PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER | Big Apple Reviews

THE INTRUDER – movie review

Posted on May 1, 2019 by harveycritic

THE INTRUDER
Screen Gems
Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten
Director: Deon Taylor
Screenwriter: David Loughery
Cast: Meagan Good, Dennis Quaid, Michael Ealy, Joseph Sikora, Slvina August, Debs Howard
Screened at: AMC Empire, NYC, 4/30/19
Opens: May 3, 2019

The Intruder Movie Poster

It’s difficult to believe that anyone who read Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” about the murder of four people of the Herbert Cutler family in Holcomb, Kansas, would think of buying a house in the country. The house shown in Deon Taylor’s “The Intruder,” filmed by Daniel Pearl in British Columbia standing in for California’s Napa Valley, is a spacious estate with a large acreage of grass framed by a forest, just the kind of quarters that demands the presence of either a couple of Doberman Pinchers or an army of guards from the Secret Service. There are more rooms than can be explored in a single trip guided by a real estate agent, and some of those rooms will turn up at a surprising moment in the suspense-filled plot.

Director Taylor, whose “Traffik” considers the plight of a romantic couple who are invaded by a group of bikers, is right in his métier here, though you don’t need more than one psycho to allow its likewise romantic duo to regret their move from a beautiful apartment complex in the city to the dangers of the sticks.

If Scott Howard (Michael Ealy) and his wife Annie (Meagan Good) are a well-suited, upper-middle-class couple with a happy marriage bound to produce a beautiful family in a year or two, then Charlie Peck (Dennis Quaid) can be considered a guy married to a house. After his wife died, allegedly from cancer, his daughters living elsewhere, Charlie needs to sell his quarters, but the problem is that while he needs the $3.5 million, or the $3.2 million he settles on, throwing in his furniture because he really wants these two lovebirds to settle there, he has no intention of giving up the place. He’s the neighborly guy that you can’t get rid of, though Annie, who feels sympathy for the man and has a vague attraction to him, is making it difficult for her husband to throw the guy out.

One day Charlie is mowing the lawn, which is no longer his, but try to tell him that. Another day he is helping with the hanging up of ornaments. When Scott is in the hospital, injured by a car on the rural road, Charlie comes over with a pizza for Annie, which just happens to be large enough for the young woman to invite the guy in to share it with her. When Scott and Annie’s friend Mike (Joseph Sikora) stubs out his cigarette on a decaying statue obviously beloved by the former owner, and when the guy urinates on the lawn, you can see the almost perpetual smile on Charlie’s face disappear, replaced by a sickly scowl.

“The Intruder” is a psychological thriller, sometimes passing itself off as a horror movie though it does not have the accoutrements of the genre, one in which the villain takes on the kind of role that so many actors would love, given that many Hollywood performers have regularly said that the villain usually has the juiciest role versus the blandness of the good guys. That’s certainly true here, as Quaid can charm those he is with given his broad, toothy smile and hale-fellow image,while Ealy and Good (the latter with a pixie-ish hair style resembling a young Nia Long) are in the roles of people who have made it at a relatively young age, acting the part of people who can afford to lay out several million on their abode with the promise of another million in fixing-up.

The major part of the movie balances humor with scares, the big attraction being the give-and-take of friendly dialogue among the three, their screenplay afforded by David Loughery whose script for “Penthouse North” considers the fate of a reclusive, blind photojournalist who lives quietly in a New York penthouse, until a smooth but sadistic criminal looking for a hidden fortune enters her life. When the physical stuff begins during the final third of the story, the action is predictable, following the playbook of so many other film that portray violence.

Ealy, Good and Quaid’s dialogue bounces merrily back and forth, with Scott Howard’s becoming increasingly suspicious about the congenial former homeowner and Annie Howard’s leaning on Charlie when her husband is away at work or in the hospital. This is for the most part a solid psychological thriller, the tension ratcheted up by Geoff Zanelli’s music, the country mansion furnished elaborately by production designer Andrew Neskoromny.

Story – B
Acting – B+
Technical – B
Overall – B

US – movie review

Posted on March 19, 2019 by harveycritic

US
Universal Pictures
Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net with a Rotten Tomatoes link by: Harvey Karten
Director: Jordan Peele
Screenwriter: Jordan Peele
Cast: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Evan Alex, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker
Screened at: AMC Empire, NYC, 3/19/19
Opens: March 22, 2019

With the rise in antisemitism and racism that we’re seeing not only in the U.S. but in Europe as well, you will get the allegorical point of “Us.” There’s “us” and there’s “them.” “Them” are the people that “us” perceives as enemies, perhaps too smart, or even too uneducated. Hillary had the idea when she spoke of the “basket of deplorables” that expected to vote for Trump, a speech that helped to seal her fate. Now, it’s not as though “us” and “them” are in two separate worlds, never to see one another, never to work with one another. The “them” are “tethered” to the “us,” serving us resenting us, and yet the “us” are too wrapped up in ourselves, too sure that we are actually helping “them,” serving as their saviors, that “us” are completely unprepared for what’s in store. Maybe the “them” could even outvote “us” and elect the politicians that allegedly speak for “them”? Nah.

Us Movie Poster

This commentary is all in the service of understanding what may be going on in Jordan Peele’s mind during the couple of hours that he entertains us. We’ve been looking forward to his first sequel since, after all, didn’t he write and direct “Get Out,” one of the great horror pics of contemporary times? Truth to tell, while “Us” has a lot going for it in the way of film-making, it falls way short in the way of story-telling. Yet our disappointment is tempered by the idea that this is effective as horror; it’s entertaining, in parts it’s funny. And it’s remarkable how the four principal performers play both roles, both “us” and “them,” and as the story unfolds we see that Peele does not depend on the cheap tropes of standard horror films. He doesn’t have the false starts, the McGuffins. And his major foursome are well up to the task of providing fun and games for our stomachs and allegory for our brains.

It takes quite a bit of time for the movie to get into the terror groove, but that’s all in the way of allowing the audience to get to know the personas. Adelaide is a girl of about eight at the beach with her family during the summer of 1986. She strays from them to explore, goes into a haunted house like the kind you still find in Coney Island, and gets the shock of her life as she is confronted by her double. Wide-eyed, she is segued into the present day where Lupita Nyong’o takes over the role. She is a young mother, married to Gabe Wilson (Winston Duke) and has two kids, Zora Wilson (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason Wilson (Evan Alex). Though Gabe is eager to take the family to their summer beach home in Santa Cruz, Adelaide is at first opposed, given the shock she received thirty-three years back. But soon enough Gabe, Adelaide, Zora and Jason are on the way, where they join their neighbors Kitty Tyler (Elisabeth Moss) and Josh Tyler (Tim Heidecker). Gabe supplies the story’s humor, but Adelaide is Peele’s focus.

They are confronted by a foursome standing still outside their home, refusing to move despite Gabe’s warnings. Soon they are under attack by… their doubles! The most impressive is Adelaide’s double, with make-up like the rest of the invaders to look like the normal folks only scarier. Near the conclusion, Lupita Nyong’o’s doppelgänger delivers a raspy lecture that explains the action of the invaders, noting that “It’s our time now.”

Could Trump’s election and the rise of large proportions of forgotten Americans be on Jordan Peele’s mind in composing the script? I would like to believe this, but then again, this would give our current situation in America too limited a perspective. Peele posits two classes, as stated above, the have’s and the have not’s, the latter overthrowing the smug, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses, bland, middle-class types, taking on the prejudices of the “overlords” that they have served but now abandoning their peaceful demeanors.

“Us” represents filmmaking that is more active and frantic than in “Get Out,” but then, Peele’s debut is one of the miracles of the 2017 film year. Peele is probably aware that his public expects another stunner, perhaps surpassing a debut, but may realize that he has given himself too high a hurdle to leap. Look for some agitated cinematography from Mike Gioulakis, some masterful editing from Nicholas Monsour, and trust that Michael Abels’ score will help keep you on the edge of your seat.

Story – B-
Acting – B+
Technical – B
Overall – B