Trigger Point

The most interesting thing about “Trigger Point” (2021) is that it was produced by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, “a socially conscious company that combines storytelling with making the world a better place.” I shit you not. I guess a movie about a good CIA assassin killing a bunch of bad CIA assassins makes the fictional world a better place. Fixing the muddy backstory, cliche shadowy criminal mastermind, and highly unsatisfying ending would have made my world a better place. Barry Pepper may have a mediocre franchise on his hands, which I guess makes his world a better place.

True Grit (2010)

I saw the original “True Grit” when I was a child, many years ago. I do not judge the 2010 version against the 1969 John Wayne version. Each stands well on its own. The newcomer is simply a fine cowboy movie. Colorful characters. Not too long. Doesn’t try to be profound. Two extra things make it great. Hailee Steinfeld plays a confident-beyond-her-years 14-year-old girl that carries the movie by sheer force of will. And the script takes the language of the 1800s and turns it into poetry. It is an exercise in meticulous sentence structuring that brought me great pleasure.

Broken City

In “Broken City” (2013), everybody’s dirty. Everybody has a secret. (Except for Alona Tal. She’s just adorable.) What was I saying? Oh, yeah, “Broken City” is so dirty, it’s very hard to like. It’s like Bostonian Mark Wahlberg made this movie just to make you hate New York and everyone in it (except Alona Tal). Wahlberg and Russell Crowe have star power as a tainted cop and tainteder mayor, but the film noirish revenge/murder/double-cross plot is a mess. (Oh, and another thing. How is Kyle Chandler in every movie that Channing Tatum isn’t in all of a sudden? Dude’s prolific.)