CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS: 10-30-26
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My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review six new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, October 30th, 2026.
Let me start by saying that I absolutely love John Turturro. I think the guy is a national treasure, one of the finest and most consistently interesting character actors we've ever had. His collaborations with Spike Lee and the Coen brothers alone would be enough to establish him as one of the greats.
He was Pino in Do the Right Thing, Herbie Stempel in Quiz Show, the unforgettable Jesus Quintana in The Big Lebowski, and he appeared in Miller's Crossing, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and so many other terrific movies. And then there's Barton Fink, which I still think is the best performance of his career.
He's also an accomplished director, with films like Mac and Fading Gigolo, and he's been terrific on television in Severance. But it's been a while since he's had a substantial leading role in a movie that really allows him to dominate the screen, and that's exactly what happens in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.
This is a magnificent late-career showcase for Turturro, a funny, suspenseful, heartbreaking character study, and one of the best movies I've seen this year.
Written and directed by Noah Segan, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York tells the story of Harry Lehman (Turturro), an aging, old-school pickpocket living in the Bronx who's trying to survive in a city that no longer has much use for his particular talents. Harry is a craftsman, a guy who has spent decades perfecting the delicate art of slipping a wallet or watch out of somebody's pocket without being noticed.
But it's 2026, nobody carries cash anymore, everybody pays for everything with their phones, and the wallets Harry manages to steal are generally filled with credit cards that can be canceled in about fifteen seconds.
He's a man whose profession has become practically obsolete, and he doesn't even own a cell phone. He has no interest in cryptocurrency, digital wallets, or any of the technological innovations that have transformed the city around him. He understands people, he understands the streets, and he understands how to use his hands. Unfortunately, those skills aren't worth what they used to be.
Harry lives in a modest apartment with his wife, Rosie (Karina Arroyave), who is severely disabled, unable to speak, and completely dependent on him for her care. And the scenes between Harry and Rosie are absolutely beautiful. He carries her up and down the stairs, prepares her meals, makes sure she's comfortable, and spends his days caring for her with an extraordinary amount of patience and tenderness.
There's a wonderful sequence in which he puts on a record and dances with her in their apartment, and you immediately understand how much these two people mean to each other.
Arroyave, by the way, is an actress I've admired for years. She was remarkable in the 1997 Samuel L. Jackson movie 187, and it was wonderful to see her again, even in a role without dialogue.
The relationship between Harry and Rosie gives the movie its emotional foundation, and Turturro communicates more about their history through a few quiet gestures and expressions than most actors could manage with pages of dialogue.
The trouble begins when Harry makes the mistake of stealing from the wrong guy. One evening, he lifts a few items from a young man named Dylan (Will Price), breaks into his vintage automobile, and makes off with a bag containing, among other things, a mysterious electronic device.
Harry doesn't have the slightest idea what it is, but he figures it must be worth something. So he takes it to his longtime friend Ben (Steve Buscemi), a pawnshop owner who also serves as Harry's fence. Ben doesn't know what the thing is either. Watching these two old-timers stare at what turns out to be a cryptocurrency wallet, trying to figure out what the hell they're supposed to do with it, is very funny.
They eventually decide that somebody with a little more technological knowledge might be able to help, and the device makes its way to a dealer in Chinatown. Unfortunately, Dylan isn't simply some obnoxious young tech bro. He's connected to a very dangerous New York crime family, and he wants his property back.
Before long, Dylan tracks Harry down, discovers where he lives, and threatens Rosie. He gives Harry a matter of hours to retrieve the device or face some very unpleasant consequences. And suddenly this quiet little character study becomes a terrific, suspenseful crime thriller, with Harry traveling from one borough to another, visiting old associates, tracking down people who might know where the device has gone, and desperately trying to protect his wife.
The irony is that Harry, who has spent his entire life stealing things without anybody noticing, has become involved in a crime that he doesn't even understand. He's dealing with a younger generation of criminals who can track people through electronic devices, move enormous amounts of money without ever touching a dollar bill, and use technology in ways that are completely foreign to him.
It's a wonderful premise, and Segan gets a tremendous amount of humor and suspense out of the collision between these two worlds.
One of my favorite scenes involves Harry encountering a young pickpocket on the subway. The kid tries to steal from him, apparently unaware that he's dealing with somebody who has probably forgotten more about the profession than this young guy will ever learn.
Instead of getting angry, Harry actually gives him some advice. He explains what the kid did wrong, how he should have approached the situation, and how to do the job properly. It's a lovely, funny scene, but it's also rather touching.
Harry is genuinely delighted to discover that somebody from a younger generation is still interested in learning this old-fashioned skill. He sees pickpocketing as an art form, something that requires practice, finesse, and an understanding of human behavior. And there's something both amusing and sad about watching a guy pass along the secrets of a trade that the modern world has essentially eliminated.
The supporting cast is fantastic, particularly Steve Buscemi as Ben. Now, come on. John Turturro and Steve Buscemi sharing scenes together? How can you not love that? Here's Barton Fink sitting across from Chet the bellhop, and it's an absolute pleasure to watch these two terrific actors work together again.
Buscemi is wonderful as a guy who's also struggling to keep his old-fashioned business alive in a world that has moved on without him. Their friendship feels completely authentic, like two men who've known each other for decades and don't need to explain much of anything to one another.
Ben's younger, technologically savvy daughter Eve (Victoria Moroles) provides a particularly amusing contrast to these two guys, who can recognize the value of an antique watch in about three seconds but can't figure out what to do with a USB device.
And then there's Giancarlo Esposito, who's terrific as Detective Allan Warren, an old-school New York cop who has known Harry for years. There's a mutual respect between them, an understanding that goes beyond the usual relationship between a police officer and a criminal. Warren knows exactly what Harry does for a living, and Harry knows that Warren understands the streets in ways that younger detectives probably don't.
There's a great sequence when Warren takes Harry into the police station and we discover that the older, less technologically sophisticated detectives have essentially been shoved into the back of the building. The important offices are occupied by the younger cops with their computers and their new methods, while the old guys have been relegated to what amounts to a storage area.
It's funny, but it also says everything you need to know about the movie's central theme. Whether you're a pickpocket or a police detective, the world has changed, and the people who once knew how everything worked are suddenly being treated like relics.
There's also a beautiful scene involving Harry's estranged daughter Kelly, played by the great Tatiana Maslany. As Harry begins to understand just how dangerous his situation has become, he realizes that he may not have much time left, and he decides to visit Kelly and try to make amends for the mistakes he's made over the years.
He shows up at her home, where she has a family and a life of her own, and what follows is one of the most emotionally honest scenes in the movie. There are apologies, regrets, and years of unresolved feelings, but Segan wisely avoids giving us some phony, sentimental reconciliation where everybody hugs and everything is suddenly forgiven.
Their relationship is complicated, and the scene respects that. Maslany is wonderful, and Turturro's performance here is absolutely heartbreaking. It's a reminder that Harry's life hasn't simply been a romantic adventure through the streets of New York. He's made mistakes, he's hurt people, and he's carrying around plenty of regrets.
But beyond the performances and the terrific story, what I really loved about this movie is the way it captures New York City. This is a great New York movie, and I mean that in the fullest sense.
We travel through the boroughs, ride the subways, visit pawnshops, bodegas, apartments, storefronts, and neighborhoods that feel genuinely lived in. The streets, the buildings, the people, the sounds, and the rhythms of the city are all beautifully captured. There's nothing artificial or overly polished about the locations.
This is a New York populated by working people, small-time criminals, old friends, neighborhood characters, and individuals who've spent their entire lives trying to survive in a place that's constantly reinventing itself. The city isn't simply a backdrop. It's practically another character, and Segan clearly loves it.
And the movie has this wonderful 1970s quality that I found irresistible. The cinematography, the costumes, the production design, the pacing, and particularly the terrific musical score all evoke the great New York crime dramas of the '70s and early '80s.
It has that slightly worn, gritty, lived-in atmosphere that characterized so many movies made during that period. You can almost imagine this story being told in the era of Sidney Lumet, with its fascination for street-level characters, moral compromises, and people struggling to maintain their dignity in a changing city.
But the movie isn't simply wallowing in nostalgia. It's very much about contemporary New York, and the contrast between the old city and the new one is what makes the material so effective. Harry belongs to a world that has practically disappeared, and the movie understands both the sadness and the humor of that situation.
And there's another level to all of this that I found particularly moving. Watching John Turturro, an actor who's been so closely associated with New York movies for so many decades, walking through the streets of the city and playing this aging character who feels increasingly out of place is almost like watching a tribute to his own career.
He's in practically every scene, and his Harry is funny, stubborn, resourceful, tender, occasionally infuriating, and deeply sad. Turturro never reduces him to some lovable old crook with a heart of gold. He gives him flaws, dignity, intelligence, and a lifetime of experiences that seem to exist just beneath the surface of every expression.
The movie's themes of aging, obsolescence, and changing times gain an additional resonance simply because of the actor playing the role.
The movie also has a wonderful sense of humor, particularly when it comes to the absurdities of modern technology and the generational divide between people like Harry and the younger criminals who think they've invented everything. But the humor never overwhelms the suspense, and as Harry's situation becomes increasingly desperate, the film develops a genuine emotional weight.
There are some clever developments as the story moves toward its conclusion, and I won't spoil any of them. I will say, however, that there's a fantastic surprise cameo near the end of the movie that absolutely knocked me out. I had no idea this person was going to appear, and the performance is terrific. Do yourself a favor and stay away from spoilers, because the appearance is an absolute delight.
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is a terrific movie, funny, suspenseful, beautifully acted, and filled with affection for a city and a way of life that are rapidly disappearing.
Noah Segan has made a wonderfully authentic New York crime drama that also works as a moving meditation on aging, regret, loyalty, and the strange experience of discovering that the world no longer values the things you've spent your entire life learning how to do.
And at the center of it all is John Turturro, giving one of the finest performances of his career. I think he deserves an Academy Award nomination for this, and I'd love to see him win. He's that good.
I absolutely loved this movie, and I highly recommend The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
La bola negra, or The Black Ball, is an enormous, sweeping, passionate epic that tackles war, sexuality, repression, forbidden love, and the struggles of gay men across several generations. It's bold, ambitious filmmaking, filled with terrific performances, elaborate musical sequences, and a genuine sense of urgency about the story it's trying to tell. And there are moments when it works beautifully.
Unfortunately, there are also moments when it's simply too much. The filmmakers throw practically everything they can think of onto the screen, jumping between three different time periods, mixing historical drama with fantasy, romance, political commentary, and musical spectacle, and occasionally losing control of the whole thing.
I admired an awful lot about La bola negra, particularly its craftsmanship and the importance of its subject matter, but I never connected with it emotionally the way I should have. It's one of those movies where my admiration for what the filmmakers are attempting is considerably greater than my actual enjoyment of the finished film.
The movie is directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, the Spanish filmmaking team known collectively as Los Javis, and written by the directors along with playwright Alberto Conejero. It's inspired by an unfinished work by the great Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, as well as Conejero's play La piedra oscura.
Lorca was one of Spain's most important literary figures, a brilliant artist whose life was cut tragically short when he was murdered in 1936 during the early days of the Spanish Civil War. His sexuality, his artistic freedom, and his resistance to the restrictions imposed by the society around him are central to the themes of this movie.
The filmmakers have taken the fragments of his unfinished work and constructed an elaborate exploration of queer identity, persecution, and the ways in which art and love can survive even when the people responsible for creating them are silenced.
The story is told through three interconnected narratives, taking place in 1932, 1937, and 2017, and the film moves back and forth between them rather than presenting everything chronologically.
In 1932, we meet Carlos (Milo Quifes), a young man from a wealthy family in Granada who's denied membership in an exclusive social club because of rumors about his homosexuality. His father, Vicente (Antonio de la Torre), wants him to deny the rumors and preserve the family's social standing, while Carlos struggles with the expectations of a society that refuses to accept who he really is.
There's an elaborate, increasingly surreal quality to this section, with musical performances, symbolic imagery, and eventually a sequence involving snow and a mysterious elderly woman that takes the story into the realm of fantasy.
It's visually striking, occasionally haunting, and also a good example of how the filmmakers sometimes become so fascinated with their own imagery that the emotional impact gets lost in the spectacle.
The second story takes place in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, and follows Sebastián (Guitarricadelafuente), a young trumpet player whose life is shattered by a devastating military attack that kills his mother.
He's forced into service with the Nationalist forces and assigned to guard Rafael Rodríguez Rapún (Miguel Bernardeau), a wounded Republican prisoner who had been involved with Lorca's traveling theater company and was also the poet's lover.
As the two men spend time together, Sebastián begins confronting his own sexuality, and their relationship develops into something intimate and deeply complicated. Rafael introduces him to Lorca's poetry and the importance of preserving the artist's work, even as the violence of the war threatens to destroy everything around them.
This section contains some of the film's most powerful material, particularly in the way it contrasts the tenderness of forbidden love with the brutality of military repression.
The third narrative jumps forward to 2017 and centers on Alberto (Carlos González), a historian and former playwright who discovers that his estranged grandfather has left him an extraordinary inheritance: pages from Lorca's supposedly lost, unfinished play La bola negra.
As Alberto investigates the manuscript's origins, he begins uncovering connections between his family's history, the events of the Spanish Civil War, and the lives of people who were forced to conceal their identities.
His research brings him into contact with a Lorca scholar played by Glenn Close, and his discoveries gradually reveal how the experiences of the men in the earlier stories have shaped the lives of people generations later. It's an intriguing idea, and the connections between the three narratives provide the movie with its larger historical framework.
Now, there's certainly no shortage of ambition here. Calvo and Ambrossi are attempting to create a massive cinematic statement about queer history, the persecution of gay men, and the ability of art to survive across generations. And they're doing it through a wild combination of styles.
One moment we're watching a realistic wartime drama with gunfire, explosions, and military executions, and the next we're immersed in an elaborate musical number or a surreal fantasy sequence filled with symbolism.
There are enormous emotional confrontations, moments of intimacy, historical references, and a large collection of characters who enter and exit the story. The filmmakers clearly feel that this material deserves an epic treatment, and I understand that impulse. But the sheer volume of everything becomes exhausting, and the constant shifting between stories occasionally makes the movie feel scattered.
Just when one narrative begins to develop a certain rhythm, we're suddenly transported to another period and another dramatic style. Instead of building toward an overwhelming emotional experience, it sometimes feels like three ambitious movies competing for our attention.
That said, the performances are uniformly strong. Guitarricadelafuente brings a wonderful vulnerability to Sebastián, particularly as the character begins to understand feelings he's never been allowed to acknowledge.
Miguel Bernardeau is excellent as Rafael, giving the character intelligence, tenderness, and a quiet sense of dignity in the face of terrible circumstances. Carlos González is also very good as Alberto, whose investigation into the past becomes increasingly personal.
And Milo Quifes does impressive work in the 1932 sequences, capturing the anguish of a young man whose entire existence is being dictated by the expectations and prejudices of the people around him.
The cast is enormous, with memorable appearances by Natalia de Molina, Antonio de la Torre, Albert Pla, and Glenn Close, among others, and there's an impressive commitment to the material from everybody involved.
But I have to single out Penélope Cruz, who is absolutely fantastic as Nené Romero, a popular singer entertaining the troops during the war. Cruz has a couple of spectacular musical sequences, and she practically walks away with the movie whenever she's on screen.
I've said this before, but I don't think Penélope Cruz is capable of giving a bad performance. She's one of the most magnetic actresses working today, and here she brings humor, sensuality, theatricality, and a wonderful sense of showmanship to a character who could easily have been overwhelmed by the size of the production.
Her musical numbers are among the film's highlights, providing some much-needed energy and personality when the larger narrative threatens to become weighed down by its own importance.
From a technical standpoint, La bola negra is extraordinary. The cinematography is gorgeous, with sweeping camera movements, beautifully composed images, and a tremendous sense of scale. The period settings are meticulously recreated, the costumes and production design are remarkable, and the musical score is rich and often quite moving.
The editing is impressive, too, considering the difficulty of juggling three narratives across such an enormous span of time. You can feel the passion and effort that went into every frame, particularly during the wartime sequences and the more elaborate fantasy passages.
This is epic filmmaking in every sense of the word, and I just wish the visual accomplishments had been matched by a stronger emotional connection to the characters. And that's ultimately my biggest frustration with the movie.
The history of queer persecution, particularly during the Spanish Civil War, is a subject that deserves serious attention. The idea of using Lorca's unfinished work as a way of connecting generations of gay men, exploring the lives they were forced to hide and the artistic legacies they struggled to preserve, is genuinely fascinating.
But understanding the importance of a story isn't the same thing as being moved by the way it's told. Some of the best scenes in La bola negra are the quietest ones, particularly the intimate exchanges between Sebastián and Rafael, when the movie allows two characters to simply exist together and reveal something about themselves.
Those moments have a directness and honesty that much of the larger spectacle lacks. Not every emotional revelation needs to be accompanied by soaring music, elaborate camera movements, or another symbolic flourish.
I do think La bola negra is worth seeing, although my recommendation comes with some serious reservations. It's an important artistic undertaking, an attempt to explore a neglected piece of queer history and pay tribute to one of Spain's greatest literary figures.
It's also a movie that needs to be experienced on a big screen. The prospect of a production like this being experienced primarily through streaming is particularly aggravating, because its grandeur is one of the strongest arguments in its favor. Reducing it to a television screen would rob the film of much of what makes it worthwhile.
So I'm giving La bola negra a very slight recommendation, primarily because of its craftsmanship, its performances, and the significance of the material. I respect the filmmakers' determination to bring Lorca's unfinished work into a larger cinematic conversation about love, history, and identity.
But I also think the movie is too scattered, too overwhelming, and too convinced of its own importance to achieve the emotional power it's clearly reaching for. Penélope Cruz is magnificent, and there are individual sequences that are genuinely beautiful. I just wish the movie as a whole had moved me as much as it impressed me.
See it in a theater if you can, because the spectacle deserves that kind of presentation. But for all its grandeur and passion, La bola negra left me strangely cold, and that's a real disappointment considering how much I wanted to love it. - ⭐️⭐️1/2
There's nothing more disappointing than watching a movie that starts out with a promising premise, a terrific cast, and some genuinely funny moments, only to see the whole thing completely fall apart about a half hour in.
That's exactly what happens with Christmas at the Kringles, a horror-comedy that combines Christmas cheer, suburban paranoia, brainwashing, bloody violence, and a bunch of people who are considerably more talented than the material they're working with.
For about twenty minutes, I was actually enjoying myself. I laughed, I liked the characters, and I thought the setup had some potential. And then the actual story kicked in, and everything went straight down the chimney. What begins as a reasonably amusing little dark comedy gradually turns into a loud, obnoxious, painfully derivative mess that isn't particularly funny, scary, or entertaining.
And by the time it was over, I was ready to cancel Christmas altogether.
The movie follows Mark Severson (Ron Livingston), his wife Julie (Rachel Bilson), and their young son Bobby (Jack Jewkes), who move into a quiet suburban neighborhood hoping for a fresh start. Unfortunately, their new neighbors are the Kringles, a family that celebrates Christmas every single day of the year. And I mean every single day.
Their house is covered with Christmas decorations, they blast holiday music, they wear festive clothing, and they approach the season with the kind of aggressive enthusiasm usually associated with people trying to sell you a timeshare.
The family is headed by Nick Kringle (Thomas Lennon) and his wife Carol (Arden Myrin), who live with their children and Nick's bizarre mother, Mama K (Beverly D'Angelo). They're relentlessly cheerful, painfully wholesome, and immediately suspicious.
Mark isn't particularly interested in participating in their endless Christmas festivities, but Julie and Bobby are a little more receptive to their new neighbors' peculiar traditions.
Eventually, Mark discovers that the Kringles aren't simply an eccentric family with an unhealthy obsession with Santa Claus. They're running a bizarre holiday cult, using hypnosis and other methods to brainwash people into joining their twisted celebration of Christmas.
When Julie and Bobby fall under their influence, Mark has to find a way to rescue them, and he ends up joining forces with a divorced, video-game-obsessed neighbor named Daryl (Donald Faison) and a drunken mall Santa (Rob Riggle) who seems to have wandered in from an entirely different movie.
The whole thing eventually turns into a violent rescue mission involving Christmas-themed weapons, elaborate traps, and enough holiday mayhem to make you wish somebody would just unplug the Christmas lights and go home.
Now, the setup is actually pretty funny. Ron Livingston is doing that wonderfully exhausted, put-upon everyman routine that he's been so good at for years, particularly in Office Space. He has that perfect expression of a guy who just wants to be left alone but keeps finding himself surrounded by idiots, and it works beautifully during the early scenes.
Rachel Bilson doesn't have much to do as Julie, but young Jack Jewkes gets some laughs as Bobby, a foul-mouthed little kid who drops F-bombs with an enthusiasm that would probably make most parents consider military school.
Watching the aggressively wholesome Kringles react to this kid's vocabulary is genuinely amusing, and there are some funny exchanges when the two families first meet.
Thomas Lennon and Arden Myrin are also entertaining as Nick and Carol Kringle, particularly when they're performing their elaborate family routines and disciplining their children with an unsettling combination of cheerfulness and menace.
In fact, some of these scenes reminded me of Adam Scott and his ridiculously perfect family in Step Brothers, especially the musical performances and the way the parents interact with their kids. It's practically the same joke, and it was funnier in Step Brothers, but Lennon and Myrin are talented enough to get some mileage out of it.
There are also jokes about cryptocurrency, Florida, Christmas traditions, and a running gag involving Lennon's character confusing "gutter talk" with "ghetto talk." Some of it works, some of it doesn't, but at least the movie is making an effort during its opening stretch.
And then there's Beverly D'Angelo as Mama K, who is an absolute delight. First of all, how can you make a Christmas movie with Beverly D'Angelo and not immediately think of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation? She's part of one of the most beloved Christmas comedies ever made, and here she's playing a completely deranged grandmother who's suffered a stroke, speaks in a bizarre, practically incomprehensible manner, and comes from Panama City, Florida. Which, frankly, might explain a few things.
D'Angelo clearly understands exactly how ridiculous this character is, and she has a wonderful time with it. It's a small role, but she's one of the highlights of the movie, and I wish they'd given her more to do.
Rob Riggle also gets some laughs early on as the perpetually intoxicated mall Santa, particularly during an encounter with Mark and his family that nearly results in a car accident. Riggle is a naturally funny performer, and he's good at playing loud, aggressive, obnoxious characters who have absolutely no idea how ridiculous they are.
Unfortunately, once his character becomes involved in the rescue mission, the performance starts feeling like a tired variation on things we've seen before. The drunken Santa routine immediately brings to mind Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa, a movie that everybody seems to love and that I've never particularly liked. I know, I know. Apparently, I'm supposed to think Bad Santa is some kind of modern Christmas classic. I don't. And I certainly don't need another movie borrowing from it.
But the funniest person in Christmas at the Kringles, without question, is Donald Faison as Daryl Hill, the divorced neighbor who lives in his mother's garage, plays video games, and desperately wants Mark to become his friend.
Faison, who's been terrific in everything from Clueless to Scrubs, has a natural comic rhythm that makes even the dumbest dialogue funny. He's constantly trying to convince Mark to come over, drink beer, and play video games, and his pathetic enthusiasm is hilarious.
He's easily the most consistently amusing character in the movie, and I suspect a good deal of his dialogue was improvised. There's a blooper reel during the end credits that suggests the cast was having a wonderful time making this thing, and Faison seems especially comfortable playing around with the material.
And here's a little detail that caught my attention. Daryl's mother, whom we never actually see, is named Debra, which means her name is Debra Hill. Now, I'd like to think that's a deliberate tribute to Debra Hill, the great producer and screenwriter who collaborated with John Carpenter on Halloween, helped create that film and its characters, and produced movies like The Dead Zone. And speaking of The Dead Zone, that movie has a wonderfully creepy Christmas sequence of its own.
Maybe I'm reading too much into the name, but I choose to believe somebody involved with Christmas at the Kringles was paying tribute to one of the most important women in horror-film history. At least that would demonstrate a little imagination.
Unfortunately, imagination is precisely what this movie is missing once the Kringles' sinister intentions are revealed. The film opens with a bizarre sequence involving a woman being decapitated and her head being placed on top of a Christmas tree like an angel, which is certainly an attention-getter, but it doesn't really connect to the rest of the movie in any particularly satisfying way.
And when the story shifts from suburban comedy to kidnapping, hypnosis, and violent action, the filmmakers seem to abandon whatever made the opening scenes enjoyable. The jokes become increasingly desperate, the action becomes louder and more chaotic, and the whole thing turns into an endless collection of familiar horror and Christmas-movie clichés.
And let's talk about just how derivative this thing is. The basic premise owes an enormous debt to Joe Dante's The 'Burbs, a brilliant dark comedy about suburban paranoia and the suspicion that your seemingly ordinary neighbors might be hiding something truly horrible. Dante understood how to build suspense and comedy out of the absurdity of suburban life, and he had a terrific cast working with a genuinely clever script.
Christmas at the Kringles clearly wants to capture some of that same energy, but it isn't remotely in the same league. There are also elements of House of 1000 Corpses, a movie I hated, and Christmas with the Kranks, that awful Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis comedy about a neighborhood aggressively forcing everybody to participate in Christmas festivities. And when you're borrowing ideas from Christmas with the Kranks, you're already in serious trouble.
Then there's the violent Christmas action, which feels like a combination of Die Hard, Violent Night, and every other movie that's attempted to turn Santa Claus into an action hero. We've seen all of this before, and we've seen it done considerably better.
Christmas horror isn't exactly a new invention, either. Bob Clark's 1974 masterpiece Black Christmas remains one of the greatest examples of combining the holiday season with genuine terror, and Joe Dante's Gremlins brilliantly mixed Christmas cheer with outrageous violence, dark humor, and wonderful practical effects.
Those movies understood how to use the holiday setting to create something distinctive. Christmas at the Kringles just grabs a bunch of familiar ingredients, throws them into a blender, and hopes the resulting mess will be entertaining.
The movie was directed by Kevin Lewis, whose previous work includes Pig Hill and Willy's Wonderland, that ridiculous Nicolas Cage movie in which Cage battles a collection of murderous, Chuck E. Cheese-style animatronic characters without speaking a single line of dialogue. I wasn't particularly impressed with that movie, either.
Lewis seems to have a fondness for outrageous premises and familiar genre gimmicks, but he doesn't bring much originality to the material. The screenplay by Zack Imbrogno isn't especially clever, and once the initial jokes have been exhausted, the movie has nowhere interesting to go.
The cast does everything it can to keep things moving, but even talented performers can't manufacture a good movie out of a script that keeps recycling other people's ideas.
And that's what makes the whole thing so frustrating. You've got Ron Livingston, Thomas Lennon, Arden Myrin, Rob Riggle, Donald Faison, Beverly D'Angelo, and even a brief appearance by David Wain as a character named Noel Tannebaum. That's an impressive collection of comic talent, and there are moments when their personalities manage to overcome the material.
But a few funny lines and some amusing improvisation aren't enough to sustain an entire movie. The filmmakers clearly had a great time making it, judging by that blooper reel, and I'm happy for them. Unfortunately, watching the finished product isn't nearly as much fun.
Christmas at the Kringles starts with about twenty minutes of reasonably entertaining comedy and then deteriorates into a tedious, noisy, unoriginal mess. It's not a good horror movie, it's not a good action movie, and despite the considerable talent involved, it's not a particularly good comedy.
Donald Faison steals the show, Beverly D'Angelo is a pleasure to watch, and several other cast members manage to squeeze a few laughs out of the material. But the story goes nowhere, the violence becomes tiresome, and the ending lands with a whimper rather than a bang.
I wanted to like this movie, and for a little while, I actually did. But by the time it was over, I couldn't wait to get out of there. Christmas at the Kringles is the cinematic equivalent of finding a big lump of coal in your Christmas stocking.
And frankly, I think I'd rather have the coal. - ⭐️1/2
There was a time when Liam Neeson was considered one of the finest dramatic actors working in movies. He received an Oscar nomination for Schindler's List, was terrific in Michael Collins, and built an impressive career playing complicated, intelligent characters.
Then Taken happened in 2008, and everything changed.
Suddenly, Neeson became an action star, and for nearly twenty years now, he's been making what seems like two or three variations of Taken every single year. He punches people, shoots people, drives cars really fast, blows things up, and occasionally rescues somebody who's been kidnapped.
Some of these movies are entertaining, but an astonishing number are unbelievably stupid, generic, disposable action pictures assembled from the same collection of recycled screenplays.
He's occasionally stepped outside the formula, including the recent Naked Gun comedy and a few smaller dramas, but apparently, the guy has a difficult time saying no to an action script.
And now we have The Mongoose, another ridiculous entry in the seemingly endless Liam Neeson Action Movie Collection. It's got some terrific stunt work, impressive car chases, and a surprisingly good cast, but the screenplay is so idiotic that none of those things can save it.
Neeson plays Ryan Flanagan, a decorated Special Forces veteran suffering from PTSD after his experiences in Afghanistan. His military nickname is Fang. Yes, Fang. Liam Neeson is playing a guy named Fang, which should immediately give you some indication of the level of sophistication we're dealing with here.
Fang is divorced from his wife, Tara (Marisa Tomei), but the two remain close, and when Tara is brutally beaten by her abusive boyfriend, Todd (Brett Tucker), Fang steps in to help. He promises not to resort to violence, but when he goes to Todd's house to retrieve Tara's belongings, a confrontation erupts, Todd ends up dead, and Fang suddenly finds himself accused of murder.
Convinced nobody will believe his version of events, he takes off in a gorgeous Shelby Mustang and begins a cross-country escape from the authorities. He's assisted by some of his old military buddies, including Tanker (Ving Rhames), while a determined law enforcement officer named Pope (Michael Chiklis) becomes increasingly obsessed with bringing him down.
And that's pretty much the movie. Fang drives. The cops chase him. He escapes. More cops chase him. He escapes again. Occasionally, something explodes, somebody gets punched, or a helicopter shows up. The pursuit becomes a national media spectacle, with CNN, social media, and an increasingly enthusiastic public following his every move.
Eventually, people begin rooting for Fang, helping him along the highway and treating him like some sort of misunderstood American folk hero. It's essentially a modern, high-tech version of Smokey and the Bandit, except Burt Reynolds has been replaced by a growling Liam Neeson, and Jackie Gleason's Sheriff Buford T. Justice has been replaced by Michael Chiklis.
And believe me, Chiklis plays this role with about as much subtlety as Jackie Gleason did in that 1977 comedy. The difference is that Smokey and the Bandit knew it was ridiculous. The Mongoose actually expects us to take most of this nonsense seriously.
The movie was directed by Mark Vanselow, making his feature directorial debut after spending nearly thirty years working as a stuntman, stunt coordinator, and Liam Neeson's stunt double. That's actually one of the more interesting things about the production, because stunt performers have occasionally made the transition into directing with terrific results.
The John Wick movies are a perfect example of what can happen when filmmakers who really understand physical action are given the opportunity to direct. And to Vanselow's credit, the action sequences in The Mongoose are easily the best things about it.
The car chases are well staged, the editing is sharp, and there are some genuinely impressive aerial shots and large-scale stunts. That beautiful Shelby Mustang gets quite a workout, and there are moments when the movie delivers exactly the kind of old-fashioned action excitement you want from something like this.
Of course, building an entire movie around an extended automobile pursuit is nothing new. Richard C. Sarafian's Vanishing Point did it brilliantly in 1971, and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof demonstrated how exciting and inventive elaborate car chases can be. Unfortunately, Vanselow's ability to stage a car chase is considerably more impressive than his ability to make the rest of the movie interesting.
The screenplay, written by Thompson Evans, is a collection of familiar action-movie clichés interrupted by unnecessary flashbacks and occasional attempts at emotional seriousness.
The film actually begins with Neeson softly reciting poetry while images of ocean waves roll across the screen, apparently to establish that Fang is a sensitive, deeply troubled man. Then we're suddenly watching him tear down a highway at ridiculous speeds in his Mustang.
Throughout the movie, we get flashbacks to his military service in Afghanistan, including a traumatic incident involving a fellow soldier who was killed in combat. These sequences are supposed to explain Fang's psychological damage, but they're inserted so awkwardly that they feel like interruptions rather than meaningful parts of the story.
There is a potentially worthwhile message about the treatment of military veterans, particularly those suffering from PTSD, and the loyalty between Fang and his former comrades is clearly intended to be moving.
But it's difficult to take any of this seriously when it's surrounded by cartoonish action, absurd coincidences, and characters behaving like they've wandered in from three different movies. You can't spend one scene asking us to contemplate the psychological trauma of combat and the next treating the whole thing like a cross-country demolition derby without making those tonal shifts work.
Then there's the bizarre decision to give Fang an artificial intelligence assistant built into his car. Her name is Helen, and she provides navigation, information, warnings, and, naturally, opportunities for supposedly hilarious conversations between Neeson and a computerized voice. So now, in addition to watching Liam Neeson drive across America while avoiding every law enforcement agency in the country, we get to hear him argue with his dashboard.
Apparently, somebody thought what this movie really needed was a little Knight Rider thrown into the mix. And again, let's not forget that the guy having these conversations with his car is named Fang.
The supporting cast is certainly better than the material deserves. Marisa Tomei, one of my favorite actresses on the planet, plays Tara, and I honestly have no idea why she agreed to appear in this thing.
She's such a terrific performer that every scene she's in immediately becomes more interesting, but the role is little more than the obligatory ex-wife in distress. Maybe she wanted to have some fun. Maybe she wanted to work with Neeson. Maybe she lost a bet. Whatever the reason, she's considerably better than the movie around her.
Ving Rhames brings his usual authority and presence to the role of Tanker, while Michael Chiklis goes completely over the top as the lawman determined to capture Fang. Chiklis is a good actor, but here he's practically playing a cartoon character, barking orders and becoming increasingly obsessed with stopping Neeson. Every time he appears, I kept waiting for him to start screaming about that damn Bandit.
And yet, there's still something undeniably entertaining about watching Liam Neeson do this stuff. Even in the dumbest movies, he has a commanding screen presence, and he's remarkably convincing when he's growling threats, throwing punches, or staring somebody down.
There's a reason he's been able to sustain this unlikely second career as an action star for nearly two decades. He's good at it, and he clearly enjoys doing it. But at some point, you have to wonder how many more of these interchangeable movies he's going to make.
He's a genuinely gifted actor, and while I certainly don't begrudge him the opportunity to have fun and cash a few checks, it would be nice to see him become a little more selective about the material.
The Mongoose isn't completely without merit. Vanselow demonstrates considerable skill with the stunt work, some of the car chases are genuinely exciting, and the cast occasionally manages to rise above the ridiculous screenplay.
But those technical accomplishments can't disguise the fact that this is another dumb, formulaic Liam Neeson action movie, filled with recycled ideas, clumsy emotional detours, and characters who are impossible to take seriously.
It's a movie that desperately wants to be both exciting and meaningful but ultimately succeeds only in occasionally being exciting.
Add The Mongoose to the ever-growing pile of disposable Liam Neeson action thrillers. I can't recommend it. - ⭐️⭐️
The Mosquito Bowl is one of those movies that should have been terrific. It's based on an extraordinary true story, features a cast of talented young actors, and reunites a director with an author whose previous collaboration produced one of the best football movies of the last twenty-five years.
You've got World War II, college football, the United States Marine Corps, and a remarkable historical event involving some of the greatest young athletes in America. How do you screw that up?
Well, director Peter Berg has somehow managed to take this fascinating material and turn it into one of the most generic, predictable, and emotionally uninvolving war movies I've seen in quite some time.
There are some impressive battle sequences and one terrific extended football game, but the rest of the movie feels like a collection of clichés borrowed from dozens of better films. It's a major disappointment, especially considering the talent involved and the remarkable story being told.
The movie is based on Buzz Bissinger's 2022 book The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II. Bissinger, of course, also wrote Friday Night Lights, which Peter Berg adapted into an excellent movie in 2004.
That film beautifully captured the physical brutality of football, the emotional pressure placed on young athletes, and the obsession with winning that consumes entire communities. It also inspired the critically acclaimed television series, which became something of a phenomenon in its own right.
Berg demonstrated a real understanding of football in that movie, and he's also proven himself to be a reasonably capable action director with films like The Rundown, Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriots Day. He's made some pretty lousy movies, too, including Battleship and Mile 22, but there's no question that the guy knows how to stage an action sequence.
Bringing Berg and Bissinger together again for a movie combining football and World War II certainly sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately, lightning doesn't strike twice.
The story follows four talented college football players whose lives are interrupted by the outbreak of war. There's John McLaughry (Nicholas Galitzine), a gifted halfback from Brown University; Tony Butkovich (Ray Nicholson), a tough Purdue standout with a promising professional career ahead of him; Dave Schreiner (Tom Francis), an All-American player from the University of Wisconsin; and Bob Baumann (Bill Skarsgård), another Wisconsin player and Schreiner's close friend.
These guys have spent their young lives playing football, building friendships, falling in love, and dreaming about their futures. Some are preparing for careers in the NFL, while others are looking forward to settling down and starting families.
Then Pearl Harbor happens, and everything changes. They enlist in the Marines, endure brutal training, and eventually find themselves fighting in the Pacific, where the rules of the game are considerably different from anything they've experienced on a football field.
While stationed on Guadalcanal in December 1944, the Marines organize an extraordinary football game between members of the 4th and 29th Marine Regiments. The game, which becomes known as the Mosquito Bowl, takes place on Christmas Eve and features dozens of former college football stars and professional prospects.
They construct a makeshift field, organize teams, and put together an event that provides a brief escape from the horrors of war. It's a chance for these young men to return to something familiar, to experience the camaraderie and excitement of football, and to remember what their lives were like before they became soldiers.
Unfortunately, many of the men who participate in the game will soon be sent into the Battle of Okinawa, one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Pacific War. Of the 65 players involved, approximately half will be killed or wounded, including at least fifteen who lose their lives in combat.
It's a heartbreaking piece of American history, and the contrast between the joy of that football game and the terrible fate awaiting so many of its participants should provide the foundation for a deeply moving movie.
And that's the problem. Berg seems far more interested in recreating the physical experience of football and warfare than in developing the men who experienced them. The four central characters are surprisingly one-dimensional, defined primarily by their athletic accomplishments, their positions on the field, and a handful of familiar personality traits.
Nicholas Galitzine, who plays McLaughry, is particularly underserved by the screenplay, while Ray Nicholson and Tom Francis struggle to make their characters feel like anything more than standard-issue young soldiers.
And then there's Bill Skarsgård, one of the most versatile and interesting actors working today, who is almost completely wasted.
These are talented performers, and they do what they can, but the material gives them very little opportunity to create memorable, fully developed characters. There's camaraderie, of course, and plenty of scenes involving friendship, rivalry, and sacrifice, but it all feels manufactured.
We're supposed to care deeply about these men because we know they're heading toward tragedy, not because the movie has done the work of making us genuinely invested in their lives.
Berg also has a tendency to underline every theme with the subtlety of a marching band.
The movie opens with a quotation about how young men don't start wars, older men do, and from that point forward, the message is delivered with all the delicacy of a helmet to the face. Football is life. Football is war. War is football. Teamwork on the field prepares you for teamwork in battle. We get it.
There are sequences in which military strategies are presented like football plays, and the parallels become so obvious that you almost expect somebody to call a timeout during a firefight.
There are black-and-white freeze frames scattered throughout the movie, apparently intended to suggest moments frozen in history, but they come across as familiar visual gimmicks.
And there's one particularly ridiculous transition in which a flock of birds flying through the sky suddenly becomes a formation of military aircraft, just in case we hadn't figured out that the peaceful world of these young football players was about to be interrupted by war.
It's the kind of visual metaphor that might have seemed clever seventy years ago. Today, it just feels embarrassingly obvious.
Even the cinematography has that familiar, washed-out, grayish, grainy appearance that seems to have become mandatory for contemporary World War II movies. Everything looks damp, muddy, and vaguely miserable, which certainly makes sense considering the locations and subject matter, but there's nothing particularly distinctive about it.
The photography, editing, and production design are technically accomplished, yet the movie has that oddly anonymous quality I've come to associate with certain expensive Netflix productions. It's a big, professionally assembled film that looks impressive in individual moments but never develops much of a personality. You could practically put a Netflix logo on the opening shot and know exactly what kind of movie you're about to watch.
To be fair, when Berg concentrates on the action, the movie occasionally comes alive. The battle sequences are intense, chaotic, and genuinely brutal, with explosions, gunfire, and the kind of concussive sound design that makes you feel as though you're trapped in the middle of the fighting.
And the actual Mosquito Bowl football game is easily the best sequence in the entire movie. It's exciting, beautifully edited, physically convincing, and filled with the energy that made Friday Night Lights so effective. For a while, you can understand exactly why these young men needed this game, and the sequence provides a welcome sense of exhilaration amid the grimness of the surrounding story.
Berg knows how to shoot football, and he knows how to shoot combat. Unfortunately, being good at staging both doesn't automatically mean you've made a compelling movie about the people involved.
The supporting cast doesn't help matters much, either. The female characters are particularly underwritten, with performers like the terrific Ella Newton, who plays Jane, given very little of substance to do. Their scenes feel like obligatory reminders that the soldiers have girlfriends and families waiting for them back home, rather than meaningful relationships that might deepen our understanding of the characters.
But the most baffling casting decision involves Pat McAfee as a screaming Marine drill instructor. And if you're familiar with my feelings about professional wrestling, you can probably imagine how thrilled I was to see him show up.
McAfee, the ESPN sports personality and former WWE commentator, was, as far as I'm concerned, one of the most obnoxious, irritating, and consistently unbearable announcers in the history of professional wrestling.
And I say that as somebody who loves wrestling and has spent an enormous amount of time watching it. His loud, frantic, desperately attention-seeking commentary drove me absolutely crazy, and apparently Peter Berg decided that was exactly the energy this movie needed.
McAfee spends his scenes screaming, insulting recruits, and doing what amounts to a terrible imitation of R. Lee Ermey in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. The difference, of course, is that Ermey was brilliant, terrifying, and completely convincing. McAfee is just loud. It's a distracting, amateurish performance that feels like stunt casting designed to attract football fans and wrestling viewers.
Thankfully, he isn't in much of the movie, but every time he appears, the whole thing becomes considerably worse.
What's especially frustrating is that the real story is so compelling. These were extraordinary young men who gave up promising athletic careers and personal dreams to serve their country, and many of them never came home.
The Mosquito Bowl itself is a fascinating historical event, and Bissinger's book provides the kind of material that should lend itself beautifully to a powerful examination of youth, friendship, sacrifice, and the terrible waste of war.
But Berg seems content to rely on familiar war-movie imagery, predictable emotional beats, and the assumption that the historical tragedy will automatically provide the emotional impact. It doesn't work that way. You can't simply introduce a group of young men, tell us they're talented football players, send them into battle, and expect us to be devastated by their fate. You have to make us care about them first.
At two hours and seven minutes, The Mosquito Bowl feels considerably longer than it should, primarily because so much of it seems familiar. The action is impressive, the football game is terrific, and the cast certainly has talent, but none of those things can overcome the generic screenplay and the complete lack of emotional depth.
Peter Berg and Buzz Bissinger made something special with Friday Night Lights, a movie that understood the importance of the people beneath the helmets. Here, Berg seems to have forgotten that lesson. He's made a technically proficient war movie about an extraordinary event without finding a particularly interesting way to tell the story.
It's as generic a World War II movie as you can imagine, and nearly as generic a football movie. That's quite an accomplishment, considering how fascinating the actual history is.
The Berg-Bissinger combination worked beautifully with Friday Night Lights. This time, the magic simply isn't there. I can't recommend The Mosquito Bowl. - ⭐️⭐️
Every once in a while, a little horror movie comes along seemingly out of nowhere, without a massive advertising campaign or a whole lot of advance publicity, and turns out to be one of the more pleasant surprises of the year.
That's certainly the case with Breeder, a wonderfully twisted, creepy, surprisingly intelligent black comedy that manages to be funny, disturbing, suspenseful, and genuinely thought-provoking, sometimes all at once.
This is a nasty little movie with a terrific sense of humor and some interesting things to say about human nature, genetic manipulation, male sexuality, and the lengths people will go to for money. It's also got one of the strangest premises I've encountered in quite some time, and believe me, I've seen some pretty strange movies.
Breeder is being released by IFC and Shudder, and it's exactly the kind of offbeat horror film that deserves a little more attention than it's probably going to get.
The movie was written, edited, and directed by Alex Goyette, a filmmaker who made his name creating comedy sketches and videos on YouTube and working with AwesomenessTV.
His first feature was a small comedy called Expelled, released in 2014, and Breeder is only his second feature film, arriving twelve years later. It's also his first horror movie, and I have to say, the guy has a real knack for this stuff.
He understands how to build suspense, how to make an uncomfortable situation genuinely funny, and how to introduce some fairly serious ideas without turning the movie into a lecture. There's a confidence to the filmmaking that's especially impressive considering how long it's been since his last feature.
The story centers on Russell (Daniel Doheny), a brilliant but financially struggling MIT dropout who's devoted his life to researching ways to save the world's endangered bee population. He's attempting to manipulate the genetic structure and behavior of bees, essentially altering the way they're programmed to function, and he desperately needs money to continue his experiments.
Russell also suffers from anxiety attacks, and his personal life isn't exactly going smoothly. He's engaged to Haley (Tanaya Beatty), and the two are facing considerable pressure to settle down, get married, have children, and start behaving like responsible adults. Haley's mother, in particular, isn't thrilled about her daughter's choice of a future husband.
She'd prefer that Russell stop fooling around with his bees, get a real job, make some money, and start producing grandchildren. You know, the usual delightful family pressure that makes everybody look forward to getting married.
Then Russell receives an unexpected financial lifeline from a wealthy woman named Patti (Dot-Marie Jones), a former champion poodle breeder who has apparently taken an interest in his research. Patti has won awards at prestigious dog shows, including Westminster, and she lives on an isolated ranch with her five adopted daughters.
She's willing to provide Russell with the money he needs to continue his work, but there's one condition: he has to come to her ranch for dinner. Now, I'm not sure I'd be particularly enthusiastic about traveling to the middle of nowhere to have dinner with a mysterious woman who breeds champion poodles and wants to finance my experiments, but Russell is desperate.
And desperation, as we've learned from approximately ten thousand horror movies, rarely leads to sound decision-making.
When Russell arrives, he discovers a strange, secluded compound filled with dog memorabilia, elaborate rules, and a collection of young women who behave as though they've been raised in some sort of bizarre kennel. Patti is an intimidating presence, and it's immediately apparent that something is seriously wrong with this entire situation.
There's a terrific sequence in which Russell is forced to sit through videotapes of Patti's glory days at various dog shows, watching her parade her prizewinning poodles around while she relives her greatest triumphs.
Russell politely pretends to be fascinated, because he wants that money, but when he finally suggests that perhaps they could stop watching the tapes and have dinner, Patti becomes furious.
It's a wonderful scene because you never know what's going to set this woman off. One minute she's reminiscing about her beloved dogs, and the next you're wondering whether she's going to rip Russell's head off.
And then comes the dinner itself, which is one of the funniest and most uncomfortable sequences in the movie. Russell sits at the table with Patti and her adopted daughters, attempting to make polite conversation while gradually realizing that he's wandered into something resembling a very disturbed family reunion.
Patti eventually reveals why she's really interested in him. Having spent her life selectively breeding dogs to produce superior animals, she's decided to apply those same principles to human beings.
She wants to create a new generation of genetically superior people, and Russell, with his impressive intelligence and scientific background, is exactly the kind of stud she's been looking for. In exchange for funding his research, she expects him to participate in her human breeding program. And when Russell realizes that this isn't exactly a negotiable arrangement, the movie takes a decidedly darker turn.
Patti essentially imprisons Russell, intending to use him to impregnate her favorite adopted daughter, Ainsley (Maddie Phillips), and eventually to provide biological material for her ongoing experiments. There are other men on the property who have apparently been recruited for similar purposes, and Russell quickly discovers that Patti's breeding program is considerably more extensive than he initially imagined.
Meanwhile, Haley becomes increasingly concerned about her missing fiancé and contacts the police, leading to a wonderfully suspenseful sequence in which an officer visits the ranch and comes tantalizingly close to discovering what's happening.
There's even a terrific little gag involving a homemade cookie that perfectly illustrates the movie's ability to find humor in the middle of a genuinely frightening situation. I won't reveal how any of this plays out, because the less you know about the developments that follow, the better.
What really makes Breeder work is Dot-Marie Jones, who is absolutely fantastic as Patti. Most people probably know Jones from Glee, where she played Coach Beiste and received Emmy nominations for her performance. I loved her on that show, and she's appeared in plenty of other television programs and movies, including Bros, but this is something completely different.
Jones has an extraordinary physical presence, and Goyette uses it beautifully. Patti is intimidating, unpredictable, manipulative, and frequently hilarious, often without realizing how funny she is. Jones can make a simple conversation about dog breeding feel like a threat of imminent violence, and the character's obsession with producing superior offspring is both ridiculous and genuinely terrifying.
She's the kind of villain who can make you laugh and then immediately make you regret laughing. It's a terrific performance, and she absolutely dominates the movie.
Daniel Doheny is also very good as Russell, a character who could easily have become an irritating, helpless victim. Instead, Doheny gives him an appealing combination of intelligence, anxiety, desperation, and occasional stupidity. Russell is a smart guy who makes some spectacularly bad decisions, and there's something very funny about watching him attempt to reason his way out of a situation that becomes more irrational by the minute.
Maddie Phillips is excellent as Ainsley, too, particularly because we're never entirely certain where her loyalties lie. She appears to sympathize with Russell and may even be interested in helping him escape, but she's also been raised under Patti's control and understands the rules of this bizarre household.
Their relationship becomes an intriguing psychological game, with Russell constantly trying to determine whether he's found an ally or simply another part of Patti's elaborate trap.
I also loved the production design. The ranch is a wonderfully creepy location, isolated from civilization and filled with the kind of details that make the entire place feel increasingly wrong. There are little poodle figurines, dog decorations, kennel accessories, and canine-themed knickknacks scattered throughout the house, creating an atmosphere that's simultaneously ridiculous and unsettling.
It's as though somebody took the home of an obsessive dog-show enthusiast and transformed it into a compound run by a deranged cult leader. Outside, there are enormous compost heaps that raise some rather unpleasant questions about what might be buried underneath them.
The movie makes excellent use of its relatively limited setting, gradually transforming what initially looks like an eccentric country home into something resembling a prison.
And here's something else I found particularly refreshing about Breeder. This is an R-rated horror movie dealing with forced reproduction, sexual exploitation, and a household filled with women being treated as breeding stock. In most movies built around that premise, you can probably imagine exactly how the nudity would be handled.
Well, Goyette does something different. There's full-frontal male nudity in this movie, including scenes involving Russell and another captive man, but absolutely no female nudity. None. The women are never exploited visually for the audience's entertainment, even though sexual exploitation is central to the story.
Instead, it's the men who are exposed, examined, and reduced to their reproductive functions. It's a clever reversal of the usual horror-movie conventions, and it reinforces the film's ideas about power, objectification, and the treatment of human beings as commodities. I appreciated that enormously, and there's a wonderfully dark sense of humor in the way Goyette handles it.
But the movie isn't simply making jokes about a crazy woman who wants to breed people like poodles. There's a genuinely interesting moral question running through the entire story. Russell is attempting to manipulate the genetic makeup of bees because he believes his experiments will benefit the world.
Patti is attempting to manipulate human genetics because she believes she can create a superior population. Obviously, there's an enormous difference between trying to save an endangered species and kidnapping people to force them into a breeding program, but the movie is interested in the arrogance that can accompany the desire to control nature.
Who gets to decide which characteristics are desirable? How far should science go in altering living creatures? And what happens when ambition, ego, and money become more important than the lives being manipulated?
Goyette explores these ideas through some very funny, frequently disturbing situations without ever sacrificing the entertainment value of the movie.
There's also some pointed commentary about the pressure placed on men to succeed financially, provide for their families, and fulfill certain expectations about masculinity and reproduction. Russell is constantly being reminded that he needs to make money, marry Haley, and start having children, and Patti essentially takes those expectations to their most grotesque extreme.
She doesn't care about Russell as a person. She cares about his intelligence, his genetic potential, and what his body can produce. The movie also makes terrific use of his anxiety, particularly as his captivity stretches on and the film begins marking the passage of an increasingly alarming number of days.
Some of the funniest moments are also the most humiliating, and the combination of psychological torture, sexual absurdity, and genuine suspense is handled with surprising skill.
If I have one major complaint, it's Tanaya Beatty's performance as Haley. Unfortunately, she's simply not very good here. Haley is supposed to be frightened, frustrated, angry, and increasingly desperate as she tries to discover what has happened to Russell, but Beatty delivers a surprisingly stiff, lifeless performance.
There's very little emotional variation in her scenes, and she never seems particularly convincing, even when the circumstances demand a strong reaction. It's especially noticeable because the rest of the cast is so good.
Jones, Doheny, Phillips, and the actresses playing Patti's other adopted daughters all bring something distinctive to their roles, while Beatty feels oddly disconnected from the material. It's a weak link in an otherwise excellent ensemble, and thankfully her scenes don't dominate the movie.
There's also something distinctly Canadian about Breeder, which makes sense considering that it was filmed in Vancouver with a largely Canadian cast. The locations, the accents, and the slightly offbeat sensibility reminded me of the wonderfully strange tradition of Canadian horror movies, a genre that has produced some truly memorable oddities over the years.
And I mean that as a compliment. This is the kind of movie that isn't afraid to be weird, to make its audience uncomfortable, or to mix genuine horror with humor that's so dark you almost feel guilty laughing at it.
I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed Breeder. It's smart, funny, creepy, occasionally shocking, and filled with ideas that stick with you after the movie is over. Alex Goyette has made a clever little horror film that knows exactly what it wants to be, and Dot-Marie Jones gives a wonderfully bizarre, frightening, and frequently hilarious performance at its center.
The movie has some terrific suspense sequences, a few nasty surprises, and a refreshing willingness to challenge the usual conventions of the genre. It made me laugh, it made me uncomfortable, and it actually made me think about some of the things it was saying.
That's a pretty impressive accomplishment for a movie about a deranged poodle breeder who decides to start producing genetically superior human beings.
Breeder is one of the more enjoyable horror surprises of 2026, and I definitely recommend it. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
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