Warning: I’m going to sort-of spoil “Destroyer” (2018) for you. Nicole Kidman uglies herself up to play a burnt-out detective with one last shot to close the case that’s haunted her for 17 years. It felt like “Rush: The Later Years” or a dark take on “Saving Grace.” We keep going back and forth between her ill-fated days undercover and her current attempt to find resolution. I was kind of getting into it, although there’s too much I’ve-been-a-bad-mommy subplot. But the film buries a lie in the back-and-forth to create a plot twist, and I don’t like being lied to.
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These days, it seems every fading Hollywood star is making a movie about a dog. Many are “family” films full of dopey hijinks. Harrison Ford went for old school, 1960s-Disney-style “family,” in that there’s all kinds of death and violence, but there’s also furry animals to make it OK. It’s been 40 years since I read the “The Call of the Wild” and I won’t quibble with using CG dogs to enliven Jack London’s literary vision. The film does capture the cold lonesomeness of Alaska and the book’s spirit of adventure while also being emotionally manipulative enough for modern audiences.
You know all those black stand-up comedians over the years who had a bit about horror movies and black people? How the brother always gets killed first? How a real black dude would have been gone from that damn house after five minutes? How black people in the audience are screaming for the black dude to GET OUT of the damn house? Well, comedian Jordan Peele put his money where his mouth is. He placed all those horror movie conventions in a blender and mixed in some Rod Serling. He even called the movie “Get Out” (2017). And it’s fantastic.
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