TRIPLE 9 [2016]

Director John Hillcoat gathers together a pretty stellar cast for his violent heist thriller Triple 9.
The Atlanta Russian mob hires a group of dirty cops to pull off a near impossible job and then hatches a ploy to trick them into killing each other to avoid any loose ends.
Hillcoat's obsession with struggling to find order amidst a world of violence is at it's most apparent here with it's intricate plot that's filled with multiple twists 'n turns.  However, it's missing it's beating heart and the lack of character development is where it hurts the film most.  Thanks to it's clever plotting, powerful cast and intense action sequences Triple 9 is pretty god-damned entertaining but one can't help but feel there's a heavily extended director's cut that could easily fix it's glaring flaws.

3 nines out of 5

GHOSTBUSTERS [2016]

Paul Feig's Ghostbusters reboot never stood a chance against the army of "It Raped My Childhood" pussies and it's a shame because it really isn't that bad.
It basically follows the exact same formula of the first two films: bumbling scientists get together in New York City to hunt ghosts, everyone thinks they're a hoax, seedy government folk try to bring them down, they visit the mayor as a hole opens up in the sky which leads to a supernatural mayhem montage and finishes off with a giant icon trudging through the city streets.
It's pretty obvious this won't make the same surprising cultural impact as the original film did but it's going to toss some pretty funny yuk-yuks and fantastic cast chemistry at you with the best it can.  It's stitched together with more finesse than the 1989 sequel but like that film, if you're a kid, it's going to be a pretty damned fun ride with plenty of wide-eyed moments for a new generation of rugrats.

3 pairs of cuckoo pants out of 5

KILL THE MESSENGER [2014]

Inspired by former San Jose journalist Gary Webb's 1996 Dark Alliance news articles, Homeland director Michael Cuesta brings the reporter's story to the bigscreen in Kill The Messenger.
Because it was conveniently buried underneath the inane Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1996 not many people heard about Webb exposing the CIA for importing crack cocaine into the United States.  Unlike most political thrillers like this, the film remembers there's plenty of heart in these characters and it uses this tool with great success, heavily engrossing us into this overly frustrating cover-up.  It's well acted, tightly paced, never overly preachy and supplies us with just enough facts to want to dig deeper.  Sadly, Webb, who's career and personal life was destroyed, committed suicide in 2004 by "miraculously" shooting himself in the head twice so he'll never see the film doing his work justice.  Despite rave reviews, the film was quietly released in only a handful of theaters and disappeared quickly among a flurry of summer blockbusters.

4 missing motorcycles out of 5

THE PURGE: ANARCHY [2014]

James DeMonaco improves upon the original film by exploring everything we questioned in the first place with The Purge: Anarchy.
Much larger in scope, the second Purge film finally shows us how the rest of the world might react to 12 hours of no law and it ain't a pretty sight.  We get to see how different types of people will handle it, with some for entertainment, some revenge, some for profit and some are just plain fuckin' nuts.  It goes a bit more in-depth with the concept and impact of The Purge without ever neutering the idea.  There's some silly manboy video game violence that's quite often a bit of a stretch but all in all, it's a fine little film that wants to say more than it really does.

2½ Gods out of 5

SNITCH [2013]

Ric Roman Waugh, director of Felon, lets Dwayne Johnson carry the tense crime drama Snitch on his shoulders and he does so in a very convincing performance.
I honestly went into this film expecting brainless, excessively violent fun but instead got a pleasant surprise with something dark, broody and emotionally high-strung with very minimal violence.  Not only is Johnson great but he's joined by a strong supporting cast that knows their place and plays it well.  The only real drawback is the generic purpose of the film seems to get lost around the halfway mark and we're suddenly reminded at the very end why all this went down in the first place.

3 special deliveries out of 5