Documentary Review Act and Punishment

Act and Punishment (2018) 

Directed by Yevgeny Mitta

Written by Documentary 

Starring Mariya Alyokhina, Boris Groys 

Release Date January 2018 

I will admit, I didn’t pay close enough attention to what Pussy Riot was really about. In my very Midwestern American way, I passively dismissed Pussy Riot simply because the name made me a little uncomfortable. I certainly could not talk about Pussy Riot on the radio on my talk show so I simply ignored the phenomenon. Now, I wish I hadn’t been so stupid. The new documentary Act & Punishment lays out the case that Pussy Riot is far more important than I had, in my limited worldview, ever imagined.

In 2011, a group of artists began to resist the rule of Vladimir Putin. Under Putin, Russia was beginning to revert to the era of dictatorships with Putin becoming so unquestioned as leader that he was able to name the people who would lead after him. Putin was gathering power around him and this included exerting influence over Russia’s most powerful religious leaders.

In the shadows a group of artists were beginning a small but notable rebellion. Specifically, three women decided that the best way to demonstrate against Putin was in the form of disruptive public performances. They chose the medium of punk rock because they weren’t trained musicians and yet they performed songs. They took their protests to the subways, public squares and prisons and performed songs such as “Mother of God, Drive Putin Away.”

The protests always ended the same with police dragging the women off to jail for several hours until they were released. This changed however when in 2013, Pussy Riot decided to perform inside the Moscow Cathedral. The protest was a disaster from the first moment. Someone had tipped off police that Pussy Riot would be attempting a guerrilla performance at the Cathedral and before they could even set up their instruments, police descended.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review The Commuter

The Commuter (2018) 

Directed by Jaume Collet Serra 

Written by Byron Willinger, Phillip de Blasi, Ryan Engle

Starring Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Sam Neil

Release Date January 12th, 2018

The Commuter is yet another desperately silly effort from Liam Neeson. Once again teaming with director Jaume Collet Serra, Neeson is once again playing an action hero in a desperate situation in which life and death hang in the balance. At this point, a trip to the grocery store could be the premise for a Neeson action hero; it’s not as if he needs anything more than a place, a gun and an elaborate idiot plot for his Mad Libs take on the action genre.

In The Commuter, Liam Neeson stars as Michael, an Insurance Agent and former cop who takes the train to the city every day. Michael’s life is changed forever when he loses his job and on his commuter train home he is approached by an odd but attractive woman named Joanna (Vera Farmiga) who makes a unique proposition. Joanna wants Michael to use his knowledge of the regular riders on the train to find the one person who doesn’t belong.

This person is carrying a bag and Michael is to tag the bag with a GPS tracker. In exchange for doing this, Michael will receive $25,000 waiting for him hidden on the train and another $75,000 after he gets the job done. Michael is dubious until he finds the initial payment and decides to do the job. Naturally, nothing is as it appears. When Michael tries to back out of the deal he gets a message that his family is in danger and he is forced to continue.

I mentioned Mad Libs earlier and admittedly that is a shallow and glib interpretation. That said, we’ve seen Liam Neeson play a very similar character as this one only on a plane in Non-Stop. In that film, Neeson played an innocent man who was being framed for taking over a plane. Here, Neeson’s Michael is being framed for taking over a commuter train so as glib as the Mad Libs comparison is, it’s not exactly off-base.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Proud Mary

Proud Mary (2018) 

Directed by Babak Najafi 

Written by John S. Newman, Christian Swegel, Steve Antin

Starring Taraji P. Henson, Billy Brown, Danny Glover 

Release Date January 12th, 2018

Proud Mary has the ambition and the movie star to become a franchise. The question it leaves behind, however, is whether or not the people behind it have the talent and investment to make it something more than just a stock action movie. For my money, other than star Taraji P. Henson, Proud Mary comes up quite short. Other than the star, there is nothing memorable or particularly special about Proud Mary.

Mary (Henson) is a professional killer and when we meet her, she’s hard at work. Sneaking her way into a high rise apartment in Boston, Mary dispatches her target with little effort. Unfortunately, she finds that her target has a son, Danny (Jahi Di’Allo Winston), who was home when she dispatched the target. Protocol would call for her to kill the kid but Mary has a code and when the kid doesn’t spot her, she slips away.

Cut to one year later, Mary has been tracking Danny, driven by her guilt. Danny’s life has gone from Boston high rise to living on the street and working for a low level Russian drug dealer named Uncle (Xander Berkley). When Mary decides to rescue Danny, she sets off a war between the Russians and her boss, Benny (Danny Glover). The Russians want revenge and Benny doesn’t know that it was his top killer who set off the war, only that everyone is now trying to kill everyone else. The plot turns on whether the kid will be Mary’s downfall by revealing her accidental betrayal.

The plot sounds a lot more active and engaged than Proud Mary actually is. The reality is that Proud Mary is rather dull. There are two signature action scenes in the movie and both are hampered by the cliché of faceless villains who can’t shoot straight. Only Mary and her former partner, Benny’s son Tom, played by Billy Brown, are allowed to hit things they aim at.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal.