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BANK OF DAVE Review

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BANK OF DAVE Review
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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Blue Heron Review: Some Things Last a Long Time • The Austin Chronicle

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Blue Heron Review: Some Things Last a Long Time • The Austin Chronicle

Within the family at the center of Blue Heron, the black sheep is a blond. Fair-skinned teenager Jeremy (Edik Beddoes) is an outlier among his siblings, two jostling preteen boys and watchful, 8-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven), who are all darkly featured and take after their Hungarian parents (Iringó Réti and Ádám Tompa). Jeremy’s hair color doesn’t really matter, of course, but the contrast makes a useful shorthand for Jeremy’s otherness. 

If “other” sounds inexact, that’s the point. To the frustration of his devoted but exhausted parents, there’s been no straightforward diagnosis for what ails Jeremy – for the mood swings, the “acting out.” A move at the beginning of the film to a new home is hopeful but short-lived: The mystery of Jeremy, to himself and to others, persists.   

Much of Blue Heron is set over the course of one summer on Vancouver Island in the late Nineties, mirroring filmmaker Sophy Romvari’s own backstory, though the film shouldn’t be confused for straight autobiography. (Her 2020 short film, “Still Processing,” explored her family’s struggles with mental health through first-person documentary.) Still, the remarkable texture of these family scenes and how they favor Sasha’s childlike perspective – her small hands as they handle a potato peeler for the first time, the easy smiles as her mother dabs sunscreen on her face – feels intensely personal. There’s a hushed, dreamy quality to these scenes, mimicking memory itself, that plays into Blue Heron’s remarkable ability to hold two seemingly contradictory things to be true. Sasha can resent her brother and love him. Jeremy can be terrifying and in pain. A film can be whisper-quiet and still trip the wires in your brain that scream “danger.”

With very little dialogue and no cookie-cutter story beats, this fraught family life is vividly, tenderly rendered by Romvari and her naturalistic cast. That makes it all the more disorienting when, at arguably the moment of highest drama, Romvari shifts to a different vantage point. Boldly, she is asking the audience to look anew at what we’ve seen: to acknowledge what we saw was not the whole picture (how could it be, from an 8-year-old’s eye line?). The effect for me – and I suspect for you too, if you’re the kind of person who likes to take a movie apart and understand how it ticks – is exhilarating. 

But not entirely effective – and in this reservation I gather I’m the outlier; Blue Heron has been rapturously received at festivals and by critics. This second half (of which I’m loath to spoil the specifics) becomes at once more experimental and more documentary-like, and revolves around a muted performance stranded in the in-between of drama and docudrama. Nothing ruinous, but a hangnail nonetheless on a film that otherwise had me in its thrall.

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Blue Heron

2026, NR, 90 min. Directed by Sophy Romvari. Starring Eylul Guven, Edik Beddoes, Amy Zimmer, Iringó Réti, Ádám Tompa, Liam Serg, Preston Drabble.


























Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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