Movie Reviews

Union movie review & film summary (2024) | Roger Ebert

Published

1 year ago

October 5, 2024

Union movie review & film summary (2024) | Roger Ebert

When Amazon workers on Staten Island successfully voted to unionize in the spring of 2022, becoming the corporate retailer’s first American workplace to do so, it was hailed as one of the most important labor victories in the United States in nearly 100 years.

For the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) to organize employees at the JFK8 warehouse to vote in favor of union representation was a David versus Goliath story for the age of globalization — and a rousing reminder that collective grassroots efforts can still succeed despite massive employer concentration, management intimidation, and other hindrances to building worker power. And that an independent, worker-led coalition led the drive at this 8,000-plus-employee facility, rather than an established union, made its victory all the more impressive, even as the vote to unionize brought organizers into uncharted territory and set up a protracted legal battle with Amazon, which has since refused to recognize the ALU or negotiate a contract.

Telling the story of how the ALU reached this historic moment, “Union,” a new documentary co-directed by Brett Story (“The Hottest August”) and Stephen Maing (“Crime + Punishment”), takes a detail-driven, ground-level approach, following current and former Amazon employees in Staten Island as they mount a grassroots worker-to-worker campaign, standing their ground against one of the world’s powerful corporations all the while.

No talking-head documentary but a keenly observational chronicle of the unionization push and its aftermath, “Union” often plays like a thriller by virtue of its sharp, smart editing rhythms. Early on, Story and Maing juxtapose Jeff Bezos blasting off into space on a rocket made by his Blue Origin company and Amazon workers trudging wearily into work; it captures the unimaginable scale of the company’s operations while foregrounding the human scale often concealed by breathless (yet inevitably compromised) reporting of Amazon’s designs on empire.

Made over the course of three years, Story and Maing’s film explores the human cost of the convenience economy and illuminates oppressive working conditions in Amazon’s factories. From constant surveillance to high injury rates and a lack of breaks, the pressures of working in Amazon warehouses compound to create punishing environments for workers, ones Amazon has steadfastly refused to address or even accurately report. And the threat of retaliation against workers who organize is ever-present; in addition to pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into union-busting campaigns that include mandatory “captive audience” meetings (which have since been banned in the state of New York), Amazon issues warnings of possible termination to workers involved with the unionization drive.

Bookended by footage of vast cargo ships transporting goods, a reminder of the slow, perpetual motion with which the gears of modern capitalism grind on, Story and Maing’s film is smart in how systematically its narrative lays out obstacles to the union’s success. It also insightfully depicts ground-level dialogue between workers as a powerful tool with which to overcome them. Some of the most remarkable footage, inside Amazon headquarters, covertly films one of those captive audience meetings; here, the company’s anti-union propaganda (One reads: “We’re asking you to do three simple things: get the facts, ask questions and vote no to the union”) is disrupted by ALU organizers, who successfully push back on Amazon managers just long enough to make their case to workers.

One of the ALU organizers, Chris Smalls, takes center stage in “Union,” though the documentary largely sidesteps the temptation to cast him as a conquering hero. (That’d be an easy trap, given that he became the organization’s public face across the period “Union” depicts.) Smalls, fired from Amazon after protesting inadequate PPE provision during the pandemic (and besmirched by the company’s general counsel as “not smart or articulate” in an internal meeting of executive leaders), is a father of three who was moved to activism by the flagrant injustice of the company’s abusive labor practices. As a leader, he’s at once charismatic and hard-charging, dedicated to his fellow “comrades” but ever driven to push forward even in the face of inter-union dissent.

One of the film’s great strengths is its ability to surface the multiplicity of tensions between organizers working toward a shared cause. Take the world of difference separating the experiences of two subjects: Maddie, a white college graduate using her campus activism experience to help the cause, and Natalie, an older Latina woman living out of her car for years. In one charged exchange, Natalie pushes back on the suggestion, made by white male organizers, that Chris intentionally gets himself arrested by New York police officers to draw attention to the unionization drive. Ultimately, Natalie’s dissatisfaction with the ALU—due to her disagreements with leadership as much as her desire to wait for larger union support—leads her to leave the organization. It’s a testament to the complexity of individual motivations and the absence of easy triumph in this type of effort.

“Union” documents the internal debates and disagreements over governance, organizing, and leadership strategies that divided the ALU before its successful unionization vote and were compounded by its subsequent failed attempt to unionize a second warehouse. Though Smalls’ force of personality, passion, and determination fueled the fight to unionize JFK8, the film carefully depicts this as a collective victory. It rarely gives in to the temptation to single out Smalls for praise at the expense of others, and making it clear that his leadership style also contributed to internal rifts in the ALU that at various points may have weakened its ability to further the union’s mission.

This becomes particularly important in the film’s latter half, after the unionization vote, at which point the sobering realities of the long work ahead come more fully into view. The heroism of the ALU organizers will never be in question. But with only one battle won in the war for workers’ rights, and Amazon continuing to contest or undercut its results by every means available, “Union” concludes on a note of weary fortitude rather than declarative victory. The film captures both the pain and the power of people at the base of a global infrastructure. By not departing from the frontlines of the fight against Amazon’s labor exploitation, Story and Maing bring the true face of their struggle into focus.

“Union” will be self-distributed theatrically, starting on Oct. 18. This review was filed from the film’s New York premiere at the New York Film Festival.

Movie Reviews

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Home’ on Starz, a paranoid thriller where Pete Davidson gets trapped in a creepy retirement home

Published

3 hours ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Home’ on Starz, a paranoid thriller where Pete Davidson gets trapped in a creepy retirement home

The Home (now streaming on Starz) pits Pete Davidson against the residents of a creepy retirement community, and it isn’t exactly a Millennials-vs.-Boomers clash for the ages. “Best generation, my f—in’ dick,” our headliner mutters under his breath at one point, and that’s an accurate representation of this quasi-horror movie’s level of articulation. Filmmaker James DeMonaco (director of the first three The Purge movies, writer of all of them) takes a halfway decent idea and turns it into an uninspired, vaguely brownish-colored movie version of the stew you make out of all the leftovers in the fridge, and that you can’t revive with just a little more salt.

THE HOME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Hurricane Greta is about to slam into this community, and this movie would love you to come to the conclusion that it’s the result of the collective might of boomers’ farts after they ate too many Wagyu tenderloins basted in the metaphorical gravies wrung from the pores of younger generations. Maybe that’s why Max (Davidson) is so skinny, but it’s definitely why he’s so P.O.’d. He breaks into a building and expresses his angst via some elaborate graffiti art that gets him arrested – again. His foster father finagles a deal for him to avoid jail time by performing community service at the Green Meadows Retirement Home and that doesn’t seem too bad since he’ll be a janitor and not a nurse on diaper duty. And at this point it’s established that Max has some trauma stemming from his foster brother’s suicide, the type of trauma that’s requisite to pile atop any and all protagonists of crappo horror movies at this point in the 21st century.

It’s worth noting that Green Meadows is a halfway-decent retirement community – not as posh as the one in The Thursday Murder Club, and not as repugnant as you might expect for a low-rung horror flick. BUT. There’s always a BUT. He arrives at the home and looks up and sees peering out a window the face of a gaunt old man with eyes that ain’t quite right. I’m sure it’s nothing! Management gives him the nickel tour, and gives him the first rule of The Friday the 13th Murder Club: DON’T GO ON THE FOURTH FLOOR. And yes, that’s also the second rule of The Friday the 13th Murder Club. Max will stay in a room at the home so he can be available 24/7 in case the job requires a 2 a.m. mop-up, and also so he can have lucid dreams that may or may not actually be dreams about weird shit happening around these here parts.

But everything goes fine and Max quietly manages his trauma and nothing incredibly gross and/or violent happens and he lives happily ever after the end. No! Actually, he catches a glimpse of old people in bizarre masks having miserable sex, and hears horrible screams of agony coming from, yes, the fourth floor. Max seems to be getting along OK, and even makes a couple of friends, like Lou (John Glover), who summons Max to clean up a big mess of feces when it’s actually a little welcome party for the new super. Ha! Max also has conversations about Real Stuff with Norma (Mary Beth Peil), both sharing the pain of the people they’ve lost. Eventually the fourth floor misery noises get to be too much and Max picks the lock and investigates, and it’s full of wheelchair-bound elderlies in states of drooling, semi-comatose madness. After Max gets his hand slapped for violating the first/second rule, that’s when the bullshit ramps up. Let’s just say this bullshit has some Satanic vibes, and poor Norma doesn’t deserve what happens to her, although Max seems ready to do something about all this.

PETE DAVIDSON THE HOME STREAMING — Photo: LionsGate

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The Home is sub-Blumhouse drivel nominally referencing things like Rosemary’s Baby, Eyes Wide Shut, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in order to make it seem smarter than it is. Other recent scary movies set in nursing homes: The Manor, The Rule of Jenny Pen.

Performance Worth Watching: A moment of praise for the makeup and practical effects people, who provide The Home with more memorable elements than any of the cast performances.

Sex And Skin: A bit. Nothing extensive. But definitely unpleasant.

THE HOME STREAMING MOVIE — Photo: Lionsgate

Our Take: In The Home, DeMarco tries a little bit of everything: flashbacks, dream-sequence fakeouts, jump scares, body horror, surveillance-tech POVs, occult gobbledygook, creepy sex, conspiracies, climate change dread, generational divide, paranoia, deepfake-ish dark-web weirdness… it goes on, and none of it is particularly compelling or original. It’s most effective in its grisly imagery, with a couple of memorable deaths that might tickle the cockles of horror connoisseurs, and DeMarco’s generous deployment of pus and eyeball gloop shows a variation on the usual bodily fluids that’s, well, I don’t know if “satisfying” is the right word, but at least we’re not drenched in the same ol’ blood and barf. Small victories, I guess.

Most will take issue with the casting of Davidson, who in the majority of his roles to date has yet to show the intensity that anchoring a thriller like The Home demands. He puts in some diligent effort in the role of the guy who routinely goes what the eff is going on around here?, and his work is a cut above merely cashing a paycheck, which isn’t to say he’s necessarily good. Miscast, maybe. The victim of half-assed writing, more likely, this being a paranoid creepout that never gets under our skin, with attempts at cheeky comedy that fizzle out and social commentary that dead-ends into obviousness. Having Davidson piss and moan about “F—ing boomers” ain’t enough.

The plot works its way through its hodgepodge of this ‘n’ that plot mechanisms to get to a conclusion that’ underwhelming and over the top at the same time; the initial bit of exhilaration quickly dissipates and we’re left with the sense that the movie just hasn’t been good or diligent enough in its storytelling and character development to earn this catharsis. It’s just spectacle for its own gory sake. This mediocrity might just inspire Davidson to retire from horror movies.

<br />

Our Call: Hate to say it, but 1.7 decent kills does not a horror movie make. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: A Home Invasion turns into a “Relentless” Grudge Match

Published

15 hours ago

January 6, 2026

Press Room

Movie Review: A Home Invasion turns into a “Relentless” Grudge Match

I’d call the title “Relentless” truth in advertising, althought “Pitiless,” “Endless” and “Senseless” work just as well.

This new thriller from the sarcastically surnamed writer-director Tom Botchii (real name Tom Botchii Skowronski of “Artik” fame) begins in uninteresting mystery, strains to become a revenge thriller “about something” and never gets out of its own way.

So bloody that everything else — logic, reason, rationale and “Who do we root for?” quandary is throughly botched — its 93 minutes pass by like bleeding out from screwdriver puncture wounds — excruciatingly.

But hey, they shot it in Lewiston, Idaho, so good on them for not filming overfilmed Greater LA, even if the locations are as generically North American as one could imagine.

Career bit player and Lewiston native Jeffrey Decker stars as a homeless man we meet in his car, bearded, shivering and listening over and over again to a voice mail from his significant other.

He has no enthusiasm for the sign-spinning work he does to feed himself and gas up his ’80s Chevy. But if woman, man or child among us ever relishes anything as much as this character loves his cigarettes — long, theatrical, stair-at-the-stars drags of ecstacy — we can count ourselves blessed.

There’s this Asian techie (Shuhei Kinoshita) pounding away at his laptop, doing something we assume is sketchy just by the “ACCESS DENIED” screens he keeps bumping into and the frantic calls he takes suggesting urgency of some sort or other.

That man-bunned stranger, seen in smoky silhoutte through the opaque window on his door, ringing the bell of his designer McMansion makes him wary. And not just because the guy’s smoking and seems to be making up his “How we can help cut your energy bill” pitch on the fly.

Next thing our techie knows, shotgun blasts are knocking out the lock (Not the, uh GLASS) and a crazed, dirty beardo homeless guy has stormed in, firing away at him as he flees and cries “STOP! Why are you doing this?”

Jun, as the credits name him, fights for his PC and his life. He wins one and loses the other. But tracking his laptop and homeless thug “Teddy” with his phone turns out to be a mistake.

He’s caught, beaten and bloodied some more. And that’s how Jun learns the beef this crazed, wronged man has with him — identity theft, financial fraud, etc.

Threats and torture over access to that laptop ensue, along with one man listing the wrongs he’s been done as he puts his hostage through all this.

Wait’ll you get a load of what the writer-director thinks is the card our hostage would play.

The dialogue isn’t much, and the logic — fleeing a fight you’ve just won with a killer rather than finishing him off or calling the cops, etc. — doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny.

The set-piece fights, which involve Kinoshita screaming and charging his tormentor and the tormentor played by Decker stalking him with wounded, bloody-minded resolve are visceral enough to come off. Decker and Kinoshita are better than the screenplay.

A throw-down at a gas-station climaxes with a brutal brawl on the hood of a bystander’s car going through an automatic car wash. Amusingly, the car-wash owners feel the need to do an Idaho do-si-do video (“Roggers (sic) Car Wash”) that plays in front of the car being washed and behind all the mayhem the antagonists and the bystander/car owner go through. Not bad.

The rest? Not good.

Perhaps the good folks at Rogers Motors and Car Wash read the script and opted to get their name misspelled. Smart move.

Rating: R, graphic violence, smoking, profanity

Cast: Jeffrey Decker, Shuhei Kinoshita

Credits:Scripted and directed by Tom Botchii.. A Saban Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:34

About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine