BALLERINA : Tuesday 10th June 2025

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'BALLERINA' earlier this week, and this American action thriller film is the fifth film in the 'John Wick' franchise, and serves as a spin-off instalment that is Directed by Len Wiseman, whose prior feature film making credits are 'Underworld' in 2003, 'Underworld : Evolution' in 2006, 'Live Free or Die Hard' in 2007 and 'Total Recall' in 2012, as well as Producing 'Underworld : Rise of the Lycans' in 2009, 'Underworld : Awakening' in 2012, and 'Underworld : Blood Wars' in 2016. This film is also Co-Produced by Chad Stahelski who Directed the first four 'John Wick' films. The film was released here in Australia and the US last week, having so far grossed US$57M from a production budget of US$90M and has generated largely positive critical reviews. Allegedly as far back as March 2023 the studio announced it has plans to develop a sequel with de Armas returning to her role. 

The film opens with a young Eve Macarro (Victoria Comte) playing at ballet dancing with her father Javier (David Castaneda) in their lavish seaside villa. Javier is/was an assassin, a Kikimora for the Ruska Roma, and when Eve was younger he went on the run with his daughter to escape a Cult his wife was heavily involved with, which ultimately led to her death. The Cult's Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne) wants to retrieve Eve, and so undercover of darkness the Cult lays siege to their residence, killing the guards and fatally wounding Javier, who helps Eve escape. New York Continental Hotel owner Winston Scott (Ian McShane) brings Eve to the Ruska Roma, where Eve meets their Director (Anjelica Huston) and agrees to join them.

Over the course of the ensuing twelve years Eve (Ana de Armas) trains as a ballerina and a Kikimora assassin/bodyguard under the Director and her mentor Nogi (Sharon Duncan-Brewster). Eve graduates as a Kikimora after killing a fellow Kikimora, as a final test to truly assess that she has what it takes. After completing a contract some two months later, Eve is attacked by an assassin, whom she kills and identifies as a Cultist from a scar of a cross burned onto his wrist. She asks the Director about the Cult, wanting revenge. The Director forbids Eve from chasing down the Cult due to a centuries old truce between the Cult and the Ruska Roma.

Eve disobeys the Director and visits the New York Continental, where Charon, the Hotel Concierge (Lance Reddick, in his final screen appearance following his death in March 2023, aged 60) grants her a meeting with Winston. Winston reveals that one Cultist, Daniel Pine (Norman Reedus), is staying at the Prague Continental with a US$2M bounty on him, so Eve travels there and books a room directly next to his. Several Cultists are also there, led by Lena (Catalina Sandino Moreno), waiting for the bounty's fulfilment. 

Eve infiltrates Pine's room, discovering his young daughter Ella (Ava McCarthy), whom Pine reveals is hiding from the Cult, having escaped from them. When the Cult sees that Eve has not killed Pine, Lena increases the bounty to US$4M. The Cultists and other mercenaries attack Pine on Continental grounds. Eve assists him and he entrusts Ella to her. Cultist Dex (Robert Maaser) shoots Pine, while Lena incapacitates Eve and takes Ella. The Prague Continental staff spare Eve for not breaking Continental rules but execute two captured Cultists/mercenaries for their attack.

While in Prague Eve goes to purchase a stash of weapons from arms dealer Frank (Abraham Popoola), but the Cult henchmen attack his shop. After Eve kills every last one of the Cult's heavies, Frank helps her narrow down the location of the Cult's base and provides her with a car so that she can drive herself to their location. 

Eve's search leads to the town of Hallstatt in Upper Austria, where she quickly comes under attack as all the townspeople are of the Cult and many are assassins, some of whom the Cult has offered safe haven to. Eve is eventually captured and brought to the Chancellor, who discovers her ties to the Ruska Roma. Eve reveals her revenge plot, while he reveals that Pine is his son and Ella his granddaughter. The Chancellor remembers Eve, informing Lena that she is Eve's older sister, whom Eve believed to be dead. Eve breaks free before being cornered by Lena, who reveals their kinship. Lena tells Eve that Javier abandoned her during his escape due to fearing that the Cult had already indoctrinated Lena. Hearing of Eve and Lena talking, the Chancellor orders their deaths. The Cult's attack kills Lena while Eve escapes.

The Chancellor calls the Director with a declaration of war between their factions due to Eve's relentless actions, despite the Director repeatedly stating that Eve had gone rogue. To satisfy the Chancellor, the Director sends John Wick (Keanu Reeves) to take out Eve as a compromise, which the Chancellor accepts. 

The Chancellor orders a temporary stand-down of the townsfolk once John arrives at Hallstatt, where he finds and defeats Eve, repeatedly sparing her and imploring her to leave Hallstatt. Eve pleads for her revenge, so the sympathetic John gives her the remaining twenty-eight minutes until midnight, when the stand-down orders end, to kill the Chancellor. If she fails to kill the Chancellor by then, he will have no choice but to see out his contract to its foregone conclusion.

Eve continues fighting against the Cult across Hallstatt, with John killing Dex to save Eve. Some Cultists attack John, who in turn kills them. When the Cult loses track of John, the Chancellor attempts to flee with Ella in a SUV, but Eve shoots the driver causing the vehicle to come to an abrupt halt, and corners the Chancellor. The Chancellor exits the car and attempts to reason with Eve, but Eve executes him where he stands, and rescues Ella. John calls the Director who asks if 'she' is dead, but John simply responds by stating that 'he' is dead.

Ella is reunited with an alive and recovering Pine at the New York Continental where Eve takes refuge. Now exiled from the Ruska Roma, Eve watches former Kikimora trainee and friend Tatiana's (Juliet Doherty) Swan Lake ballet performance. The Cult places a US$5M bounty on Eve, and being alerted to this development on her mobile phone, as were several other members of the audience, she quickly exits the theatre.

'Ballerina' has all the trademarks of the four previous 'John Wick' instalments, which I guess is down largely to the involvement of Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves, from the bullet ballet choreography, the intense close quarter fight scenes, the creative kills, and a strong cast who really give it their all. Director Len Wiseman has done a very respectable job of steering this franchise in a relatively new direction whilst maintaining the many touchstones, characters, top notch cinematography, relentless pace and everything we have come to expect from the series so far. Ana de Armas gives a solid performance as the Ballerina in question here, and seems to slip easily enough into the role as the gun totting, arse kicking, flame thrower wielding, ice skate launching, grenade lobbing assassin Eve Macarro, and it's good to see Keanu Reeves reprise his role as John Wick even if only for a couple of scenes in the last fifteen minutes or so. 

'Ballerina' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

LOST GIRLS : Wednesday 25th March 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'Lost Girls' which I saw from the comfort of my own sofa on Wednesday 25th March.

'LOST GIRLS' is Directed by the American documentary filmmaker, Producer and Writer Liz Garbus, whose previous notable works include 1998's 'The Farm : Angola, USA' which was nominated for an Academy Award, 'The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib' which won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special, 'Bobby Fischer Against The World' which opened the Sundance Film Festival Premier Documentary Section, 'Killing in the Name' also nominated for an Academy Award, 'Love, Marilyn', and 'What Happened, Miss Simone?' again nominated for an Academy Award. This is Garbus' first full length feature film debut after her previous 30+ documentary outings. This film is based on a true unsolved murder mystery as recounted in the book 'Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery' by Robert Kolker. The film saw its World Premiere showing at the Sundance Film Festival in January this year, and was released in mid-March on Netflix.

The film opens at night, with a girl running and screaming down a deserted dirt road being pursued by a vehicle behind with its headlights glaring. The girl frantically runs into scrubland, never to be seen again. It is May 2010. Fast forward a few days, and mother of the 24 year old girl in question Mari Gilbert (Amy Ryan) has been leaving text messages for her daughter Shannan Gilbert, and her sister Sherre (Thomas McKenzie) has been leaving voicemail messages all of which have gone unanswered. Mari visits the local Police Station who reveal to her that Shannan made a 911 call from Oak Beach, Long Island at 4:51am, the alleged night of her disappearance. Playing back a recording of that call it sounded as though Shannan was panicked and running at the same time, although the Police authorities took over an hour to respond to the call arriving at the scene at 6:10am by which time there was no trace of the girl.

Shannan we later find out was a sex worker, and was put into foster care when she was twelve years old by her mother who couldn't cope with her daughters bipolar disease and who as a single mother struggled to make ends meet, as she still does, working two jobs and on occasion has asked her daughter for a handout, while remaining mute about where Shannan gets her money from, although secretly knows the truth. This secret however, rises to the surface once Shannan is officially declared a missing person, leaving Mari to reveal the truth to daughters Sherre and Sarra (Oona Laurence).

While the Police undertake a search for Shannan within the Oak Beach community, they come across the remains of a body, then another, then another. Soon in the fullness of time, ten bodies are recovered in a stretch of wasteland bordering the affluent Oak Beach gated residential community. Mari crosses paths with Police Commissioner Richard Dormer (Gabriel Byrne) who is handed the case, and ploddingly goes through the motions in an attempt to locate her missing daughter and uncover who is behind the murders.

In the meantime, the hardworking, angry and determined Mari has become the surrogate leader of the mothers of the other identified girls whose bodies were discovered in the process of searching for Shannan. They decide to hold a vigil at Oak Beach - all of them feeling ignored and demoralised by the lack of support from the authorities, until one year in, and Mari persuades Dormer to dredge the swamp which was the one place that the Police had not looked because it was practically inaccessible. In the intervening period, a local tip off had alerted Mari to Dr. Peter Hackett (Reed Birney) the local overseer of the Oak Beach gated community who seems to have plenty of circumstantial evidence stacking up against him, but nothing concrete.

Eventually, Shannan's body is discovered in the swamp, but more than twelve months after her reported disappearance, and all because the swamp was deemed too hard to search by the Police. Had it not been for Mari's dogged determination and relentless pressure on the Police to do something, perhaps Shannan's body may never have been uncovered. The Police and public at large didn't seem to take Mari and those other mothers seriously because they're women, perhaps from a less well off background, and because her daughter in particular was involved in an often dangerous profession with a history of being judged and often condemned.

Before the closing credits roll we learn that still eight years on the Long Island serial killer who Police believe was responsible for between ten and sixteen murders over a period of twenty years still to this day remains unsolved. Investigators believed that Shannan died of an accidental drowning that was unrelated to the crimes of the Long Island serial killer, but Gilbert challenged the finding and fought to have the case reopened as a murder investigation. An independent autopsy sought by Gilbert’s family found that Shannan may have been strangled to death. We also learn that on 23rd July 2016 Mari Gilbert was stabbed to death by her daughter Sarra who suffered from schizophrenia. Sarra was charged with second-degree murder and fourth-degree possession of a weapon, convicted of murder, and sentenced to 25 years in jail in August 2017. A truly sad case in every respect!

I have to say that 'Lost Girls' is an attention grabbing, compelling film delivered in all its grey, gloomy overcast atmospherics. A standout performance from Amy Ryan as the fractured yet defiantly stoic and determined mother who by needs must rises to the occasion in which she has been unjustly thrust, also makes this a watchable film that straddles the line between documentary and narrative feature that Director Garbus has so deftly crafted here. In the end its a story without any closure or a happy ending, just a mothers grief at uncovering the dead body of her eldest daughter abandoned in a swamp, and ultimately the mother too died prematurely. It's hardly a rewarding watch, and at times the story plods along without really going anywhere had it not been for Mari's sheer resolve in frustratingly getting the local law enforcement to get up of their butts and take her case seriously, and for her disruption of the Oak Beach local community. This isn't your usual murder mystery procedural whodunnit in which the bad guy goes down and, in fact quite the opposite, as this case still remains very open ended with no convictions, no suspects, no persons of interest and very little evidence save for the corpses of sixteen  unfortunates, and it's this fact that elevates 'Lost Girls' above those others in the genre.

'Lost Girls' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapboard from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

HEREDITARY : Monday 11th June 2018.

'HEREDITARY' which I saw this week is a much publicised American supernatural horror film Written and Directed by first timer Ari Aster and it has been touted as the most scary film of 2018, and for some time before that too. The film Premiered at the Sundance Film Festival back in January and went on release in Australia and the US just last week, and the UK this week. The film has garnered generally widespread acclaim by the Critics of this world, but less favourably so by audiences. The film cost just US$10M to make, and in its opening weekend took close to US$14M, and has so far racked up US$22M. The film is Produced and distributed by A24 - the crew behind such notable horrors at 'The Witch', 'Green Room' and 'It Comes At Night'.

The story unwinds in a slow burn terrifying emotional rollercoaster of a ride when Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family passes away. We are first introduced to the Graham family in a very cleverly realised opening tracking shot of an elaborate miniature house under 'construction' inside a home studio. As the camera pans in on a bedroom inside the small yet very lifelike house and gets closer, we see a figure curled up inside a bed, asleep. Into the room walks Steve Graham (Gabriel Byrne) to wake up his son Peter (Alex Wolff), carrying a newly pressed suit that he is to wear today to the funeral, of his grandmother Ellen.

At the funeral, as Steve, Peter and younger sister Charlie (Milly Shapiro) sit in the pews, mother Annie (Toni Collette) delivers the eulogy. Annie has little good to say about her recently deceased mother, explaining that the pair had a fraught and at times tense relationship over the years that ebbed and flowed, that she was also a very secretive person with only a very close circle of friends, and had her own private rituals. After the service, the family of four return home - a large older style house that stands alone in its own grounds.

Annie is a miniature artist who builds tiny houses, buildings and furnishes them with ornate and intricately detailed items of everyday furniture and appliances and of course, custom made people. She is currently working on a special project for an exhibition, on which the deadline is approaching. A few days have passed and Steve receives a phone call from the funeral home saying that Ellen's grave has been desecrated. He chooses not to report this news to Annie, for fear that this will upset her further.

During that first week, Annie tells Steve that she is going out to catch a movie. Instead she rocks up to a support group for those that have suffered a recent heartbreaking death in the family or of someone close. She sits reluctantly largely unwilling to take part, but when asked, as a newcomer to the group, to share her experience, Annie opens up. Now that she's been invited to speak to the assembled group of about a dozen others she speaks of the history of mental illness on her side of the family, how her depressive father starved himself to death, how her schizophrenic brother accused her mother of trying to put people inside his body and eventually committed suicide, and how Ellen herself suffered from multiple personality disorder.

Later, Peter announces that he is going to a friends party and asks to use his Mum's car. On the condition that he doesn't drink, she agrees, asking at the same time if he intends taking his sister along too. He agrees, although is none too pleased at the prospect of dragging his little sister along, but does so. At the party, Peter disappears to partake in a bong with his friends, leaving Charlie to fend for herself in a room full of complete strangers. She eats a slice of chocolate birthday cake cut with a knife that had beforehand been used to chop up nuts.

Within minutes Charlie begins the early onset of anaphylactic shock which steadily worsens. Peter lifts Charlie into the back of the car and races off to the hospital. Gasping for air, Charlie opens the window and leans her head out, just as Peter swerves abruptly to avoid the carcass of a dead animal lying in the road directly in front of him. Peter loses control of the car momentarily and veers close to a telephone pole, on the side that Charlie is hanging out of. She is decapitated. Peter is stunned and sits motionless in the car after bringing it to halt. He knows exactly what has happened but daren't turn around to see.

He comes to his senses and drives home, enters the house quietly and goes to bed without telling his parents, who discover Charlie's body and severed head by the road side the next morning. Annie breaks down uncontrollably over Charlie's death, wailing in her mourning from which not even Steve can console her, and now having to attend the second family funerals within days of each other.

Peter begins seeing visions of Charlie around the house - real or imagined we don't know, but to him they are very real, and very creepy. Annie returns to the support group, but this time does not enter electing to sit outside in her car pondering. As she exits the car park she is waved down by Joan (Ann Dowd) another member of the support group who lost her son and her grandson in a drowning accident six months earlier. Annie is invited to connect with Joan whenever she feels it necessary to aid her recovery. This she does and visits Joan at her apartment where she reveals that she used to sleepwalk, and on one such occasion with almost dire consequences for herself and Peter. Joan confides that she has learned to communicate with her deceased eight year old grandson by means of a seance. After convincing a very sceptical Annie to participate, Joan demonstrates how the connection is real. Having been totally creeped out by her seance experience, Annie exits stage left rather sharply.

However, a day or so later, Annie wakes Steve and Peter and orders them both downstairs, and to ask no questions but to trust her. She convinces them both to conduct their own seance and to connect with Charlie although both her husband and her son are extremely reluctant. Annie lights a candle, and asks them to join hands. Peter especially is freaked out by the request. Annie places an upturned glass on the table which after a connection is established moves itself across the table. The candle then erupts like a Bunsen burner turned up to full, and a glass cabinet is smashed. Annie goes into a trance like state seemingly possessed by the spirit of Charlie, until Steve wakes her by throwing a glass of water over her.

After this episode Annie believes that Charlie's spirit has become malevolent. She throws Charlie's sketchbook into the open fire, only for the flame to jump across to Annie's sleeve and take hold, until she retrieves the smoking book from the fire and stamps out the flames so extinguishing the fire on her arm at the same time. Annie later rifles through her mother’s keepsakes and comes across a photo album that linked Joan to Ellen, and a book in which her mother had highlighted a section referencing the demon Paimon, a 'King of Hell' whose preference is to inhabit the bodies of vulnerable males. It transpires that Ellen and Joan's mother were members of a coven that worshipped Paimon, of which Joan is now a member.

Following this realisation, Annie ventures up into the attic and pulling down the step ladder is confronted with a swarm of flies and a godawful stench. Searching around in the dimly lit attic space with pesky flies all around her, she comes across a blackened headless corpse lying in a corner, that she suspects to be that of her mother Ellen, but can't be sure. Simultaneously, at school Peter is taking part in an English lesson and with his mind elsewhere he is hallucinating. His arm shoots up in the air involuntarily, his eyes bloodshot and his face contorts. Then he slams his face down so hard on his desk, and repeats sending him back reeling with his nose badly broken and blood pouring. He has no idea what just happened, except that he had no control. He screams out in panic.

Steve collects the unconscious Peter from school and drives him home and puts him to bed to rest and recover from his unexplained but deeply distressing ordeal. Annie ushers Steve to the attic to view the corpse and for him to burn Charlie's sketchbook stating that it is the only way to rid them of their daughters spirit. She insists that he burn it, knowing that she cannot from her previous attempt. Steve initially refuses, believing that his wife has lost her mind and further that it was she who desecrated the grave and moved Ellen’s corpse herself. Annie, out of frustration with her husband, throws the sketchbook into the fire herself, only for the flames to jump to Steve instantly engulfing him in fire.

Peter wakes up sensing that something is not quite right. The house is dark and quiet. He gingerly creeps downstairs closing doors as he goes. He finds his father's charred lifeless body, and is then chased by a now-possessed Annie into the attic where he bolts the door closed behind him. Annie clinging upside down on the ceiling frantically and repeatedly bangs her head against the attic door. Inside the attic, Peter is confronted by followers of Ellen all looking on silently with their aged, naked ashen bodies. Behind him Annie appears, levitated up near the ceiling rafters, cutting off her own head with a wire saw. Peter, horrified by the scene before him jumps out the window to escape and is knocked unconscious upon landing in the garden shrubbery below. 

A light pulsates and descends towards Peter's unconscious body. He comes around and spies his mothers levitating headless body as it moves towards and up in to the family treehouse. There he finds Charlie's head sitting on top of a makeshift statue of the demon god Paimon. Joan, the figures seen in the attic, and the headless corpses of Annie and Ellen now all bow down in front of Peter, as he is announced as Paimon. 

I would have to say, that for me, 'Hereditary' was not nearly the scarefest I was given to believe having read other Reviews. However, don't let that detract from the storyline, or the look and feel of this ultimately macabre modern day emotional rollercoaster horror offering. The five principle cast members are all terrific - Milly Shapiro (in her feature film debut) as the clucking disturbed dead panned thirteen year old daughter, Alex Wolff as the pot smoking sad eyed simply existing older teenage son, Gabriel Byrne as the stoic just wants a simple happy life husband, Ann Dowd as the do gooder hiding a malevolent secret and then there's Toni Collette who as the wife and centrepiece gives the performance of her career as the mother battling grief on two substantive levels while trying to keep things together under the influence of emotional turmoil, psychological trauma and something dark and sinister that threatens the whole family unit. This plays out more as a family drama during its first two thirds with the horror coming in the form of real emotional upheaval exploited by great lighting, sound effects and camera angles that accentuate every scene. Only the last third of the film starts to become more horrific in the traditional sense as the true meaning of what the family has 'inherited' becomes real. This film is believable, realistic and grounded in a reality that modern day horror genre bending films are increasingly taking advantage of, but all that said, it didn't keep me awake that night, I didn't look under the bed and it didn't keep me thinking long after the credits rolled, unlike 'Paranormal Activity', 'Wolf Creek' and 'Get Out' did. Certainly worth the price of your ticket though.

This film warrants four claps of the clapperboard, from a potential five. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-