Tag Archives: film-review

Wildcat

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I was watching a video on YouTube today of the Kristian Harloff Show. This was the day of the week where Roxy Striar appeared. I always enjoy her TV picks for the week so I played it for awhile. They were speaking about a new movie that Roxy was in, which starred Kate Beckinsale, called Wildcat. Looking at the info for the film, I saw it was rentable on Prime.

It was an action movie, directed by James Nunn, who has a reputation for action.

Sadly, the story was fairly convoluted and messy.

Beckinsale played a former black ops operative named Ada. She had a relationship with another operative named Roman (Lewis Tan). Ada wanted to leave the life and settle down, but Roman was not interested.

Several years later, Ada and her daughter Charlotte (Isabelle Moxley) ran into Roman and they had dinner. They were going to remain friends. Later that night, Charlotte was kidnapped because Ada’s brother Edward (Rasmus Hardiker) owed money to mobsters and had spoke about his sister the former black op.

Ada reunited with her former team in an attempt to pull of a heist to get the money to pay off the mobster.

This had some possibilities, storywise, but it felt that these plot points got too lost among the rest of the pieces tossed into the movie.

I hated the character of Edward. He made every scene worse, with the exception of the very final one.

The action was pretty decent, but there was a bit too much gunfire for my taste. I did like the connection between Ada and Roman. They worked well together.

The final was silly. I am not sure what they were doing.

I did love seeing Roxy in the film. She did great in her small role, and I am so happy that she has gotten the opportunity.

This just is not my type of movie.

2.5 stars

Bates Motel S4 E5

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Spoilers

“Refraction”

Sometimes this show catches me off-guard. Chick followed Norma for awhile, and wound up coming to see her, offering to fix the stained-glass window that was broken during the break in. It was very stalker-like, but during the episode, Chick almost had me convinced that he was going to turn over a new leaf and just fix the stained glass and redeem himself for his past sins.

Nope. At the end of the episode, he comes to Norma and tells her the truth. That he wants to find her brother Caleb. When they were speaking before, Norma called Caleb her brother and Chick was able to piece it together since Caleb had introduced himself to Chick originally as Dylan’s father. Chick took this info and tried to play on Norma’s uncertainty, her deep seeded pain over what had happened to her. He was manipulating Norma and suddenly the good tidings that he had earned in this episode went right out the broken stained-glass window.

I really felt for Norma in that moment. Its as if she can never fully catch a break. She has just started to connect with Romero, so much so that she even asked him if he had killed Bob Paris. His response was that he had no choice, but you could see the truth in his face. He killed him because Bob was a danger to Norma. It was to protect her that Romero had no choice. Norma could see that. I say this every episode write-up but I loved Romero and Norma as a couple which makes what I know is coming up later this season all the worse.

Dr. Edwards met Norman’s Mother personality as Norman blacked out during a session. Edwards had pushed Norman about an imagined meeting Norman had with Norma at the mental institution which happened in Norman’s head and Norman flipped out. Freddie Highmore does a great job switching into Mother. The way he moves, the glint in his eyes, the tilt of a head. Highmore is exceptional in playing the role.

There was a sweet scene between Dylan and Emma where Emma showed Dylan her scar. She was embarrassed by it, but she wanted to get past it. Dylan handled it wonderfully, showing Emma the scars across his body from gunshots and other moments from the drug running career he had been involved in. Another fun moment was when Dylan interviewed for a real, honest job and told the interviewer the truth about his past in the drug trade. Amazingly, it seems as if the truth may have worked out for him.

We have gone past the halfway point in season four and I am not thinking that Chick is long for this world.