2.5/5 stars

The number cruncher in question, Christian Wolff (Affleck), is no ordinary accountant – although he does know a lot about tax, it seems. He is mob-trained, with money launderers and warlords as his clientele.

He is also autistic, lives in an Airstream trailer and is a lone wolf, although, judging by the speed-dating session he goes on in one of the film’s more amusing sequences, he is not against finding a life partner.

The film is scripted by Bill Dubuque, who wrote the original and is also a co-creator of the television show Ozark, another tale of a mob-connected financial adviser. Unfortunately, Dubuque’s story here is very patchy.

Following the aforementioned death of Simmons’ character, who is shot outside a bar after meeting a blonde operative (Daniella Pineda), the whodunit story kicks in as US Treasury agent Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) is tasked with unravelling who pulled the trigger on her former boss.

Mark Measures, a longtime Los Angeles-based talent agent, has been indicted along with his agency, Kazarian/Measures/Ruskin and Associates, after authorities alleged he stole more than $1.8 million from 160 actors and about $26,000 in wages from employees at the agency’s New York City office.

New York County Dist. Atty. Alvin L. Bragg Jr. said in a news release on Tuesday that many of the actors who lost money were “balancing other jobs to stay afloat while pursuing their acting careers.” The money Measures allegedly stole from his employees were wages that were meant to be invested in their retirement accounts, Bragg said.

“Rather than pay the actors and employees, the defendants used their hard-earned money to fund [Measures’] lavish lifestyle. This alleged conduct is egregious,” Bragg said.

Measures — whose client list includes Elizabeth Perkins of “Big” and “This Is Us,” Merrin Dungey of “Alias,” Jerry Mathers of “Leave It to Beaver” and TV personality Bob Eubanks — did not reply immediately to The Times’ emailed request for comment.

Prosecutors allege Measures spent the money at Crypto.com Arena and a Four Seasons Hotel spa and bought luxury goods from brands including Stuart Weitzman and Ermenegildo Zegna. The agency gave actors excuses including earthquakes, blackouts, sick employees and bank and mail delays to justify the missing funds, the district attorney’s office said.

“Measures personally called or emailed many actors, assuring them that they would be paid and never disputing the amounts owed,” the district attorney’s office said. “He ultimately ceased communications with the actors altogether.”

The 40 counts against Measures and KMR include one count of first-degree scheme to defraud, three counts of second-degree grand larceny, 28 counts of third-degree grand larceny, five counts of fourth-degree grand larceny and three counts of petit larceny. The alleged crimes happened from June 23, 2021 to March 22, 2024, court records show.

The majority of the alleged thefts involved hard-to-track residual payments and holding fees earned by actors in New York City who filmed commercials, voiced ads and appeared in TV shows like “Law & Order,” according to prosecutors.

The district attorney’s office said in its release that Measures, who was president of KMR, diverted the money to cover business expenses, creditors and personal expenditures. “When actors inquired about their payments, Measures made excuses, blaming the ‘bank’ or ‘slow mail,’ and promised to send out checks that either bounced or were never sent,” and many of the victims still haven’t been paid, the release said.

As a SAG-AFTRA franchisee, KMR — which is now permanently closed — was required to hold funds from production companies in trust and disburse the money to the actors “promptly,” meaning within seven business days. Agents were to deduct a 10% commission before disbursement.

Deceased clients of Measures listed on IMDbPro include game-show hosts Wink Martindale and Gene Rayburn and legendary deejay Casey Kasem.

The money allegedly stolen from KMR employees between September 2023 and March 2024 was intended to go into their 401(k) retirement accounts, the district attorney’s office said.

KMR’s Instagram account, which has not posted anything new since March 2024 when it ceased to be a SAG-AFTRA franchised agency, is full of comments posted last year that allege money was being stolen by the agency and advise actors to get paid directly by production companies instead of via KMR.

“Prospective actors steer clear of Mark Measures. He is a con artist,” actor Kate Amundsen wrote in a comment posted last July. “He stole from me and many, many others for YEARS. Do not go anywhere near this scam artist. Shame on you Mark.”

Amundsen has credits dating to 2013 that include appearances on shows such as “Criminal Minds” and “9-1-1: Lone Star.”

Ash, 2025.

Directed by Flying Lotus.
Starring Eiza González, Aaron Paul, Iko Uwais, Kate Elliott, Beulah Koale, and Flying Lotus.

SYNOPSIS:

A woman wakes up on a distant planet and finds the crew of her space station viciously killed. Her investigation into what happened sets in motion a terrifying chain of events.

Musician and filmmaker Flying Lotus seems to appreciate old-school survival horror video games, as Ash follows that template to an admirable degree but is ultimately sluggish and dull. Eiza Gonzalez’s Riya awakens on a spaceship with no recollection of how or why the rest of her crew is dead. The film splices in the occasional graphic image of someone’s face melting (a gnarly visual effect) to set expectations, but the majority consists of watching Riya stumble around and inspecting the ship in blue/purple-soaked lighting, desperately trying to do some heavy lifting to make the vibes scary. 

Ash is striving for that eerie atmosphere of Dead Space (there are numerous small visual cues bringing this to mind, not to mention being stranded in a ship on an unknown planet where a protagonist is suffering from amnesia) by way of Resident Evil, which is a tantalizing approach for a horror movie. The issue is that those games have, well, gameplay breaking up the monotony of walking around dark corridors alongside world-building through notes or audio logs. 

This is not to say the film needed Riya fighting for her life against zombies or some other type of monstrous creature or for her to solve bizarre puzzles operating on video game logic, but that it needed something beyond a slow-burning, lifeless investigation into the ship or vague details about their mission and the planet her team was setting out to colonize. Even the nonviolent flashbacks have nothing interesting to explain about these characters, their relationship dynamics, or the mission.

One might assume the material might perk up substantially once Riya comes across Aaron Paul’s Brian, who had been watching over her team from a different vessel, noticed everything went to hell, and is now trying to help both of them escape. The issue here is that the screenplay from Jonni Remmler (which already isn’t that hard to deduce what’s happening) sets up other predictable narrative avenues. Slowly, Riya’s memories start coming back, some of which include a mildly exciting brawl with crew member Adhi (bonafide badass Iko Uwais, so you know the fight choreography is worthwhile), except Brian starts to wonder if such a thing would be suitable for her mental state and their goal of escaping.

None of this is helped by the stilted acting, which often feels like these two otherwise talented actors were taking lessons from whoever was coaching those rough performances in early 90s Capcom survival horror games. The screenplay itself doesn’t give them much to work with, primarily consisting of dialogue, forcing them to talk in circles about nothing until it’s time for all secrets to be revealed.

Those last 20 minutes offer flashback violence and largely unsatisfying answers. To be clear, video games are not the only medium Ash is lousily cribbing from. Flying Lotus simply has no idea what to do with any of these influences.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd 

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