Complicated people in places that are characters in their own right
“Ladies First”
Speaking of gloriously gonzo, Sacha Baron Cohen, the hot mess (said with respect and gratitude) behind the devilishly caustic “Borat” films, stars in this rom-com-lite, gender-reversal spin with a side of nasty. The movie has a killer cast (Charles Dance, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Fiona Shaw, Emily Mortimer and the ever-underrated Kathryn Hunter), yet can’t find the footing to distinguish itself.
Director Thea Sharrock based it on the 2018 French comedy “I Am Not an Easy Man,” but the updating triggered “What Women Want” (2000) vibes in me. Maybe that’s because both Cohen and Mel Gibson play chauvinistic ad execs who get gendered comeuppance when a reality-altering happenstance changes the fabric of their universe — Gibson’s self-centered id can hear the thoughts and desires of women nearby, while Cohen’s crass conqueror gets a bop on the head and comes to in a female-driven world where fast food staples are now Burger Queen and Five Gals.
The big timestamp — side note here — is the instantiation of #MeToo. “What Women Want” and “I am Not an Easy Man” predate it, leaving “Ladies First” to walk a delicate line — which it does so with clunky awkwardness. Cohen’s Damien Sachs ascends to head of the Atlas ad agency and promotes newly hired creator Alex Fox (Pike) to be his Guinness team lead for gender optic reasons. Fox overhears Sachs’s pleasing-the-client logic, but before the ugly truth can gain any traction, the world flips and Fox is suddenly Sachs’s boss. We are in a universe where men are used as sex symbols to sell product, and at church it’s the Mother, the Daughter and the Holy She.
The best part of the movie is Shaw as the CEO (in the man’s world she was a lowly receptionist) who wants Sachs’ middle manager as a play thang. Also fun is Hunter’s Glenda, a cleaning woman in one reality and the minter of CEOs in the other. Her gravely British baritone and accompanying demeanor bring a brash bubbly element to the otherwise drab formula. In the she-ocracy Cohen does get to belt out some “Sex Farm” nonsense that’s humorous for a nanosecond, but overall, “Ladies First” is a lot of sharp edges that never find ripe fruit to cut into. Sexism at its most basic is skin deep, but films about It — comedic or not — shouldn’t be.
“Kontinental ‘25”
Irreverent Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude loves to poke the bear, and if he can, do so while coloring outside the lines with a gonzo, WTH crayon. Take “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” (2021) where the repercussions of a school teacher’s sex tape take center stage, or his 2023 magnum opus (to date) “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World” (2023), a finely honed, hysterically funny political skewering that took deft swings at Trump and Putin. It’s a film that should not be missed.
“Kontinental ’25” feels more restrained. It follows the travails of Orsolya (Eszter Tompa), a former academic who, because of the way post-Communist Romania has developed its “Promise of Freedom” (Jude frames this as a capitalist grab), has been knocked down to a bailiff’s post. She’s also discriminated against as an ethnic Hungarian living in the part of Transylvania ceded to Romania in the wake of World War II. Semantics, but important undercurrents.
Orsolya’s on a mission to evict a homeless man living in a ramshackle structure destined to be razed in favor of a luxury hotel, which ends in fatal and tragic fashion. This event becomes the trigger that sends Orsolya on a soul-searching journey that includes hanging out with a former student and Grubhub courier (Adonis Tanta), endless shots of tequila and bray-at-the-moon sex in a graveyard. It’s all to assuage her guilt and deal with the reality of the ever-gentrifying landscape.
The inspiration for the film comes from Roberto Rossellini’s neorealist drama “Europe 51” (1952), where a rich socialite played by Ingrid Bergman grapples with her complicity in another’s death. At times it feels that Jude tries too hard to follow Rossellini’s more dour tenor rather than let his freak-flag fly, and as a result “Kontinental” is uneven. Tompa’s performance keeps the film moored. Her character’s adrift and seeking port, which are universal and tenable. The political overtones Jude bakes in are clear and well-layered.
“Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War”
It’s been a whole three years since Amazon Prime sunsetted “Jack Ryan” its take on the desk-jockey-turned-black-ops-operative spy novels by Tom Clancy, so why not give spy-craving audiences an umpteenth reboot? That seems to be the impetus for bringing back series star John Krasinski and some of his cast mates.
Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Chris Pine and even Ben Affleck have all played Ryan on the big screen — none better than Baldwin in “The Hunt for Red October” (1990). The Clancy books were mostly set against the tail end of the Cold War, War on Drugs and the roots of the War on Terror. Krasinki’s version bit into modern conflict and made Ryan more of a Navy SEAL triggerman than a backroom analyst caught in a crossfire (i.e., Ford’s everyman who was forever in a shootout sans a gun).
Here Krasinski’s Ryan has stepped away from the CIA and taken a gig on Wall Street. He has biz in Dubai, so old friend and handler James Greer (Wendell Pierce), now in the agency’s number two post, asks Ryan to pick up a package while there. It’s a one-off favor (yeah, that’s how flimsy the narrative is) and for good measure fellow operative Mike November (Michael Kelly, from the series, as is Greer) is sent along to help out. The package is essentially a MacGuffin that gets the MI-6 mule killed and sends a rogue MI-6 agent (Max Beasley in a thankless part) and an ample paramilitary team after Ryan and November. They’re helped by the ever-likable Sienna Miller, who plays a dutiful British agent. The shoot-‘em-up, blow-‘em-up action takes place in London and an unfinished skyscraper in Dubai.
Nothing about this “Ghost War” has much stick, despite its estimated $100 million budget. The dialogue — the script is credited to Krasinski, Aaron Rabin and “A House of Dynamite” (2025) scribe Noah Oppenheim — is AI stiff, while the action scenes directed by Andrew Bernstein, who worked on “Ozark” and “Foundation,” are often muddled and flat. It’s a thriller sans a thrill. Back to the well, Amazon.
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