Cradle of Deception (2024)

Cradle of Deception (hereinafter CoD) is a movie “inspired by true events” that culminates in a fistfight between a heroic journalist and an evil doctor — because that’s how conflicts are resolved in real life.  Young widow Erin Treadwell (Holly Deveaux) gives birth to baby boy Ben through in vitro fertilization. Ben is soon diagnosed...

The Image of You (2024)

The Image of You is not just stupid; it’s Fight Club-stupid. I don’t think you can spoil a bad movie. After all, to spoil means “to ruin; to damage (something) in some way making it unfit for use,” and The Image of You was that way when I found it. For what it’s worth, though,...

Lonely Crime Fanatic (2024)

Lonely Crime Fanatic opens with a dream sequence. In it, a man’s reflection appears on a glass door, unbeknownst to Ashley Huff (Brenna Skalski). The man enters Ashley’s house and sneaks up on her, causing Ashley to catapult awake.   How is that even possible? How can something exist in Ashley’s dream without her knowing...

In Love with My Partner’s Wife (2022)

In Love with My Partner's Wife is a story as old as time. Boy meets girl. Girl becomes boy’s battered trophy wife. Boy turns out to be a crooked cop on a drug lord’s payroll. Girl develops Addison’s disease. Boy has a partner who’s a total boy scout. Girl meets boy scout. Boy scout falls in...

Mea Culpa (2024)

Tyler Perry is nothing if not consistent, and Mea Culpa meets all his (sub)standards for contrived plotting, awkward writing and, of course, a lame, punny title. The movie is also derivative of Perry’s own work, being a rehash of his A Fall From Grace.  We have the plucky female lawyer, Mea Harper (Kelly Rowland), representing...

211 (2018)

211 is one of those action thrillers that has no idea, or just doesn’t care, how Interpol works; then again, why expect differently from a movie titled after a section in the California Penal Code but set in Massachusetts?  The film actually opens in Afghanistan (well, Bulgaria, but you get the idea), where four mercenaries...

Leave the World Behind (2023)

If Leave the World Behind is any indication, T.S. Eliot was right. Now, whether the world ends with a bang or a whimper, it would nonetheless be an ending, and that’s a lot more than can be said of this movie, which after meandering aimlessly for the longest time doesn’t so much end as just...

No Good Deed (2014)

No Good Deed goes unpunished. Sort of like watching this movie. After having served five years for “voluntary manslaughter,” Colin Evans (Idris Elba) is denied parole because he may or may not be a serial killer responsible for “the disappearance of five young women.” We're told at the beginning that “The evidence necessary to try...

Chariot (2013)

Chariot claims to be “inspired by actual events.” The movie may very well have been inspired by actual crackpots who routinely dream up implausible conspiracy theories, but the events depicted in it — “fictionalized” or not — bear no relation whatsoever to reality, history, or common sense.   Seven strangers wake up on board a...