BANK OF DAVE is a story about a man who loves the people in his community and shares his wealth with others. Dave even stands up to the elite government, socialist establishment who continue to gain millions, as others lose everything. A self-conscious young lawyer, Hugh, is sent to let Dave down gently, because his law firm thinks Dave has no chance establishing a new bank. However, after a few days with Dave, Hugh buys into the idea. He risks everything to lead the legal team to establish the Bank of Dave.
BANK OF DAVE is a entertaining movie about an underdog who stands up to the greedy big government, socialist elites who run the United Kingdom. It has great messages promote liberty, personal responsibility, the inherent importance and dignity of each person, and love and care for others. It also has a wonderful church scene. BANK OF DAVE supports standing up for what is right even when it seems there’s no chance for success. Regrettably, BANK OF DAVE has foul language, a few drinking scenes and adult themes. So MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution.
(CC, BB, CapCap, PP, ACAC, So, LL, V, AA, M):
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:
String Christian, moral, pro-capitalist worldview promotes liberty, personal responsibility, doing the right thing, private charity, caring for neighbors, and opposes big government socialism, though some antagonists promote socialism/fascism, plus there’s a strong church scene;
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Foul Language:
A few “f” words, frequent “s” words, and a few other obscenities, plus some British vulgarisms such as bloody, buggers, bollocks, tossers, and muppet, as well as two profanities;
Violence:
No overt violence;
Sex:
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No sex, but the main character sleeps on a couch two times while a woman sleeps over;
Nudity:
No nudity;
Alcohol Use:
Alcohol use in bars, pubs and at home, includes intoxication a few times with implied hangovers;
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Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
No smoking or illegal drugs, but people sometimes take pills for hangover headaches; and,
Miscellaneous Immorality:
Big government socialists are greedy and selfish but are rebuked and defeated.
BANK OF DAVE is based on the true story of a self-made successful businessman who decides he wants to open his own bank to serve his needy community, after the latest recession. The problem? No one has even dared to apply to open a bank in 150 years. The elite few who control the banking system will do everything they can to stop him. BANK OF DFAVE is a truly great and entertaining underdog story which extols the importance of each person regardless of status or wealth. However, the movie has foul language, a few drinking scenes, which includes a character who guzzles wine to mask her emotional pain, and adult themes.
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Dave Fishwick is a self-made millionaire who’s made his fortune selling vans. Dave lives in the economically depressed town of Burnley, a town Northwest of London. When the latest recession hits, the people of Burnley like all those in the Great Britain are charged exorbitant lending fees by corporate socialist bankers, if they are even approved to borrow from the banks. Then, the banks start to fail and are bailed out by the government using the tax money from the very people the banks hurt. So, the bank executives award themselves millions in bonuses, while the ordinary people, who have already lost their money, suffer.
Dave recognizes he’s been blessed with wealth. He begins to lend money to fellow community members of Burnley during hard times. Every lender pays him back in full. They also ask him to invest their profits. Best of all, over one hundred jobs are created by the new businesses. This gives Dave an idea to start his own bank.
Dave calls on expert legal advice from London to help him apply to start his own bank. The bank will serve its own people. Any profits will be donated to the needy of Burnley. The London legal team sends a junior member with little experience, Hugh, to the town of Burnley, to let Dave down softly. They know it’s impossible to start an independent bank in the face of the cartel that runs the banks.
After a few days, Hugh is taken in by the town, and by a young doctor, Alexandra, who wants to open a free medical clinic. Dave convinces Hugh to help, though the odds, along with the greedy system of elites who play dirty, are stacked high against them. At least, Dave wants to expose the corporate socialism!
BANK OF DAVE is a great uplifting movie about an underdog who stands up to the greedy socialist elites, who run the banks in the United Kingdom. It has great messages that point to the inherent importance and dignity of each person and promote love and care for others, and shows that capitalism prospers the community, while socialism destroys. The sentiments support biblical commands to take care of others (such as Mark 10:21, Luke 6:30-31, Matthew 19:21, Mark 10:45, Romans 12:13, Galatians 6:2). The movie supports standing up for what is right even when it seems there is no chance for success.
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In fact, at a funeral in a church that honors Jesus Christ as the pastor says, “The Lord said, I love you and I will never leave you”, Dave says that the real heroes are not the politicians but people like the deceased nurse who saved lives for years.
The movie shows that governments are notoriously bad or corrupt in running anything, as shown by the government’s failed involvement to bail out the banks and the governments collusion in trying to stop Dave. In fact, the government sends police from London to arrest Dave and the prosecutor lies, committing perjury. Hugh gets the case thrown out. Furthermore, the power and control to make decisions are often taken away from the individual when the government steps in to make laws that determine the value and quality of life, or which lives are worth saving with costly medical treatment. Thus, when Hugh can’t wait for the hospital to see him, he mentions he has private health care insurance.
Regrettably, there is vulgar language (much is muffled British accents), drinking and adult situations, so caution is recommended.
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You can call me one-track-minded or say that I focus on the wrong things, but do not include an element that I am then expected to forget. Especially if that “element” is an animal – and a dog, even.
In No More Time, we meet a couple, and it takes quite some time before we suddenly see that they have a dog with them. It appears in a scene suddenly, because their sweet little dog has a purpose: A “meet-cute” with a girl who wants to pet their dog.
After that, the dog is rarely in the movie or mentioned. Sure, we see it in the background once or twice, but when something strange (or noisy) happens, it’s never around. This completely ruins the illusion for me. Part of the brilliance of having an animal with you during an apocalyptic event is that it can help you.
And yet, in No More Time, this is never truly utilized. It feels like a strange afterthought for that one scene with the girl to work, but as a dog lover, I am now invested in the dog. Not unlike in I Am Legend or Darryl’s dog in The Walking Dead. As such, this completely ruined the overall experience for me.
If it were just me, I could (sort of) live with it. But there’s a reason why an entire website is named after people demanding to know whether the dog dies, before they’ll decide if they’ll watch a movie.
The Timothée Chalamet movie that’s arriving on Christmas Day is “a 150-minute-long heart attack of a film,” said Nick Schager in The Daily Beast. In “a career-best turn” that’s “a feverish go-for-broke tour de force,” Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, an aspiring table tennis champ in 1950s New York City who’s ready to lie, cheat, and steal for the chance to become the best in the world. This first film from director Josh Safdie since 2019’s Uncut Gems turns out to be a character study that “doubles as a cracked American success story,” said David Fear in Rolling Stone. Marty is a scrawny kid with a pathetic mustache, but he’s also a fast-talking grifter with supreme self-confidence, and his game earns him a trip to London and the world championship tournament before a humbling stokes his hunger for a comeback.
Surrounding Chalamet is “a supporting cast you’d swear was assembled via Mad Libs,” because it features Fran Drescher, Penn Jillette, Tyler the Creator, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, and—as a faded movie star Marty sweet-talks into an affair—Gwyneth Paltrow, “reminding you how good she was before Goop became her full-time gig.” To me, it’s the story beneath the story that makes Safdie’s “nerve-jangling, utterly exhilarating” movie one of the best of the year, said Alissa Wilkinson in The New York Times. “It’s about a Jewish kid who knows just what kind of antisemitism and finely stratified racial dynamics he’s up against in postwar America, and who is using every means at his disposal to smack back.”
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‘Is This Thing On?’
Directed by Bradley Cooper (R)
★★★
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“There are far worse things that a gifted filmmaker could offer an audience these days than a feel-good divorce comedy,” said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. But it’s still slightly disappointing that screen star Bradley Cooper has followed up A Star Is Born and Maestro with this minor work, due Dec. 19, about a father of two who starts doing stand-up in New York City to cope with the likely end of his marriage. With Will Arnett and Laura Dern as its co-stars, Is This Thing On? is “an observant, bittersweet, and highly watchable movie,” but it’s also so eager to hide the agonies of divorce that it “can feel like it’s cutting corners.”
The 124-minute film “doesn’t really get going until hour two,” said Ryan Lattanzio in IndieWire. Until then, it’s “lethargic and listless,” slowed by long takes “that drag on and on.” Fortunately, Arnett and Dern have real chemistry that kicks in when Dern’s Tess accidentally catches Arnett’s Alex performing his bit about their sidelined marriage and sees him with new eyes. Good as Arnett is, “it’s Dern who’s the revelation as a woman who truly doesn’t know what she wants and is figuring it out in real time,” said Alison Willmore in NYMag.com. Cooper, playing a reprobate friend of Alex’s, gives himself the script’s biggest laughs. More importantly, he proves again to be a director with “a real flair for domestic drama.”
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Joe Carnahan was a sagacious choice to co-write and direct the engrossing and visceral survival thriller “Not Without Hope,” given Carnahan’s track record of delivering gripping and gritty actioners, including early, stylish crime thrillers such as “Narc” (2002) and “Smokin’ Aces” (2006), and the absolutely badass and bonkers Liam Neeson v Giant Wolves epic “The Grey” (2011).
Based on the non-fiction book of the same name, “Not Without Hope” plunges us into the stormy waters of the Gulf of Mexico for the majority of the film, and delivers a breathtaking and harrowing dramatic re-creation of the 2009 accident that left four friends, including two NFL players, clinging to their single-engine boat and fighting for their lives. The survival-at-sea story here is a familiar one, told in films such as “White Squall,” “The Perfect Storm,” and “Adrift,” and the screenplay by Carnahan and E. Nicholas Mariani leans into well-worn tropes and, at times, features cliché-ridden dialogue. Still, this is a well-paced and powerful work, thanks to the strong performances by the ensemble cast, some well-placed moments of character introspection, and the documentary-style, water-level camerawork by Juanmi Azpiroz.
Zachary Levi (the TV series “Chuck,” the “Shazam!” movies) is best known for comedy and light action roles. Still, he delivers solid, straightforward, and effective dramatic work as Nick Schuyler, a personal trainer who helps his friends Marquis Cooper (Quentin Plair) and Corey Smith (Terrence Terrell), two journeyman NFL players, get ready for another season. When their pal Will Bleakley (Marshall Cook) shows up at a barbecue and announces he has just been laid off from his financial firm, he’s invited to join the trio the next morning on a day-trip fishing trip from Clearwater, FL., into the Gulf of Mexico. (The casting is a bit curious, as the four lead actors are 10-20 years older than the ages of the real-life individuals they’re playing — but all four are in great shape, and we believe them as big, strong, physically and emotionally tough guys.)
We can see the longtime bond between these four in the early going, though we don’t learn much about their respective stories before the fishing trip. Kudos Carnahan and the studio for delivering a film that earns its R rating, primarily for language and intense action; the main characters are jocks and former jocks, and they speak with the casual, profanity-laced banter favored by many an athlete. (Will, describing the sandwiches he’s made for the group: “I got 20 f*cking PB&Js, and 20 f*cking turkey and cheese.”) There’s no sugarcoating the way these guys talk—and the horrors they wind up facing on the seas.
The boat is about 70 miles off the coast of Clearwater when the anchor gets stuck, and the plan to thrust the boat forward to dislodge it backfires, resulting in the vessel capsizing and the men being thrown overboard. Making matters worse, their cell phones were all sealed away in a plastic bag in the cabin, and a ferocious storm was approaching. With title cards ticking off the timeline (“13 Hours Lost at Sea,” “20 Hours Lost at Sea,” “42 Hours Lost at Sea”), we toggle back and forth between the men frantically trying to turn over the boat, keep warm, signal faraway ships, battling hunger and thirst, and the dramas unfolding on land. Floriana Lima as Nick’s fiancée, Paula, and Jessica Blackmore as Coop’s wife, Rebekah, do fine work in the obligatory Wait-by-the-Phone roles.
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It’s terrific to see JoBeth Williams still lighting up the screen some 40 years after her “Big Chill” and “Poltergeist” days, delivering powerful work as Nick’s mother, Marcia, who refuses to believe her son is gone even as the odds of survival dwindle with each passing hour. Josh Duhamel also excels in the role of the real-life Captain Timothy Close, who oversaw the rescue efforts from U.S. Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg. At one point, Close delivers a bone-chilling monologue about what happens when hypothermia sets in—“hallucinations, dementia, rage…eventually, it breaks your mind in half”—a point driven home when we see what’s happening to those men at sea. It’s savage and brutal, and heartbreaking.
Given this was such a highly publicized story that took place a decade and a half ago, it’s no spoiler to sadly note there was only one survivor of the accident, with the other three men lost to the sea. Each death is treated with unblinking honesty and with dignity, as when the natural sounds fade at one point, and we hear just the mournful score. With Malta standing in for the Gulf of Mexico and the actors giving everything they have while spending most of the movie in the water and soaked to the bone, “Not Without Hope” is a respectful and impactful dramatic interpretation that feels true to the real-life events.
