Movie Review: A Little Prayer

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The new movie “A Little Prayer” is one of the most subtle and quiet movies I have ever seen. This story is about the small middle-class lives of people who live in average ranch houses and work in a small local sheet metal factory owned by Bill, played by David Strathairn, who is a Vietnam veteran.

Numerous stories comprise this quiet tale, including the infidelity of Bill’s son, David (Will Pullen), with a coworker, Narcedalia (Dascha Polanco), who both work at the sheet metal company. David is cheating on Tammy (Jane Levy), who lives with him in his parents’ house. It turns out that David has some serious emotional problems as a war veteran after his return from IRAQ, which adds another dimension to David’s serial cheating. It was good to see Jane Levy again after the cancellation of her very good TV show “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” in 2021.

The most difficult to watch part of this film is the return home of Pattie (Anna Camp), who is an abusive mother to her 5-year-old girl, with several scenes that were hard to watch. Pattie has returned home because she left her husband and is in the middle of a divorce. I found it unusual that nobody in the family objected to Patti’s constant berating of her child, Hattie (Billie Roy), which I thought at times was too much and amounted to overkill.

This story demonstrates that a movie does not have to be shocking, overly different, with explosive emotional scenes to be an excellent film experience. Problems come to all of us regardless of age or financial status. A Little Prayer demonstrates so many problems in a subtle and quiet way that I have never seen in any movie.

This film is extremely well acted, with a very high 92% Rotten Tomatoes rating, and I agree with this rating and highly recommend this movie.

Movie Review: Splitsville

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The new movie “Splitsville” starts in a car with a married couple, after witnessing a bad car accident, get into an argument where the wife, Ashley, played by Adria Arjona, tells her husband, Carey, played by Kyle Marvin that she not only wants a divorce, but has been having many affairs. In an effort to be very new and different, Cary steps out of the car and then starts running away for many miles. The last time I saw an emotional reaction to a depressing event involving long-distance running was “Forest Gump” (1994). This time around, running for miles after finding out Carey’s wife wanted a divorce was more weird than effective.

Splitsville plays like a parody of all the many things that can go wrong in a relationship, including the problems with monogamy. This story is also about what can go wrong in an open marriage, which is the relationship solution of Julie and Paul, played by Dakota Johnson and Michael Angelo Covino, who are close friends with Carey. The point of all this is what we all know: there are no easy answers, no perfect marriages or relationships. Many things can go wrong in life when you are single, problems can grow exponentially within any marriage, and even more when you have children. These include money problems, another aspect of this story within the relationship of Julie and Paul.

Another unusual new idea is a huge fistfight between close friends Carey and Paul that travels throughout a large lakehouse, breaking furniture and even a massive fish tank. Much of this is crazy and unexpected, and is mostly an attempt to make the film more memorable than it would be otherwise, without these insane scenes.

There are some funny moments and some good acting within this insane story, and while I do not agree with the too high 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I give this unusual movie a 75% and a mild recommendation.

Movie Review: Caught Stealing

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In terms of horrible New York City apartments, squalor, and barely surviving, set in a gritty, dark, and depressing story, the new movie “Caught Stealing” is one of the all-time standards.

Caught Stealing stars Austin Butler as Hank Thompson and Zoë Kravitz as his girlfriend, Yvonne, who are constantly in trouble, running for their lives, and getting beaten up. One of the early beatings of Hank involves a long period of kicking his midsection while he is lying on the ground. This causes Hank to lose one of his kidneys. At some point during a scene like this, you would think that director Darren Aronofsky would have yelled ‘cut’ long before this scene became obvious overkill.

Unfortunately, this movie is mostly about scenes like this, with one of the few good aspects, the appearance of an extremely attractive house cat, who is present for almost the entire movie, despite the constant gunfire and violence. My guess is the director thought of having this cat appear in this movie to diffuse the over-the-top action scenes.

The story is about a large sum of money that two groups of criminals are trying to find at all costs. Hank has a friend who is leaving for England, and the criminals think that Hank knows where the money is. What follows are chase scenes and non-stop gunfire.

One group of criminals is a Russian gang, the other group of two Hasidic Jewish men, played by two well-known actors, Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio, are the most violent, at one point blowing up a nightclub with many people still inside. Regina King plays a police detective in a role and a story twist that we have all seen too many times before.

While the acting is good in this film, the story, over top violence and several parts of the conclusion that do not hold water, I do not recommend this movie, despite the too high 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.