Posts tagged Hotshots
“Runner Runner” a Loser Loser
Oct 13th
“Loser Loser”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Runner Runner stars Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck in a movie about offshore gambling, and it brings to mind an eternal truth about gambling: “The house always wins.”
In this case the house is the movie theater, and the loser is you.
Timberlake plays Richie Furst, who is earning his masters degree in finance at Princeton and is also a teaching assistant, but he spends a lot of his time playing online poker, which causes him to be called into the dean’s office for a meeting.
The dean tells Richie that he has his hands in his fellow students’ pants, he is an affiliate for online gaming, and then says, “You will close up shop immediately.”
Like all gambling suckers, Richie doesn’t listen to reason, he plays online poker again on a popular Website, bets everything he has, and loses it.
However, Richie’s two buddies and colleagues use statistics to convince him that the Website cheated him, and so Richie travels to Costa Rica, where the Website is located, to confront the owner of the Website.
Affleck plays Ivan Block, the owner of the gambling Website, and after Richie learns that Block is like The Wizard of Oz and nobody gets close to him, Richie manages to get an invitation to meet Ivan on Ivan’s boat.
Ivan tells Richie that he thinks Richie is exceptional, and Ivan offers Richie a job working for him.
After Richie proves himself to Ivan, Richie now believes that he has almost everything he wanted, and he invites his two buddies from Princeton to come down to Costa Rica and work with him.
However, Ivan confesses that he hates his business and that it is not fun anymore, even though it allows Ivan to do whatever he wants. There are payoffs and bribes to local officials that are necessary for him to run his business, and it is also very dangerous.
Yes, Richie gets beaten up a couple of times doing his job for Ivan, who even knew it would happen.
Ivan tells Richie that everybody has something worth more to them than money, and in Richie’s case it is his father.
You know how some movies seem to have been made just because of the exotic location? This is one of those movies.
Runner Runner is nothing more than a loser loser.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Prisoners” Dark and Disturbing
Sep 29th
“Dark and Disturbing”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Prisoners is a disturbing movie in more ways than one.
The subject matter is disturbing, the action of the characters is disturbing, but most of all the ending is disturbing.
In fact, this movie is a prime example for one of those movies with alternate endings on the DVD version.
Hugh Jackman stars as Keller Dover, a survivalist who, when the movie opens, is out deer hunting with his teenage son.
On the way home, Keller tells his son the most important thing his own father ever taught him: “Be ready.”
Mario Bello plays Keller’s wife, they also have a daughter, Anna, who is six years old, and on Thanksgiving the whole family goes to dinner at the home of their friends and neighbors, Franklin and Nancy Birch, played by Terrence Howard and Viola Davis.
After dinner, Anna and her best friend, Joy Birch, go off playing, and the next thing the parents know is that they don’t know where their daughters are.
A frantic search throughout the house, outside, and back at the Dovers’ house leads to nothing, except that a suspicious RV that had been parked in the neighborhood is now gone, too.
When the police get involved, the investigation is led by Detective Loki, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who has solved every case he has ever been assigned.
The only suspect is the driver of that RV, Alex Jones, played by Paul Dano, who is mentally challenged and lives with his aunt, played by Melissa Leo, but no evidence is found in the RV or at the aunt’s house.
The hours that Anna and Joy are missing become days, and Keller is so desperate that he begins following Alex, the only suspect the police had in the case, and he does more than just follow Alex.
We see a lot of police work from Detective Loki, there is a lot of rain that makes the story and the events even darker, and a couple of suspicious characters lead to nothing.
In fact, at some point in the movie, you might come to the conclusion that the movie goes on too long and is far more dramatic than it need be.
But what an ending it has, and as I said, it could even have more than one ending.
Prisoners is disturbing from beginning to end.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”