Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror 2025 * * * Stars

CITY WALLS

The Oklahoma City bombing occurred on April 19, 1995, carried out by two terrorists named Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was the main target of said bombing, as over 150 denizens lost their lives amidst the dust and rubble. That's the blueprint for Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror, a competent documentary which begs the audience member to dredge up the sadness and utter gloom of something that happened thirty years ago. "I thought maybe I was dead, but I was buried alive." Yeesh!

So yeah, "American Terror" is not a frills docu nor does it try like heck to reinvent the desperado wheel. It does however give you the proverbial creeps as you watch it, loading up with 82 minutes of grainy archives, old school social media platforms, and present-day interviews from the battered people who were there. The Oklahoma City bombing, well it predates 9/11 and COVID and the D.C. sniper attacks and Columbine and all the other despairing crap this country has had to go through. Director Greg Tillman knows this and gives "American Terror" the feel of a horror film and/or lingering incubus. It's like taking in the look of The Belko Experiment or 2017's The Snare but without all the aspects of being arcane.  

Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror, yup it's lean and mean, a mere thumbnail as opposed to viewing something about the same occurrence via a miniseries or whatnot. A haunting image of the dissected building here, a haunting image of a projectile victim there, the actual explosion caught on vintage camcorder, an overhead shot of an edifice that looks like the inside of a fraying skeleton. "American Terror" with its mere, brief snapshot of a running time, almost feels like a cinematic hack job. That's if it weren't so darn soul-stirring. Gravity "bomb". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

iHostage 2025 * * Stars

iPADDED

"At some point it ends". Yup, it sure does. And if you're referring to 2025's iHostage, it ends quite abruptly. No mystery, no twist, no intrigue, just cut and dried, finito! 

Anyway iHostage is an inessential slickster of a movie, the kind of stuff Brian A. Miller would've done ten years ago. A subtle zoom here, some shiny cinematography there, an empty, forceful musical score, a few pedestrian gunfights. iHostage is about some crazy dude who strapped with a bomb, invades an Apple Store, demands millions in Bitcoin, and takes someone with a heart problem as his captive. The film obviously has a hook with the whole tech company thang and such. Otherwise it would be about as trifling as watching reruns of American Gladiators on a Wednesday afternoon.

So yeah, iHostage stars Soufiane Moussouli, Admir Sehovic, and Louis Talpe, actors who give performances anywhere between middling to overreaching to ample. They are caught in a flick that although decently edited, feels dated when you compare it to more heightened swipe like 2005's Hostage, Captain Phillips, and/or Mel Gibson's Ransom. Oh and it doesn't help that this thing is based on a true story. I mean that's some serious injustice mind you. You're better off reading an article about the events of iHostage or watching a documentary about its detainee conch on free-to-air television. You certainly would get a more cavernous point of view. 

Directed by seasoned helmer Bobby Boermans and shot with sheeny locales in Amsterdam, iHostage has a few tense moments and anything but a downer of a coda. The problem is it doesn't bring new or fresh material to the denizen-seized genre. 100 trivial minutes go by, complete with an angry terrorist, some scared internees, a negotiator chiming in, and good old SWAT getting their gun on. We're talking cinematic deja vu here. Oh wait, there's a million dollar retail outlet and ear buds involved. My bad. 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Drop 2025 * * * Stars

DROP IN

Widow Violet goes on a date at some swank restaurant. Violet's phone receives messages from some unknown creeper telling her that she either kills said date or said creeper will off her son and sister (who are at home nearby). That's the gist of 2025's Drop, a workmanlike thriller that sometimes slows to a halt and other times comes on like gangbusters (especially when nearing its coda). Violet, well she is played by Meghann Fahy, a little known actress but a future star in the making, leading lady. "Please, what do you want from me?" Oh not much, just keep doing your thang Meghann. Keep that dream alive. 

So yeah, Drop is not really an exercise in style nor does it possess any swooping camerawork and/or mad storytelling from perspectives. I mean I could only imagine what could have been had Brian De Palma or Pete Travis got a hold of this material, giving the audience member some sort of Rashomon effect complete with a few gnarly tracking shots. Yup, that would be neato. 

New Hollywood generation helmers and unique plot devices aside, what Drop lacks in modus operandi it gains in provided suspense, some gaslighting, and a little nasty tension. It's a whodunit, a who done did it, satiny and glossy and bent on showing the glitz and glitter of Chicago (the film's setting). No, you don't have to adjust your eyes, it's not Tokyo or Malaysia you're looking at, it's the City of Big Shoulders. Clearly the location scout hadn't been in the loop (pun intended). 

Drop, yeah it feels like Die Hard in an eatery or some Halle Berry actioner from a few years ago. Barring a few annoying characters (chiefly a waiter) and some major implausibility, it's compact, isolated, and examined, a one-milieu stage play that eventually turns steadily violent. I enjoyed it, I got into it, but in the back of my head I knew it was capable of being so much more twists and turns begot. "Drop anchored". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Holland 2025 * * 1/2 Stars

DUTCH TRIP

"Here here the best part because you get to make up a story and control everything". Gee, if only that worked in the cinematic world consistently, like when Rob Reiner got behind the lens and told Kathy Bates to let er rip. 

Anyway 2025's Holland is a stoner fever dream, the type of movie that relies on visual symbolism and grisly palate as opposed to actually delivering a story that is not cut and dried. A dorky husband who is suspected of being unfaithful to his wife is actually a serial killer. And said wife jots around stakeout-style while acting a little cuckoo bird herself. What, we're supposed to think this is out of the box stuff just because Holland's hook is that it takes place in a small burgh via the state of Michigan? Get reals.

So OK, Holland stars Nicole Kidman, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Matthew Macfadyen, actors who give raw, disciplined performances despite the final, work-shy result. Lots of match cuts here, a hallucinatory image there, dazed nightmare sequences everywhere, some cognitive freak-outs. Holland isn't an awful flick but it's certainly an off-center one, looking like TV swipe from the 70s, taking place in the early 2000s, and feeling like 1950s suburbanite, h-e double hockey sticks. "It may seem like we have everything all together but right under the surface it's like we're being strangled." You don't say Australia's favorite Oscar victor. You don't say. 

I'd say (pun intended) that Holland is a director's pic if there ever was one, with helmer Mimi Cave committing to every shot even if her diegesis is about as stale as every 90s satire a la Kathleen Turner or some black comedy from decades ago starring Roseanne Barr. I mean do you want nuclear family noir or Stepford Wives avant-garde. I myself can't decide. "Great lakes okay times."  

Written by Jesse Burleson

Black Bag 2025 * * Stars

FADE TO BLACK

"What's on the menu?" That's a good question, especially when maverick helmer Steven Soderbergh is coming out of his cinematic, Howard Hughes phase. 

Anyway every time I think Soderbergh has retired from directing, the dude just keeps nearing back, like Jason Voorhees, Chucky, or The Terminator. He's basically saying to his audience, "did you miss me?" So what's Stevie up to in 2025? Well he's almost on holiday making Black Bag, a pseudo thriller that's so compact, last-minute, and terse it might just wither away. 

I mean it, man this is "pretty thin" stuff (to quote Danny Glover's Roger Murtaugh). A slither of violence here, a small interrogation scene Clue-style there, a couple of flashbacks toward "Bag's" coda. You take away the brilliantly ominous music of David Holmes and Black Bag is basically an afternoon table read with some really good actors. It's also occasionally slick and uncharacteristically shiny by Soderbergh's routine standards. Yup, just think the opposite of his Traffic shot with a more spherical lens. 

93 minutes is the runtime of "Bag" and that's with credits, something about some SIS operatives who are being investigated for betraying the nation by leaking some top-secret, software application. Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, and Naomie Harris star and even good old Pierce Brosnan rolls in for an extended cameo. Unfortunately they are trapped in a flick that feels more like a verbose short than a full-length feature. 

Black Bag (the title is referenced once in the first half-hour) is one talky SOB, and I wasn't quite sure what everyone was "talking" about. Because the film is so brief and ends so abruptly, you probably need multiple viewings to figure out the intentions of these deft, British intelligence officers. This is not for entertainment value mind you, it's for you know, the latter. Mixed "bag". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Chelsea Handler: The Feeling 2025 * 1/2 Stars

ILL FEELING

Chelsea Handler is not really funny these days. She's just not. I mean maybe she once was about ten-plus years ago, on her celeb talk show or in that box office bomb This Means War as Reese Witherspoon's best bud Trish. Heck, I almost forgot about her threadbare existence until she showed up in 2025's commonly-directed comedy special, Chelsea Handler: The Feeling. Yup, I didn't chuckle or snort once mind you, prompting me to think "Chels, you should've left well enough alone." 

So yeah, do I think Chelsea Handler however is mildly attractive and/or aggressively astute? Oh fo sho. That sandy blonde hair, that decent, 5' 6" frame, that raspy voice, that potty mouth. Sure, why not. But do I think she can tell a joke, overcome a laugh track, or deliver a solid punchline? Nada, not in this lifetime. Uh, just because you spew the F-word, talk at full volume, embrace the fans of the LGBT, or get your self-centered on doesn't make you a legendary farceur, it just makes you reek of being pesky. Handler, well she could learn a lesson or two from stand-up sensation and gross out monger Nikki Glaser. Chelsea, yeah I'm talking to you, ditch the shiny outfit and not try so darn hard. Come on miss thang, embrace "the suck", for reals.  

Whether Handler's waxing on about auto-eroticism, possibly getting busy with the governor of New York, having uncomfortable coition, or the vacancy of her siblings with whom she obviously doesn't like, her "Feeling" meanders, goes off on tangents, and becomes downright unrelieved. I mean the woman isn't much of a storyteller, just a professional pie-eye-r who despite not being wasted, still seems to say whatever pops in her head. Now did I ultimately get "the feeling" in regards to Chelsea Handler: The Feeling? H-e double hockey sticks no!  

Written by Jesse Burleson

Novocaine 2025 * * * Stars

DON'T THINK DON'T WORRY EVERYTHING'S JUST FINE

"Oh my gosh, you're a superhero". That's right boys and girls, eat your heart out Mr. Fantastic. 

Anyway 2025's Novocaine is about a main character who can't feel pain. So hey, why not make it one of the most barbaric and violent movies ever made. I mean Nathan "Novocaine" Caine (played by star in the making Jack Quaid) gets put through the almighty ringer here, battered, bucked, and bruised like some human pinata filled with ichor. "So what's your deal?" Uh, more like what's your deal bonebreaker? Natch.

Novocaine, well it puts the action comedy in action comedy, parading around like some warped B-movie playing at the kung-fu grindhouse. It's bloody fistfight clip then payoff then quip then bloody fistfight clip then payoff then quip. Rinse, rinse, repeat. Continued echo. "Hey bleep-hole, feel this!" Uh we feel ya Caine, boy do we feel ya. 

So yeah, as something about an assistant credit union manager who uses his special set of skills (and malady skills) to save his would-be girlfriend from the throes of some jag bank robbers, Novocaine is nearly the antitheses of being parlous and fraught with danger. Yup, it's the type of vehicle that has you squirming one minute and snorting the next, with its tongue clearly planted in cheek (or corn syrup-soaked cheek and just about everything else). 

Starring the likes of Quaid (mentioned earlier), Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, and Spider-Man character actor monger Jacob Batalon, Novocaine carries a huge plot turn of events (which I won't mention) and about five or so endings where its black hats come at you relentlessly like The Terminator. The flick obviously doesn't have an A-list cast but its hook of mild-mannered dorko-s with a sense of badassery and CIPA to the hilt might carry it to ten years after cult status. Comfortably "numb". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

The Twister: Caught in the Storm 2025 * * * Stars

TWISTER SISTER

"The worst thing that could happen". Well that would be a hardcore vortex of violent liquidation and neato cyclones. Poor Toto, his exterior terrier, and Uncle Henry didn't stand a chance. 

Anyway the flick I'm about to review starts off as a little pretentious, with interviews by some local yokels who think Joplin, Missouri's "you know what" doesn't stink. Then The Twister: Caught in the Storm kind of grows on you, like big-arse fungi as a toadstool, showing the devastation of tornadoes in a town of 51-plus thou. "Auntie Em! Auntie Em! It's a twister!" Indeed. 

"Caught in the Storm", yeah it's shot mostly in MTV style, like watching Ridiculousness, Road Rules, or some antiquated version of Teen Mom. The film doesn't need no stinking middle-agers, numerous protective parents, or grandpappies, just a dozen or so millennials who seem punch-drunk just to get their 15 minutes of fame. 

Yeah there's archives from 2011 in the form of flashbacks, flash forward probes that are raw and unrestrained, and a burgh devastated by dust devils like Hurricane Katrina on steroids. The Twister: Caught in the Storm is a dense, documentary slice of Middle America, Americana. Rob Dyrdek rears his proverbial head while Mother Nature gets triumphed over. 

So is "Caught in the Storm" a masterpiece in the realm of desolation, docu dramedy? Uh, not quite my weather nerds. I mean why should Joplin, MO get all the sentimental love when so many other places have been torched by the throes of nasty, freewheeling tempests (I live in Illinois so the funnel clouds of Washington come to mind). And is The Twister: Caught in the Storm edited crisply and storyboard-ed to maximum effect? Oh fo sho. Director Alexandra Lacy is stealth in gradually delivering the trauma even if she's stuck in pop-cultured, grungy 90s residuum. "Storm" trooper.  

Written by Jesse Burleson

Delicious 2025 * * Stars

"YUMMY, YUMMY, YUMMY I GOT LOVE IN MY TUMMY"

2025's Delicious is a director's movie if there ever was one. It's modus operandi over substance. It's style over pith. I mean what was that line from a certain 60s biopic from thirty-plus years ago? Ah yes, "you want your creative activity spoon-fed to ya?" Pun so intended.  

Anyway Delicious is about cannibalism and bad espousals and taking in total strangers and seeing what human flesh looks like in prime rib form (yikes). The title, well it pretty much says it all for at least the last 15 minutes (give or take). A rich family with the personalities of pet rocks befriend a young, injured woman and let her live in their swank vacation home. Chaos and tension gradually ensue (as they always do).  

Starring the likes of Carla Diaz, Valerie Pachner, Sina Martens, and Fahri Yardim and made about two years ago in well-to-do-cultured France, Delicious seems like the art film to be the be-all, end-all of all art films. Um, I'm not sure if that's a good thing mind you. Helmer Nele Mueller Stofen commits to every shot whether it be a rinse, repeat of wide likenesses, longs, and overheads. She seems to be channeling her inner Kubrick and/or Wes Anderson but forgot that story, character development, and a little rapidity matter too. 

The diegesis of Delicious, well it literally doesn't unfold until the late part of the third act. And Volker Bertelmann's stirring musical score can only do so much to heighten what little impetus Delicious possesses. The actors give decent performances when they're not pregnant pausing and Provence seems like a darn nice place to visit. But when a pic comes off more as a series of priceless paintings clicked over on a slide show than actual celluloid, it's probably not worth reaching its cinematic Waterloo. Bitter "taste". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Chaos: The Manson Murders 2025 * * 1/2 Stars

MURDERS HE WROTE

"Manson became exactly what the CIA was trying to create". That's a darn scary thought I've never even heard about. Man I've lived a pretty sheltered life. 

So OK, I never thought I would revisit the catacombs of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood again, an adapted refresher about Charles Milles Manson and his minions hanging out at some dude ranch outside of sunny LA. But here it is ladies and gents, an actual documentary involving America's most notorious cult leader and his foray into the Tate-LaBianca killings circa 1969. 

Chaos: The Manson Murders, well it's said docu, a sort of acid trip incubus that rounds out to an untidy 95 minutes. A hallucinatory image here, an archive done microfilm-style there, interviews from writers I've never heard of everywhere, a split screen. Yeah "Chaos" is just good enough to keep the viewer totally beguiled and drunk in. With rather raw confabs between the warped Manson and his straight-faced journalists, the pic is above the cinematic Mendoza line when it comes to all things transmission. 

So um, what keeps Chaos: The Manson Murders from reaching adaptation glory greatness? Well it's veteran helmer Errol Morris and the way he puts things together (or doesn't put things together). I mean "Chaos" is well-directed from a style standpoint but it's also oddly tangled from an editing slant. Instead of concentrating on Charley boy, his mind control, his murderous intent, his hyperactive psychopathy, and his stint as Beach Boys buddy monger, Morris waxes mostly about the late 1960s instead, you know, social norms and civil rights and psychedelics, yada yada. His adroitness mostly wanders giving "Chaos" a viewing experience that is rather gallivanting. "When a story did start to emerge, it was managed very carefully". Are you sure about that Errol? Are you bro? Primordial "chaos". 

Written by Jesse Burleson