Tag: Michael Kenneth Williams

REVIEW: Arkansas [2020]

Jared Mobarak

Relying on other people is the fastest way to end up dead. As Kyle (Liam Hemsworth) shares during an early voiceover, organized crime in the backwoods of southern America isn’t very organized. This is good since few of the people in the wholesale drug dealing business of which he’s operated for just a little while are smart. He probably wouldn’t call himself very smart either since he’s content to follow his orders to the letter rather than harbor ambitions about becoming the boss. He’s perceptive in ways that ensure he…

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REVIEW: Motherless Brooklyn [2019]

Jared Mobarak

I’m chasing his footsteps. Frank Minna (Bruce Willis) was more than a boss to Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton). This man plucked him out of an orphanage wherein the nuns beat him because they believed his Tourette syndrome was a sign of wavering faith. Frank taught Lionel that anyone using God’s name to harm a child isn’t someone worth listening to, took him under his wing, and hired him (along with three other orphans in Bobby Cannavale‘s Tony, Dallas Roberts‘ Danny, and Ethan Suplee‘s Gilbert) as a gumshoe for his private…

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REVIEW: The Gambler [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“I think you’re the kind of guy who likes to lose” I was very surprised to see James Toback‘s name as Executive Producer on The Gambler remake after reading a 2011 editorial explaining how he found out about the project secondhand after it was already announced that William Monahan was adapting his original script for Martin Scorsese. While this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise in a Hollywood where studios give EP credits to anyone they feel a need to appease and have no remorse retooling properties without caring…

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REVIEW: Snitch [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“You just have to trust me” Watching the trailer for Ric Roman Waugh‘s Snitch had me believing the film would be a high-octane actioner in the vein of Dwayne Johnson‘s other one-word titled thriller Faster. Between the depiction of The Rock’s John Matthews going undercover with the DEA to bring down a narcotics kingpin and the writer/director’s past as a stuntman/stunt coordinator, it seemed a pretty easy leap to make. Interestingly enough, however, this isn’t the case and I’m torn whether that realization is a positive or negative. Generally action…

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