Olympus Has Fallen Movie Review

A lone vigilante hero in the wrong place at the wrong time is trapped in a building with a large group of well-financed and highly skilled terrorists who are holding several hostages. They’ll do what’s necessary to extract the codes they need from their captives. Our hero is estranged from one of those held hostage and his ability to repair the damage done to that relationship hinges on the outcome of the event. He has regular contact with the bureaucrats on the outside, at least one of whom can’t see what needs to be done.

The Pledge Movie Review

This review was written in January 2001 and is presented here for the first time.

The commercials for The Pledge, a new psychological thriller directed by Sean Penn based on the book by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, suggest that it's a standard detective story. One might expect the hero of the film to hunt a crazed killer, who continues to feed on prey until he leaves enough clues for said hero to catch him. But it's more about the lengths to which this detective (recently retired) will go to stop the killing.

Jack Nicholson plays Detective Jerry Black, who gets involved in one last case three hours before his retirement officially begins. The crime is a gruesome one, in which a seven-year-old girl has been raped and mutilated, then left in the snowy wilderness for a young boy to find. Jerry makes a solemn promise to the parents of the deceased that he will catch the killer. This is the titular vow that motivates his every action throughout the film.

Rabbit Hole Movie Review: The Reverberations of Unbearable Loss

When a neighbor greets Becca (Nicole Kidman) in her garden and invites her to dinner, there’s something noticeably strained in the conversation. Likewise when her husband, Howie (Aaron Eckhart), arrives home from work, there is something not altogether right in their interactions. When Becca learns, after bailing her out of jail for a barfight, that her little sister is pregnant, she is uncomfortably happy. When she asks Izzy (Tammy Blanchard) why she told their mother first, she responds, “Why do you think?” Something seems dreadfully wrong in the opening moments of Rabbit Hole, so wrong that the crisp and clean suburban Long Island surfaces can’t cover it up, no matter how hard everyone seems to be trying. Becca and Howie are grieving over the death of their four year old son, killed eight months earlier chasing their dog into the road.