Lou2413 Reviews

Jack Goes Home (2016)

Spiral into Disjointedness

[4/10 · 15 October 2016]

The downward spiral into madness Jack Goes Home tries to imbue falls short. What's left is a disjointed film wondering what it wants to be.

While I do agree we get to see a different side of Lin Shaye from what we see in the Insidious chapters, I felt her performance to be over the top and wrought with cliché moments à la Mommie Dearest.

Rory Culkin gets everything thrown at him including the kitchen sink, yet never deviates from the mouth agape, detached look expression he sports throughout the film. His acting skills are far superior to what we see play out during the movie.

Natasha Lyonne makes a cameo appearance at a receptionist desk. It makes you wonder if she said her four lines as a favor to Dekker. Fortunately for Lyonne, she can make a desk look good. It's unfortunate for us that we only get a glimpse of her.

On a positive note, there were a few creepy scenes any horror fan would enjoy. And it was also a beautifully shot film. There was enough glimmer of hope buried within Jack Goes Home to make me interested in Thomas Dekker's next move as a director and film writer.

Billionaire Ransom (II) (2016)

Two Movies in One

[5/10 · 12 October 2016]

I felt the film didn't know what it wanted to be. It's set up to be a heist film, but it spends the majority of the time detailing the experience of these billionaire kids out in the wild and their journey of enlightenment and becoming better people.

The film does a good job when it's focused on the kids, but then you're pulled out of the story with snippets of the group planning the heist and it feels disjointed. Suddenly, you remember it's a heist/ransom situation and that's almost disappointing. I could easily watch a film about this group of trust fund babies learning what it's like to be free and to want something more than their previous lives.

The dichotomy of the film is its weakness. The two parts would have been great as separate movies. However, it is still very much a watchable film.