FREE GUY: 3 ½ STARS
âFree Guy,â the new Ryan Reynolds action comedy now playing in theatres, has its philosophical moments, but no one will confuse its search for the meaning of life with the explorations of Joseph Campbell or Socrates. This is pure pop philosophy that breathes the same air as âThe Truman Showâ and âEdtv,â movies about men who yearn for more than life has offered them.
Reynolds is Guy, a bank teller in Free City, a video game metropolis where the main characters wear sunglasses, have devil-may-care attitudes, cool hair and treat laws as suggestions, not hard and fast rules. Everyone else, including Guy and his best friend Buddy (Lil Rel Howery), are NPC, non-player-characters, who exist simply to give the Sunglasses People someone to rob, beat down, or, in rare cases, flirt with.
They are set decoration in the grand videogame of life.
âPeople with sunglasses never talk to people like us,â Buddy says.
One day Guyâs orderly life is thrown a curve when he spots Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer), a gunslinging sunglasses person, who also happen to be the woman of his dreams. Consumed with feelings he has never had before; his behaviours change as he looks for love and meaning in his life.
âMaybe Iâll get some sunglasses of my own,â he says.
IRL (In Real Life) Millie (also played by Comer) and Keys (Joe Keery) are former coding superstars whose idea for a videogame that would actually change and grow independently of its users was stolen by evil videogame developer Antoine (Taika Waititi). Keys now works for Antoine, while Millie is obsessed with infiltrating the game as Molotov Girl to get evidence for her lawsuit against the obnoxious tech giant.
Soon the line between Guyâs algorithmic life and Millieâs quest blend as âFree Guyâ asks, âDo you you have to be a spectator in your own life?â
You need a lot of hyphens to describe âFree Guy.â Itâs a videogame-rom com-satire-action-comedy that tackles, in a lighthearted way, questions that people had grappled with for thousands of years.
âWhat is the meaning of life?â Guy asks. âWhat if nothing matters.â
But donât fret, this isnât Camus. The nihilism that usually goes along with big questions about life is replaced with videogame action and brewing romance.
Reynolds brings his trademarked way with a line to play man child Guy. Heâs the definition of bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed, able to give Guy the naïve quality he would have as someone just coming to consciousness, driven by feelings he doesnât understand, as it slowly dawns on him that he is free to make his own decisions.
Comer, best known for her Emmy Award winning work in âKilling Eve,â deftly hops between real life and Free City, creating two characters with a shared goal. Sheâs there mostly as a sounding board for Guyâs awakening, but Comer brings personality to both roles.
Ultimately âFree Guyâ doesnât teach us anything about life we couldnât have learned from any number of episodes of âOprah,â but the message that life doesnât have to be something that just happens to us is delivered with a heaping helping of humour, heart and Reynoldâs brand of irreverence.
RESPECT: 3 ½ STARS
Two years ago, the documentary âAmazing Graceâ showcased Aretha Franklin's remarkable 1972 two-night stand at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Itâs a soul-stirring window into Franklinâs vocal ability as she caresses and stretches the notes of the songs to maximum effect.
A new film, âRespect,â starring Jennifer Hudson and now playing in theatres, broadens the scope, detailing Franklinâs life from her beginnings, singing in her fatherâs church, to the height of her fame.
We first meet Aretha as a ten-year-old (Sky Dakota Turner) phenom, blessed with a beautiful voice.
âYou have a talent,â her Baptist minister father Clarence (Forest Whitaker) says, âthey call genius.â
Sheâs ten, says a friend, but her voice is going on thirty. Her guiding light is mother Barbara (Audra McDonald), who tells her, âSinging is sacred and you shouldnât do it because somebody wants you to. Whatâs important is that you are treated with dignity and respect.â
Despite that advice, her father controls every aspect of her life. Using his connections, Rev. Franklin secures a recording contact with music producer John Hammond (Tate Donovan) at Columbia Records. Four low-selling albums of jazz and blues standards follow as she struggles to find her voice on vinyl.
The climb to the top of the charts came with advice from a legend, Dinah Washington (Mary J. Blige), who told her, âHoney, find the songs that move you. Until you do that, you ainât going nowhere,â and a new manager (and love interest) in the form of Ted White (Marlon Wayans).
Taking the career reigns from Franklinâs father, White breaks ranks with Columbia, and gets a new record deal and a new sound with producer Jerry Wexler (Marc Maron).
As Franklin becomes known as the Queen of Soul, she and White struggle with personal demons that threaten to sidetrack her rise to superstardom.
First and foremost, âRespectâ is a tribute to the genius of Aretha Franklin and the talent of Jennifer Hudson. Franklin left an indelible mark on several generation and styles of music, and her lifeâs work is well represented here, from her roots in the church, to her genre-bending chart toppers and the civil rights activism that defined her life off stage.
Hudson is given ample opportunity to showcase Franklinâs vocal stylings, and does so with a voice that sounds heaven sent. As a rousing jukebox musical âRespectâ succeeds spectacularly well.
Itâs in the telling of Franklinâs life that the movie hits a few sour notes. There is a lot of ground to cover, from alcoholism and racism to sexism and becoming pregnant at the age of 12, itâs a complicated story told in fits and starts, wedged between musical numbers.
The filmâs early scenes, featuring the wonderful Skye Dakota Turner as the ten-year-old âRee,â are nicely developed and paint a vivid picture of Franklinâs young life. Itâs when âRespectâ adopts the Wikipedia bullet point approach to quickly cover a lot of ground that the movie loses some of its dramatic thrust.
âRespectâ skims the surface of a long, interesting lifeâthe story ends rather abruptly in 1972 with the recording of Franklinâs landmark âAmazing Graceâ gospel albumâbut presents a rousing tribute to Franklinâs lifeblood, the music.
THE COMEBACK TRAIL: 2 ½ STARS
Based on the 1982 film of the same name by Harry Hurwitz, âThe Comeback Trail,â now on VOD, is star Robert de Niroâs third Hollywood satire after 1997âs âWag the Dogâ and 2008âs âWhat Just Happened.â It doesnât pack the same kind of sardonic punch as those films, but supplies a laugh or two.
Set in 1974, De Niro plays Max Barber, a Hollywood hanger-on and producer of bottom-of-the-bill b-movies with names like âKiller Nuns.â He dreams of the big time, of making an epic but his reputation and lack of money put his dream out of reach until he concocts a deadly scam.
With his unsuspecting partner and nephew Walter (Zach Braff), Barber sets up a new film starring Duke Montana (Tommy Lee Jones), a suicidal western star living in a home for retired and forgotten, actors. The tough old coot spends his days playing Russian Roulette, but when Barber offers him a gig, Duke thinks this might his comeback and puts away the gun.
Barber, who is being pressured by gangster Reggie Fontaine (Morgan Freeman) to repay a sizable loan, has other ideas. His scam is to kill Duke, shut down the movie he never planned to finish, and, make a killing, literally, with the insurance money.
But, like so many things in Barberâs life, his scheme doesnât go as planned.
âThe Comeback Trailâ is a movie in love with the movies. Barber and Fontaine banter in movie referencesââIâm gonna choke you.â âLike Tony Curtis in the Boston Strangler?ââand, ultimately, it sings the praises of the power of the movies to inspire and transform lives.
Film fans may enjoy the sentiment, but they likely wonât be as impressed by the slack pacing and obvious telegraphing of joke after joke. It takes ages to get to the heart of the one-joke premise and, while there are mild laughs sprinkled throughout, as soon as director George Gallo (who wrote âMidnight Runâ) allows the story to limp on to the film set-with-the-film, the movie starts to run out of steam.
Of the three Oscar winners who headline âThe Comeback Trail,â only Jones appears invested in creating a memorable character. His take on the âbroke-down-over-the-hill-has beenâ Montana has enough flashes of pathos to hint at what this movie could have been, a bittersweet comedy about the dreamers who live and breathe celluloid, but the movieâs silly tone lets him down.