Monday Movies ~ 5/10/2020

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Written by fragglerocking

Phil was on a late shift for the Thursday retro movie, so left to my own devices I went looking on Disney+ which I got given for 6 months when I upgraded my phone. Nothing much on there I have to admit, but I came across a little movie called Timmy Failure ~ Mistakes Were Made (2020) and decided to give it a go.

Timmy (Winslow Fegley) is an 11 year old kid living in Portland, Oregon with his single mother Patty, (Ophelia Lovibond) and runs his own detective agency in the back room of their house. After his father walked out on them, Timmy gained an imaginary friend Total, who happens to be a polar bear. The Detective agency is then known as Total Failure Inc. He has a best friend, Rollo (Kei ) a classmate who has a crush on him  Molly Moskins, (Chloe Coleman) and his mother starts dating a meter maid (in the UK known as a parking attendant) Crispin Flavius (Karl Bornheimer). I had a blast watching this, Winslow Fegley carried the movie and was quite adorable. The CGI polar bear is really well done, and the movie is directed with great sympathy for the imagination of childhood. I’m not going to do spoilers at all but will leave the trailer here, it gives the general gist. If you have Disney+ it’s possibly the best thing on it 🙂

Fraggle Rating. Bloody Brilliant.

Our Saturday night movie this week is from Netflix. Close (2019) is an action thriller, written and directed by Vicky Jewson, and starring Noomi Rapace as Sam Carlson, a bodyguard, or ‘close protection officer’ if you like. We start the movie in South Sudan, where Sam is guarding a couple of members of the press. They get ambushed and Sam saves them. This is nothing to do with the rest of the movie but sets the scene and tone for what comes next.

Sam is hired to bodyguard a young heiress, Zoe Tanner (Sophie Nélisse) a troubled girl, who has just inherited her father’s mining business, much to the dismay of her stepmother Rima Hassine (Indira Varma) as she has been running the business, whereas Zoe has just been dicking about. You’ve probably guessed by now that we’re in a kidnap scenario, and you’re right. So nothing really new in terms of plot, there are plenty of similar themed movies in the world. What is different about this one is that it is mainly female lead. From the director to the main actors, the sisters are doing it for themselves, and making a pretty good fist of it. Don’t expect glamour à la Charlize Atomic Bombshell, Noomi makes Sam a gritty heroine, cold, unemotional, and exceedingly good in the kick-ass department. Although Nélisse is given the poor little rich girl rôle, she is smart, speaks arabic, and has to grow up fast in the predicament she finds herself in. That will do for spoilers, though I must mention one scene where Sam has to fight a would-be-kidnapper and does it with her hands tied behind her back, this is not choreographed chicanery à la John Wick, but hard, scary fight-for-your-life stuff and Ms.Rapace has amazing physicality to do this kind of stuff. Filmed in London, Marrakesh and Casablanca with Malte Rosenfeld in charge of cinematography, the scenery is authentic and beautiful in places.

Thoroughly enjoyed this, the plot is a bit hokey now and then, and a bit clichéd at times, but Jewson keeps everything moving at a decent pace and doesn’t over-egg the pudding with the fight scenes. The movie is 1 hr and 34 minutes long, or short by todays standards, and Rapace elevates the trope by giving us a believable action heroine that’s worth spending that hour and a half in her company.

Fraggle Rating: Well good!

37 Comments

    2. I am working on my own Ironing Blog….it’s called the Ironing Fix, how to survive in a brutal world through ironing. I reckon it will be a smash hit, and probably because of that I’ll be abandoning my own regular blog. Just a heads up 🤔🤔🤔

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  3. I have seen Close myself too, and while I was a little bit less enthusiastic about it then you, I definitely enjoyed it enough. Rapace certainly was great, but then again, she’s always great😀
    As for Disney+ I don’t have that subscription anymore…but I will be renewing it this month for the second season of The Mandalorian! 😀😀

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  4. Pingback: Monday Movies ~ 5/10/2020 – Kisafilms.com

  11. Timmy Failure is a gem, that’s for sure. I don’t think we have seen Close but it’s hard to tell, not only due to the generic-sounding plot but also because Rapace seems to be in almost everything!

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