We are currently watching “One Way.” Drea De Matteo, from “The Sopranos,” has a roleas Vic, as do Kevin Bacon and Colson Baker, otherwise known as Machine Gun Kelly. Travis Fimmel is another in the cast, and it is rated “R” on Amazon Prime for $4.99.
It will be interesting to see if Machine Gun Kelly is much of an actor, so the $4.99 price tag seems worth it. The film, by Andrew Baird, is an indie thriller and, so far, Colson (i.e., Machine Gun) is on a bus and attempting to escape. He portrays Freddy, who has stolen some coke and is on the lam. Freddy may not have thought out this heist too completely, as he seems to have sustained a gunshot to his abdomen.
The background music is pretty hard core and the person being tortured, Mac, is a Machine Gun Kelly knock-off, pink hair and all. Some commenters on ratings pages have mentioned that they had difficulty hearing all the dialogue because of the volume of the background music, but it is compelling and carries and sustains the suspense and momentum.
Two nights ago I watched “The Nanny,” another indie film, which had some good acting within it. The young nanny from Senegal, Aisha, (Anna Diopp) was good in her part, but the ending was rather abrupt. She was hired as the nanny for a couple, portrayed by Michelle Monaghan and Morgan Spector. They don’t pay her what she is owed, and the boss even makes a pass at her. However, the film, which seems to be heading toward a tragic ending, has a rather sudden happy ending, so there’s that. Anna Diopp was impressive in her role.
I followed that up with a film called “American Assassin” which caught my eye as something being streamed live by YouTube. Every few minutes a message would appear on the screen saying, “We’ll be back in 1 minute and 58 seconds.” The film would buffer. Michael Keaton would be training assassins of the Navy Seal variety and acting all tough. I like Michael Keaton very much, but I prefer films in which he has witty dialogue, which he never fails to deliver well. [I’m still stuck on “Night Shift,” one of his very first films, with Henry Winkler as his boss.]
I had been eagerly awaiting Damian Chazelle’s “Babylon” film, but the advance word from those who have seen it is not positive. I met Chazelle at the premiere of “La La Land” at the Chicago International Film Festival” and he was very, very nice. I look forward to all of his films, and I’ll see this one, regardless of the bad reviews I’ve encountered.
Drea is playing a bad girl known as Vic. She and her minions have just murdered the Machine Gun Kelly look-alike (Mac), after torturing him to try to find out where the real Machine Gun Kelly had gone with their illegal product.
Time to start concentrating on the plot. So far, it is holding my attention better than either of the two mentioned above.