The Wedding Ringer
Film Review by Kam Williams

Doug Harris (Josh Gad) and Gretchen Palmer (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) are putting the finishing touches on their impending wedding. Trouble is the socially-challenged groom has yet to find a best man and they’re set to exchange vows in just ten days.

He’s been rejected by every acquaintance he’s approached, receiving rude responses ranging from “I thought you died” to “I didn’t even invite you to my wedding.” So, Doug decides to hide his awkward predicament from his fiancée, since he’s too embarrassed to admit that he doesn’t have any friends.

Instead, he hires a professional best man, Jimmy Callahan (Kevin Hart), along with seven strangers to serve as his groomsmen. Can these guys get to know Doug well enough in a week to convince Gretchen and members of the wedding party that they’re long-lost friends?

That is the preposterous point of departure of The Wedding Ringer, an unlikely-buddies comedy marking the directorial debut of Yale University graduate Jeremy Garelick. Provided you are not offended by and are willing to suspend disbelief about the farfetched setup, you’ll actually be richly rewarded by the hilarious, bad boy hijinks about to ensue.

Most of the laughs emanate from the attempt by that motley assortment of unsavory characters to impersonate refined, white-collar types ranging from a podiatrist, to a principal, to a lawyer, to a professor. The sham of a best man adopts the alias “Bic Mitchum” and passes himself off as a priest.

And although he proves convincing at faking bromance, he warns Doug not to develop feelings because, “You’re not buying a new friend. You’re hiring a best man.” But despite this strictly business understanding, coldhearted Jimmy gradually warms to the goofy groom and the two somehow bond anyway.

That unexpected development is what ultimately redeems The Wedding Ringer’s otherwise pretty repugnant premise. After all, how much hope could there really be for a marriage, if a groom would opt to stage such an elaborate scheme rather than simply explain the situation to his bride-to-be?

Check your brain at the box office, and motor-mouthed Kevin Hart, surrounded by a talented cast of seasoned comedians, will keep you in stitches for the duration of a decidedly-lowbrow, politically-incorrect misadventure.  

Very Good (3 stars)

Rated R for crude humor, pervasive profanity, coarse sexuality and brief graphic nudity

Running time: 101 minutes

Distributor: Screen Gems

To see a trailer for The Wedding Ringer, visit:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3TeI9jPPuA

Kevin Hart
“The Wedding Ringer” Interview
with Kam Williams

Kevin Hart might be the hardest working man in Hollywood. Just last year, he starred in a trio of feature films: Ride Along, About Last Night and Think like a Man Too, and enjoyed supporting roles in Top Five and School Dance, too.

Meanwhile, he has his hit TV show, Real Husbands of Hollywood, for which he won the NAACP Image Award in the Best Actor in a Comedy Series Award. In 2014, the NAACP also named Kevin the Entertainer of the Year.

The irrepressible comedian shows no sign of letting up, between presently releasing The Wedding Ringer, and following that up with Get Hard in March. And he’s already wrapped work on Ride Along 2, and has The Secret Life of Pets, Central Intelligence and Captain Underpants in production.

Read the rest of this story »

American Sniper
Film Review by Kam Williams

Navy Seal Chris Kyle served four tours as a sniper in Iraq between 2003 and 2008. Over the course of dangerous deployments to Ramadi, Sadr City, Fallujah and other hot spots, he racked up enough kills to become the most lethal sniper in the history of the U.S. military. Directed by the legendary Clint Eastwood, American Sniper is a reverential biopic chronicling the eagle-eyed sharpshooter’s enviable exploits.

The film is based on Kyle’s autobiography of the same name, and stars Bradley Cooper in the title role. Besides highlighting battlefield heroics, the movie mixes in plenty of poignant flashbacks from the protagonist’s formative years.

For instance, in those early childhood scenes, we see Kyle learning to shoot from his father (Ben Reed), nobly protecting his little brother Jeff (Luke Sunshine) from a playground bully (Brandon Salgado Telis), and piously pocketing his dog-eared copy of the Bible while attending Church services. These telling tableaus are obviously designed to provide hints at how such an exemplary combination of character and skills might have been forged.

Another focus of the picture is Kyle’s relationship with his terminally-worried wife, Taya (Sienna Miller). She’s raising their kids back in the States, but often finds her long-distance phone chats with her hubby rudely interrupted by everything from IED explosions to enemy fire. However, Kyle always attempts to qualm his frazzled spouse’s fears with calm reassurances that he’ll survive the ordeal.

This deliberate humanizing of the soldier at the center of the story into a tenderhearted family man is what sets American Sniper apart from other recent war flicks like Lone Survivor and The Hurt Locker. Consequently, we really care whether this patriot will ultimately return home safe and sound.

Kudos to Clint Eastwood for fashioning such a moving and well-deserved salute to a true American hero!

Excellent (4 stars) 

Rated R for graphic violence, sexual references and pervasive profanity

Running time: 132 minutes

Distributor: Warner Brothers

To see a trailer for American Sniper, visit:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bP1f_1o-zo

Inherent Vice
Film Review by Kam Williams

Dateline: Los Angeles, 1970, which is where we find Private Eye Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) living in a beach house with a view in a fictional, seacoast enclave called Gordita Beach. He’s totally wasted, but that doesn’t stop Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston) from approaching her ex-boyfriend for help with a personal problem.

Seems that the fetching femme fatale is currently the mistress of real estate magnate Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts), and she has reason to believe that the philandering billionaire is about to be involuntarily committed to a mental institution by his vindictive wife, Sloane (Serena Scott Thomas), and her lover, Riggs Warbling (Andrew Simpson).

Against his better judgment, Doc takes the case, and soon finds himself swept into a seamy underworld filled with colorful characters ranging from a recently-paroled black radical (Michael Kenneth Williams) to an avowed white supremacist (Christopher Allen Nelson) to the proverbial prostitute with the heart of gold (Hong Chau). After being conked on the head, Doc comes around in a police station where he learns that he’s the prime suspect not only in the disappearance of both Mickey and Shasta Fay, but in a murder to boot.

So unfolds Inherent Vice, a surreal whodunit far more concerned with recreating the feel of the post-Sixties’ daze of free-flowing drugs than with crafting a compelling crime thriller. Unfortunately, the absence of a credible plotline means the premise soon dissolves into a rudderless, meandering mess, reducing the viewing experience to enjoying the retro décor, fashions and slang of the period.

The picture was directed by five-time Oscar-nominee Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights and Magnolia), who also adapted the script from the Thomas Pynchon best-seller of the same name.

The film does feature a few standout performances, most notably, Joaquin Phoenix in the starring role, and Josh Brolin as a hard-nosed LAPD officer. Otherwise the production makes precious little use of the services of its cluttered, A-list cast which includes Academy Award-winners Reese Witherspoon (for Walk the Line) and Benicio del Toro (for Traffic), and Oscar-nominees Eric Roberts (for Runaway Train) and Owen Wilson (for The Royal Tenenbaums).

An unstructured, atmospheric affair ostensibly designed to appeal to folks nostalgic for the hedonistic hippie era.

Good (2 stars)

Rated R for profanity, violence, sexuality and graphic nudity

In English and Japanese with subtitles

Running time: 148 minutes

Distributor: Warner Brothers

To see a trailer for Inherent Vice, visit:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZfs22E7JmI

Two-Bit Waltz
Film Review by Kam Williams

Maude (Clara Mamet) is a rudderless rebel without a clue, much to the chagrin of her concerned parents, Carl (William H. Macy) and Anita (Rebecca Pidgeon). Not only does the out of control 17 year-old start her day by smoking and drinking first thing in the morning, but she ends up in trouble in English class by insinuating that Anne Frank had fabricated all the entries in “The Diary of a Young Girl.”

After being sent to detention for such a tasteless remark, Maude only makes matters worse by uttering an anti-Semitic slur over the PA system. In fast order, the headstrong smart aleck soon finds herself suspended from school and abandoned by both her best friend and the boy who recently took her virginity.

Fortunately, a shot at redemption arrives after her grandmother (Willow Hale) dies unexpectedly, when Maude learns that she’s been left millions on the condition that she turn her life around and attend college. But at the reading of the will, the inveterate iconoclast informs the estate attorney (David Paymer) that she has no interest in the inheritance, since her hobby is suicide.

That shocking revelation lands the young lady on a therapist’s (John Pirruccello) couch, where she proceeds to double down on a desire to die. Will morose Maude come out of the self-destructive, death spiral before it’s too late? That is the question at the heart of Two-Bit Waltz, an adventure marked by a quirkiness reminiscent of Wes Anderson as well as by an irreverence reminiscent of Sarah Silverman.

Rising star Clara Mamet makes a memorable writing and directorial debut, here, with this semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale where she also plays the protagonist, a troubled teen struggling to find her place in the world. Despite being the daughter of writer/director David Mamet and actress Rebecca Pidgeon, Clara has, to her credit, managed to craft a fine first film free of obvious parental influences.

A delightfully-droll, dysfunctional family dramedy!

Excellent (4 stars)

Rated R for profanity and a sexual reference

Running time: 81 minutes

Distributor: Monterey Media

To see a trailer for Two-Bit Waltz, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuG5N7JBJb0