I am sure there is no accident that the main character in the movie “Luce”, who is an overachieving high school student, looks a great deal like a young Barack Obama. The film Luce is highly unusual in that it is more about how people interact with someone who everybody assumes is a great person, who will be doing to do great things and is extremely likable. This story examines the reality that what people show the world is not necessarily what they actually are.
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The cast of this low budget “Indy” movie is impressive, with Naomi Watts as Luce’s mother, Tim Roth as his father and Octavia Spenser as his high school history teacher and newcomer Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Luce. What makes this story mostly work is that Luce was adopted by two white parents from a war zone and he needed years of rehabilitation starting at age 10 to recover from his PTSD due to years of being exposed to war as a young child. While Luce is a tremendous overachiever in high school, there are problems that start with the suspicions of his high school teacher Miss Wilson, played by Spenser, because of a paper that promotes violence Luce wrote for his history class. What follows are a series of events, including a scene where Miss Wilson’s mentally ill sister runs naked in the lobby of the high school, which I thought was not only unnecessary but not related enough to the main part of the story to even include in this film. The story has several other sub stories, some that enhance the story and others that seem unnecessary to the point of the film.
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The acting in Luce is of course outstanding, but what I did not like was the ending, that did left too many loose ends, and resulted in an unsatisfactory conclusion in my opinion.
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The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie is an extremely high 93% but my rating is about 80%, more for the acting and less for the story. I do recommend Luce.
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The new movie “The Peanut Butter Falcon” is a low budget art movie, that is about as different than any movie I have seen in many years. The main character Zak is played by a real actor with Down Syndrome, Zack Gottsagen – who despite his limitations does a very good and believable job with this role. The story is very simple, “with the help of Zak’s roommate, played by Bruce Dern (in yet another low budget movie role), Zak escapes from his nursing him – with the hopes of becoming a professional wrestler by attending a school for wrestlers somewhere on the coast of North Carolina”. Assigned to find Zak, is Eleanor, his caretaker played very well by Dakota Johnson, who has recovered very well from her 3 bad roles in the ridiculous “Fifty Shades” franchise. They both run into a fisherman named Tyler played by Shia LeBeouf, who is in some trouble and then most of this film involves the 3 of them trying to find this wrestling school because of Tyler’s promise to Zak.
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I thought this movie was good, mainly because of its simple story and acting, but not as great as the critics are rating it on Rotten Tomatoes at 95%. My rating would be a solid 80% with a moderate recommendation.
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“Angel has Fallen” is the third, and possibly the last installment in this franchise, that started with “Olympus has Fallen”, released in 2013. Olympus has Fallen is arguably one the best action movies ever produced, about a gang of North Korean’s who invade and take over the White House. This sequel “London has Fallen”, released 3 years later, was unfortunately not nearly as good as the original. Angel has Fallen is also not as good as the original, but it is much better than London has Fallen. The main problem I had with this film is that there are not enough action scenes for too much of the 2 hours and because of this, the high level of tension that was present in the first movie was not maintained for enough of the movie, until the end.

Gerard Butler, who plays Mike Banning is perfect for this role of a secret service agent, who is put into impossible situations that always involve imminent death and martial arts skills that are always far better than almost all of his combatants. The plot of Angel has Fallen was very obvious to figure out and I thought that Jada Pinkett was miscast as the lead FBI agent. I also didn’t like the producers using a different actress, Piper Perabo to play Banning’s wife only because of a scheduling conflict. In the interest of continuity, it would have been better for fans of the franchise to make the schedule work and not give Banning a different wife. Nick Nolte is also in this installment as Banning’s father, who is living in the woods and looks like a mountain man, who is far older than Nolte’s 79 years. I thought the chemistry between Butler and Nolte was very well done in this story and the funny ending was well done.

The Rotten Tomatoes review of this film is a way too low 46% and once again the critics are wrong. Angel has Fallen is a very solid action movie and the correct rating is 75%.  I recommend Angel has Fallen.