Editor’s Note: Freeline Media’s movie critic, Mike Fried, looks at two new Netflix flicks — and it’s a mixed bag.
By MIKE FRIED
RELAY
*** 1/2
Ash is a broker — a “relay,” if you will — because he contacts his clients through a dead TTY/TDD service, between whistleblowers and the companies they threaten to expose by ensuring that the documents taken are returned with a safety copy kept in order to ensure honesty on both sides. A whistleblower named Sarah is referred to Ash. She has documents that will implicate a company in wrongdoing. But that company, Cybo Sementis Research Institutes will stop at nothing to get at Sarah or Ash.
This is a fine thriller, even if it doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It’s an interesting premise fitting a story of two people who haven’t met but who become connected into the guise of a techno thriller. And it works because the two leads Riz Ahmed and Lily James are excellent in their roles.
Sam Worthington is underused and it seems like he’s filling time between Avatar gigs but he does a good job as the bad guy.
The movie rushes along at a brisk pace and doesn’t feel like it is 111 minutes long, primarily because of the fast paced interactions between Ash and Sarah. It even has a nod to The Man Who Knew Too Much.
It is tightly directed by David Mackenzie who previously helmed the outstanding neo-western/neo-noir Hell or High Water nine years ago. And the nice script by first time feature writer Justin Piasecki is filled with very neat twists and turns that will keep you going.
WATCH IT!
*** 1/2 out of 5
EDEN
**
Allegedly based on fact story about a German couple who flee to an island in the Galapagos to get away from what they believe are the plagues of society. They are soon joined by a husband, wife and son and things are pretty calm until a Baroness and her fuckboys show up with a plan to build a millionaire’s hotel. Soon the plagues of society are visited upon the island.
50 years before this movie there was another island movie called “The Savage is Loose.”
I remember Vincent Canby’s review for The New York Times which said “What begins as a kind of tabloid version of ‘The Swiss Family Robinson’ quickly disintegrates into a muddled meditation upon the survival of the human race.”
I felt the same while watching this film. Ron Howard’s direction or Noah Pink’s screenplay is a muddled mess. And part of the reason for that is the acting. Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby as the original inhabitants of the island are not acting up to their potential. Kirby especially seems to be sleepwalking through the film with the occasional “do you want to fuck?” thrown her husband’s way.
And while Sydney Sweeney and Daniel Brühl are adequate in the roles of the newcomers, their impact is totally ruined by Ana De Armas’ horrible performance as a pre-World War II Bind villain. It’s one thing to be a villain but her performance is so over the top that it ruins the impact of the film. I don’t care if it’s true but when she starts singing the Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen for her luncheon guests, it is wholly unnecessary and out of place. And when she asks Sweeney about her giving a birth her question is “Was it fun?”
About the only reality in the film is the temporary arrival of multimillionaire Allan Hancock who brings supplies to the island and who sees through the Baroness’ veil of deceit.
And as they turn on each other, all I can think of are those words of wisdom espoused by the legendary Norm Peterson: “It’s a dog eat dog world and I’m wearing milk-bone underwear”.
This all may be true but as presented on screen it becomes ludicrous and that unbelievability is exacerbated by an extended 128 minute runtime.
And further- despite the tabloids headlining that this was Sydney Sweeney’s latest failure box office bomb, it wasn’t her fault. It was the fault of many others.
And after a while I just got bored. That’s the cardinal cinematic sin.
SKIP IT!
** out of 5
Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.
Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.
