Tag Archives: crime

Emily the Criminal

13 Aug

‘Emily the Criminal’: Student debt made her do it

By Tom Meek Friday, August 12, 2022

Aubrey Plaza in EMILY THE CRIMINAL

Aubrey Plaza may just be indie film’s “it” human of the moment. With accolades for performances in critically noted, smaller fare such as “Black Bear” (2020), “Ingrid Goes West” (2017) and this slide from millennial slog into crime – a Sundance hit – Plaza’s proven capable and clearly on the edge of a breakout. Directed by John Patton Ford, pulling from his experience of cracking under the weight of student loan debt, “Emily the Criminal” concocts a narrative that’s just as much character study and social commentary as it is a crime drama.

Plaza stars as the titular Emily, out of school, talented but unable to land a gig. Part of the problem is that she has a record. The publishing/graphic design industry she wants to break also into requires a demurring personality and the ability to work an internship for six-months-plus for free. Emily’s a quietly take-no-shit kind of person, but she also needs money, which leads to the occupation of the title. Shlepping as a caterer, trying to get a real job and pay off mounting bills, Emily gets hooked up through a friend with a dicey yet amiable character named Youcef (Theo Rossi), an immigrant with hopes of realizing the American Dream who’s running a credit card scam to achieve it. Emily, living the American Nightmare, gets in on it, tangentially at first. Then she and Youcef find they have more in common, including dealing with his troublesome brother who is threatening the side biz and its mounting pile of cash. We find out later about Emily’s past transgression – and god forbid if you cross her; the payback is X-Acto knife justice for a shady couple who get onto her scheme. Then there’s her interview for that coveted publishing gig (with Gina Gershon!) that’s almost as captivatingly fiery as Matt Damon’s high-rise job interview in “Good Will Hunting” (1997).

“Emily the Criminal” clicks because of Plaza. No Plaza, no clicking. Gershon and Rossi are great accoutrements who have seamless chemistry with Plaza, knowing how to play off her without deferring to her. It’s a confluence of smart casting, lived-in performances and directing by a person who understands his performers and their characters deeply. Still, Plaza: Not enough can be said about her subtlety, or how much she does with a sneer or a shift of her large, luminous eyes. It’s a filmmaking turn. After seeing “Emily” you’ll want more of her, both streaming (the above cited films are worthy) and in the future. My only (selfish) hope is that she doesn’t go commercial and get lost, the way Brie Larson (“Room”) did (“Captain Marvel”).

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The Batman

4 Mar

‘The Batman’: The Dark Knight gets darker

By Tom Meek Wednesday, March 2, 2022

“The Batman” is a dark, deeply emotional affair that’s got a lot going for it and a lot going on – perhaps too much. (It’s almost three hours long.) We could also call it version 3.5 of the cinematic dark knight, with the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher films in the 1990s and Christopher Nolan trilogy being 1.0 and 2.0 and Ben Affleck’s donning of the cowl in the “Justice League” films the 0.5 splitter. It may be 4.5 if we take into account the spoofy, goofy BAM! POW! fun of the Adam West television series.

What drives this reboot is a succession of grim murders of municipal higher-ups, beginning with the mayor and working its way over to the heads of the police and district attorney’s offices. Personally, if I was orchestrating such sinister deeds I would have saved the top cat (the mayor) for last – it just feels more operatic. The thing that links the macabre deaths are the signatures left at each crime scene: a riddle punctuated with a giant question mark, an encrypted cipher, a card addressed to “The Batman” and some spray painted (or blood painted) messaging about a web of lies or some such thing.

Given that Paul Dano plays The Riddler, you can probably guess who’s behind the acts that play out in sadistic fashion like a sin-atoned-for in David Fincher’s “Se7en” (1995) or a Jigsaw trap from one of the “Saw” films. The Riddler here just may be darker and more demonic than the spins on Joker performed by Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix: One clue leads to a thumb drive with a severed thumb attached to it, so those recovering it can unlock it via thumbprint, and it clearly takes a lot of work to be that twisted. But wait, this film’s about the bat, right? Well yes, and you get plenty of Robert Pattinson in the beefy Kevlar suit, which turns out to be a bit of a double-edged sword. We get to embed with him more, but the tease of enigma that has been the traditional draw dissipates. Director-writer Matt Reeves (“Let Me In,” “Cloverfield”), co-writer Peter Craig and Pattinson paint their Batman/Bruce Wayne as a deeply tortured soul, a monomaniacal tool of vengeance with no trace of mirth or joy and no bifurcation of personalities; what we drink in is all dour, sullen anger, underscored by the incarnation’s theme song, Nirvana’s broodingly depressive “Something in the Way.”

What carries the film are the sly intricacies of The Riddler’s misdeeds, the mysterious intent behind them and the stunning set designs that range from the crowded, rain-slicked streets of Gotham to the gaping Batcave and an Edward Hopper-styled diner lit in green neon. The cumulative effect is a strange, wonderful fusion of Walter Hill’s “Streets of Fire” (1984) and Ridley Scott’s future noir, “Blade Runner” (1982). The other aspect of “The Batman” that largely works is that our bat here is something of a master sleuth, a tech-age Sherlock Holmes, if you will. It’s a little off-putting to see him sniffing around a live crime scene CSI style, but part of the joy comes in looking beyond the obvious, going one level deeper and admiring the acumen of our hero. Caught up in the mix too is the updated version of Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), though she simply goes by her birth name of Selina and works in a nightclub owned by Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin, played beguilingly by Colin Farrell under gobs of makeup. He’s something of a brotherly incarnation of Robert De Niro’s portly Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull” (1980).

The rest of the impressive supporting cast includes a perfectly coiffed Andy Serkis as a dutiful Alfred who’s killer at decoding ciphers, John Turturro as the local crime boss all trails seem to lead to, Peter Sarsgaard as the sleazy DA and Jeffrey Wright, channeling his cagey investigative reporter from “The French Dispatch” (2021) as Lt. Gordon, the guy who fires up the bat signal and may be the only clean cop on the force. The new take on the Batmobile is something of a throwback to the muscle cars of the 1970s; it’s like someone bat-tatted a classic Dodge Charger and strapped on a jet engine turbo boost like one of those nitro-infused junkers in “The Road Warrior” (1981).

Pattinson and Kravitz look fetching together, and given their raw charisma you’d think the two would click together like Legos (there is that “Lego Batman Movie”), but the romantic undercurrent between them feels postured and unearned. Then again, this is a brooding, relentless lad who takes his mission as a higher cause – “I am vengeance” gets tossed around a lot. Batman’s most genuine connections are those with Gordon, who for reasons not on screen trusts him emphatically, and his lifelong loyal butler and caregiver Alfred, though that ultimately gets challenged as “the veil is pulled back and the lie’s exposed.” I grew up near Connecticut cities where corruption scandals were an annual “wait for it” event that didn’t disappoint, and of course we had infamous mayor Buddy Cianci just down the way in Providence. Gotham’s not much different: dirty cops with drug money washing political hands. What it does have is that dashing millionaire orphan who likes to dress up, break out the bat toys and take out the trash.

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Wrath of Man

9 May

‘Wrath of Man’: Ritchie and Statham reunited, heist with their own petard and angry about it

Guy Ritchie launched a lot of careers back in 1998 when he churned out the quirky crime drama “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” one being his own as an auteur of hyper-stylized violence in 3D slo-mo – something the Wachowskis would seize upon and elevate to an art form the following year with “The Matrix.” Menacing footballer turned actor Vinnie Jones is another; taciturn can-do strongman Jason Statham may have cut the biggest swath. Ritchie and Statham haven’t worked together since 2005’s “Revolver”: In between Statham had his hit “Transporter” series and joined the “Fast & Furious” franchise, while Ritchie made the live-action “Aladdin” (2019) and the tepid Sherlock films with Robert Downey Jr. Last year’s release of “The Gentlemen” signaled something of a return to form for Ritchie, even if the film couldn’t rise above its own self-aggrandizing cheekiness.

The pair’s latest collaboration is more of a straight-ahead Statham revenge flick like “Parker” or “Homefront” (both 2013) than an amped-up Guy Ritchie production – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Here in “Wrath of Man,” Statham plays H, a mysterious sort who barely shoots or drives well enough to make it as a guard with an armored car company that’s been targeted by a ring of thieves. What Ritchie and his phalanx of writers have cooked up is something like Steven Soderbergh’s “The Underneath” or Michael Mann’s indelibly furious “Heat,” both made in 1995 and about armored car heists.

To be certain, “Wrath of Man” is not on par with either. It’s not even close. But it does have its merits. The back-and-forth narrative between a heist in the recent past and one about to go down deepens the intrigue, as does a “Rashomon,” multi-angle view of a singular event, and there’s a score by Christopher Benstead that bristles with a sense of foreboding and goes far in defining the atmosphere and driving the action. The main reason to see “Wrath of Man,” however, is to see Statham’s enigmatic antihero with a hidden agenda do what he does best, and that’s pick apart those evading justice with cold, calculating efficiency. If you’re here for anything else, that’s on you. Also in the vast cast we get Holt McCallany, so good in David Fincher’s “Mindhunter” series, as Bullet, H’s higher-up; Josh Hartnett in an odd turn as Boy Sweat Dave, the armored car company’s big mouth who shuts down under fire; Ritchie regular Eddie Marsan as the company bean counter; and Scott Eastwood and Jeffrey Donovan as well-organized jarheads on the opposite side of the bulletproof glass from H.

“Wrath of Man” gets better as it goes on, something that can’t be said for “Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse,” a similarly straight-up revenge flick released last week. It’s doesn’t have the big production values of that Michael B. Jordan vehicle, but it does have Statham’s no-nonsense avenger, and that’s good enough to make it the better choice to waste two hours of your day on.

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The Little Things

31 Jan

‘The Little Things’: Tracking a killer before GPS, with detectives who also wander the moral map

By Tom MeekFriday, January 29, 2021

In this throwback neo-noir baked in the David Fincher oven of dark serial-killer thrillers (“Seven,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “Zodiac”) director John Lee Hancock (“The Blind Side,” “The Rookie”) scores something of a casting coup, landing a trio of Academy Award-winners for his leads. Hancock has been wanting to make “The Little Things” since the early ’90s, when he penned it and (around the same time) “A Perfect World,” the Clint Eastwood-helmed crime drama starring Kevin Costner. At one point Steven Spielberg’s name was attached to the project (too dark), but now things have come full circle with the writer-turned-director taking charge of his scene-by-scene, murder mystery blueprint.

The drama takes place in L.A. around the time Hancock wrote it, well before cellphones, social media and reliable and readily available DNA testing. A gray-dusted Denzel Washington takes center as Joe “Deke” Deacon, a deputy from a dusty town north of L.A. who must reluctantly head back to the city of his former employ to pick up evidence. While there he drops in on a burgeoning investigation led by Jimmy Baxter (Rami Malek), a tightly coiled homicide dick newly onto the trail of what looks to be a serial killer. Deke tags along to one crime scene, and the Frick-and-Frack tandem click. Deke decides to stick around and help QB from the backseat. Like “LA Confidential” (1997), the “The Little Things” is less about the who-did-it than the people pursuing the criminal acts, though suspect numero uno Albert Sparma (Jared Leto, sporting bad chompers, a prosthetic schnoz, low-riding paunch and a bow-legged gait) is something of a scene stealer, two parts Charlie Manson (sans flock), one part the maniacal god complex that Leto dredged up for “Blade Runner 2049” (2017) and a dash of Hannibal Lecter thrown in for good fun. Granted, he’s not as lethal as any of those lads, but he does drive a bitchin’ ’70s Chevy Nova SS and really knows how to get under everybody’s skin. When Sparma (sounds like a hot Italian sub with oozing mozzarella, right?) isn’t ripping it up with philosophical psychobabble that feels written for the lips of Jim Morrison, we get the dark why of Deke’s being run out of L.A. and start to see that Baxter’s overreaching confidence might be more chest puffing than can-do.

“The Little Things” moves in mysterious, murky tics embossed by John Schwartzman’s shadowy but sharp cinematography and Thomas Newman’s moody score. Ir all feels so visceral, deep and compelling, but when the reveals come back around, many of the threads register all for naught, a goose chase without the fowl. Washington (“Training Day,” “Glory”) and Malek (an electric Freddy Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody”) often feel like they’re occupying sketches of complex men, their renowned talent square pegs shoved in round holes. Malek, boyish and slick, feels too fresh and wide-eyed for a part that demands a more world-weary soul. Leto (“Dallas Buyer’s Club”), on the other hand, is a merry pixie of perversion, dancing his way around Hancock’s noirish landscape pulling strings and pushing buttons, consequences be damned – much like the film itself.

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Honest Thief

18 Oct

‘Honest Thief’: There’s no particular set of skills on display in tale of Boston burglar done wrong

By Tom Meek
Thursday, October 15, 2020

For the past decade Liam Neeson has made nonstop B-level actioners, with the “Taken” series as the defining cornerstone; now we have “Honest Thief,” which feels like a B-minus version of a “Taken” entry. What’s more, it takes place here and adds to the string of recent Boston duds alongside “Ava” with Jessica Chastain unbelievable as a Charlize Theron-esque hitwoman, and Adam Sandler’s “Hubie’s Halloween,” set in Salem. They all make for good locale watching, but can the Hub please get a plot worthy of our time?

Here Neeson plays Tom Dolan, a debonair former military operative turned cat burglar. Despite the name and location, he’s no Thomas Crown. Dubbed “the In and Out Burglar” by Boston’s FBI bureau – a label he deeply despises – Tom has yet to tell his girlfriend Annie (Kate Walsh, “Grey’s Anatomy”) about his trade. His plan for coming clean? Confess to the authorities, cut a deal, get out early and marry his betrothed. 

What can go wrong, right? Well for starters, the FBI thinks he’s a crank caller, and a double-dealing agent (Jai Courtney, “Terminator Genisys”) and his conflicted partner (Anthony Ramos, “Hamilton”) want Tom’s stash and figure to frame him for a murder. 

Naturally things get ugly, and Annie gets caught in the middle. That’s when things get truly painful as Neeson, so far from his turns in “Schindler’s List” (1993) and even Martin Scorsese’s “Silence” (2016), uses his stately Irish baritone to mansplain violence. The dialogue feels mostly like screenwriting workshop leftovers. In one scene Annie, now aware of what Tom’s up to, reacts with, “The first surprise was ‘Let’s get a cute house in Newton’ and the second surprise is that you’re a bank robber?” Honestly?

The film disappoint too because it’s from Mark Williams, co-creator of the Emmy-winning Netflix series “Ozark.” There Williams helped cook up a genuinely dark crime drama imbued with character and nuance. If only some of that smartness had made it to Massachusetts.

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True History of the Kelly Gang

1 May

‘True History of the Kelly Gang’: In the outback for a bloody, convoluted crime tale, clad in tulle

By Tom Meek
True History of the Kelly Gang: How an Irish bandit became Australian antihero
Director Justin Kurzel jazzed up “Macbeth” in 2015, but that endeavor felt too overstylized to bear the bite of the Bard. Reteaming with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard a year later, Kurzel found a better fit for his arthouse violence with the big-screen adaptation of the video game “Assassin’s Creed.” Now Kurzel enshrines Australia’s version of Billy the Kid – Ned Kelly – in “True History of the Kelly Gang.” In past variations the notorious outlaw was played by icons Mick Jagger (1970) and Heath Ledger (2003). Here it’s George MacKay (“1917”) in a shag mullet; like its predecessors, the take on Kelly by Kurzel is an alluring, muddled meander punctuated with madness, mayhem and tedious backstory.

The film, based on an award-winning 2000 novel by Peter Carey that played it loose with facts (“Nothing about this is true,” reads an opening overlay) the film is broken up into chapters: “Boy,” “Man,” “Monitor.” In “Boy” we get the lay of the land in two quick shakes as the young Ned (an angelic and androgynous Orlando Schwerdt) drinks in the sight of his mother (Essie Davis, Kurzel’s wife and the star of “The Babadook,” giving a fierce, compelling turn here) performing fellatio in a grimy barn on an expectant officer (Charlie Hunnam). Ned’s cuckold pa (Ben Corbett) who likes to dress in ladies wear, pulls the boy from the sight. Kurzel’s outback, like Jennifer Kent’s Tasmanian territory in “The Nightingale” (2019), is a grim, sexually charged place where violence seems on the edge of erupting in every frame.

Eventually Ned comes under the tutelage of Harry Power (a gruff, effective Russell Crowe), a notorious outback criminal – known as a bushranger, the equivalent of Old West outlaws in the United States. It’s horse thievery that puts the Kellys at odds with Hunnam’s officer and later, and far more drastically, with a sadistic constable (Nicholas Hoult) named Fitzpatrick who ingratiates himself to Ned and the Kellys while quietly poisoning them.

The dance with the law is a dicey one, but ultimately Ned falls outside it and forms a brigade of foppish fancies (as Carey’s book has it) who take no issue in cutting down quarry in lipstick and tulle. As depicted, Ned’s both Robin Hood and cold killer; Kurzel clearly wants to romanticize Ned while bathing him stylistically in blood, scene after scene, which is where the film begins to lose its hold on Ned the human being, sliding into ritualized retaliatory strikes. Kurzel takes some chances with the soundtrack with its occasional infusion of modern rock, and with chaotic body cam POVs that disrupt the gorgeous framing of the lush yet spare outback by Ari Wegner (“In Fabric”). MacKay as Ned is starkly overshadowed by Davis’s fuck-all mother and Hoult’s cunning manipulator – the scene where the two confront each other in tight confines late in the film is a powder keg of tension. The nearly final chaotic shootout, like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” with Ned and crew in metallic headgear made from farm plows, is done with gorgeously hallucinatory imagery rendered between bullet flashes and accentuated by a balletic rat-tat-tat. It’s one of the many alluring shards of the “Kelly Gang” that envelop the viewer for a moment, but never collectively get to the soul of the man at the epicenter.

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Blow the Man Down

22 Mar

‘Blow the Man Down’: Sisters in a small town share secrets, but small town outdoes them

By Tom Meek

Blow the Man Down' Review: Women, They Get the Job Done - The New York Times
With the Covid-19 state of emergency and shutdown of movie theaters, we’re highlighting new streaming options for people stuck in their homes by social distancing.

“Blow the Man Down” is something of a noirish whodunnit set in a sleepy little fishing village in Maine by the name of Easter Cove. In look and feel Easter Cove has the small-town intimacy that buoyed “Manchester by the Sea” (2016), but the plot that unfurls upon its docks, dark country roads and placid bays is something else, far darker and more akin to a Coen brothers offering – say “Blood Simple” (1984) or “Fargo” (1996).

The movie begins with the funeral of Mary Margaret Connolly, whom we quickly learn has left her two daughters with a meager fish market, the house they grew up in and a mountain of debt. Mary Beth (Morgan Saylor of “Homeland”), the sassier, redheaded younger of the two, had to drop out of college to help care for her mother, while Pris (Sophie Lowe), the dutiful one, pretty much lives up to her overtly wholesome name. Later that night, to drown her miseries, Mary Beth takes up a stool at the local watering hole and ends up throwing back a few pints with a dubious yet good-looking ruffian named Gorski (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). The two share a few snorts of coke, a car crash into a cherished town landmark – and then there’s the discovery of human hair and blood in the trunk of an old beater as the evening takes some very fateful turns. After it all, there are two bodies floating in the harbor, with Mary Beth and Pris both victims as well as in power to provide the police with details, though the police in this case are totally out in left field and no one is interested in them solving the crimes, let alone the fact that the police chief (Skipp Sudduth) is corrupt and on the take. A critical bag of cash and scrimshaw knife bob around as well.

The film, directed by the first-time tandem of Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy, is driven by the kind of female outside-the-law energy that propelled “Thelma and Louise” (1991) and is further embossed by the women dominating the ensemble beyond the Connollys (Saylor and Lowe form a palpable sisterhood invaluable to the film’s success). That includes the intimidating Enid Nora Devlin (Margo Martindale, so perfectly unassuming at first), who runs the Oceanview Inn, your classic New England quaint spot that’s a veneer for bordello operations, and a moralistic trio of harpies (June Squibb of “Nebraska,” Marceline Hugot and Annette O’Toole) at odds with Enid and all having something to do with the Connolly matriarch back in the day. Not to mention, the most at stake in the ever-shifting tides of Easter Cove is Alexis (Gayle Rankin), one of Enid’s girls who’s always looking over her shoulder – and with just cause. The score by Jordan Dykstra and Brian McOmber is sets the mood well, and there’s a reoccurring chorus of fisherman singing sea shanties that comment on the action. It’s a worthy little thriller that hits some swells of credibility here and there, but overall the ebb and flow holds us captive.

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The Gentlemen

26 Jan

‘The Gentlemen’: Guy Ritchie gangster crew hashes out their differences to deadly ends

The Gentlemen' Is an Early Contender For Most Stylish Film of the Year

By Tom Meek Friday, January 24, 2020

Video PlayerIt feels somewhat weird that this boldly minted Miramax offering from Guy Ritchie hits theaters just as the Harvey Weinstein trial kicks off in New York. Miramax, for those with short-term memories, was the studio Harvey and his brother founded back in 1979. The name remains synonymous with the notorious abuser, which is why in Ritchie’s return to the British gangster romp it’s so strange to see the moniker not only up there in lights, but as part of the plot. Perhaps the studio thought of it as something of a whitewash, but the timing makes the connection just too hard to shake.

That bit of ignominious history aside, “The Gentlemen” is quite entertaining, sharper and more focused than Ritchie’s “RocknRolla” (2008) though not in the same class as “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” (1998) or “Snatch” (2000). (Also hard to believe Ritchie just helmed the recent “Aladdin” adaptation). The ensemble here is a stroke of genius, with Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Pearson, an American transplant who runs a half-billion-dollar cannabis operation, Hugh Grant owning the picture as a conniving P.I. and aspiring screenwriter named Fletcher and hunky hot ticket Henry Golding as Dry Eye, a foot soldier with big ambitions. Then there’s Colin Farrell as “Coach,” a saucy sort who runs an inner-city gym, and Charlie Hunnam as Ray, Mickey’s fixer. The uber-twisted plot essentially rides on the rails of Mickey in the process of selling his business (because of his criminal past, when weed goes legal he likely won’t get a seat at the table) to a fellow American (Jeremy Strong). From there, the chess match of double dealings and plots within plots spews forth, the whole endeavor framed brilliantly by some deliciously dicey dialogue between Fletcher and Ray over a few bottles of scotch and Wagyu steak – what’s that in your freezer, the son of a Russian oligarch? Continue reading →

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John Henry

23 Jan

‘John Henry’: Seminal American hero update pits Terry Crews’ sledgehammer against gangs

By Tom Meek
Thursday, January 23, 2020
John Henry': Seminal American hero update pits Terry Crews' sledgehammer against gangs - Cambridge Day

A small-budget thriller with plenty of grit and swagger, “John Henry” tosses tropes and lore into the blender with mixed results. Think “Billy Jack” (1971) or “Walking Tall” (1973) and you’d be in the neighborhood. For those who don’t know the American legend of John Henry (steeped in fact), the “steel-driving man” was a freed slave who took up work on a railroad. Henry was so physically gifted and effusive in his work, the folktale has it, that he raced a steam-driven boring machine to see who could get through the mountain quicker. The man won, but died shortly after. Here that myth gets a modern-day spin of sorts with football player-turned-character actor Terry Crews (“Idiocracy,” “Deadpool 2”) in the title role. His John has escaped gang life and tries to live quietly in L.A. Not an easy task, and because of his violent past, he abhors guns and keeps by his side (guesses anyone?) a sledgehammer for good measure.

John’s old life rages outside his front door. First, a gold-toothed gang banger runs over John’s dog – then threatens to shoot him because the dog gets blood all over his Escalade. Next, a den of gangsters who all don white jumpsuits (they’re Devo ridiculous, and there’s no perceivable purpose other than to make them easier to pick off) gets wiped out. Those behind it are two illegal immigrants there to free their Latina kindred, enslaved ostensibly for sex trade. One of the girls (Jamila Velazquez) ends up hiding under John Henry’s house and is later granted sanctuary. John can’t speak a lick of Spanish, but his loquacious, wheelchair-bound father (scene stealer Ken Foree) can, providing the communication bridge and the film with a meted current of comedy (Grady from “Sanford and Son” would not be a stretch). “Berta” is later joined by her brother Emilio (Joseph Julian Soria), one of the two behind the trigger in that shoot-up. “How many did you kill?” John asks. The answer is seven, and that’s the number Hell (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) will require to even the score. You know where this is going, sledgehammer and all.

The film, written and directed by first-timer Will Forbes, is notable for its social scope and ambition, but ultimately sags as it tries to do too much with the simple setup. The heat of the moment gets put on pause for ad nauseam backstory, and scenes of violent confrontation are drawn out so clumsily, Sergio Leone style, that hack trumps homage. That said, the infusion of rap and R&B bolsters the atmosphere greatly, and it’s nice to see Crews spread his wings role-wise. From the film, however, it’s hard to gauge his leading man potential. He’s big and imposing with the massive mallet in his mitts, sure, but then there’s Ludacris’s Hell sporting a cyborg-esque gold plated grille on the side of his face. He looks like he dropped out of lo-fi 1990s sci-fi thriller, and the effect is overwhelming. Rumor has it Netflix is queuing up a project with Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson as John Henry. More to come.

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Murder Still a Mystery, One Year Later

3 Jan

Anniversary of Wilson death in Danehy Park brings update: Progress, but no suspect ID’d

 

By Tom Meek and Marc Levy
Thursday, January 2, 2020
District Attorney Marian Ryan steps aside at a Thursday press conference in Woburn so Elizabeth Dobbins can speak on the one-year anniversary of the death of her brother, Paul Wilson. (Photo: Tom Meek)

On the one-year anniversary of the killing of Paul Wilson, 60, in Danehy Park, law enforcement officials gathered at the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office in Woburn on Thursday to assure the public they continue to investigate – and to ask again for the public’s help in finding the killer.

Joining them was Wilson’s sister, Elizabeth Dobbins, who reflected on Wilson as big man with a big heart, and a man who valued family and friends. “He could connect with anyone and everyone,” she said, calling his death “incomprehensible and senseless.”

While there was little new to be revealed by District Attorney Marian Ryan and Cambridge police Deputy Superintendent Leonard DiPietro, it was made clear that a bat found at the scene of the crime was not used to kill Wilson.

“There is nothing that connects this item with the crime,” officials said. “A search of the park following the attack resulted in the collection of several samples of biological matter. Forensic testing has been conducted indicating that some of the blood found at the scene was animal blood; testing on further biological evidence remains ongoing.”

An image of Paul Wilson released Thursday by law enforcement officials.

Videos given to police by people in the area have not provided any answers, and Ryan said hundreds of park neighbors and visitors have been interviewed. “By revisiting this anniversary today, we are reminding the community of this crime and reinforcing the need for cooperation and information from the general public,” DiPietro added.

It was also noted that since the attack on Wilson, “investigators have also been made aware of some similar incidents that have occurred in Cambridge and other communities” but are not connected to his death, they said. “He was also found with his belongings on him, including an Apple Watch – suggesting robbery was not the motive.”

On Jan. 2, 2019, Wilson returned from work at IBM to the Porter Square T station and rode a Blue Bike home, parking it by his house on Sherman Street before walking through the park,  investigators said. Wilson was found by a passer-by shortly before 6:48 p.m. on an asphalt path near the Danehy Park parking lot and dumpsters, near New Street. He was taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and pronounced dead from blunt force trauma at around 10:18 p.m. 

“There’s no reason to believe the crime didn’t take place where the body was found [and] there’s more reason to believe it did,” Cambridge Police Commissioner Branville G. Bard Jr. said at a public meeting a year ago. “Mr. Wilson was found right under working lights in a well-lit area. That wasn’t the problem.”

The discussion of motive was similar to what was discussed a year ago.  Wilson was “brutally murdered,” Bard said, and Ryan said at the time that there was no reason to believe the intention of the attack, in which “most of the blows were to the top of the head,” was a robbery. 

The death continues to be investigated by the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, state police assigned there and by Cambridge police. “We have made some progress but have not ye identified a suspect,” Ryan said Thursday, renewing a call for anyone with information about the incident to call (781) 897-6600.

People with information are also invited to call Cambridge Police at (617) 349-3300. Anonymous reports can be left at (617) 349-3359; sent by text message to 847411 (begin your text with TIP650, then type your message); or by email by visiting CambridgePolice.org/Tips.

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