(trailer review) - How to rob a bank

 

There are trailers that look good, and then there are trailers that look like they were made specifically for me, and Wow. Just wow! If you know me, you know I absolutely live for films like Bullet Train and Deadpool—that perfect, chaotic blend of ultra-slick action, sharp wit, and stylized violence. So when this trailer dropped, I was already all over it. And let me tell you, it does not disappoint.

First of all, I absolutely love Nicholas Hoult. He is front and center. I genuinely think he's one of the most versatile actors working today. One minute he's playing a complete psychopath, the next he's playing someone charming, funny or completely awkward. He seems able to slide into almost any role as he switches gears so effortlessly, and make it work, and from this trailer alone, he looks like he's having an absolute blast and he looks absolutely brilliant here. The thumbnail did actually make me think it was Ed Skrein at first.

​The casting across the board is just hitting all the right notes for me:

​Seeing the black boy from Marvel's The Runaways, Rhenzy Feliz, who many people will more recently recognise from The Penguin, he's one of those actors who always seems to bring a lot of energy whenever he appears on screen and has a very cool demeanor and presence.

Pete Davidson isn't everyone's cup of tea, but he is likely to bring a bit of levity to the group among the chaos. The film looks like it knows exactly when to be serious and exactly when to let the audience laugh, and Pete feels like a big part of that balance.

Then you've got John C. Reilly, who seems to be playing it more straight than comedic with a few comedic notes here and there laced throughout the trailer. I haven't seen Christian in much of anything recently, so seeing Christian Slater genuinely made me smile. Having him back on screen doing his thing is a massive treat. 

Seeing Zoë Kravitz was another great get. She has such a natural screen presence that whenever she turns up in a project, I immediately become more interested. She is great in pretty much everything she has been in from X-Men: First Class to Mad Max Fury Road, to Blink Twice, to The Batman. Absolute bonus. She just adds that extra layer of cool to the whole aesthetic.

The trailer kicks off with a brilliant line that perfectly sets the tone for our digital age: "You know what is more powerful than money? An audience." From there, it hits us with a hilarious breakdown of success rates—comparing the abysmal odds of actually owning your own home or earning a six-figure salary against the surprisingly high success rate of... well, robbing a bank. All of this is delivered by Hoult’s character, casually wearing a mask and talking straight into a camera as they are literally turning bank heists into content for the masses!

We get a glimpse of the crew of four in a van, setting up the ground rules for their next engagement. But when they rush the bank doors, only to politely step aside and let an old lady walk out and a reference to The Golden Girls is mentioned. She doesn't even notice she’s walking past a fully armed heist crew. 

As we see a montage of them hitting banks and recording it all for socials, enter John C. Reilly. His character tells his team: these kids have robbed 15 banks and are making the FBI look like absolute fools.

To level the playing field, the feds enlist a hacker who is currently under house arrest. Their mission? To use a bespoke program she created to track down people who explicitly do not want to be found. What follows is a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, with John C. Reilly hot on their heels until he has a breakthrough. He realises the key to catching them lies in one very specific bank—one that has a major, mysterious tie to the robbers themselves.

The final stretch of the trailer is just pure, unadulterated adrenaline. We’re treated to a barrage of explosions, a flawless dropkick, and intense police chases, but the dialogue remains the star. In the middle of commandeering a getaway vehicle, the driver looks at them in shock and asks, "Is this 'How to Rob a Bank'? I love your show!" Hoult’s crew doesn't even blink: "Thanks for watching!"

The trailer leaves us on a high note with a massive police chase. A cop car smashes into another vehicle, completely flipping it over, prompting one of the robbers to yell out the window: "Dude, you just blew a stop sign!"

Honestly? The comedic timing is impeccable, the action looks incredibly slick, and the premise is brilliant as it also seems to have a lot to say. I cannot wait for this.

(trailer review) - Bullet Train

 

It's funny. If you were to ask me "What are your favourite films?", I would probably cite 'The Royal Tenenbaums' before anything and likely stop there. It's not the only film I love, but it's always the first to come to mind. However, the Die Hard trilogy and Alien trilogy are also up there, but I wouldn't necessarily mention those. I say that to say this, this trailer reminds me of, 'Smoking Aces' a film I also love but completely forgot about and a film you are not likely to have remembered or seen...also 'Seven Psychopaths', a film I absolutely loved. I believe I even wrote a review on it a while back. Tone wise, this seems like the fit.

Brad Pitt, is someone who can do comedy and action pretty well, I think of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, but this trailer is just excellent through and through...and the cast. The cast! I'm going to check the cast list in a moment, but isn't that the voice of Scarlett Johansson? Is that Jamie Lee Curtis? I'm likely to be wrong and i'm going to have to freeze frame some of these scenes but I know that is Brian Tyree Henry who is absolutely doing amazing for himself and seeing Aaron Taylor-Johnson AGAIN in another unrecognisable role, I'm starting to wonder, has he been in other films and I never noticed him in it? Everyone after a suitcase and will kill for it on a bullet train. I am already sold on this trailer! Oh yeah, that was surely Zazie Beets too. I just hope this film is as great as the trailer or i'm going to be pretty disappointed.

Directed by David Leitch and starring Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael Shannon & Benito "Bad Bunny" Ocasio

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(trailer review) - Nobody

When I saw Bob's face on the thumbnail of this trailer, I thought to myself "oh, that's the guy from 'Better Call Saul' and 'Breaking Bad!'" (two great shows by the way) and then my immediate thought was, "oh, is he in a film?".  You see, it's one thing having someone acting in TV series, but to see them in film, you do often think if the film would be any good because acting in film and acting in a TV series are two completely different things.  For the most part, most or quire a few TV shows are character driven so you need a great director who will be able to pull out an actors talents and what they are known for or what they excel at in TV, so I instantly thought that maybe this trailer could be interesting.  Ultimately, it could be rubbish.

Upon watching this trailer, like most films of this ilk, it starts off a little slow giving you a little of the character's current life situation.  Then we are hit with the switch and what changes the character.  Then a little history on what the character used to be in his past before he settled down and became a family man while at the same time, wrecking havoc and messing up fools.  If you liken this to John Wick, well...David Leitch is the producer who is responsible for Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Hobbs & Shaw, so yeah that guy is behind this.  And although this can be seen as a tired trope and "Yeah, I've seen this all before", it really is about the acting and execution and Ilya Naishuller brought us music video and Hardcore Henry?

This looks great.  Bob is fairly comical as he has a comedic background so I can see some witty and clever lines woven into this script, along with situations, but I can assure you (well at least i think), if you like John Wick, you are likely to like this with a very slight comedic element to it but with all the seriousness of a Wick film or better yet, an action thriller.  I don't think it will fall flat or at least I hope it doesn't.  Nice to see Christopher Lloyd in this too.

Directed by Ilya Naishuller and starring Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, RZA, Aleksei Serebryakov & Christopher Lloyd

(film review) - Fast & Furious presents: Hobbs & Shaw

The F&F series has had its ups and downs.
When Tokyo Drift came out, putting a slight spin on the series where the franchise “drifts” and attempts to change direction, they needed something different and a change in pace.  It was when F&F5 (Fast Five) when Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson (Franchise Viagra) stepped into the fold and joined the franchise.  The F&F series got a lot better.

I’m not ashamed to say I’ve seen all of the F&F movies and Tokyo Drift was the worst of them all (It just wasn't as good).  But with some well written interwoven stories, the order the films coming out, is NOT the order you should view them which makes for interesting viewing.  But I say all of that to say this.  Branching out into a spin-off of the F&F franchise, like what Transformers done with Bumblebee, but failed on the title, this movie not only benefits from having Fast and Furious in the title, (because if you are a fan of the franchise, you know what to expect), but the movie also benefits from being as absurd, crazy, silly and unbelievable as the regular F&F movies and on top of all that, this film doesn't take itself seriously and is very funny and entertaining.

Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckhard Shaw (Jason Statham) are two completely different people who are very good at their respective jobs, are from two different worlds and they hate each other.  After the events of Fast & Furious 8, these two are paired up to stop a man named Brixton Lore (Idris Elba) who will stop at nothing to obtain a deadly virus that threatens to wipe out the human population (not that original, more Mission Impossible-esk).  However, things become a bit tricky when Deckard's sister (Vanessa Kirby) is involved somehow and caught in the mix of it all.  Our two "heroes" have to "play nice" with one another in order to achieve their goal, Stop Brixton!

How do you think this film would play out by watching the trailer below? The one you've already seen or the many you have seen before watching this?  Or, if you have seen the latest few F&F movies but not seen this trailer, what are your thoughts? Yes, it plays exactly how you thought.  It does exactly what it says on the tin and then some - only because it was a little bit long in the tooth.  But with the surprise cameo or involvement of 2-3 other characters played by well known actors, this movie treads from being your normal F&F type of movie with a few laughs and inhumanly courageous death-defying stunts and lunacy to all of that and a barrel of insanely funny comedy moment's that may have you wet yourself or die of laughter.  They even threw in a few known wrestlers.

The acting for this type of movie by these quality actors are very good, as expected and as to be expected (no oscars here).  The story, meh..who cares!?! The villain Top-Notch, especially how Idris plays him, plus his name is BRIXTON!!! (I'm from London England, Brixton is literally down the road. [It's a place, look it up] But it's a wonder why he never chose any other "close-to-home, towns).  The chemistry between Dwayne and Jason is pretty much unrivalled and their banter, they have banter for days.  The visuals are excellent especially the fighting scenes.  There is a shot where the rock has a fight very early on involving, a woman...excellent, visually. I'm just hoping there were no strings involved.  But then the ending fighting scene, visually, also stunning.  I didn't dig the ending THAT much and how it ended, but it was interesting how they left it, definitely open for a sequel....as they do in Hollywood.  I guess when they do their female spin-off and should that do well...they would have successfully milked the cow by the tit and produce liquid gold.  Let's just hope it's more quality than quantity before they destroy themselves over money.

If you are a fan of the franchise this is a definite must watch.  But you would need to know that Vin Diesel's character or better yet Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson, DO NOT GET ALONG AT ALL!!! So with that said, you can't expect to see Dominic appear in the Hobbs & Shaw spin-offs, unless they squash their beef.
However you can expand the universe outwards and involve other characters and have many different mini franchises under one franchise. I believe that's possible.

Enjoy! If this is your kind of thing.