Buried beneath a pile of hillbilly inelegance is a pretty solid performance by Robin Wright as a burnt-out junkie mom. Beyond that, there’s isn’t much to recommend “Devil’s Peak” (2023). Billy Bob Thornton basically plays himself as Appalachian Walter White whose kinfolk traded moonshine for meth at some point. Wright’s son in blood and acetate is set to inherit this backwoods kingdom, but Hopper Penn plays the role as if both he and the character don’t want to be there. The suspense over whether the teen gets out or is dragged down is formulaic trashy tragedy, but better than nothing.
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If #metoo existed back when “Hurlyburly” (1998) was being filmed, a mob of anarchist feminists would have descended on the set and murdered all the male characters. Historians can debate whether we’d be better off. Anyway, this is probably the worst of those 1990s movies that tried to portray the vacuousness of Hollywood wheeling-dealing. It’s definitely the most misogynistic. And to think, 15 years later, Robin Wright and Kevin Spacey would team up again for “House of Cards.” And by the time she negotiated an equally inflated salary, he’d get me-tooed and she’d ultimately lose her job. It’s next-level karma.
I could spend half the night crafting an argument that “Wonder Woman” (2017) is a metaphor for Cold War geopolitics, but this blog is not called “One Million Word Reviews” (thankfully). So let’s start by saying it’s a pretty good action movie and a pretty good setup for a bunch of lucrative sequels. I’ll bypass all the Girl Power raving because that ground has been heavily trod by others. I will say that special effects and the Hollywood business model have both evolved to the point that a female action hero franchise is plausible, and its novelty makes it refreshing.
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