Insurgent
Film Review by Kam Williams

Insurgent is the second in the action-oriented series of screen adaptations based on Veronica Roth’s blockbuster Divergent trilogy. This installment represents a rarity for a cinematic sequel in that it’s actually better than the first episode.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the franchise’s basic premise, the post-apocalyptic sci-fi is set amidst the crumbling ruins of a walled-in Chicago where what’s left of humanity has been strictly divided into five factions based on personality types, namely, Abnegation (the selfless); Amity (the peaceful); Candor (the honest); Dauntless (the brave); and Erudite (the intelligent).

Our intrepid heroine, Tris (Shailene Woodley) was deemed a threat to society after testing positive for several of the aforementioned qualities since that makes her a Divergent, one of the handful of nonconformists whose minds the government cannot control. Consequently, the headstrong rebel ended up orphaned and roaming the streets with fellow faction-less rogues by the end of the original.

Insurgent picks up right where Divergent left off, though upping the ante in terms of intensity and visually-captivating special f/x. At the point of departure, we find Tris on the run with her boyfriend Four (Theo James), her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and the duplicitous Peter Hayes (Miles Teller). The fugitives are being sought by Jeanine (Kate Winslet), the monomaniacal Erudite leader who has seized control of the city by commandeering the Dauntless warrior class.

The Machiavellian despot has declared martial law until all threats to her power have been neutralized. Meanwhile, Tris and company proceed to elude apprehension as they search for a sacred talisman supposedly hidden somewhere by her late mom (Ashley Judd).

The ancient artifact is rumored to contain an important message from Chicago’s founding fathers. However, the box can only be accessed by a Divergent who succeeds at surviving an ordeal testing for all five of the commonwealth’s designated virtues. Sure, it’s obvious that Tris is bright, fearless and altruistic. But she could perish in the process of attempting to prove herself a pacifist and truthful, too.

Fans of the source material will undoubtedly be surprised by this complicated box challenge which wasn’t in the book. Nevertheless, the seamlessly-interwoven plot device works in terms of ratcheting up the tension.

The film features an A-list supporting cast that includes Oscar-winners Kate Winslet and Octavia Spencer and nominee Naomi Watts, along with effective performances on the part of Theo James, Ansel Elgort, Zoe Kravitz and Miles Teller. Still, make no mistake. Insurgent is a Shailene Woodley vehicle from beginning to end.

And the rising young star exhibits an impressive acting range in a physically as well as emotionally-demanding role promising to do for her what The Hunger Games did for Jennifer Lawrence.

Very Good (3 stars)

Rated PG-13 for sensuality, pervasive violence, intense action, mature themes and brief profanity

Running time: 119 minutes

Distributor: Lions Gate Films

To see a trailer for Insurgent, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suZcGoRLXkU

Ben Crump
The “Ferguson” Interview
with Kam Williams

Ben Crump is the attorney of record in many high-profile, civil rights cases, most notably representing the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, the 12 year-old boy shot by a Cleveland, Ohio police officer a second after he got out of his patrol car.

Kam Williams: Hi Ben, I appreciate the time. I know how busy you are.

Ben Crump: You’re very, very welcome, Kam.

KW: What is your response to the recent shooting of the two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri?

BC: Together with the Brown family, I condemn the shootings and make an immediate appeal for nonviolence, as we have from the inception of this movement. The heinous act of this individual does not reflect or forward the peaceful and non-violent movement that has emerged in our nation to confront police brutality and to ensure equality for all people. An act of violence against any innocent person eludes moral justification, disgraces the millions of Americans and people throughout the world who have united in peaceful protest against police brutality, and dishonors our proud inheritance of nonviolent resistance. We support the imposition of the full extent of the law on the perpetrator, and our prayers are with the officers and their families.

KW: What do you make of Attorney General Holder’s recently declining to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown?

BC: I just think that the Department of Justice has to stop sanitizing all these killings of unarmed people of color. When you look at the Justice Department’s report talking about the Ferguson Police Department’s rampant pattern of discrimination and its excessive use of force against African-American citizens, it’s hard to try to rationalize how this cesspool of racism doesn’t spill over onto the individual officers. For instance, Sergeant Mudd, the first officer on the scene after Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown. He was Wilson’s mentor and supervisor. He was one of the primary witnesses and main advocates for Darren Wilson in front of the grand jury. We now know that this was the individual who sent the racist email that was repeatedly forwarded around the Ferguson Police Department saying that Crimestoppers paid a black woman $3,000 to get an abortion. So you have this cesspool of racism, yet they’re trying to suggest that it’s not going to affect individual officers. The Attorney General says that you have this high standard that you have to show that at the time of the shooting the individual was thinking hateful or racist thoughts. That’s an almost impossible standard. It should be enough to show implicit bias, given all the attendant circumstances. If there’s a pattern and practice of discrimination and excessive force, you should be able to hold these officers accountable for killing unarmed citizens. The reason I say that, Kam, is because, if there are no real consequences for their actions, we won’t get any different results. We need real consequences to get real results. There’s no deterrent to these officers’ behavior when they continue to see the local and federal governments under the Obama Administration sanitizing the killings of unarmed black and brown people.

KW: Holder’s also just announced that there will be no arrest of George Zimmerman for violating the civil rights of Trayvon Martin. That shocked me because everyone heard the recording of the 911 operator ordering Zimmerman to stay in his car and to wait for the police to arrive. But he ignored the instructions and killed an innocent teen innocently walking down the street, just yards from home. And even that’s not considered a violation of the child’s rights? How insane is that?

BC: Absolutely! We keep seeing a reoccurrence of their sanitizing these killings. It almost encourages people to conclude that they did nothing wrong, since the government didn’t press any charges. We’ve got to somehow send a message to deter this conduct. Otherwise, we’re going to see it over and over and over again. It’s becoming almost like an epidemic.

KW: No kidding. Just since you and I last spoke, we’ve had police shootings of Jerome Reid getting out of a car with his hands up in New Jersey, a homeless man in Los Angeles, 19 year-old Tony Robinson in Madison, Wisconsin, and Antonio Zambrano-Montes in Spokane, Washington.

BC: We’re representing Antonio Zambrano-Montes’ family.

KW: Great! And there’s also Sureshbhai Patel, an elderly tourist from India who was left paralyzed by a cop in Alabama who thought he was a black man prowling around a white neighborhood. These incidents are happening about once a week now. What about the Tamir Rice case? The chief of police in Cleveland is a black man, so I was stunned when the city said the boy’s death was directly caused by his own acts, not by police officer Timothy Loehmann. How did you react to that conclusion?

BC: It was literally shocking that, based on what we see in that surveillance video, this 12 year-old child could be called responsible for his own death because he wasn’t being careful, versus what we see and know happened there; how these officers violated all their procedures, training and department regulations, and drove up to the scene recklessly in a way which escalated the situation. Tamir Rice was killed in less than one second which was totally disrespectful. And the pattern of disrespect continued when his 14 year-old sister ran up crying, “You killed my baby brother!” Instead of showing her any compassion, they tackled her, handcuffed her, manhandled her, dragged her through the snow and threw her into the back of the police car where she had to sit helplessly 4 to 5 feet away from where her brother lay kicking as he died. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the pattern of disrespect continued with how they treated their mother when she arrived. They told her she could either get in the police car with her daughter to go to the station or get in the ambulance to go to the hospital with her son. And now the pattern of disrespect to the Rice family continues with blaming Tamir for his own death in the answer to the complaint of wrongful death we filed. That was shocking and sends a loud message not only to the people of Cleveland but to people all over America.   

KW: I’d also like to know how you feel about the video that surfaced of that Oklahoma fraternity singing that racist song on the bus.

BC: They may kick the fraternity off campus, but the thing that’s so unfortunate is that, no matter what they do, those students still felt it was okay to say what they said. So, you can’t help but wonder whether that’s how they really feel in their hearts. It reminded me of my personal hero, Thurgood Marshall. I’m reading Gilbert King’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Groveland, Florida rape cases called “Devil in the Grove.” In it, he talks about Marshall, saying he had two fears. First, how big a celebration there was going to be the day racists lynched him and hung him from a tree. But his second and worst fear, after seeing so many young children in pictures of lynchings, was knowing that one day they would grow up to be running society. And that’s what I thought about watching the video on that bus. That in 20 years or so, those fraternity and sorority members will be running corporations, city governments and other institutions. And I wondered, what will their mentality be like? How does this bode for the future?

KW: I agree. It’s very scary. Thanks again, Ben, and keep fighting the good fight.

BC: Thanks so much Kam. Call anytime.

It Follows
Film Review by Kam Williams

Jay (Maika Moore) had no reason to consider the worst possible consequence the night she impulsively decided to have sex with her boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary) for the very first time. After all, she found the moonlit lakefront setting romantic enough, even if that meant doing it in the back of his car.

Nevertheless, the carefree 19 year-old was in for a rude awakening, a fate far worse than an STD or an unplanned pregnancy. For, while basking in the afterglow of spent passion, Hugh sneaks up from behind and knocks out the girl he’s just made love to by covering her face with a cloth dipped in chloroform.

When Jay comes to, she finds herself bound and gagged in a strange basement. Hugh proceeds to explain that she’s just been used by him, but not for a thrill. Rather, he had been followed by a demonic force that could only be eluded by having sex with a partner. Before freeing her, he urges her to sleep with someone else in order to pass on the curse before the ghost has a chance to kill her.

Although initially skeptical, it doesn’t take long for the sudden appearance of apparitions to convince terrified Jay that something supernatural is indeed afoot. And the more she’s in fear for her life, she more she actually has to consider seduction for the sake of survival. For instance, there’s Paul (Keir Gilchrist), the nerdy neighbor who has had a crush on her since childhood.

That novel scenario is established at the point of departure of It Follows, a harrowing horror flick written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. The movie marks the sophomore offering from the innovative director, who first made a splash five years ago with The Myth of the American Sleepover.

However, It Follows is a truly groundbreaking thriller that it would be a crime to spoil in a review. Suffice to say it’s as much of a mindbender as the equally-inscrutable Memento (2000).

A creepy, counterintuitive fright fest that puts a perverse spin on the meaning of getting lucky.

Excellent (4 stars)

Rated R for sexuality, profanity, graphic nudity and disturbing violence

Running time: 101 minutes

Distributor: Radius-TWC

To see a trailer for It Follows, visit:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tyMi1Hn32I

Treading Water
Film Review by Kam Williams

Mica (Douglas Smith) had the misfortune of being born with a congenital condition that has him smelling like a fish. His parents (Ariadna Gil and Don McKellar) took him to a doctor who diagnosed the disease as Trimethylaminuria, an incurable body odor syndrome, and basically threw up his hands.

It didn’t help matters that Mica’s father abandoned the family soon thereafter, leaving the boy to be raised by an eccentric mother in a house converted into a museum dedicated to the memory of an obscure Mexican musician. Understandably, the lad grew up very lonely and increasingly dependent upon his empathetic shrink (Carrie-Anne Moss) as a steady tether to reality.

Otherwise, Mica’s formative years were virtually friendless, with a cute girl named Laura (Zoe Kravitz) being the only kid willing to attend any of his birthday parties. For some unknown reason, she wasn’t bothered by his overpowering skunk musk. So, it’s no surprise that traumatized Mica’s secret crush on her might endure past the puppy love stage and well into puberty.

That’s the setup of Treading Water, a droll dramedy marking the intriguing screenplay and directorial debut of Mexico’s Analeine Cal y Mayor. The talented Latina was ostensibly inspired to write the script by a newspaper article she read in Spain, although this escapist fantasy is more akin to magical realism than anything resembling traditional journalism.

The film’s title can be explained by the fact that Mica started spending a lot of his free time in swimming pools after discovering that being immersed in water helped suppress his godawful stench. It is while swimming that he reconnects with Laura for the first time in ages, and he proceeds to make the most of a second chance to make an aromatic impression.

Credit co-stars Douglas Smith and Zoe Kravitz for generating just the right chemistry as endearing oddballs to turn this quirky coming-of-age adventure into an appealing romantic romp.

Very Good (3 stars)

Unrated

Running time: 87 minutes

Distributor: The Orchard

To see a trailer for Treading Water, visit: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCpQeywlrV4

Run All Night
Film Review by Kam Williams

Hit man Jimmy Conlon (Liam Neeson) and mob boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris) have been BFFs for decades. In fact, the blood brothers from Brooklyn are so close that they routinely recite their loyalty oath, “Wherever we’re going, we’re going together” as a reminder of their enduring alliance.

However, that seemingly unbreakable bond is shattered in an instant after Shawn’s son Danny (Boyd Holbrook) is gunned down in the wake of a drug deal gone bad with a couple of Albanian heroine dealers. Trouble is, Jimmy’s son Mike (Joel Kinnaman), who makes an honest living as a chauffeur with a limo company, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For, he had no idea what was up when he was hired to serve as the pair’s getaway driver.

Nevertheless, revenge-minded Shawn decides that his best friend’s kid has to pay with his life. So, he informs Jimmy that he’s sending his assassins after Mike to even the score.

Of course, Jimmy warns his son. Mike then calls the cops, ignoring his father’s advice to avoid the local police since they’re bought and likely in cahoots with the Maguire crime family. When that turns out to be true, father and son end up on the run all over the city from both the authorities and bloodthirsty bad guys.

Thus unfolds Run All Night, the latest high-octane offering from Liam Neeson who’s again typecast in a role that he’s become closely associated with ever since his phenomenal performance as an overprotective parent in Taken. This picture’s premise puts a slight twist on the familiar theme in that Jimmy’s not exactly an empathetic protagonist given his long career as a feared enforcer known as “The Gravedigger.”

Still, he’s sorely in need of a shot at redemption, especially in the eyes of his estranged son who rejected the notion of ever following in his father’s footsteps. Instead, Mike tried to make it as a boxer, and when that didn’t pan out he took the legit job as a limo driver.

Run All Night was directed by Jaume Collet-Serra who previously worked with Liam Neeson on both Unknown (2011) and Non-Stop (2014). Three times is definitely the charm for the pair as this adrenaline-fueled adventure proves to be their best collaboration yet. The film also features an excellent supporting cast which includes Nick Nolte, 2015 Oscar-winner Common (for the Best Song “Glory”) and veteran character actors Vincent D’Onofrio and Bruce McGill.

Liam Neeson delivers afresh in an edge-of-your-seat, high body-count thriller every bit as good as they come!

Excellent (4 stars)

Rated R for profanity, sexual references, graphic violence and drug use

In English and Albanian with subtitles

Running time: 114 minutes

Distributor: Warner Brothers Pictures

To see a trailer for Run All Night, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-BNyLo-8SU