Hotshots Movie Reviews
Hotshots Movie Reviews by Dan Culberson
The Judge “Family Courtroom Drama”
Oct 22nd
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE JUDGE is a terrific film about a family and what happens to them in a courtroom during a murder trial.
Robert Downey, Jr., stars as Hank Palmer, a successful attorney in Chicago, and Robert Duvall stars as Joe Palmer, Hank’s father, who has been a judge in a small town in Indiana for 42 years.
Hank has a reputation that is not entirely favorable, and when asked why many of his clients seem to be guilty, he says, “Innocent people can’t afford me.”
Hank and Joe are estranged and barely talk to one another, and the movie begins when Hank returns to his hometown in Indiana to attend his mother’s funeral.
However, while Hank is there, Joe is involved in an automobile accident late at night with a man on a bicycle who is killed.
The evidence seems to indicate that the accident was intentional, and because Joe and the man on the bicycle had a history from a previous trial, the judge is charged with murder.
Joe hires a local attorney to defend him, who is played by Dax Shepard, but because he turns out to be both out of his league and in over his head, Hank reluctantly agrees to help out over the objections of Joe.
However, the story is not all courtroom drama; Vera Farmiga plays Hank’s high-school sweetheart, a single mom with a daughter that Hank might have had something to do with before he left town, and Vincent D’Onofrio and Jeremy Strong play Hank’s brothers, and there is something in their past, too, that enters into the story.
In addition, Hank has a wife and daughter back in Chicago who require some attention during the trial, and Joe has a secret that he is not telling anybody. Hank’s reputation isn’t helping his cause, either, especially when he is known as a bully with a big bag of tricks, and he says that his father is the most brutally difficult client he has ever had.
Now, you might believe from the publicity that the movie consists only of Hank and Joe being at each other’s throats and arguing with each other, but there are also some tender and touching scenes in the movie, as well.
THE JUDGE is a tremendous family courtroom drama that is sure to receive some Academy Award nominations.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Gone Girl “Excellent Thriller”
Oct 8th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
GONE GIRL is an excellent mystery thriller based on the 2012 best-selling novel by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the screenplay, and if you haven’t read the novel, you are in for a surprise.
No, you are in for more than one surprise, maybe even shockers.
Ben Affleck stars as Nick, Rosamund Pike stars as Amy, his wife, and one morning Amy goes missing from their home in Missouri under mysterious circumstances.
Evidence left in the living room of the house suggests to the police that Amy might have been murdered, and of course in cases like this, the husband is always the prime suspect.
Kim Dickens plays Detective Rhonda Boney, who is investigating the case, and she and her partner provide what little comic relief occurs in the movie, along with Tyler Perry, who plays Nick’s high-priced, high-profile, and high-powered defense attorney.
One of the many problems for the police is that Nick is not acting as they believe a husband would if his wife was missing and believed to have been murdered, as well as the fact that Amy went missing on their fifth wedding anniversary, and Amy’s present to Nick was a game in which she left clues for him labeled “Clue One,” “Clue Two,” and so on.
Also, when they question Nick, his answers don’t strike them as being filled with the sort of information that they believe a husband should know about his wife.
Nick has a twin sister, Margo, and she tells Nick, “Everyone knows ‘complicated’ is code for ‘bitch.'”
Amy left a diary behind, and we hear Amy’s voice as she reads excerpts from the diary and see flashbacks to when they met in New York City, where they were both writers, and then when they both got laid off and moved to Nick’s hometown in Missouri to take care of Nick’s ailing mother.
From the entries in Amy’s diary, we get the impression that their marriage was not as happy as Nick has been telling the police it was.
Finally, Neil Patrick Harris plays an important role as a former suitor of Amy’s, whose departure from her life was not under the most pleasant circumstances.
GONE GIRL ties all these complicated loose ends up at the end in which some people might believe is a bit ambiguous and messy.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”