It is clear that the slogan ‘Never Again’ – meaning that never again will humanity repeat the events that led to the Holocaust and the Holocaust that ensued – has failed. Colleyville is another one of those “never again” events that has slipped under the radar of most people.

The again viciously took place on October 7, 2023 when Jews were slaughtered wholesale in Israel.

The attacks on Jews in the United States and elsewhere occur way too often as if they are acceptable, normalized, a routine.

I did not remember the Colleyville hostage case. I therefore sat at the movie theater expecting a fiction story film. But no, “Colleyville,” by Award-Winning filmmaker Dani Mankin of Hey Jude Productions, (https://www.heyjudeproductions.com/), is an exceptional non-fiction, documentary reality check, that relives the January 15, 2022 hostage situation.

The “Colleyville” intense drama, premiered in North America by the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival (LAJFF), Hilary Helstein, Executive Director, took place at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, in Colleyville, a small town near the Dallas-Fort-Worth metropolitan area. It tells the horror story of a small Jewish congregation’s hours-long hostage ordeal.

The main hostages “characters” are Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, Jeffrey R Cohen, Shane Woodward and Larry Schwartz.

The hostages’ situation maker is Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old British-Pakistani, armed with a pistol who threatened to have two bombs ready to blow up. He took the four men hostage inside the synagogue to where they arrived that morning for the Shabbat Morning Prayer.

These four innocent men of faith went through hours of traumatic and of unpredictable outcome event; they were held hostage for 11-hour inside their house of faith in an intense standoff, and the film “Colleyville” is highlighting well their resilience and composed courage demeanor.

“Colleyville,” featuring never-before-seen footage, is giving the viewer an unprecedented detailing look at this gripping real-life drama that captivated the attention of the White House, the Prime Minister of Israel office and the world at large.

Too Many Reminders

After the October 7, 2023 gruesome Hamas terrorist attack on innocent Israelis “Colleyville,” has a much deeper and wider meaning that is calling on the world to focus on and pay attention to.

The Colleyville hostage ordeal which took place in 2022 has wider implications. In a small way it is now mirroring not only the horrors of October 7 in Israel but also the June 23, 2023 pogrom that took place in Los Angeles. In this also hours-long hate-filled event against Jews, Hamas-supporters appeared in the Pico Jewish neighborhood and ambushed the entrance to Adas Torah synagogues where they applied violence against Jews who wanted to enter their house of prayer.

Though the Colleyville terror saga had a better ending, with the terrorist dead and the four hostages rescued unharmed, this is not the way other such events may end.

Composed, Loving Characters

The composed and loving nature of the characters, even adding some humor while fearing for their life, which they interjected during hard times, acted well in their favor.

“I love death more than you love life” the perpetrator Malik Faisal Akram kept on shouting throughout his hostage-taking act. This is a slogan often heard from terrorists, mainly Muslims, who are after Jewish blood.

Former Israel Prime Minister late Golda Meir once said: “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

For Jews life is very sacred. For Jews life and saving life is a higher power command. When Jew-haters, the likes of Malik Faisal Akram, will love life more than they hate Jews, this equation will hopefully tilt towards a positive change.

Colleyville Release is Timely

With the rise of antisemitism and hatred directed at Jews the movie “Colleyville” is timely, its story that really happened must be re-told.

The documentary “Colleyville” is its director Dani Mankin’s important and impactful work. As a viewer, I am feel it is also both impactful and enjoyable for the audience, reflecting past, present and future other such event possibilities.

Be Alert, Be Ready, Be Active

At the premier showcasing of “Colleyville” Jeffrey Abrams, Director of ADL’s (Anti-Defamation League International Jewish non-governmental organization) Los Angeles Regional Office addressed the audience with one message: be alert, be ready and be active. Sitting on the sofa will not make you safer.

The testament is that Jews are being targeted.

There is no “post Never Again”; it is here again. It is now almost standard to threaten and attack Jews, take Jews hostage and go as far as to kill Jews.

After 2022 Colleyville, Texas, after October 7, 2023 in Israel after June 2024 in Los Angeles, California, where are the Jewish communities, where is America heading?

The poisonous epithets and slogans yelled on US streets, campuses and elsewhere will not remain just words. They will morph into actions the likes of what took place in the Colleyville synagogue and worse.

The world must now take Never Again to a significantly higher level.

‘Kalki 2898AD’ has a simple story at heart, a tale from the future about the arrival of the tenth avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. But it is decked up in a herculean, futuristic setting for three hours that partly thrills, confuses and also exhausts the audience. An immersive experience in terms of its scale, the dystopian, mythological science fiction also has a flood of characters and cameos whose arrival and relevance are tough to keep track of.
‘Kalki’ is set more than 800 years into the future in 2898 AD. In Kasi, which is the last city on a severely resource-drained Earth, Supreme Yaskin (Kamal Hassan) rules humanity from a structure called ‘Complex’. His people seize fertile girls and SUM80 (Deepika Padukone) is one among them.

Meanwhile, the mythological Ashwathama (Amitabh Bachchan) is waiting for someone’s arrival for his redemption after ages. Another group of people, in the city of Shambhala, are also planning an assault. An unbeatable bounty hunter named Bhairava (Prabhas) is a curious character entangled in this web.
For those who love complex world-building, retelling of mythological stories on vast canvases and apocalyptic tales, director Nag Ashwin’s film can be quite a spectacle. The exceptional production standards are also breathtaking. Amitabh Bachchan has brought his A game and is the one who steals the show. Deepika’s central role is de-glam throughout, but she lends SUM80 a suiting personality. Kamal Haasan, Dulquer Salmaan, Anna Ben, Shobhana, Vijay Deverakonda, Mrunal Thakur, Rajamouli, Ram Gopal Varma… the cameo list is humongous though not with a quality follow-through for all of them.
The fight sequences between Ashwathama and Bhairava are fun, though Big B’s antics are more impressive than the rebel star’s. It’s Amitabh Bachchan who towers in this Prabhas film, more than the Telugu actor. The humour in the film falls flat almost all the time, especially in Prabhas’ sequences. The creative liberties taken by the writers are interesting, but it’s hard to feel emotionally invested or connected to any party in the story. The end credits provide hope to the franchise-hungry audience. And if you want to offer the ‘Kalki’ cinematic universe a chance, give the film a try. You might not care about the cliffhanger climax now, but what if you do when a stronger second part with a richer universe comes to life?

Summer 2024 has paled in comparison to 2023’s summer movie lineup, heavily lacking headline-grabbing blockbusters like “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Barbenheimer” — a fan-made moniker referring to the double feature of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” 

Whether this lull results from the numerous Hollywood writers’ strikes last year or an industry-wide letup, audiences have to look a little bit harder to figure out what movie they want to spend their money on during their next cinema outing. 

Though Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders” lacks the usual fanfare of a June release, it is every bit a diamond in the rough for this year’s prime release season.

“The Bikeriders” is inspired by a photography-collection book of the same name, which was created in the early 1960s by photographer Danny Lyon. Lyon documented the stories and personalities of the original members of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club, whose slightly fictionalized selves are referred to as “the Vandals Motorcycle Club” in the movie. 

As such, “The Bikeriders” is a character-driven story, led by a remarkably charismatic cast including Tom Hardy (“Mad Max: Fury Road”) as the club’s founder Johnny, Austin Butler (“Elvis”) as young upstart biker Benny and Jodie Comer (“The Last Duel”) as Kathy, Benny’s wife.

Indeed, the star-studded cast fuels the story and keeps it at a thrilling pace. “The Bikeriders” feels like taking a late-night ride on a motorcycle through the Americana melancholy of the Midwest; no one is quite sure where the destination is, but everyone is nevertheless assured that something important lies ahead. 

The reason why audience members grow so invested in such a simple story is because the people represented on screen are undeniably authentic, plucked right out of the scarce roads of rural Ohio. 

While Hardy and Butler deliver their as-to-be-expected stellar performances — and yes, Butler still kind of sounds like Elvis — it’s Comer who takes the film to an entirely different level. Surrounded by hyper-masculine bikers as Benny moves up in the club’s ranks, she continually toes the line as a suburban, sheltered housewife. 

Comer’s character Kathy is undoubtedly intriguing — part of the American in-group but always excluded from crucial decisions due to her status as a ‘60s woman. Comer portrays this dichotomy all while speaking in an overtly Midwesterner accent that brings a unique dimension to her character and places her among early candidates for the next Oscar season.

Apart from the acting, cinematographer Adam Stone drips the images in a faded sepia, reminiscent of days forgotten and nostalgic for a time period that many did not experience firsthand. While at points the story’s speedometer crosses the line into melodrama, for the most part, the story of “The Bikeriders” feels gritty, unreformed and intense — like watching a fistfight in the alley behind a bar. 

The film would certainly pair well with 2023’s late standout “The Iron Claw,” a film that follows a similar story structure and feels as though it’s set in the same aesthetic universe. 

Modern moviegoers often express desire for a film that feels distinctly genuine, and no other 2024 movie lives up to that wish more so than this year’s surprise hit, “The Bikeriders.”