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Year 18, Day 82 - 3/23/26 - Movie #5,281

BEFORE: Jason Statham carries over from "Wrath of Man", and if all goes well, and his films stay available on streaming this week, I should have a new name on top of the leader board very soon. Take that, Celia Imrie. 

I moved a few things around here as I figured with four more Statham movies to work with, I needed to hit at least ONE birthday, so the SHOUT-out goes out today to Ritchie Montgomery, born March 23 in, um, some year gone by. If you don't know Mr. Montgomery, he's a character (background?) actor who's shown up over 30 times here at the Movie Year, first in "Deja Vu" where he killed it as "Agent #1", and then "Young Doctor" in "Catch Me If You Can", and who can forget him as "Bus Driver" in "The Help"? He's versatile enough to have played doctors, pharmacists, policemen AND security guards, then went on to played characters with actual names in "Cleaner", "Contraband", "The Whole Truth" and "Geostorm". Happy Birthday, Mr. Montgomery, please shine on, you crazy diamond. 

Joe Chrest has a birthday later this week, March 26, but I'm sorry, I can only celebrate one character actor at a time. Today is also the 1-year anniversary of me watching "Crank: High Voltage", for whatever's that worth.

THE PLOT: A former DEA agent moves his family to a quiet town, where he soon tangles with a local meth druglord. 

AFTER: There's a very disturbing moment in the early (flashback) sequences of this film, where Jason Statham's character is an undercover operative in the drug world, and he's got long, black hair. That's it, Jason Statham with hair, and once you see it, you can't un-see it, plus he's wearing guy-liner and therefore looks like Criss Angel after a rough night. Don't say I didn't warn you. But the operation ends with the drug lab blowed up and the son of the drug kingpin killed by cops, so yeah, that's probably going to have some implications. 

This movie's kind of filled with character actors, not just Joe Chrest, but look, there's Pruitt Taylor Vince, and Lance E. Nichols, and that's Chuck Zito as the first drug lord, who ends up in jail but swears vengeance on the DEA agent he blames for the death of his son. And then Frank Grillo shows up in the second half, he's kind of become the new king of B-level actioners after his work in the MCU.  But also some big-name actors show up here, I think somehow this represents a point in Statham's career when everyone in Hollywood suddenly wanted to work with him, how else can we explain the presence of both James Franco and Winona Ryder as the head villains here? 

It's a pretty simple film, what else can you expect from a screenplay written by Sylvester Stallone? So this is also an example of a film that Stallone was planning to star in, but then he made the mistake of getting too old. Tomorrow's film, I think, is another example - but if you're living off of Stallone's leftovers, those are potentially still some very nice leftovers. Still, we can kind of see the same Statham formula at work here - a man with a shady past in the military or feds, dead wife but a young daughter, gets pulled back into service when his family is threatened, and he has to work his way up the chain to take out the big bads. Only then can he be free and clear...

It all starts with a bullying incident, though, and over the first 30 minutes we see how that can spiral out of control, as people in Louisiana (?) can't seem to let things go. Broker's daughter gets bullied at school but defends herself and gives the bully a bloody nose, then Broker is threatened by the bully's mother, then the father attacks him physically, and well, that doesn't end well for the father. The mother calls her husband a "pussy", so you can see how personal pride just escalates the whole thing to ridiculous levels. Broker makes his peace with the father (who doesn't want his ass kicked again), but the mother calls in her brother, who happens to be the local drug-lord, Gator Bodine. Gator breaks into Broker's house and figures out he used to be a narc, and well, then it's on - the drug-lord can't have a narc living so close to his drug lab. 

We get a bunch of those scenes where Statham takes down like four or five goons, who never quite figure out that they should attack him at the same time, no, they go in turns, and they get broken and battered individually. Which makes no sense, like if you're the FIRST goon to attack him, you don't know what to expect, and if you're the SECOND goon, well you probably just think he got lucky with the first goon, but if you're the FOURTH goon, why the hell attack, you just saw him take down your three buddies, who are all lying on the ground outside the gas station - if you're the fourth goon, you should just surrender, or run away. The third goon was like twice your size, and how his head's been put through a pick-up truck window and he's bleeding, just give up!

Gator also kidnaps Broker's daughter's cat, and well, if you've seen "John Wick" you know that's one step too far. We don't go after kids and pets, now Broker's got to kill everyone in your organization AND blow up your drug lab. He's really good at that last thing, just spread some chemicals around and tamper with the breakers, so the second you turn the lights on, BLAMMO. Gator's girlfriend flees the scene with Broker's daughter, but she brings Maddie back to the drug lab, which is one of the all-time dumbest movies in crime history. All that the retired DEA agent wanted was to live a quiet life in your territory, and he never would have had to take down your entire criminal organization, but you just had to go and mess with his daughter and her cat. You brought this on yourselves. 

Come on, the bully apologized, and Broker's daughter invited him to her birthday party! None of this violence had to happen! What kind of example are we setting for our kids, they're just trying to make peace and share the schoolyard together, and then the adults have to protect their drug territories and kidnap cats and deal with angry biker gangs, what kind of example are we setting here? 

Directed by Gary Fleder (director of "Runaway Jury" and "Don't Say a Word")

Also starring James Franco (last seen in "The Show"), Izabela Vidovic (last seen in "Wonder"), Kate Bosworth (last seen in "Force of Nature"), Marcus Hester (last seen in "Just My Luck"), Clancy Brown (last seen in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010)), Winona Ryder (last seen in "Haunted Mansion"), Omar Benson Miller (last seen in "Sinners"), Rachelle Lefevre (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: New Moon"), Chuck Zito (last seen in "13"), Frank Grillo (last seen in "Superman"), Pruitt Taylor Vince (ditto), Linds Edwards, Austin Craig, Owen Harn (last seen in "The Piano Lesson"), Stuart Greer (last seen in "Runaway Jury"), Lance E. Nichols (ditto), Christa Campbell (last seen in "The Mechanic"), Amin Joseph (last seen in "Dope"), Michael Traynor, Joe Chrest (last seen in "The Secret Life of Bees"), Billy Slaughter (last seen in "Big George Foreman"), Christopher Alan Weaver, Craig Stark (last seen in "Licorice Pizza"), Ritchie Montgomery (last seen in "Hit Man"), Karen Kaia Livers (last seen in "Queen & Slim"), Raeden Greer (last seen in "Freelancers"), Eddie Matthews, Michael Papajohn (last seen in "The Iron Claw"), Carlos Navarro (last seen in "Identity Thief"), Nicole Andrews (last seen in "The Expendables 4"), Robert Fortner.

RATING: 5 out of 10 regrettable tattoos

Wrath of Man

Year 18, Day 81 - 3/22/26 - Movie #5,280

BEFORE: I've had a couple long sleeps now, so I've recovered from the beer festival in Jersey City - what's weird is that I was up EARLY on Sunday, I've noticed that as soon as the beer is gone, I tend to be wide awake and I can't get back to sleep, so I just start my day and go on with life, but it would be very wrong to think that if I had to get up early and work, I should drink a lot the night before. That would be a very dangerous mental path to go down, I think. Anyway it's probably an illusory feeling, just because I feel awake the next day and have no hangover, that doesn't mean that I'm fine and dandy, that afternoon I'll probably crash or sleep for 14 hours in the next cycle - I'm just kicking the problem can down the road a bit. I just take it as a signal that my body is "clear" of the alcohol, and sure, I can function and converse and we can go out for a proper breakfast, but the lack of sleep is bound to catch up with me soon. I've got a couple days off now, so it's time to double-up on action movies and do some list maintenance, clear a few shows off the DVR and take out the next round of DVDs for the upcoming two weeks. 

Josh Hartnett carries over from "Fight or Flight", and I'm back on Jason Statham films for a while. So I have to watch this one next, because of the linking and because it's about to disappear from Netflix on March 24. It may go to the MGM-centric channel on cable after that, who knows, but I have to work it in before it leaves streaming - the next three films I can watch in any order, I just need to end with the right Statham film that gives me a proper outro that gets me to Easter on time. And not too early, either, like Holt McCallany is in tonight's film, and I could go from here RIGHT to "Mission: Impossible - the Final Reckoning", but that gets me to my Easter film about 13 days too early. Last year in late March we took a vacation and if I were taking 8 days off this year, that path would have been great, but since I'm sticking around I'll take the longer road. The same goes for Josh Hartnett, if I linked to "Wicker Park" now it would similarly get me there too quickly. 

THE PLOT: A mysteriously stoic character is hired as a security guard for an armored truck company responsible for transporting a lot of money around Los Angeles each week. 

AFTER: I have to say, I think Guy Ritchie has really made something of himself, I can't believe this is the same guy who directed the nightmare suck-fest that was "Swept Away" and also the mess that was "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword", after pissing on the "Sherlock Holmes" franchise a few times. I kind of wish now that I could watch his films in the order they were released, just to watch his skill develop - I know he started out with Cockney crime films and now he's kind of circled back to them, and the more recent work, like "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" and "The Gentlemen" has been super solid. Now I've watched two recent films this week, both with Statham, who started out in "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels", so it kind of feels like homecoming week. 

"Wrath of Man" is one of those twisty films that jumps around in time quite liberally, which I'm usually very much against, except for films made by Tarantino or Scorsese, and now I think I'll have to make allowances for Ritchie as well. Not everyone knows the right way to do this, like it shouldn't be done just to start with the most shocking bit and then flash back to show how we got there, like "Fight or Flight" did - that just gives too much away, like we knew that the flight was going to turn to absolute chaos before it even took off. No, the RIGHT way to do this is to withhold valuable information, to start in the most mysterious spot possible, and then flashback to reveal important information, but only WHEN it needs to be revealed, so that it changes simply everything. "The Hateful Eight" is one of the best examples, like if the film was edited completely chronologically, the first scene would be people arriving at the cabin to hide inside, and, well, that would just give everything away, wouldn't it? Sorry, spoiler alert for "The Hateful Eight". But when those people reveal themselves, it's a great time to flash back and show us how they got there in the first place, just PLEASE put up one of those supers that says, "8 hours ago" or "two weeks later", because I'm going to have to put all this in order later on. 

In "Wrath of Man", that means starting with the armored car heist, and after that movie five months into the future, then another three months forward, then eight months backwards, back to the heist. Then three weeks forward, then backwards again (seven months?) to see the planning of the heist, and the heist again. Then five months forward AGAIN to another planning session, and finally two months forward to Black Friday, and the second (third?) heist. It's a lot of jumping around, and we see the heist itself from a number of different POV's, "Rashomon" style, but each time we learn MORE about it, so yeah, it's kind of justified. Doing things this way takes twice as long and also makes everything about three times more complicated than it needs to be, but clearly somebody looked at the story, broke it down, and realized that it didn't work if you just did start-to-finish. 

What makes things a bit more confusing is the fact that there are TWO different gangs of thieves in L.A. that are working the armored car heist circuit. I guess this makes sense, I mean it is a big city and there are a lot of bad people (half of whom have British accents, like who knew?) but this is what the armored car security guards are up against, I agree they have to be on edge like 100% of the time, because if it's not one gang shooting paint pellets and smoke grenades and cutting through their armored car's armor with a giant chain-saw, it's probably the other guys. And it helps that every time we see the heist, it's from a different character's perspective, so we see it once from the inside of the truck, we see it again when Statham's character was a bystander (of sorts) and then the third time, it's from the perspective of the gang doing the heist. By the third time, we know every beat and it's a lot easier to follow along, at least. 

I have a feeling that I missed a lot of the connections, like maybe this is the "Pulp Fiction" of armored car heists and after you watch it seven or eight times maybe you can see all of the connections, all the stuff below the surface that you missed the first time - like I think I know how H at the end knows where that guy from the Black Friday heist lives, but I don't want to say it and be wrong. I kind of wish I had time to watch this one again, Chapter One probably hits a lot different after you gain the knowledge from Chapters Two and Three, but I just don't have time, I probably won't ever have time to circle back to this one, and that's a bit of a shame. I stand by the reasoning, however, that this is probably the most somebody COULD do with an armored car-heist plot. 

However, there's always room for improvement - the title, for example, tells me absolutely nothing, it feels too philosophical for a heist film, we need something more like "The Bank Job" or "The Italian Job", I know those are taken but come on, we can do better. This is a remake of a French film called "Le Convoyeur", or "Cash Truck", and even that's a better title than what they landed on. Secondly, that poster - it's boring as hell, just putting Statham in a suit with bloody knuckles, is that the BEST you could do? It tells me NOTHING about the film, like a lot about Jason Statham, but where's the armored car, the bullets, the action, the pile of bodies?  A photo of Statham running toward the camera and screaming would have been a hundred times more dynamic. Even a posed montage like the posters for "Operation Fortune" or "Black Bag" would have been better, but come ON, this is an action movie, the poster needs some action in it. 

I realize that Statham seems to have two speeds - full-on action hero and dead-stop quiet guy trying to figure out the plan of attack. But we came here for the FIRST one and we tolerate the quiet guy during the down time - but only because we know he's going to be in Beast Mode before long. It's a bit like Los Angeles, which has two modes, too, one is the flashy, fast, celebrity beach-themed party mode, and the other is the dirty, gritty, industrial janky side of town, which is mostly what is on display here. And just like "Operation Fortune", there's a nod to "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" that suggests that thieves can't even trust each other, so if you just leave them alone perhaps they'll just kill each other - hey, do the police know about this? Because it sure seems like that would make their jobs a lot easier. 

Directed by Guy Ritchie (director of "Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre")

Also starring Jason Statham (last seen in "Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre"), Eddie Marsan (ditto), Holt McCallany (last seen in "Monster Trucks"), Rocci Boy Williams (last seen in "The Beekeeper"), Jeffrey Donovan (last seen in "Honest Thief"), Scott Eastwood (last seen in "Pacific Rim: Uprising"), Andy Garcia (last seen in "Pain Hustlers"), Deobia Oparei (last seen in "The Four Feathers"), Laz Alonso (last seen in "Jarhead"), Raul Castillo (last seen in "Smile 2"), Chris Reilly (last seen in "Official Secrets"), Niamh Algar (last seen in "The Wonder"), Tadhg Murphy (last seen in "The Northman"), Alessandro Babalola (last seen in "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare"), Babs Olusanmokun (ditto), Mark Arnold (last seen in "Angel Has Fallen"), Gerald Tyler, Alex Ferns (last seen in "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire"), Josh Cowdery (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"), Jason Wong (last seen in "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"), Rob Delaney (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One"), Eli Brown (last seen in "A Complete Unknown"), Kerry Shale (last heard in "Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed"), Cameron Jack (last seen in "The Last Vermeer"), Darrell D'Silva (last seen in "Marlowe"), Thomas Dominique, Lyne Renee (last seen in "The Gentlemen"), Rebecca Calder (last seen in "Memory"), Matthew Illesley (last seen in "Rocketman"), Phoebe Farnham, Eve Macklin (last seen in "Brooklyn"), Fernando Martinez (last seen in "Term Life"), Post Malone (Austin Post) (last seen in "Dear Santa"), Sam Shoubber, Anthony Elfonzia, Mark Cotone, Bestemsu Ozdemir (also last seen in "Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre").

RATING: 7 out of 10 paintball guns

Fight or Flight

Year 18, Day 81 - 3/22/26 - Movie #5,279

BEFORE: I had a very busy Saturday where we got our taxes done in the morning, and then I had a ticket for a beer tasting event in Jersey City, so I had to leave early because I'd never taken the PATH train before, after 40 years of living in NYC. I just don't go to New Jersey much, really everything I've needed has been on this side of the Hudson River - but there were many breweries scheduled to attend that I had never heard of before, and really, I've tried all the beers from companies that do the tastings in Manhattan and Brooklyn, so it was time to extend the reach. Everything's legal in New Jersey, including filling up those tasting glass and NOT stopping at the 2 oz. fill line. So I got a bit bogged down, even after stopping for a sausage sandwich, I only got to try 40 samples, which for me is pretty low. In my defense a crowd eventually showed up and there were long lines after the first hour, and then numerous bathroom breaks so I really couldn't get any momentum going, since I had to stop every 10 minutes and make a long walk to the men's room. Maybe I need to stay local and keep going to the festivals with the smaller pours, I'm older now and it just took too long for me to get home. Anyway, I filled up a few more pages in the beer journal and I got to explain to a whole new bunch of people why I have the beer journal, and I made it home safely, I somehow always do. 

This was supposed to be a Jason Statham chain, sure, but since two of those films also have Josh Hartnett in them, I can squeeze this one in here before proceeding, because it doesn't currently link to anything else, so it would be stranded if I don't get to it tonight. Then it could spend YEARS on the list, as I've seen, so let me just take advantage of the linking and get this one crossed off the list, OK? Josh Hartnett carries over from "Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre". 

THE PLOT: A mercenary takes on the job of tracking down a target on a plane but then must protect that target when they're surrounded by people trying to kill both of them. 

AFTER: The two-word review should probably just be "Bullet Plane", because it's been about two years since Brad Pitt was in "Bullet Train", and that's about how long it takes to rip something off and change it JUST enough to technically be a different story, even though it's a very very similar story, just on a different form of transportation. It could just as easily be a nod back to "Con Air", or "Passenger 57", but I'm sticking with "Bullet Plane". We should have somebody make "Snakes on a Train" any day now, except that would be a terrible idea. 

Also, this is maybe what happens when you don't properly fund the TSA, and suddenly you've got people bringing guns, knives and even a chainsaw on board somehow. Now the filmmakers probably never saw the government shutdown coming, and as far as I know the TSA has gone with the super-long scanning lines for now, but mark my words, if they don't figure out how to pay the real security agents, this scenario could be in our future. If there's a hijacking or another 9/11-type incident in the next few weeks we can totally trace it back to the perfect storm of not paying the TSA agents combined with a war in the Middle East. Yeah, that seems like a recipe for disaster, all right. The latest stopgap suggestion seems to be a plan to use ICE agents to scan people at the airport - but how would that work? They make you take off your shoes and belt, they put you through the x-ray and then you end up in detention in Central America, when you were just trying to go to Seattle?

I think we've also seen an uptick in films about mercenaries after the "Deadpool" movies took off, and the typical tough-guy assassin was replaced by a more colorful, outrageous, impossible-to-kill wisecracking sort of guy, somebody who might be trying to do "the right thing" but in the most extravagantly violently way possible. Does such a merc exist in real life? It's doubtful, but then how would any of us normies even know? Kids used to want to grow up to become doctors or firemen, but now things have shifted and at least some of them want to be rogue spies or mercenaries for hire, I'd wager, now that Hollywood has made them marketable. 

Anyway, this film involves a former secret service agent who was disgraced (I guess we'll find out more in the prequel) but called back into service because he was nearby (Bangkok) and available. His handler-slash-former partner-slash-exgirlfriend offers him a chance to clear his name if he will track down a hacker called the Ghost, who is flying to San Francisco, and is believed to have suffered a bullet wound. Seems simple enough, board the plane and look for someone who's bleeding, that's probably them, what could possibly go wrong? Well, reductio ad absurdium, of course, and we know from the flash-forward that this is somehow going to end with a giant hole in the plane and a lot of other mayhem as well. 

There may be one or two other cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperadoes, vipers, snipers, bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers and hornswogglers on that plane, hell it's a whole assassin's convention worth, and how exactly did they all get clearance?  There's an air marshall, too, but he bites it pretty early and I'm betting Lucas wishes he could take that one back. And he does find the Ghost, and it's a bit like in the comic books when two heroes meet, after a brief fight they kind of realize they're on the team side and they would benefit from doing a team-up. So yeah, it's a bit by-the-numbers here, and we've seen most of this before in different other movies, just not exactly in this order. 

And much like yesterday's film, there's a device which is a super-computer of sorts, the ultimate hacker's tool because it can get through any firewall or past any encrypted coding, this is like everyone's secret most unspoken fear right now, that some twenty-something's going to build the key to everything on a drive and then we all get spammed for the rest of our lives, the unsubscribe button simply won't work anymore. I know they meant to make things sound even worse than that, but none of these movies can specifically describe what these super-computers can do, they just all say, "Well, it's going to be really BAD" and leave it at that. HOW BAD?

The plane does not land in San Francisco as planned, because I guess the computer is flying the plane and we all live in the Matrix simulation now. Lucas and the Ghost end up in some other war-torn nation, and the work is just beginning. (I guess we'll find out more in the sequel...)

Directed by James Madigan (assistant director of "Insurgent" and "Allegiant")

Also starring Charithra Chandran (last seen in "Eternals"), Katee Sackhoff (last seen in "Tell"), Julian Kostov (last seen in "Ben-Hur"), Marko Zaror (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 4"), JuJu Chan Szeto (last seen in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny"), Danny Ashok, Hughie O'Donnell, Jyuddah Jaymes (last seen in "The Boys in the Boat"), Willem Van der Vegt, Sanjeev Kohli (last seen in "Filth"), Declan Baxter, Sarah Lam, Iren Bordan (last seen in "The Debt"), Attila Arpa (last seen in "Colette") Nora Trokan (last seen in "R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned"), Balint Adorjani (last seen in "Red Sparrow"), Katrina Anne Ward, Melissa Bale, Rebecka Johnston (last seen in "Midsommar"), William Mychael Lee, Brian Alanchis, Zalan Takacs, Bela Stubnya, Yu Debin, Anabelle Daisy Grundberg, Andras Seregi, Istvan Zambo, Heather Choo, Agota Dunai, Claudia Heinz, Peter Jankovics, Sanjay Prabhakar, Zsolt Szentirmai, Narantsogt Tsogtsaikhan. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 neck pillows

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre

Year 18, Day 80 - 3/21/26 - Movie #5,278

BEFORE: Parker Sawyers carries over again from "Southside with You" - by some minor miracle, the actor who played Obama in yesterday's film also appears in this Jason Statham action film, so linking here next was a total no-brainer. My other options were "Jay Kelly" (pass for now) and "Jules", which is a weird film with Ben Kingsley interacting with an alien. Umm, I really need the action films right now, so the path forward is clear. At almost exactly this time last year, I was on Jason Statham films like "Mechanic: Resurrection" and "Crank: High Voltage", so well, here I go again. 

THE PLOT: Elite spy Orson Fortune recruits a movie star to help him stop the sale of a new weapons technology. 

AFTER: I can't express how great it feels to be done with romance films and back on action. Big, loud, stupid action movies, right now I'll take them and I'll eat them up, whatever Jason Statham wants to do over the next few days is just fine with me.  If Statham becomes the person with the most appearances in 2026 first quarter, that's fine too. It would only take 6 movies to unseat Celia Imrie, who has been in five films so far this year. Assuming all 6 Statham movies stay available and don't diseappear from streaming platforms - I know one is about to scroll off of Netflix so I need to get that one very soon. 

Look, I don't care that this film doesn't make very much sense - Statham plays a UK secret agent who heads a team of "footmen" that include a tech whiz, a weapons expert and a Hollywood actor (basically, it's the old "Mission: Impossible" format, the TV show that is) and everybody has to team up to pull a deception heist on a billionaire arms dealer. I also don't care that the MacGuffin they're after is some kind of A.I. drive (A.I. is clearly the biggest evil a Hollywood film can think of, because it's going to put film industry people out of work) and I've seen the evil A.I. drive that can control the world's military systems AND banking systems AND all the other A.I. programs in half a dozen other films, at least. It's a big, dumb, stupid action film where a lot of stuff blows up and Statham gets to take down at least a dozen guys with his MMA ability plus weapons. This is exactly what my brain wants right now, and I'm not going to sweat the details. 

Aubrey Plaza clearly doesn't belong in an action film, but then maybe that's why she SHOULD be in an action film. Josh Hartnett is perfectly cast playing a Hollywood actor (umm, a different one, obvi) and then we've got Hugh Grant as an evil billionaire arms dealer, and I honestly can't decide if that's stupid miscasting or just plain brilliant, maybe, you know, a bit of both. There's a whole other team of U.K. operatives who have gone rogue, this is a small insular industry and simply everybody knows everybody, so Orson Fortune's team knows what "Mike" and his guys are capable of, they've all worked with Mike before, on the same side. The bad news is that they know what he's capable of and how ruthless he can be, but the good news is they also know his weaknesses and he'll never succeed because the bad guys simply don't prevail in this fictional spy world. 

The team has to go all over the world to get this drive, from the U.K. to Madrid to a charity gala in Cannes, but first L.A. to pick up this movie star that they know the arms dealer likes, then back to Cannes, then Turkey for the rest of the film. Orson and his tech whiz masquerade as Hollywood actor Danny Francesco's manager and girlfriend, respectively. They rightfully guess that the arms dealer not only will be starstruck, but he'll try to get with Danny's girlfriend, due to the "power of no", as soon as there's something this arms dealer can't have, he's going to want it, and they're exactly right. But meanwhile she's going to be hacking into the villa's security system, and figuring out who exactly wants this A.I. drive and where it's going to be headed next. 

The team figures out who's going to be handling the drop-off from the arms dealer to the client, also therefore handing the transfer of 10 billion dollars. Orson tracks the guy across town, but his cover is blown and he's forced to kill the guy, but at least he ends up with his phone and his dead body (to unlock the phone, duh) and then decides to impersonate him, because the client has never seen him. Makes some sense. But they're ready for the double-cross because they know that Mike has gone rogue and will probably kill everyone right after the deal is done. 

The buyers turn out to be a couple of bio-tech moguls who have been hoarding gold, and once they use the A.I. drive to collapse the world's financial system, the world will revert back to a gold standard and they'll be sitting pretty. Re-enter the arms dealer and the movie star, who do a bit of acting to complain about the dealer not getting his cut, and he threatens to kill the mogul's family and friends if he doesn't get it. Then they get out of there before the moguls and the mercenaries turn on each other, "Treasure of the Sierra Madre"-style. 

The team gets a long-deserved vacation, though their handler wants them to jump right into the next job. And the arms dealer decides to make a movie about the whole affair, starring his favorite movie star, Danny Francesco, of course. Really, try not to get bogged down in the unlikelihood of it all, it's not meant to be taken that seriously, we all just needed a break I think and a day to watch everything blow up, plus car chases and evil henchmen getting kicked in the nuts. Well, it's a lot more believable than complicated love triangles, I must say. 

This could be the start of a whole new franchise for Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham. Statham already had "Crank" and "The Transporter" and "The Mechanic" and was part of the "Expendables" and "Fast & Furious" movies, but Orson Fortune could be the next James Bond if they play their cards right. I, for one, would support a sequel to this. It's not exactly Shakespeare but then nobody is asking for it to be. 

Directed by Guy Ritchie (director of "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" and "RocknRolla")

Also starring Jason Statham (last seen in "Transporter 3"), Aubrey Plaza (last seen in "Spin Me Round"), Cary Elwes (last seen in "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare"), Hugh Grant (last seen in "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy"), Josh Hartnett (last seen in "Trap"), Bugzy Malone (last seen in "The Gentlemen"), Eddie Marsan (last seen in "A Brilliant Young Mind"), Peter Ferdinando (last seen in "Vita & Virginia"), Nicholas Facey, Lourdes Faberes (last seen in "No Time to Die"), Ian Bartholomew (last seen in "Wonka"), Sam Douglas (last seen in "Cleanskin"), Ergun Kuyucu (last seen in "Taken 2"), Begzat Ergeshov (ditto), Tom Rosenthal (last seen in "Bridget Jones's Baby"), Oliver Maltman (last seen in "Happy-Go-Lucky"), Tim Seyfi, Ayhan Eroglu, Savas Ak, Matthew Hawksley, (last seen in "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare"), Max Beesley, Aksel Ustun (last seen in "The Take"), Oleksandra Zharikova, Mishel Lazarenko, Bensu Ugur, Ozan Ayhan, Eugenia Kuzmina (last seen in "Strange Darling"), Bestemsu Ozdemir, Kerim Pehlivan, Conor MacNeill (last seen in "In the Land of Saints and Sinners"), Vincent Wang,  Kaan Urgancioglu, Antonio Bustorff, Amy Jackson with archive footage of Paul Newman. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 Ukrainian henchmen (depicting Ukrainians as bad guys held up the movie's release)

Southside with You

Year 18, Day 79 - 3/20/26 - Movie #5,277

BEFORE: It's here, finally here! The scheduled end of the romance chain, the final tally is 46, and let me point out that I'm a professional, you should NOT try this at home. Really, nobody should watch 46 films on this topic in a row, because it WILL mess with your head. Unless you don't stick to rom-coms, once in a while break it up with a film about break-ups or messed-up relationships or you know, toxic relationships or sexual assault or something. The chain knows that 46 rom-coms in a row is not healthy, so it does find ways to mix things up a bit, thank GOD.  

Parker Sawyers carries over from "Austenland", and today's film has also been kicking around the list for a number of years, I may have programmed both films several times before but then cut them due to space limitations - but also, they both proved VERY difficult to link to, so if there's an opportunity to link to them now, I just have to take it. Thankfully Parker Sawyers has also appeared in a variety of movies, and so by tomorrow I can be on action movies and start making my way toward Easter. 

I'm going to sort of skip a day here, and count this film as my Friday film, so I can send a big Birthday SHOUT-out to Vanessa Bell Calloway, born 3/20/57, and she plays Michelle Obama's mother tonight. Happy birthday, I promise to not do the math. The big trend in my movies right now is films with smaller casts, like "Z for Zachariah" which had only 3 actors in it. Tonight's movie has 24, but that's still not a lot - I have to do more linking with less actors, and so these birthdays are going to be very few and far between. But skipping a day means I'm going to have to double-up next week if I want to stay on track for Easter. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Barry" (Movie #3,970)

THE PLOT: Barack Obama, a freshman at Harvard Law School, gets a job at a Chicago law firm under the orders of young Michelle Robinson. After some reluctance, she accepts his invitation for a day together that will change her life. 

AFTER: This is the long-awaited follow-up to that other movie about Obama, which depicted him dating white girls while at Columbia, and taking them to eat in Harlem and feeling out of place. It took me five years to program THAT film, and now another five years has gone by since 2021, so yeah, wow, 10 years to watch two movies. I have been busy with other things, though. 

Yes, this is THAT film, the one that's going to supply a hit of nostalgia in TWO ways, because we're going to flash back to 1989 when Barack and Michelle had their first date, which involved an African-American art exhibit, a community meeting, drinks and a screening of "Do the Right Thing". But also we're going to be reminded of when we last had a very competent President, RIGHT? (I'm calling out both parties here, because Biden had senility issues and Trump, too, but the latter is also a complete and utter moron. I didn't sarcastically said "What could POSSIBLY go wrong?" both times, and now we see that literally everything has gone wrong. Twice.)

I have to be fair tonight, because while this film is touching and sweet and makes two very public figures completely relatable, it also represents an H.R. violation - because Barack was interning at this Chicago law firm and Michelle was his supervisor. Did they disclose? Not sure that was even a thing back then, but Michelle was certainly concerned with how that was going to look, and so she refused to call it a date. To her it was just two co-workers attending a community meeting and then doing research into racial relations and urban violence by watching the Spike Lee movie. Look, people at the law firm probably wouldn't care all that much, if two (I'm guessing the only two) African-American people at the firm started dating each other. Back then to the white people this probably just would have made the most sense. Now if one of them was white, or if they considered Barack as half-white, it might have raised a few eyebrows. But hey, maybe not. 

Here at the end of the romance chain for the year, it's really a shame that THIS was really the only film I needed to watch - we can get a glimpse of the bigger picture just by looking at the small, or the one. Two people meet through their jobs, they go out, one calls it a "date" before the other one does, they communicate, get to know each other, they like what they see so they decide to move forward. No love triangle, no divorce, no wedding getting cancelled at the last second, just two people opening up to each other and considering the road that might lie ahead. There will be twists and turns, sure, but that doesn't mean the journey isn't worth taking. The symbolism of the movie and bumping into someone from the law firm afterwards means that their relationship will always be viewed through a racial lens, there's no getting around that. 

Barack openly admits that his dating history included relationships with white women, and also that he smoked a lot of grass while he was in high school. Then we've got the complicated issues with his father who moved back to Kenya and left him with his mother in Hawaii - though he seemed to grow up in many places around the world. At this point his father had died in a car accident, so really there would be no resolution in that relationship, other than what Barack could accomplish by himself. 

That's it, that's the film, it's just the first date, or excursion, that they went on together, because we all already know what came later, to some extent. The film's just 84 minutes long, so even the Obamas' first date was longer than that. Communication, compromise, and making sure that you and your partner are on the same page, or at least reading the same book, that's what it's all about. The whole nature of positive relationships summed up in one day in the life of two very important but also very normal people. If you find yourself deciding between watching this film and that sham of a documentary about Melania Trump, well, the choice is clear, isn't it? 

Directed by Richard Tanne

Also starring Tika Sumpter (last seen in "Ride Along 2"), Vanessa Bell Calloway (last seen in "Dragged Across Concrete"), Phillip Edward Van Lear, Taylar Fondren, Deanna Reed-Foster (last seen in "Widows"), Jerod Haynes, Gabrielle Lott-Rogers, Preston Tate Jr., Donn Carl Harper, Tom McElroy, Stephanie Monday, Eric Morgan Stuart (last seen in "Reality Bites"), Deborah Geffner (last heard in "Under the Silver Lake"), Donald Paul

RATING: 6 out of 10 flavors at Baskin-Robbins (he remembered her favorite flavor, and it's their first damn date - because that's what you do, you ask questions and you make mental notes, and you use that information to show that you care...it's the little things)

Austenland

Year 18, Day 77 - 3/18/26 - Movie #5,276

BEFORE: Finally, I've reached the endgame of this year's romance chain. This will be the 45th movie in that part of the chain, and I can't wait for it to end. At this time last year I was already deep into action movies with Liam Neeson, heading for Jason Statham films. I'm similarly headed for more Statham films but it's going to take a couple of bridging films to get there - this film and tomorrow's were always part of the plan, but both have been on my list for several years, and it's high past time they were off the list, I need to make room for more movies that were Oscar-nominated this year or just made it to streaming or cable. 

Jane Seymour carries over from "Irish Wish". Now I've got a path to Easter, but the next issue with the romance chain and that smaller path that gets me to Easter is that I've stranded a bunch of films, there's just no way around this, but I should take a run through my list and see if I can at least pair up a few films, this could pay off later on when I'm putting together the path to Mother's Day. 

THE PLOT: Obsessed with "Pride and Prejudice", a woman travels to a Jane Austen theme park in search of her perfect gentleman. 

AFTER: Well, any questions I have about whether to take this film seriously or not can probably be answered with the fact that it was made by the husband-wife team that made "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Nacho Libre", so probably it's not meant to be serious at all. Perhaps it was just made as a parody of rom-coms or a take-down of the theme park / travel industry, I'm not sure. But it's all about some people's obsession with the work of Jane Austen, and then that's taken to the extreme. Reductio ad absurdum. 

There is a Jane Austen Centre in Bath, England, which has a permanent exhibition of a Regency-era tea room, with costumed staff, and they have an annual festival and presumably maybe some themed events throughout the year - also there's something in Sweden called The Austen Experience, but it's just a LARPer event held at a castle designed to mimic an immersive Austen novel. Anyway if there WERE a real theme park, something akin to Six Flags, it should be called "Ride and Prejudice". Somebody, please steal my idea, I dare you. Maybe it could be located near Austin, TX? 

Anyway, for the purposes of this film, we're supposed to posit that such a place DOES exist, and that maybe it's all some kind of tourism scam to take advantage of romance novel readers, and maybe the travel agents are in on the scheme. The resort promises "actual" romance with one of the cast members, however no touching is allowed, so somebody explain to me how this all works. You can't have romance without contact, and even without it, this whole thing sounds in theory very close to prostitution. Or Comic-Con rules taken in a different direction - I remember a few years back after the #meToo movement Comic-Cons took a stand against any non-consensual touching or even taking anyone's picture without consent. But the forms took much too long to fill out and process so I think this practice was soon abandoned. 

Jane, an American woman with no fixed relationship - one guy breaks up with her because of her Austen obsession, and the only other guy in her orbit is her ex-boyfriend, who's a total creep - empties her bank account so she can go on this immersive trip to Austenland. (Look, if it was the Star Wars section of DisneyWorld, I'd support this...) But she can only afford the "copper" package, not the diamond or platinum upgrade, so she has to sleep in a room near the servant's quarters, she doesn't get the nicest dresses to wear, and her back-story involves coming from poverty as a waif that the rich people have taken in for some reason. Mrs. Wattlesbrook, the park's proprietor, naturally focuses her attention on the wealthier guests who have paid for the upgrades. Yeah, that tracks. 

The proprietor's nephew, Mr. Nobley, is the "Mr. D'arcy" analog, so the platinum guests are all hoping to be paired up with him, but there's also Colonel Andrews and a navy man, Captain East, who shows up late because his other acting gig ran long, also it might have been a porn shoot. But Jane opts out of the fancier tea ceremonies and finds that she prefers the company of Martin, the resort's driver and stable-hand. They bond over the birth of a foal and they kiss and spend more time together. Martin gets jealous, however, when he sees Jane interacting with the actors playing the Austen characters. But when she spends time with Martin, Mr. Nobley warns her against "cavorting with the servants".  

All of the park's guests and characters gather together to put on a play, this apparently is a reference to Austen's "Mansfield Park" and what could possibly go wrong? The play is a disaster, poorly acted and poorly staged, and one woman gets poked in the eye with an arrow shot by "Aphrodite". But Jane also bonds with Nobley a bit over how much of a disaster it was - really, all that was missing was the pie fight. But there's still the big ball scheduled before the end of everyone's week at Austenland. 

At the ball, Nobley proclaims his love for Jane, but she believes he's only acting, and leaves him for the company of Martin, the stable-hand, whose love is "real". Jeez, she came all that way and ended up in a very Austen-like love triangle, trying in vain to determine which of her suitors would make the best partner. Mrs. Wattlesbrook reveals, however, that Martin is ALSO one of the actors, and her romance with him had been scripted for her from the start. Jane leaves but also threatens to sue Austenland, Inc. because she was assaulted at one point by Mr. Wattlesbrook, and she's going to hold the resort responsible for that. 

Martin is sent to the airport, to smooth things over and try to convince Jane that his affection for her was real, but Nobley also shows up and tries to do the same thing. It's a genuine dilemma, and just like yesterday's film, it's two men brawling over a woman, because that's how boys settle things. Usually this would end with Jane choosing neither suitor, because she needs to take charge of her own "story", but only one of the suitors flies across the Atlantic to return the sketchbook she left behind. OK, that should settle things. There's a mid-credits scene that shows us that one of the other guests, "Elizabeth Charming" has purchased the resort from Mrs. Wattlesbrook and it now has a more amusement park feel to it, with rides and fair foods, and really, that's a step in the right direction, no more sexual assault allegations anyway. 

The place really needed an Emma Wood-House of Horrors, a Tunnel of Love ride, and really, a lot of better and more-fried food. Who can survive on tea and finger sandwiches? They need a funnel cake stand called "Fried and Prejudice" and maybe a BBQ stand called "Sauce and Sauceability". Then even I would go there. 

Directed by Jerusha Hess (writer of "Nacho Libre")

Also starring Keri Russell (last seen in "Dark Skies"), JJ Feild (last seen in "Ford v Ferrari"), Bret McKenzie (last seen in "A Minecraft Movie"), Jennifer Coolidge (last seen in "Riff Raff"), James Callis (last seen in "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy"), Georgia King (last seen in "The Duchess"), Ricky Whittle, Rupert Vansittart (last seen in "The Iron Lady"), Ayda Field, Ruben Crow, Demetri Goritsas (last seen in "The Special Relationship"), Parker Sawyers (last seen in "Infinite Storm"), Sarah Niles (last seen in "Heads of State"), Annie Gould, Tracy Higgins, Goldy Greaves, Bernadette Chapman, Jools Newman, Richard Alan Reid (last seen in "Love, Wedding Marriage"), Austin Wilks, Alan Calton, Tom Whitecross, Jadran Malkovich, Gideon Jensen, Jared Hess (last heard in "A Minecraft Movie"), Andy Joy (last seen in "Rush" (2013)), with archive footage of Colin Firth. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 chamber pots (only, please don't use them)

Irish Wish

Year 18, Day 76 - 3/17/26 - Movie #5,275 - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

BEFORE: Lindsay Lohan carries over from "Just My Luck", and I've got a rough path to an Easter movie. I remembered that last year, right after the romance chain ended, I transitioned right into Liam Neeson movies (the most Irish one hit on St. Pat's) and so I think I'll do that again with some action movies, only with a different star. Because really, aren't action films the opposite of romance films in some ways?  I worked at the NY Children's Film Festival on Sunday and after a "Best of Fest" show and a couple long Q&A's they put out mini-cupcakes so that people could grab one on the way out. Well, sure, after kids have been sitting for 90 minutes in a dark room, unable to run around, let's just give them a bunch of sugar, and watch what happens. What could possibly go wrong? We had some kids running laps around the theater, that's how much pent-up energy they had. Right now, I need cupcakes - I mean, action movies. 

So here are the actor links that should get me to the end of the month - I slammed this together last night, with only two days until I needed it, for me that's cutting things a bit too close: Parker Sawyers, Jason Statham, Josh Hartnett, back to Jason Statham, Joan Allen, Kevin Costner, Christopher Cousins, Rose Byrne. There's an easy (?) path from there to Easter, which is April 5  and I think I can work in the last (?) "Mission: Impossible" film but I want to make sure I've got somewhere to go after that. I can't dead-end this thing now. Look, I'll be honest, I was kind of hoping the chain would lead me straight to "One Battle After Another" and maybe "Weapons" but instead I got "Mission: Impossible - the Final Reckoning" and "Paddington in Peru", but I'll take it. I only need a chain right now to get me through the next two weeks, and there's enough action, animation and a bit of sports in it to clear out the romance-film brain cobwebs. 

THE PLOT: When the love of Maddie's life gets engaged to her best friend, she puts her feelings aside to be a bridesmaid at their wedding in Ireland. 

AFTER: If ever there was a movie that demonstrated "Be careful what you wish for" - or, according to the poster, 'Be careful WHO you wish for" - I suppose it would be this one. Maddie is constantly putting herself down because she doesn't speak up for herself enough, not professionally or personally, and it's gotten her to a dark place. Actually, it's a pretty good place, she's a successful book editor but she's practically writing the books herself and she's not getting credit for it. Been there, girl, done that, only in the field of animation - but that's my story. 

What's worse is that her (co-) author has fallen in love with one of her besties, and now she has to go be a bridesmaid at their wedding at his family's estate in Ireland. The question here really becomes, does she REALLY have feelings for Paul, or is she just jealous of the fact that they're getting married?  I mean, she's got conflicting feelings that need to be straightened out, she and Paul are two very different people, plus he mistreats her for not giving her any writing credit, all of her work fixing his stories has to be anonymous, and that's not a good foundation for a relationship. He's a jerk, and she can't see that, she just wants to make it all about HER, and so she feels that the problem is that she didn't speak up in time, she should have made a play for Paul earlier, then she wouldn't have FOMO. 

But this is also a great example of my "burnt toast" theory, if something bad happens to you, look at the big picture and think about ways that this could actually be better for you. One day, if you burn your toast in the morning and you have to do it over, maybe you learn a little bit more about what setting to use on the toaster, and also maybe you avoided dying in a car crash on the way to work because you were in a different place. When Maddie gets to Ireland, she argues with a man at the luggage carousel because she thinks his suitcase is hers - to be fair, a lot of bags DO look alike, she should have put two differently colored ribbons on hers or something. Her bag was lost by the airline (more burnt toast, which will be revealed later) and THEN she has to take a bus because there are no Irish Ubers, and she ends up sitting right next to the same guy that she fought over luggage with. Sure, that's awkward, but she's being set up for an "opposites attract" meet-cute with James, only she's too deep into navel-gazing over missing out on Paul to realize it. 

She meets Paul's family, sees what a beautiful manor his family lives in, and she sees all the wonderful wedding preparations, all of it reminding her of what she missed out on. So she goes for a walk in the Irish countryside and accidentally sits on a "wishing chair" stone formation, and Saint Brigid appears to grant her wish. Yeah, I wish I was kidding here, but we're deep in Catholic saints now, and wishing is just a form of praying, right?  OK, not really but work with me here. Brigid uses her mighty Catholic power to change reality, and when she gets back to the estate, Maddie is the one engaged to Paul, her luggage is back and she's got the wedding dress to put on, and a rehearsal dinner in her honor. Well, that's all sorted then. Movie over. 

Look, it just wouldn't be a Lindsay Lohan film without a swap of some kind, either body-swap or luck-swap or now reality swap. But the goal is to LEARN from these Freaky things that take place, so what's the lesson here? I've got to say this reminds me of another certain film where an angel appeared to show a man that his life wasn't really so bad, and he had done some good in the world, he shouldn't commit suicide because there would be a ripple effect that had massive consequences for other people. Instead he had to learn that his life had value, and even though he never fought in World War II or traveled anywhere, he could still make something good happen right there in Pottersville, er, Bedford Falls. I also have to name-check "Candide" here because of the discussion in it over whether what happens is the best of all possible worlds - we can't see the multiverse so we can't confirm, but we still owe it to ourselves to live our best lives, just not at the expense of anyone else. 

But to place a reverse "It's a Wonderful Life" right in the middle of a "Philadelphia Story" framework - well, they said it couldn't be done, or perhaps it shouldn't be done, but this film did it. There's a wedding taking place and you know what happens at movie weddings, there's so much doubt and second-guessing that like 50% of movie weddings don't end up happening, both people are either hung up on somebody else or they're always going to wonder what would happen if they took that other path that they find they can't move forward. So this movie uses the Clarence/Brigid mischief-making character to show Maddie the other path, so she'll realize she was kind of on the right one to begin with.  

Well, you can't use your wish to wish for more wishes, but there's no rule against wishing a second time to un-wish the first wish. Once the timeline got changed there really was no other choice, I mean the rule of "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" meant that once she cast the first wish, the entire wedding event is doomed, Maddie got exactly what she wanted and then realized it wasn't what she wanted at all. To be fair, Paul was always extremely shallow and she KNEW this, did she think she could change him? Not gonna happen. So James got hired as the wedding photographer and with him in her orbit, now she's always going to wonder if marrying Paul is the right move, which it is not. As soon as they went on that bike ride, and Maddie couldn't keep up, but Emma could, I knew how this had to end. Emma and Paul then started sneaking around - that's not just wedding cold feet, they both feel like they belong together and something is "wrong" with the wedding, as if somebody wished it into place. So now there's a big bust-up at the wedding - the only thing missing, really was a pie-throwing fight - and Maddie's messed things up with both guys, the only way out is to un-wish it, or say that it was all a dream or a glimpse of a possible alternate present. 

Come on, Maddie couldn't remember the simplest things about her relationship with Paul, how they got engaged or when their first dance was, or even what he likes to eat. How is THAT going to work out, when for her it's all like it never even happened?  Unfortunately there's a whole generation of twenty-somethings out there whose default setting is to put their own needs first, and guys, this is not conducive to a relationship. Communication and compromise means that 50% of the time, you don't get to pick the restaurant, OK? Stop thinking about yourself for a few minutes and realize that there are other people in the room, and that it takes TWO people to have a relationship, your soulmate isn't going to wait on you hand and foot, you need to pitch in once in a while, you entitled bastards. Speak up for yourself, sure, especially if you feel like you're being short-changed or not credited for your work - but also realize that once in a while the toast is going to be burned, and that's not necessarily a bad thing in the long run. 

It's too bad Jane Seymour couldn't make it to Ireland - she played Maddie's mother and she got really screwed by the reality-swap. At first she wasn't going to the wedding because Maddie was just a bridesmaid, not the bride. But then St. Brigid intervened and now she HAS to go, she was the mother of the bride, after all. But then, you know, the flight got cancelled, the gate got changed, there was an overseating thing, and finally she tripped in the airport and broke her ankle or something, and so she never even made it. Maybe next time, Jane. 

If I apply the burnt toast rule, really this film could have been a LOT worse. It could have been a wishing well instead of a wishing chair. It could have been a leprechaun changing reality, instead of Saint Brigid. Jane Seymour could have made her plane and it could have crashed. I'm not saying this film is anything close to brilliant, but it wasn't the WORST way to spend my St. Patrick's Day. And Maddie walked away from the toxic job where she wasn't getting proper credit for her work - I support this ending. 

Directed by Janeen Damian

Also starring Ed Speleers (last seen in "Breathe"), Alexander Vlahos, Ayesha Curry, Elizabeth Tan, Jacinta Mulcahy, Jane Seymour (last seen in "Puppy Love"), Matty McCabe, Dawn Bradfield (last seen in "Mr. Malcolm's List"), Maurice Byrne, James Rottger (last seen in "The Lost King"), Aidan Jordan, Dakota Lohan, Tim Landers (last seen in "In the Land of Saints and Sinners"), Rachel Benaissa, Rodrigo Ternevoy, Steve Hartland, Carl Shaaban, Vincent Moran, Charlie Hughes, Derek Carroll (last seen in "The Pope's Exorcist")

RATING: 5 out of 10 pieces of expensive family china (that somehow never gets broken - man, I thought for sure that was a set-up)