STACK December 2016 Issue No. 146

52 / 121

visit
52 DECEMBER 2016
DVD&BD
REVIEWS
s is back! Who? Well, Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham),
n extraordinaire, faked his death as he wanted out
business, and is living a quiet aliased life in Rio.
on made much louder, however, by the arrival of a
an toting innumerable expendable hired goons. She
s Bishop to perform three hits for her boss – without
actually looking like hits. Artie doesn’t dig this scene,
quickly despatches said goons and hightails it to
nd, Here he meets Gina (Jessica Alba), falls head
heels, finds out she’s involved, sees her kidnapped
and... Well, you can likely guess the rest. Statham remains the cream of
the current action crop, and we lost count of the body, erm, count quickly
in this extremely watchable travelogue action-fest, which is made even
better due to bonus Tommy Lee Jones. AF
Revenge is a dangerous business.
MECHANIC: RESURRECTION
lter White has
crossed over to the side of good,
working against the drug trade
rather than actively contributing
to it! It’s the 1980s in Ronnie
Reagan’s cocaine-fuelled America.
Robert Mazur (Bryan Cranston)
is a US Customs Service special
agent who sniffs out a money
laundering operation for infamous
Colombian drug lord Pablo
Escobar. He goes undercover
as a crooked businessman who
can help them “clean” their illicit
funds, making friends of dodgy
types and influencing them. But
ultimately there’ll be a sting.
Based on the actual Mazur’s
autobiography, Cranston elevates
this crime flick from standard
genre fare to riveting viewing. AF
THE INFILTRATOR
elease Date:
1/12/16
ormat:
ith smoking
these days? The second film in
his Canadian trilogy – that began
with Tusk and will conclude with
Moose Jaws – features Canuck
Nazis, mutant sausages and a
golem monster. It also reunites
the director's current favoured
ensemble of Haley Joel Osment,
Justin Long and Johnny Depp
(in disguise) as detective Guy
Lapointe. The Hosers are those
convenience store teens from
Tusk (played Smith and Depp's
daughters), who must prevent
an ancient evil from disrupting
the senior high school party. As
crazy and rambling as a Smith
podcast, die hard fans will get it,
while everyone else will be left
thinking WTF? SH
yoga hosers
Release Date:
14/12/16
Format:
Release Date: 14/12/16 Format:
trio of teenaged thieves (Jane Levy, Dylan Minette
d Daniel Zovatto) break into the home of a blind Gulf
ar veteran (Stephen Lang) to relieve him of a six-
ure payout. But this seemingly soft target is far from
lpless and the intruders soon find themselves trapped
d pursued through his dark and decrepit dwelling. The
cond feature from director Fede Alvarez (following his
spectable remake of Evil Dead) offers a neat reversal
the 'blind victim stalked by psychopath' scenario from
Wait Until Dark and Blind Terror, mixed with a liberal
dose of Wes Craven's The People Under the Stairs. If you can ignore the
obvious implausibility of a sightless antagonist, this relentless game of cat
and mouse delivers a nail-biting exercise in sustained suspense. It also
features a gross-out moment that'll become a major talking point. SH
Blind man's bluff.
DON'T BREATHE
It’s easy to believe that nowadays
you don’t have a movie if you
don’t have a Hemsworth, and he
of the Liam variety plays brilliantly
against Woody Harrelson in this
modern western indulgence.
It’s frontier times and he’s
Texas Ranger David Kingston,
who moseys on into the border
town of Helena to investigate
some suspicious goings-on. Not
only have several murders of
Mexicans gone down, but other
townsfolk have just plain done
gone and disappeared. It’s a
vexing situation that you’d think
the local pastor, Abraham Brant
(Harrelson), might be keen to
help solve, but this here preacher
man ain’t talkin’. Kingston has an
older score to settle, however. AF
THE DUEL
Release Date:
19/12/16
Format:
At last, a fair dinkum Aussie
monster movie. This slick
feature debut from writer-
director Luke Sparke begins
traditionally, introducing a group
of ridiculously good looking
twentysomethings whom we
assume will be picked off one
by one by an unseen beast. But
as it progresses, a strong focus
on character and storytelling
differentiates it from similar
genre films, with subplots
involving cryptozoology (google
it), Aboriginal mythology and
a shady property developer
adding further layers. And
the CGI creature (which is
ultimately what you're here
to see) is worth the wait. SH
(See page 40)
RED BILLABONG
Release Date:
21/12/16
Format:
0/12/16 Format: