Black Site

Look at little ol’ Redbox trying to turn one of their crappy action concepts into a franchise. Most of the films they help bankroll suck, and “Black Site” (2022) isn’t much different. It’s cliche-filled, blood-soaked, CIA-espionage boilerplate, as a rogue terrorist (or is he?) tries to kill the good guys (or are they?) at a secret base in Jordan. Michelle Monaghan is the presumed good guy and Jason Clarke is the presumed villain, so at least there’s some talent on board. And it’s actiony enough that you might actually be interested in seeing how it plays out, despite the cliches.

Every Breath You Take

There’s plenty of films where the psycho villain manipulates the nice suburban family, but “Every Breath You Take” (2021) uses an updated version of “Ordinary People” as the family’s backstory to give things a different twist. It also helps distract us from what is a pretty formulaic film genre. We have a family that’s struggling to cope with the loss of a son when a stranger with a struggle of his own enters the fray. Things become pretty obvious pretty quickly, but I maintained interest in the interpersonal dynamic between dad (Casey Affleck), daughter (India Eisley) and mom (Michelle Monaghan).

Sleepless

For most of “Sleepless” (2017), I was on the edge of my seat. Partially because of the tense action surrounding crooked cops and a Vegas drug deal gone bad. Mostly because I couldn’t hear the clenched-jaw mumblings of Jamie Foxx and his cast of mush-mouthed costars. It wasn’t me. I’m old, but I don’t listen to Fox News all day with the sound turned up to 11. This was the worst dialogue sound of any movie I’ve seen recently. There are also way too many plot elements straight out of “How to Write a Modern Hollywood Action Script, Vol. I.”