Coup!, 2024.

Written and Directed by Joseph Schuman and Austin Stark.
Starring Peter Sarsgaard, Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon, Skye P. Marshall, Faran Tahir, Kristine Nielsen, Callum Vinson, Willa Dunn, and Fisher Stevens.

SYNOPSIS:

A mischievous cook leads an uprising against a wealthy family on a seaside estate. 

It is surprising that, at least to my knowledge, it has taken this long for a film about the Spanish flu to be made, not so subtly pointing out the strong similarities between that time and the most recent global pandemic. Writers/directors Joseph Schuman and Austin Stark have also infused Coup! with a class warfare, eat-the-rich angle that is equally blunt but also far too familiar and derivative of recent works to function anywhere near as effective as observing characters in the early 1900s going through a health crisis and under lockdown.

The other unique angle here is that the wealthy journalist isolating his family overseas (making for sly criticism of modern reckless Americans abandoning the country to be reckless and wild somewhere with fewer cases, stupidly assuming the same thing won’t happen there) is a performative progressive comfortable misleading and outright deceiving his readers with no self-awareness. Jay Horton (Billy Magnussen, gradually more and more amusing as his world and image come crumbling down) paints himself as a hero on the front lines when, in reality, he is holed up and essentially ordering a small group of servants to endanger themselves day after day to get whatever supplies they need. Whatever heart of gold he pretends to have is immediately transparent, forcing these workers to live together in a small, cramped outhouse away from the estate. Again, it’s a case of someone progressive in theory but not in practice, which sadly exists among some wealthy elites today.

Among those workers is the flamboyant, jewelry-adorned chef Floyd Monk (Peter Sarsgaard tearing up the screen with an intelligent, charismatic, and rebellious swagger), new to the ranks and instantaneously questioning those around him why they are so complacent being treated subhuman when they are risking their health daily for this family to live happily, and more specifically, Jay to continue putting out a false image of himself in the papers while also anxiously awaiting some kind of promotion and public adoration.

Little by little, Floyd wins the support of his peers while casually and calmly worming his way into the family’s lives and dismantling the façade. A vegetarian family, Floyd quickly and easily turns Jay into a hunter, especially as he sees the respect it earns from his wife (Sarah Gadon) and children. Still, Jay always remains skeptical that Floyd has sinister motives, and so do we, considering a startling prologue involving death. Speaking of that wife, Floyd also uses that charm to sway her over to his side romantically, especially as Jay increasingly becomes more abrasive and paranoid over how likable the cook presents himself.

Perhaps this review makes it sound like the film criticizes Jay for not being a traditional manly man, but that would be a disingenuous reading: it’s more about how he is so deceptive and full of himself that there isn’t much redeeming about him or anyone who does actually practice what they preach. Nevertheless, entertainment is about all Coup! has going for it because the trajectory of all of this is predictable until the end, with little to no swerves. Thankfully, the performances lean into the fun of this concept and juxtaposition between past and present pandemics, not playing the characters too seriously. It’s a film that knows it needs at least to have some lightness despite its obviousness and effectively succeeds.

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

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

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Two decades after the fact, Josh Harnett has opened up about his decision to leave Los Angeles at the peak of his fame.

“I just didn’t want my life to be swallowed up by my work,” the 46-year-old star of M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie “Trap” said in a Guardian interview published Sunday. “And there was a notion at that time you just kind of give it all up. And you saw what happened to some people back then. They got obliterated by it. I didn’t want that for myself.”

Harnett’s journey in Hollywood began when he garnered attention playing notable roles in indie films such as “The Faculty” and “The Virgin Suicides” at the end of the 1990s. Then came lead roles in the 2001 movies “Black Hawk Down” and “Pearl Harbor” and 2002’s “40 Days and 40 Nights.”

But he wasn’t fond of the fame that came with these high-profile roles — not to mention the hero-or-heartthrob jobs he was being offered — and soon after doing those big-budget movies he stepped away from the spotlight, moving back to his home state of Minnesota and severing ties with his agents. After about 18 months, he returned to the industry, declining big-budget roles and instead picking up work in smaller indie films.

The “Pearl Harbor” actor now lives in the United Kingdom on a marriage visa with his wife, British actor Tamsin Egerton, after going back and forth between the U.K. and New York for years. The two met while filming Roland Joffe’s movie “The Lovers” in 2011, started a relationship the next year and welcomed the first of their four children in 2015. Later they relocated to the British countryside, and in 2022, he revealed they secretly married in 2021.

Harnett says the humble village life gives him more time with his kids than his life in New York and Los Angeles ever did.

“People only want to talk about your career” in New York and L.A., he told the Guardian. But in the U.K., he said, “nobody cares.”

“I never would have expected it. And time passes quickly. With four children, you have so much to do. In a way, less is happening. But more of the important stuff is happening. My oldest daughter is 8½ now — that feels like it happened in the last two years to me. So I’m trying to soak up as much as possible.”

In “Trap,” Hartnett stars as a devoted father who brings his daughter to a pop star’s concert — but director Shyamalan is known for his twist endings (think “The Sixth Sense” and “The Village”). And the trailer for the film reveals a twist for sure: Dad is actually a serial killer known as the Butcher.

“Trap” hits movie theaters in the U.S. on Friday.

I can’t remember the last decent vampire movie I saw, so thank the deities for Abigail (now streaming on Peacock, in addition to VOD services like Amazon Prime Video), which is one hell of a bloodletter with a convoluted backstory. The film originated as a remake of Dracula’s Daughter, and was slotted as an entry in Universal’s Dark Universe horror franchise; but once that ill-fated idea went kerplotz, the directorial team of Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (Ready or Not and the two most recent Scream films) took the helm and made the movie under their Radio Silence banner. My expectations were low, as the Screams felt like rehash and the drowsiness from lame-ass Dracula flick The Last Voyage of the Demeter lingered, but if anything will make an old cynic enthusiastic about vampires again, it’s Abigail.   

ABIGAIL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We open in what seems like a completely different movie. No, seriously. It’s a kidnapping thriller in which a cadre of misfit criminals bust into a rich man’s mansion and steal his 12-year-old daughter for a $50 million ransom. It’s one of those Reservoir Dogs-type jobs where none of the crooks know each other’s names so there’ll be no ratting on anyone, and they get nicknames, and all that. Our lead is Joey (Melissa Barrera), who seems a little out of place with this crew of freaks, probably because she’s the true protag with big, soft, sympathetic eyes that she uses to look at the photo of her estranged son on her phone. She’s also not thrilled to learn, moments before they bust in, that their target is a little girl. But there’s money to be made and a job to do, and her part of it is to knock the kid out with an injection.

The others are pretty much a bunch of mixed nuts: Frank (Dan Stevens) leads the crew and wears glasses that tell us he’s slick and shifty like the gearbox on a Ferrari. Peter (Kevin Durand) is a man mighty of muscle but slow of mind. Rickles (Will Catlett) is the poker-faced sniper. Sammy (Kathryn Newton) is the sassy hacker. Dean (Angus Cloud) is the getaway driver who’s got naught but a couple of chiclets rattling around where his brains should be. They snatch Abigail (Alisha Weir) and convene with plan mastermind Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) in a dilapidated mansion with a giant elevator cage as a centerpiece – I wonder if it’ll come in handy at all should anyone need it – and decor ranging from cluster-o’-antlers light fixtures to gross taxidermy and crumbling old frescoes. No, really, frescoes! I’m sure nothing bad has ever happened in this place. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper but after several thousand hours of work and exorcisms, it’ll be so cozy!

Being the nice person around here, relatively speaking, Joey comforts poor little Abigail, who’s still wearing her tutu from ballet rehearsal. Being the shitbird around here, and the specific breed of shitbird played by Dan Stevens, Frank threatens poor little Abigail with his gun – and finds out she’s the daughter of a notorious gazillionaire who’s rumored to have a henchman capable of “tearing people apart like an animal.” That might, key word here being “might,” explain how one of them ends up with their head being detached from their body in a rather disgusting and hilarious fashion. And just when you thought this crew of crooks had exchanged enough prickly gettin’-to-know-ya banter, well, when people are fighting for their lives, they really get to know each other, especially their insides, and extra-especially when those insides become outsides.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It’s no secret that Abigail is the vampire around these parts, and that she likes to plie and jete in between masticating her victims (it’s in the trailers and everything), so obviously the sequel needs to be ABIGAIL VS. M3GAN. ABIGAIL VS. M3GAN! Someone needs to make ABIGAIL VS. M3GAN! I mean, why couldn’t it exist in a world that gave us Freddy vs. Jason?

Performance Worth Watching: Barrera is a terrific Final Girl. And Weir throws herself whole-hog into the demonic role (it’s a lot of fun hearing this adorable kid spew obscenities like a sailor who accidentally dropped anchor on his toe). Stevens has his terrifically sleazy moments and Durand delivers some nicely modulated comedy. But I gotta go with Lisa Frankenstein herself, Newton, who slays a few one-liners and makes the absolute most out of the movie’s most demented sequence. 

Memorable Dialogue: You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Stevens quip, “Sammy, those are f—in’ onions” to the dimwit tasked with finding garlic to combat vampires. 

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: In retrospect, the best joke in Abigail is how it starts off a little slow and dry and a lot like many other bickering-bad-guys crime thrillers, then subtly becomes one of the year’s most uproarious comedies thanks to a collection of nutty performances and exquisitely timed bursts of pustulent gore. Horror movies are often populated with characters I like to call one-by-oners, because the monster or slasher or alien picks them off one at a time, thus drawing out the plot to feature-length. But they rarely feature one-by-oners with much personality. Abigail is unique in that you’re loath to see the one-by-oners die, because it means they no longer exist to say and do hilarious shit anymore. 

On the other hand, they die in a fashion that’s so gruesome and entertaining, you’re too slackjawed to mourn their passing. The film absolutely functions within the confines of formulaic horror – put jerks in a creepy house and slaughter away – but adorns the familiarities with a few visual eccentricities, some amusingly silly twists and a screenplay that sets up its talented, tonally on-point cast to succeed. Abigail is a case where it’s not the material but what you do with it that counts, and Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin deliver the goods with wit, a little bit of suspense and some gloriously gross buckets of blood, just like Grandma likes it.

Our Call: There are times when Abigail doesn’t make sense and is not a perfect movie but I had too much fun watching it and refuse to nitpick it so STREAM IT. Thank you.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.