Crisp Criticism - "Bastille Day", "Florence Foster Jenkins", "The Angry Birds Movie", "Green Room"

by

Julien Faddoul

Bastille Day

Two Americans, a CIA agent and a pickpocket have to work together to find the terrorists who killed four people in Paris.

Laughably paranoid thriller that turns into a simple-minded chase movie with a ridiculous resolution.

d – James Watkins

w – Andrew Baldwin, James Watkins

ph – Tim Maurice-Jones

pd – Paul Kirby

m – Alex Heffes

ed – Jon Harris

cos – Guy Speranza

p – Bard Dorros, Fabrice Gianfermi, Steve Golin, David Kanter, Philippe Rousselet

Cast: Idris Elba, Richard Madden, Charlotte Le Bon, Jorge Leon Martinez, Daniel Westwood, Tony Paul West

Florence Foster Jenkins *

The story of Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York heiress, who dreamed of becoming an opera singer, despite having a terrible singing voice.

An true story dripping with interesting psychology is treated here as an overlong fluff-piece. Mostly uninspired, despite the gusto of its star.

d – Stephen Frears

w – Nicholas Martin

ph – Danny Cohen

pd – Alan MacDonald

m – Alexandre Desplat

ed – Valerio Bonelli

cos – Consolata Boyle

p – Tracey Seaward, Michael Kuhn

Cast: Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Helberg, Nina Arianda, John Kavanagh

The Angry Birds Movie *

When an island populated by happy, flightless birds is visited by mysterious green piggies, it's up to three unlikely outcasts to figure out what the pigs are up to.

At times funny, but mostly just hectic and noisy animated feature based on the video game series. Totally devoid of purpose.

d – Clay Kaytis, Fergal Reilly

w – Jon Vitti

pd – Pete Oswald

m – Heitor Pereira

ed – Kent Beyda

p – John Cohen, Catherine Winder

Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Kate McKinnon, Sean Penn, Tony Hale, Keegan-Michael Key, Bill Hader, Peter Dinklage

Green Room ***

After witnessing something, a punk rock band is forced into a vicious fight for survival against a group of Nazi skinheads.

Icky, violent, rather gruesome thriller that proffers theses on rage and the damaging of purity. As horrific as it can sometimes be, it’s a shrewd crockpot of suspense that begins immediately and never lets up, and the cast is excellent.

wd – Jeremy Saulnier

ph – Sean Porter

pd – Ryan Warren Smith

m – Brooke Blair, Will Blair

ed – Julia Bloch

cos – Amanda Needham

p – Neil Kopp, Victor Moyers, Anish Savjani

Cast: Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Patrick Stewart, Alia Shawkat, Mark Webber, Joe Cole, Macon Blair