Movie Review Catch the Fair One

Catch the Fair One

Directed by Jeff Kubota Wladyka 

Written by Jeff Kubota Wladyka, Kali Reis

Starring Kali Reis, Shelly Vincent, Kendall Morris

Release Date February 11th, 2022 

Catch the Fair One is a bold and uncompromising thriller about the desperate plague of human trafficking. The film stars real life boxing champion Kali Reis as Kaylee, the older sister of Jaya (Kimberly Guerrero). Jaya has been taken and to get her back Kali will offer herself to a human trafficking ring while making plans to get her and her sister out. Written and directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka, Catch the Fair One is not an easy sit but it is one that will haunt you if you give it a chance. 

Kaylee has fallen from grace. Once a world champion boxer, Kaylee ended up in jail and then working a minimum wage job as a waitress following the disappearance of her little sister. Kaylee is on the outs with her mother, and instead of training for her next fight, she’s begun training for a very different kind of fight. With her only friend, Brick (Shelly Vincent), she’s discovered a way into the word of human trafficking and she’s now training to fight her way in and out of this incredibly dangerous world.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Asphalt City

Asphalt City (2024) 

Directed by Jean Stephane Sauvaire 

Written by Ryan King, Ben Mac Brown

Starring Tye Sheridan, Sean Penn, Mike Tyson, Kali Reis, Michael Pitt 

Release Date March 29th, 2024 

Published March 28th, 2024 

Asphalt City is the kind movie that mistakes wallowing in misery for drama. The film about a rookie EMT in New York City wallows in the bleak misery of suffering that, I am sure, will feel like gritty drama to some but felt punishing for this critic. I don't mind a good wallow, I was a big fan of Scorsese's similarly themed Bringing Out the Dead years ago, but I have my limits and Asphalt City pushed well past my limit for desolation that borders on post-apocalyptic. I realize New York City can be an angry and dark place but this borders on pornographic in terms of misery. 

Asphalt City stars Tye Sheridan as Ollie Cross a wide-eyed medical student whose paying his way through med-school by working as an EMT in New York City. Struggling with a terrible partner who hates rookies, Cross's spirits are buoyed when he's reassigned to work with an aging veteran, Gene 'Rut' Rutkovsky. Rut takes pity on the kid and sets about teaching him the job instead of just screaming orders at him. Where his previous partner, played by Michael Pitt, appeared intent on running Cross out of the job, Rut seems to take to being a mentor. 

This doesn't however, give the movie a boost in terms of the pitch black ugliness at play. Even as Rut proves to be kind, the runs they make in their ambulance are unendingly grim. EMT's deal with a lot of horrors but Asphalt City makes the job appear like the seventh circle of hell at all times. It's to the point that I just can't believe anyone would be able to do this job and since we have EMT's currently working in New York City, I can only imagine that they have found some way to preserve their mental health. This movie makes being an EMT akin to trying to survive Cormac McCarthy's The Road. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media