I have a ritual for watching movies - settling in, turning off lights as needed, giving the movie my attention. I don't usually like to just have something on in the background while I socialize or do some work. But my sister and brother-in-law take a more casual attitude. My BiL, in particular, likes to find something stupid and put it on. Others can watch or cook or whatever. I usually skip these, but this year I actually tuned into a couple.
Violent Night (2022) is about as stupid as it gets. It's set on Christmas eve at the compound of the absurdly rich Beverly D'Angelo and her horrible children and mostly horrible grandchildren - one of them is a sweet little girl Leah Brady. They are home-invaded by a heavily armed gang led by John Leguizamo. But right at that moment, Santa, played by David Harbour (Eleven's dad) has arrived.
Little Leah Brady escapes from the invaders and hides, and Santa answers her Christmas wis=h (because she's Nice). He's not a fighter, and his magic is limited to presents and stuff, so he gets his ass kicked a lot. But Brady helps him remember his roots as a violent Norse raider, and it's, "You better watch out..."
Most of the quips here you can see a mile away. I don't think there was a "Ho Ho Ho, now I've got a gun," but everything else is. There is a great scene where Brady sets some traps, like in Home Alone. (Santa says, "Sure, whatever Home Alone is"). They don't work that well, but manage to be gorily lethal.
Weirdly, after making the rich bastards as unlikable as possible, it kills a few and lets the rest live and continue to prosper while staying terrible. No redemption arc for anyone but Santa and his reindeers. I actually kind of liked this, except for those guys.
The Gray Man (2022) is somewhat less silly, but only a little. It starts with Ryan Gosling in prison being recruited by a de-aged Billy Bob Thornton to act as an off-the-books deniable CIA assassin, to be known only as Six. Thirteen years later we see him in Shanghai on a mission to hit a guy trading info. Thornton has retired and the new leader Rege-Jean Page, seems pretty ruthless - telling him to "go loud" when a child is in the line of fire.
When he does make the kill, the target hands over the info in an encrypted memory card, saying it implicate Page in seriious crimes. So Gosling goes underground, and Page sends another killer after him, the evil psychopath Chris Evans. But Gosling's handler, the by-the-books Ana de Armas, decides to find him and see what is up.
So, there's a bunch of globe trotting action, including a ridiculous CIA army vs. Gosling vs. Prague SWAT scene, with trolley fights and rocket launchers. You get the idea. There is also a hostage, Thornton's niece with a weak heart, Julia Butters.
The fights are over the top and about par for modern high-budget action. Evans is delightfully evil, with a bad haircut, high-water pants and a "trash 'stache". Gosling is the usual bad ass quip machine - Chris Evans even drawls, "We get it, you're quippy." And it ends with a setup for a sequel.
This is all well and good, but breaks absolutely no ground. The Russo Brothers are quite good at this kind of thing, but there isn't much to distinguish it from the pack. In particular, it is part of the latest generation of not-good/not-bad Netflix action films. Maybe I could have set my expectations low enough to really like this, but instead, I just didn't hate it. Like I said about The Killer, I might actually prefer The Hitman's Bodyguard.
2 comments:
From your description of Chris Evans I know I saw the movie . . . or some of it. But all I remember is the Chris Evans character. Everything else has been wiped clean.
If you don't remember anything about it, you probably saw it.
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