Once again, the best movies are always based on true stories. The new movie “Dream Horse” starring Toni Collette and Damian Lewis is based on true story about the horse “Dream Alliance”, who was purchased by a group of ordinary people who lived in Wales some 20 years ago. Trained from birth by an alliance led by Jan Vokes (played by Collette) Dream Alliance eventually became a miracle horse. The movie Dream Horse is not quite at the level of two other great horse movies “Secretariat”, released in 2010 and Seabiscuit, released in 2003 – but it is still a very good horse movie.
What is good about this film is how it shows the ups and downs of the business of horse racing, always a very risky financial endeavor. In the country of Wales – the location of this story – horse racing is all about horses racing but also leaping over hurdles. In just about every race shown in this movie, a horse falls after jumping over a hurdle. My question was, why race horses like this, when the odds of injury and even death are so much higher than for normal horse racing? What does it prove to have a horse race with hurdles, rather than just a straight up race with no hurdles – especially considering the risk to the horses. The cost of the insurance of each horse is also much higher for the owners considering the dangers of jumping over so many dangerous obstacles. Considering the purchasing of the horse, paying the trainers and handlers in horse racing, turning a profit must be a very precarious business at best.
I thought the acting in this movie for both Collette and Lewis was very strong, with Jan Vokes, played by Collette an ordinary person working as a cashier with a very boring and depressing job, and Howard Davies, played by Damian Lewis, as down on his luck tax accountant. Just about everybody can relate to these two characters who are living average lives, but dream of so much more. I thought this aspect of the story, works the best in this film.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Dream Horse are a very high 89%, and I both agree with this rating and recommend this movie.
Author Archives: jjcwn
Movie Review: Spiral From the Book of Saw
As long as a horror movie franchise as popular as “Saw” has been, there will be more Saw movies and it does not matter that the last Saw movie ended the life of the main character. As long as movies like this make money – there will be more of them.
Spiral is a new variation with the same idea behind it. Someone (in this case police officers) have done something bad in their life and gotten away with it, and now it is payday. Unfortunately for the victims in these films, payday consists of a horrendous and painful death along with an equally painful decision they have to make (like sawing off an arm) to try and save their life. The question I have always had is, who are the people who think of the death and torture scenes in these Saw movies – is a documentary within itself. The sadistic imagination behind some of these scenes is in some cases rather unbelievable. Why do some of us like to see movies like this, at this extreme level of cruelty? If there were not so many millions of us who like movies like this, they would not exist in the first place.
So far there have been nine Saw movies with this one the first new variation from the original that was released in 2004. Obviously, there will be many more new variations of this same general idea. I remember the first Saw movie had an outstanding ending scene that caught everyone by surprise, but since that first solid firm, most of the movies that followed have been mostly about horrendous torture and death scenes.
For this film I was surprised to see Samuel L. Jackson in this movie as the father of the main character Detective Zeke Banks, played well by Chris Rock. Perhaps Jackson just wanted to work with Chris Rock and did not care about the quality of this movie. In the past few years and especially with his appearance in the latest television series based on the movie Fargo, Chris Rock has completed in some very impressive acting roles. Unfortunately the decision to make this movie was not a good one, mostly because the script was not strong enough to recommend.
I agree with the low 41% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and I do not recommend this film.
Movie Review: Those Who Wish Me Dead
The new movie “Those Who Wish Me Dead” is now available in theaters and HBO Max. Angelina Jolie returns in an action movie where she plays a fire jumper/fighter. Based on the overall quality of the story, I am a bit surprised that Jolie took this role mainly because this film is nothing new and for the most part, very average. I can guess that this movie was made mainly because of the huge fires in California that have been in the news for the last few years – due to Global Warming.
This story about a forensic accountant and high level criminals who are out to kill him and his son. This eventually degrades into a shoot and chase film involving firefighters and a wooden tower that rises over a huge forest. Tyler Perry makes one of his rare and small cameo appearance in this film that I thought was surprising, mainly because how small his role was. The best part of the story is the bond between Hannah, played by Jolie and the boy which for the most part does work. Unfortunately the story is not strong enough to give this film any higher than an average rating.
This time around, I do agree with the critics on Rotten Tomatoes who give this film a 63% rating. I do not recommend Those Who Wish Me Dead. Also, considering the content of this movie, the title does not make much sense.
A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies. 