“The Sisters Brothers” (Western/Crime: 2 hours, 1 minute)

Starring: John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed

Director: Jacques Audiard

Rated: R (Violence, gore, profanity, and sexual content)

 

Movie Review: Frenchman Jacques Audiard (“Un prophète,” 2009) directs this Western based on Patrick DeWitt’s book with a “Pulp Fiction” flair.

Comedy and plenty of gunfights are a part of this good Western. However, the brothers constant complaints about each other and their predicaments can be taxing. 

In 1851 Oregon, Eli Sisters (Reilly) and Charlie Sisters (Phoenix) are a notorious duo of assassins, known as the Sisters Brothers. Their latest mission is to retrieve Hermann Kermit Warm (Ahmed), a man with an invention to make gold prospecting easier. 

Apprehension of Warm will not be easy. Other henchmen of The Commodore (Rutger Hauer), The Sisters Brothers employer, are also pursuing Warm who has enlisted the assistance of John Morris (Gyllenhaal). 

The Sisters Brothers are antiheroes. They are central characters who lack the conventional gallant attributes associated with heroic behavior. The brothers are assassins. They work for a corrupt crime lord. Yet these brothers become the good guys in an off-character manner.

Reilly and Phoenix make a good pairing, although one finds them comical in this Western. Their travels as siblings are an adventure, even if their constant brotherly squabbles with each other are repetitively annoying and occasionally tedious.

Grade: B (The duo offers an adventurous movie.)

* Playing in larger cities

“Hunter Killer” (Action/Drama: 2 hours, 1 minute)

Starring: Gerard Butler, Gary Oldman, Common and Michael Nyqvist

Director: Donovan Marsh

Rated: R (Violence and some language)

 

Movie Review: “Hunter Killer” is an entertaining feature but far from convincing. It takes an interesting plot from the book “Firing Point” by George Wallace and Don Keith, and the screenplay turns the story into a play-by-play piece with undeveloped characters. 

The movie is good on action, but is lazy with dramatic moments needed to make it a movie with substance.

Cmdr. Joe Glass (Butler) is the newly appointed captain of a United States submarine. His first assignment lands him in Russian waters. His task is not easy. While the submarine is near Russia, the rogue Defense Minister Admiral Dmitri Durov (Mikhail Gorevoy) overthrows President Zakarin (Alexander Diachenko) during a coup d’état. 

Glass must take his crew closer to extract Zakarin to prevent a war between two nuclear powers. To complete his task, Glass will have to trust seasoned Russian submarine commander Captain Sergei Andropov, played ably by Nyqvist in one of his last roles. 

Donovan Marsh (“Spud,” 2010) directs this interesting yet poorly executed movie. The story focuses on characters not needed to tell the story as a movie. Several poorly established characters add nothing to a rushed screenplay.

The movie’s focus should be as a good war drama rather than an action flick. Think of “Hunter Killer” as a cheap version of “The Hunt for Red October” (1990).

Grade: C (The hunt for a better submarine movie.)

“Indivisible” (Drama/War: 2 hours, 1 minute)

Starring: Justin Bruening, Sarah Drew, Jason George and Skye P. Marshall

Director: David G. Evans

Rated: PG-13 (Thematic material and war violence)

 

Movie Review: The title is exactly what the United States has been drifting away from slowly. The drama is based on a real family. Audiences observe an Iraqi war chaplain and his family and the effects of war challenge them and their faith. 

“Indivisible” adequately chronicles a family’s tribulations to create an amiable drama about how we are all better united.

Army Chaplain Darren Turner (Bruening) is new from seminary and basic training. He and his family are residents of Fort Stewart. Shortly after reporting to Fort Stewart, Lt. Turner receives orders to deploy to Iraq.

Meanwhile, Heather (Drew) takes care of their three young children while working with other wives to help each other cope with the misfortunes of war.

The emotive drama is the true story of Darren Turner and his wife, Heather. The Turners had their share of marital problems. It was a different type of battle. 

When Darren returned from the war zone, he was different, yet he and his wife managed to get their lives together. They also helped others do similarly. The movie captures their and other military families’ struggles in a manner that easily gets one’s attention.

Some moments are overly preachy. Others have Kumbaya moments where moments of tension are glossed over for this diverse group of characters to show how much they care about each other. If only humanity was as idyllic in life as it is in movies.

Yet, the movie, directed by David G. Evans (“The Grace Card,” 2010), has a message. It is the message that faith, in this case Christianity, can offer one hope and a better way.

The movie is also about the scars of war, not only to the military, but their families, too. This is where the movie scores points, and Justin Bruening is effective enough to make the character of Chaplain Darren Turner an essential character whose story is worth telling. 

Grade: B- (No divisiveness about the good expressed in the Turners story.)

“London Fields” (Crime/Mystery: 1 hour, 48 minutes)

Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Amber Heard, Theo James, Jim Sturgess and Johnny Depp

Director: Mathew Cullen

Rated: R (Profanity, sexual content, violence, drug use and nudity)

 

Movie Review: This adaption of Martin Amis’ novel is an eclectic mix of the weird and the seductively extravagant. 

It is abstract thoughts applied to a canvas in a manner like a crime thriller movie from the 1930s-50s. However, the movie is material from the modern era of movie-making. It has sex, cursing, violence, substance abuse and a few other unsavory acts. The problem is none of those things derive a movie worth seeing.

Set in London on Guy Fawkes’ Day, author Samson Young (Billy Bob Thornton) arrives in London to write one last novel. Instead, he becomes a neutral part of a love triangle between a seductively sexy and beautiful Nicola Six (Heard), a suave sophisticated and handsome millionaire Guy Clinch (James) and a thuggishly grungy Keith Talent (Sturgess), a champion dart player and con artist. 

The men all become fascinated with Nicola Six. The relationships change more when Chick Purchase (Depp) enters the picture to stake his own claim on money, darts and Nicola Six. Interestingly, Six is psychic who predicts her own death will occur on Guy Fawkes’ Day. 

Mathew Cullen makes his directorial debut for a full-length production; writer Roberta Hanley’s cluttered story features competing sub-stories. Momentarily, the narrative regarding who kills Nicola Six becomes lost in a shuffle of messiness.

That disarray exists because of an array of eccentric characters. Heard’s seductiveness is creepy. Her beauty cannot hide her character’s eeriness.

Jim Sturgess feels as if he is a revolting character from “Trainspotting” (1996). Theo James is charmingly sophisticated, yet he has a low-key sadistic temper with underlying violent tendencies. And Johnny Depp is wildly peculiar. Think of Jack Sparrow from “Pirates of the Caribbean” in “A Clockwork Orange” (1971) setting.

If one wants to know how strange this movie is. Exhibit one, Billy Bob Thornton is the normal character. After playing several overly eccentric and grotesque roles, he is ““London Fields” main character and its decent persona. 

One would think “London Fields” is an apocalyptic photoplay set in London that just involves the death of a clairvoyant. Instead, it turns into a hodgepodge of love affairs, gambling and darts. This is tragic, considering a clairvoyant trying to solve her own murder is intriguing enough.

Grade: D+ (London falls.)

Adann-Kennn Alexxandar is a Valdosta resident. He has written movie reviews for The Valdosta Daily Times for more than 20 years.