40 Acres (2025) Film Review

Surviving on an isolated farm after a series of plagues and wars, a former soldier and her family make one last stand against a vicious militia that wants to take their land.

40 Acres is directed by R.T. Thorne which is his directorial debut!

All I knew going into 40 Acres was that Danielle Deadwyler was in the cast which was a sign that I needed to check this one out. Deadwyler has quickly become one of my favorite actresses working today, a major part is due to how consistently she delivers fantastic performances and here is no exception. I also have to say for a directorial debut it’s a very interesting swing this film took, including some cannibalistic militia, family bonding and some pretty brutal action. All of this combined together makes for quite an interesting little movie.

As I said before Danielle Deadwyler is a fantastic actress so there is no surprise that she ends up being the best part of the film, there’s something about her tone of voice that is truly effective and that’s really present here. Her interactions with the rest of the cast are raw and lead to some quite effective family dynamic bits that make you care for these characters. Deadwyler does such a great job of keeping each scene interesting, she leads this film to success the whole way through. A mother character wanting to protect their family isn’t anything new but the way Deadwyler portrays Hailey Freeman is effective, raw and absolutely fun to watch.

The rest of the cast are great, Kataem O’Connor, Michael Greyeyes and Leenah Robinson get time to shine in certain scenes. The main focus is very much on Deadwyler, but the rest of the cast do get to be involved and are quite great at moving the plot along at this solid and focused pace. There just isn’t any heavy character writing going on with them.

When it comes to world building 40 Acres does a pretty solid job of giving the viewer the basic rundown, Thorne keeps things grounded by telling us background details of what led to a lack of resources. He tells us this through the grounded script that he and Glenn Taylor wrote, it’s a post apocalyptic story that has much more realism to it than a lot of others one do, yes it does have some traditional genre beats but that does not stop the film from being genuinely powerful with its family dynamics at times.

The cinematography combined with the location is beautiful and fits the film incredibly well, right from the beginning you can feel the thrilling atmosphere in the air. It does take some time to get going again but once the action kicks back in the film keeps building up from there. The cinematography from Jeremy Benning is detailed, and with the help of Thorne’s knowledge of music video directing he’s able to combine the cinematography and music together to make so very well done scenes. There’s one scene in particular that may feel a bit out of place, which there is definitely an argument to be made that it is. However I think Thorne combined with Benning’s cinematography makes it work in the long run.

Finally there’s the action which does actually get brutal towards the end, the film very much focuses on the family dynamics however the action is still incredibly effective when it pops up. There’s this sense of thrills that makes you want to root for the family to make it out of this situation.

Overall 40 Acres is a solid thriller that has this big in scale feel that is quite striking, Danielle Deadwyler’s performance alone warrants a watch but if you are also looking for a thrilling ride with some strong action and family dynamics I recommend giving this one a go.

40 Acres releases July 2nd in theaters.

7/10 B

Ezra (2024) Film Review

Divorced stand-up comedian Max Bernal struggles to raise his autistic son, Ezra. Forced to confront difficult decisions about the boy’s future, Max and Ezra embark on a cross-country road trip that has a transcendent impact on both of their lives.

Ezra is directed by Tony Goldwyn who previously directed Conviction (2010).

Credit where credit is due they casted William Fitzgerald who actually is autistic to play an autistic character which does end up making the film a bit more grounded and can connect more with the viewer as well.

The performances are quite solid, William Fitzgerald is a lot of fun and delivers some quite humorous lines plus is overall incredibly charming as well. Although his character Ezra is admittedly used as a plot device to move things a long in the later half of the movie, which is quite unfortunate and does end up hurting the movie in the long run. Bobby Cannavale and Robert De Niro are both solid here as well, Cannavale has lot of moments where his character Max bonds with his son and those moments do end up being charming. De Niro as usual delivers a great performance that is quite raw, it’s not heavy performance that has a lot to it but it works in the context of the movie.

The writing is decent, there’s definitely some inspiration porn cliches thrown in there but it isn’t nearly enough to really take away from the movie. Although the subplot of Max landing a spot on Jimmy Kimmel is very out of place for a movie like this, it ended up feeling like a setup for a mid-credits joke which doesn’t work (the joke itself is not even worth it). Having that said I do think the performances truly make this film and really make the script come together. There’s this earnest feel to the performances that’s present throughout the movie you can’t help but love and that ends up being the case with the script as well.

Overall Ezra is a perfectly passable drama that I’m glad exists, although it’s heavily flawed I do appreciate the careful attempt by everyone involved!

Ezra is available on all VOD platforms.

6/10 C+

A Family Affair (2024) Film Review

A surprising romance kicks off comic consequences for a young woman, her mother and her movie star boss as they face the complications of love, sex and identity.

A Family Affair is directed by Richard LaGravenese who has directed P.S. I Love You (2007), Beautiful Creatures (2013), The Last Five Years (2014) and a few others.

Yet another Netflix original film from this year that completely falls flat, you would think with a pretty solid cast there would be some attempt to try and make this work. Unfortunately that’s not really the case here, while I don’t think the movie is as bad as say Madame Web, Night Swim or Unfrosted that really is not saying all that much.

The cast is fine enough and really tries the best they can with such an unfunny script, Nicole Kidman and Kathy Bates are definitely the best of the bunch. Zac Efron is really trying but unfortunately the comedic timing really throws him under the bus and Joey King while actually not terrible here (this is one of her better performances) really does not have a whole lot going on with her character.

The first 20 minutes or so aren’t bad, the movie has a decent setup and actually some okay jokes in the mix. However after that things fall apart very quickly, the movie turns into a very typical bad Netflix romantic comedy movie that throws just about every cliche in the book it possibly can until the movie ends.

There’s bound to be comparisons to The Idea With You which came out a few months ago and while the two movies are different genres (Idea Of You being a drama while Family Affair being a comedy) A Family Affair really does feel like The Idea Of You but worse, The Idea Of You was not perfect (far from it) but at the very least the performances were incredibly solid, the writing was interesting and the characters were enjoyable. You really don’t get that from A Family Affair outside of the first 20 or so minutes. Instead you get a very repetitive 114 Netflix romantic comedy that feels like it should have ended ages ago.

A Family Affair is available on Netflix.

3/10 D-

Most Anticipated Films Of July 2024!

So I still have quite a lot of reviews to catch up on (including a few from May) which is due to me having technical difficulties and so much going on. Which is why there was not a June list, luckily things are slowly picking up again. I’m definitely going to be using July and probably parts of August as a catch up month on reviews and working my way through my watchlist.

Anyways July seems like a very strong month (my birthday is July 5th let’s go!!)

12. Chestnut – July 2nd (VOD)

11. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F – July 3rd (Netflix)

10. Deadpool and Wolverine – July 26th (Theaters)

9. Mother Couch – July 5th (Theaters)

8. National Anthem – July 12th (Theaters)

7. Twisters – July 19th (Theaters)

6. Kill – July 4th (Theaters)

5. Didi – July 26th (Theaters)

4. Oddity – July 19th (Theaters)

3. Sing Sing – July 12th (Theaters)

2. Longlegs – July 12th (Theaters)

1. Maxxxine – July 12th (Theaters)

The Forever Purge (2021) Movie Review!

All the rules are broken as a sect of lawless marauders decides that the annual Purge does not stop at daybreak and instead should never end.

The name “Forever Purge” makes sense because spoiler alert they confirmed another one will be made since this one made a ton of money (at the time this was written). The Purge movies at this point have become worn out at this point, I really like The Purge Anarchy and I have a lot of fun with Election Year. But that’s where the series ends for me, while The Forever Purge is an improvement over “The First Purge” it’s still lacking what some of the other movies had. The main issues with The Forever Purge come from the writing, characters and how they aren’t even trying with the political commentary anymore. Look I wasn’t expecting masterclass writing from a purge movie but this was ridiculous, there’s definitely some unintentional hilarious moments but a lot of it is incredibly basic and does very little to keep the interest of the viewer. I will give the movie credit that it does have some decent action scenes, but that’s all they are decent action scenes with nothing really to them. The characters are just not interesting at all, a bunch of them are either stereotypes or are about as interesting as a cardboard cutout, Ana De La Reguera is the only one who I thought did a decent job and at least had some sort of character (that’s being generous) I actually don’t think the acting was all that bad it was the writing that gave a lot of these actors nothing to work with. Finally there’s the political commentary that is an absolute mess in this one, they don’t even try a lot of it boils down to “oh he or she said that! That’s a real issue!” Congratulations you named a real world issue and did absolutely nothing with it, that’s pretty much this entire movie. I get what they were going for with this one but they completely failed, luckily for this movie it is entertaining at times so it does have that going for it. But really is almost the same exact thing as some of the other Purge movies only the plot and characters are different. If you are a fan of the franchise you will probably like this, otherwise don’t bother with this one!

The Forever Purge is now available on all VOD Platforms!

4/10 D+

Summer Of Soul (2021) Movie Review!

Over the course of six weeks during the summer of 1969, thousands of people attend the Harlem Cultural Festival to celebrate Black history, culture, music and fashion.

Summer Of Soul is a fantastic and very wonderful experience, seeing a lot of footage that was thought to be lost be rediscovered and shown to the public. Especially when it’s about the topic of summer of 1969 where thousands of people attended the Harlem Cultural Festival. The documentary is exactly what the description says it’s about, it’s a huge celebration of Black history, culture, music and fashion and every minute of it is glorious. I have said before how I like lost media being found and then being released to the public, this is a prime example of that. The footage shown is absolutely beautiful, it feels like you are there at the festival with everyone just having a great time. It’s time capsule that’s truly beautiful and captures so much about a community coming together and just having fun while talking about important history and issues. I highly recommend giving this one a look if you haven’t already.

Summer of Soul is now available in Theaters and on Hulu!

9/10 A

Jolt (2021) Movie Review!

A bouncer with an anger-management problem goes on a revenge-fueled rampage after the murder of a friend.

When the trailer for Jolt was released online I wanted to be excited but knew this was going to be a trainwreck, while Jolt is not one of the worst movies to come out of this year so far it’s definitely one of the most forgettable and cliched. Despite dealing with a terrible script Kate Beckinsale gives it her all and does the best she can. My main two problems with this movie are the bunch of moments where Jolt tries to be funny and falls flat on itself and the camera work combined with the editing when it comes to the action scenes. Jolt does what Taken 3 did with the action scenes and editing which is make it as messy as possible so the viewer can’t tell what’s going on whatsoever. Sure every now and then the movie has a couple okay shots but they aren’t anything to write home about, as for the jokes the movie tries to thrown in….good god. Look I get action movies have their jokes and cheesy lines, but none of what was shown in this movie was funny or creative. It was a bunch of “a lot of other action movies have done this, let’s do it ourselves” I genuinely have no idea what they were trying to for here but whatever it was it failed.

Jolt is now available on Amazon Prime Video!

3/10 D-

Finding You (2021) Movie Review!

Violinist Finley Sinclair travels to an Irish coastal village to begin her semester studying abroad. At the bed-and-breakfast run by her host family, she encounters Beckett Rush, a handsome actor who’s filming another installment of his medieval movie franchise. As romance sparks between the unlikely pair, Beckett ignites a journey of discovery for Finley — transforming her heart, her music and her outlook on life.

I’ll give credit where credit is due at least Brian Baugh improved from his last movie “I’m Not Ashamed” with that said Finding You is still a terrible movie. This movie is a whole lot of nothing that is somehow 119 minutes long, the performances are awful, the pacing is abysmal. What completely destroys this movie is the writing, this feels like somebody wrote a fanfiction and accidentally sent it to a movie studio and the movie studio in question thought this was for a movie. There’s so many different subplots going on in this movie and not one of them has any good development or is the least bit interesting, speaking of which the characters have no chemistry at all. That’s probably mainly due to how this movie feels like a badly written fanfiction as I said before. I really don’t have anything else to say, it’s one of the those movies that feels like a studio releases because they have nothing else to release. Give this a skip..

Finding You is now available on all VOD Platforms!

2/10 F

Behind The Sightings (2021) Movie Review!

A man and his wife encounter mysterious clowns while filming a documentary in the woods of North Carolina.

Behind The Sightings releases have being in release date limbo since 2017 when it was supposed to come out. I can easily see why this took so long to release….it’s horrendous. Making a found footage movie based on the Clown Sightings of 2016 is a really interesting idea that definitely had tons of potential. Unfortunately Behind The Sightings completely falls flat on every single level to deliver, right from the beginning the acting is already at a huge low point it feels like nobody tried. It doesn’t get any better at all either, the writing is a huge mess filled with annoying characters and tries way too hard to be scary by using endless amount of jumpscares that you can see coming miles away. What’s even worse is the pacing, it’s amazing that this is a 81 minute movie but feels like an eternity. It’s dreadfully put together so many scenes that feel unnecessary, the last act of the movie is nothing but screaming that tries way too hard. I really don’t know what else to say because Behind The Sightings is a whole lot of nothing, give this one a skip.

Behind The Sightings is now available on all VOD platforms!

Disgrace To Cinema F

Great White (2021) Movie Review!

When a sea plane is destroyed in a freak accident, five people find themselves drifting on a raft. At the mercy of the tide and with no hope of rescue, the helpless situation takes a horrifying turn when they are terrorised by a ravenous great white.

The sad thing here is I was actually excited for Great White, I was hoping that we would finally get another serious actual very good shark movie like The Shallows (2016)….that did not happen here, Great White can be summarized like this….annoying as hell characters, horribly written story that has been done better a thousand times before, piss poor directing that has no style to it at all. Horrible acting and writing sure there’s a few so bad it’s funny moments but nowhere near as much as you would hope in a bad shark movie. The major problem with this movie is it wants play both ways have serious moments and then try and throw ridiculous scenes in, but what seals this movie’s fate is it isn’t even mainly about the sharks. The Sharks are kind of thrown in there as an afterthought it’s more melodrama and arguing between the terribly written characters, the last 15 minutes are somewhat enjoyable but let me tell you that is not enough to save Great White. Even if you are a fan of bad shark movies I don’t recommend this one, you are better off watching Sharknado 5 times before you watch this one once.

Great White is now available on all VOD platforms!

1/10 F