Hotel Mumbai (2019) - Movie Review

This is a difficult film to talk about. Productions like this that dramatise real-life tragedies have that aspect baked into them from the get-go, but this has inadvertently gained another layer of unpleasantness in light of the recent mosque massacre in Christchurch. Watching a film where Muslims are endangered by terrorists could very easily fall into the realms of exploitation, as most thrillers with action elements tend do to by their very nature, and considering recent events, that’s not a sensation we particularly need right now. Thankfully, in the hands of director/co-writer/co-editor Anthony Maras, an Aussie on his feature-length debut, what we get is a highly visceral but still tactful recreation of the 2008 attack on the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.

El Camino Christmas (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: Eric (Luke Grimes) has arrived to El Camino, Arizona, in search of his lost father. However, he soon finds himself in a bizarre hostage situation when he, local policeman Carl Hooker (Vincent D’Onofrio), mother Kate (Michelle Mylett) and her son, and town drunk Larry (Tim Allen) are stuck inside of a liquor store. The officers outside, particularly Sheriff Fuller (Kurtwood Smith) and Deputy Calhoun (Dax Shepard) have no idea what’s going on, and the situation inside is far from cut-and-dry. It’s going to be a long Christmas.