Nicolas Cage (L) and Joel Kinnaman star in “Sympathy for the Devil.” Photo courtesy of RLJE Films
LOS ANGELES, July 24 (UPI) — Sympathy for the Devil, in theaters and video-on-demand Friday, establishes a sound premise with two compelling leads, but spins out of control before the viewer can get too invested.
David (Joel Kinnaman) is on his way to meet his wife in the Las Vegas hospital, as she’s going into labor with their second child. While stopped, a passenger (Nicolas Cage) gets in David’s backseat and holds him at gunpoint.
At first, the passenger seems to just need a driver. It may be easier for David to just go along with it, except that he needs to get to the hospital immediately.
The passenger takes David’s driver’s license, which would prevent him from checking into the hospital among many other problems. The passenger also forces David to indulge in his card tricks as a form of intimidation.
Cage has only played outright villains in a few movies like Kiss of Death and Face/Off. So, the role of the passenger gives him another opportunity to apply his flamboyant performance to a threatening character.
Sympathy for the Devil gives the passenger an intimidating look with a red blazer and hair to match. Cage flashes a maniacal grin and hints of a mild Boston accent.
Unfortunately, the passenger’s mania seems random, which may be a disturbing psychosis in real life, but it’s not the most compelling cinema. It reduces David and the passenger to a simple good guy and bad guy with little nuance.
The passenger’s collection of outrageous behavior is so arbitrary it is hard to be genuinely disturbed by it. The passenger imitates Edward G. Robinson, sings Alicia Bridges and dances.
The excuse to be flamboyant undermines the threat. It becomes less about antagonizing David and more about just performing.
Cage gave a similar performance in Vampire’s Kiss, but that movie explored that character’s breakdown. Cage remains entertaining to watch, but the movie loses focus of his function in the story.
Kinnaman keeps up David’s end of the drama. David is accommodating enough to stay alive, but also looking for a way out.
David makes a few escape attempts but obviously he’s not going to get away in the first half hour so the film is just going through the motions, stalling. Plus, the passenger gave the game away that he’s not going to kill David.
Also, once the passenger has David drive them outside Las Vegas, where does David think he’s going to go without a car? It’s all remote.
The passenger eventually reveals the reason he chose David. Without spoiling it, the explanation makes the entire sequence of events seem unnecessary.
The passenger had a gun in the backseat. He could have come clean, or done so at least once they were outside The Strip.
Sympathy for the Devil had the potential to be a tight “all-in-one-night” thriller. The cast is game, but unfortunately the script fails to keep up the tete-a-tete for the duration of the film.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
Sorgavaasal movie review: It was in November 1999 that hundreds of prisoners went on a rampage in the Chennai Central Prison, which caused the death of 10 people and 140 sustained injuries. The death of 37-year-old notorious gangster, ‘Boxer’ Vadivelu, caused inmates to riot as they believed the prison authorities had been responsible for his death. And Deputy Jailor S Jayakumar was killed gruesomely in this melee as he was ruthless with the inmates. Now, debutant director Sidharth Vishwanath has brought this story to the silver screen with his film Sorgavaasal (Heaven’s Gate). (Also Read – Amaran OTT release: Sivakarthikeyan, Sai Pallavi’s ₹320 crore hit will stream on OTT from this date)
This prison break film is centred around Parthipan or Parthi (RJ Balaji), who ekes out a living through his small roadside eatery in Chennai. Living at home with his mother who suffers from elephantiasis, Parthi’s dream is to own a hotel and marry Revathy (Saniya Ayappan), a flower seller. A retired IAS officer, Shanmugam, who’s a regular customer of his promises to secure a loan to set up his hotel and as promised he delivers. However, just before that dream is realised, Shanmugam is killed and Parthi is deemed the culprit and remanded to custody.
As Parthi struggles to prove his innocence, he gets embroiled in this dark world of the prison system, the manipulative prison officials like Superintendent Sunil Kumar (Sharafudheen), and the uncouth criminals controlling the prison, like Siga (Selvaraghavan). When riots take place in the prison, Officer Ismail (Nataraj) is appointed to investigate the truth behind them. What happens to Parthi? How does he get involved with Siga and the riots?
Sidharth has penned the script with writers Ashwin Ravichandran and Tamizh Prabha, and he has tried his best to bring this real-life tragedy to life, focusing on the numerous characters at play in this big scenario. While Parthi (RJ Balaji) is the hook to the story, Sunil Kumar, Siga, Kattabomman (Karunas), Seelan (author Shobasakthi) and foreigner Kendrick (Samuel Robinson) all play an important role in how the tale eventually pans out and forms the crux to the riots.
The story is told in the format of the various cast members narrating their version of the story to Officer Ismail trying to incorporate all points of view to give him the whole picture. Kendrick makes violent gangster Siga a believer and helps reform him, while Seelan teaches him the difference between right and wrong. Kattabomman is the cop keeping a watch on the games between the prisoners and Parthi, the sacrificial lamb, who eventually becomes the pawn.
Unfortunately, while the director ambitiously tries to build up the story to the climax with each of these characters, one doesn’t connect with any of them. Parthi’s life story is just not compelling and he doesn’t fight to prove his innocence when he’s in prison either. So, what is his motivation in life? Siga, Mani, and Sunil Kumar are hardly ruthless and menacing to be deemed villains, so the story falls flat in that aspect too. At the end, one feels the characters work well but don’t connect interestingly and seamlessly to form the whole.
Parthi is a very different role for RJ Balalji, who’s mostly seen in roles with comic shades. He is earnest as Parthi, but this is not his best performance. He’s sadly not able to pull off the vulnerable, desperate hero convincingly. Selvaraghavan, Nataraj, Karunas and Sharafudheen have delivered good performances, while Saniya Ayappan and the lady who plays Balaji’s mother don’t have major roles. The cinematography by Prince Anderson is praiseworthy as is Christo Xavier’s music.
Sorgavaasal is a strong debut for Sidharth Vishwanath, whose talent is evident, but unfortunately, an underwhelming film.
Work-related horror often brings some of the best ambiance to the genre, as co-workers being trapped in a confined space ratchets up the internal clock and limits the options of the survivors. Such is the case in Black Friday, a horror comedy named after the newly formed “holiday.” As we get ready to sit down with our families and plan our shopping sprees, let’s line up to talk about the ups and downs of this film.
The characters in Black Friday are heavily stereotyped and modeled after longtime retail workers, so that anybody who works in that field will be immediately endeared to the self-deprecation and in-jokes that come with it. While archetypes like the unfeeling boss, the new deer-in-headlights, and the creepy older fraternizer are a little too ham-fisted, each of the actors have some nice moments and dry delivery that makes the comedy pop.
The toy store is well designed and well lit, so that the ambiance is not only set up for character isolation but also has a warm holiday feel and nostalgic props strewn about. This movie feels like a bit of Clerks mixed with Mayhem and The Fog. The comedy overtakes the horror in a bit of an unbalance, but when the movie chooses practical effects over CGI, the designs are gruesome and intricate.
When Black Friday leans into the heart and realism inside of its relationships, it really shines. This may be the kind of movie to click on after the turkey and pie start to kick in.
It’s available (as of this writing) on Freevee and Amazon Prime.
NEW YORK (OSV News) – The high-spirited Oceanaian princess who gave her name to a 2016 animated feature returns for further adventures in “Moana 2” (Disney).
Like its predecessor, the new arrival is free of the kind of content that usually restricts the appropriate audience for a film. But it also follows the original in incorporating notions at variance with a Judeo-Christian worldview, making it a doubtful choice for youngsters.
This time out, skilled navigator Moana (voice of Auli‘i Cravalho) aims to journey from her home island of Motunui to a long-lost, legendary isle called Motufetu. The rediscovery of Motufetu, we’re told, would enable all the inhabitants of the region to conquer the distances separating their various homelands and come together in unity.
Moana is once again aided on her quest by much-tattooed, shape-shifting demigod Maui (voice of Dwayne Johnson). Given that the crew she’s assembled for her expedition includes Pua, an affectionate but timorous pig, and Heihei, a twitchy, perpetually bewildered chicken, Moana may need all the help she can get.
Moana’s trio of human fellow travelers have their limitations as well. Thus Kele (voice of David Fane) is a gruff farmer prone to seasickness, Loto (voice of Rose Matafeo) is a hyper-creative but easily distracted ship designer while historian Moni (voice of Hualalai Chung), although highly knowledgeable about local lore, is also a naive fanboy for whom the thought of meeting his idol Maui is overwhelming.
Directed by co-writer Dana Ledoux Miller, Jason Hand and David G. Derrick Jr., this lively and eye-pleasing musical is family-friendly in most respects — some material that might frighten the youngest viewers notwithstanding. Yet Miller and Jared Bush’s screenplay is full of the same concepts derived from indigenous mythology that were prominent in the previous movie.
Moana, for instance, can communicate with the sea, which is here anthropomorphized sufficiently to give her the occasional high-five. And Moana’s deceased maternal grandmother, Tala (voice of Rachel House), is among the revered ancestors who appear to the now young-adult heroine, having taken on the post-mortem shape of a manta ray.
The parents of impressionable kids may be concerned by the degree to which these ideas depart from revealed truth. As for older teens, they’ll likely be proof against this aspect of the proceedings, especially if they’ve been well catechized.
The film contains potentially scary scenes of action and peril, nonscriptural religious ideas and practices as well as a few childish gross-out visuals. The OSV News classification is A-II — adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
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