Health & Fitness
Reeling on Lucy, A Most Wanted Man
An American college student in Taiwan (Scarlett Johansson) is begged by her boyfriend Richard (Pilou Asbæk, "A Hijacking") to deliver a locked briefcase after an all night partying binge. She objects, but when he suddenly handcuffs it to her she has no other choice. When, as instructed, she asks for Mr. Jang (Min-sik Choi, "Oldboy"), she's already unnerved, but when she sees Richard splattered against the lobby glass by gunfire and is hustled into an elevator by Jang's thugs, the future looks dire for "Lucy."
I was tempted to say 'what a load of crap' and leave it at that, but here goes. Writer/director Luc Besson ("La Femme Nikita," "The Professional") leans on the old myth that humans only use 10% of their brains to spin his tale of a drug mule whose surgically embedded package of synthetic CPH4 leaks, delivering a lethal dose which opens her mind to its full capacity. Unfortunately that's the most plausible idea in his screenplay, an undisciplined piece of hackery apparently aimed at twelve year-old boys. Giving a very similar performance to her great work in "Under the Skin," Johansson's tranced out dehumanization mixed with wonder is about as fine as anyone could do given this material, where fast firing brain neurons apparently increase one's laptop RAM to something approaching the speed of light.
To read the rest of Laura's review, click here:
http://www.reelingreviews.com/lucy.htm
A haggard and ragged man crawls out of the river running through Hamburg, Germany. He makes contact with members of the Islamic community, opening the door to the question: Is the man a victim of terror and torture or an extremist bent on destruction? The head of Germany’s super secret anti-terrorist team, Günter Bachmann (Philip Seymour Hoffman), takes on the difficult mission to find the answer in “A Most Wanted Man.”
This is the last starring role for the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and, for me, it is a sad and melancholy performance by a great actor. Günter is a renegade in the German espionage business and makes no bones about his disdain for his superiors. When the ragged man comes to his attention, Bachmann’s team learns that he is a Chechen, Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin), seeking asylum. Through an intermediary, civil rights lawyer Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams), Bachmann learns the reason for his arrival - to lay claim to the 10 million Euros that his late Russian father deposited in a German bank.
To read the rest of Robin's review, as well as Laura's, click here:
http://www.reelingreviews.com/amostwantedman.htm
To read the rest of Laura's review, click here:
http://www.reelingreviews.com/lucy.htm
A haggard and ragged man crawls out of the river running through Hamburg, Germany. He makes contact with members of the Islamic community, opening the door to the question: Is the man a victim of terror and torture or an extremist bent on destruction? The head of Germany’s super secret anti-terrorist team, Günter Bachmann (Philip Seymour Hoffman), takes on the difficult mission to find the answer in “A Most Wanted Man.”
This is the last starring role for the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and, for me, it is a sad and melancholy performance by a great actor. Günter is a renegade in the German espionage business and makes no bones about his disdain for his superiors. When the ragged man comes to his attention, Bachmann’s team learns that he is a Chechen, Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin), seeking asylum. Through an intermediary, civil rights lawyer Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams), Bachmann learns the reason for his arrival - to lay claim to the 10 million Euros that his late Russian father deposited in a German bank.
To read the rest of Robin's review, as well as Laura's, click here:
http://www.reelingreviews.com/amostwantedman.htm
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