stop it from becoming the film it so deeply wanted to be.
https://moviemetropolis.net/2015/03/15/neeson-at-his-gritty-best-run-all-night-review/
After January’s poorly received Taken 3, Neeson returns to give the genre another go in Run All Night, but does Jaume Collet-Serra’s intriguing direction return him to the top of the food chain?
Run All Night follows the story of Neeson’s Jimmy Conlon as he does his best to keep his son Michael, played by Joel Kinnaman, away from the deadly clutches of Sean Maguire, a brutal underworld gangster portrayed by Ed Harris, after the murder of Sean’s son Danny over the course of 16 hours.
What ensues is a formulaic action thriller featuring by-the-numbers set pieces that are interspersed with some inspiring cinematography and all the actors at the top of their game.
Neeson’s Jimmy is an alcoholic former hit man, previously employed by Maguire, who has decided to move away from his shady past and become a more rounded individual. His interactions with Ed Harris’ brilliant Sean are excellent and the pair have genuine chemistry – it’s just a shame that their backstory isn’t built on a little more.
As the audience follows Jimmy and Michael evading the police, mobsters and professional hired killers, the film traces their backstory, almost using the action-packed set pieces as checkpoints for a bit more history and from a genre that rarely utilises character development, this is a welcome addition.
The cinematography is truly stunning. The sweeping shots of New York City are inspired and the use of tracking and aerial panning instead of simply fading between scenes stylises the film like no other action movie from the last few years.
There is an air of The Taking of Pelham 123 in Serra’s direction, and of course the similarities to Neeson’s Taken and Serra’s very own Non-Stop that also starred the Irish actor are obvious.
Unfortunately, all these comparisons mean that Run All Night isn’t particularly original in premise despite its unique direction. We’ve seen it all before, we saw Neeson running about and shooting bad guys in Taken, Taken 2 and Taken 3. We saw him try to get the bottom of a serious problem in Non-Stop and we saw him take on the role of a troubled alcoholic in The Grey.
Yes, after Taken 3, Run All Night showcases Neeson at his gritty best, but it’s in Ed Harris that we find the most intriguing
character and he puts everything into Sean Maguire – despite his more than familiar name.
Thankfully, Serra and the production crew steered away from creating a film that would please the masses and opted for an often brutal, yet strangely warming action thriller – along the way avoiding the pitfalls of some of Neeson’s previous efforts.
Overall, Run All Night isn’t the disaster it could have been and shows what everyone’s favourite Irish actor is capable of when given the right material to work with. Ed Harris is also on point and Jaume Collet-Serra’s direction goes above and beyond what the genre asks for.
Only an underwhelming final act and a highly unoriginal story stop it from becoming the film it so deeply wanted to be.
https://moviemetropolis.net/2015/03/15/neeson-at-his-gritty-best-run-all-night-review/
Outcry: Holocaust Memoirs
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