From one incredible survival story to a look at two very different scandals decades apart.
There’s a variety of streaming and movies options this weekend, but there’s one in particular Richard Roeper called one of the most “poorly written shows in any genre this year.”
Here’s his takes:
“Heart of the Beast” (in theaters)
If you’ve seen the trailer for “Heart of the Beast,” you know it’s a survival story about a pilot whose single-engine seaplane crashes in the remote wilderness, leaving him and his faithful dog to battle all manner of obstacles as they endeavor to make it back to civilization.
All of that is accurate—but this is first and foremost a love story, and it’s one of the best love stories of the year. The bond between Brad Pitt’s retired Special Forces veteran James Belmont and his best friend, a traumatized combat dog named Odin, is unbreakable and beautiful. They have been through the worst hellfire imaginable and they have shared thousands of small and quiet and happy moments together. They’ll never leave each other behind.
When Belmont’s plane crashes in the beautiful but punishing Alaskan terrain (with New Zealand standing in for Alaska), he determines it’s a 58-mile trek to the nearest road. Director David Ayers films in a docudrama style as Belmont and Odin rely on one another through a punishing, grueling trek. Even the nights offer no respite, whether it’s wolves howling at the gate, or dreams and flashbacks to the horrific wartime sequences that left Belmont and Odin scarred inside and out. The cinematography is breathtaking and the action sequences are visceral—but what we’ll most remember about “Heart of the Beast” is that kinship between Belmont and Odin, played by an amazing German Shepherd named Uber. They create movie magic together.
3.5 stars
“Primetime” (in theaters)
From the opening frames through a pitch-perfect epilogue, director Lance Oppenheim’s “Primetime” is one of the most effectively unsettling movies of the year. In the wrong hands, “Primetime” could have been sleazy and gratuitous exploitation. Instead, drawing on the story of the 2000s reality-investigative series “To Catch a Predator,” this is a biting media satire, a profile of a man drowning in his own crusading hubris, and even something of a horror story. It’s at times an uncomfortable watch, but we’re never not engrossed in the proceedings.
With the caveat that this is a highly fictionalized version of true-life events, Robert Pattinson gives a career-highlight performance playing Chris Hansen, who has an undeniable charisma but a kind of reptilian presence as he presides over “To Catch a Predator.” Hansen revels in that “gotcha” moment when a keyboard creep learns he hasn’t actually been talking to an underage potential victim online—reminding them when they crumple into a ball of shame that they brought this upon themselves. Of course, that’s valid, but “Primetime” leans into the seedier aspects of the machinations of the show, with Skyler Gisondo and Phoebe Bridgers doing outstanding work as the actors who act as decoys and begin to question their place in this world. Merritt Wever is spectacularly good as the talented and ambitious producer who alternates between exploiting every moment for ratings, and recoiling at some of Hansen’s behavior. Director Oppenheim and cinematographer David Bolen give “Primetime” an intense, manic look that often makes us feel as if we’re in the control room. There’s a moment when the NBC correspondent Stone Phillips (Bill Heck) encounters Hansen and says he could never do what Hansen does.
It’s not a compliment.
3.5 stars
“Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” (Netflix series)
Rancid.
“Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” is the latest chapter in the wildly popular true-crime anthology series. It’s also one of the most exploitative, gratuitously violent and poorly written shows in any genre this year.
As was the case with last year’s “Monster: The Gein Story,” the showrunners have taken a foundation of basic core facts and shattered it with anachronistic plot developments and bizarre fantasy sequences that turn the whole thing into a self-congratulatory fever dream. Ella Beatty (daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening) does what she can in the thankless title role, while the fine actors Charlie Hunnam (who played Gein in the previous chapter) and Rebecca Hall as Lizzie’s father and stepmother are saddled with playing grotesque monsters who recite some of clunkiest dialogue imaginable.
Even worse, the series becomes an extended thesis on female rage while shoehorning in storylines involving the 16th century Hungarian countess Elizabeth Báthory, who allegedly tortured and murdered hundreds of victims, and 20th century serial killer Aileen Wuornos (Sarah Paulson). The latter story thread is particularly offensive, as Paulson does a cringe-inducing, ham-fisted takeoff on Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning turn in Patty Jenkins’ vastly superior film “Monster” (2003). This is a well-filmed, slick series with high production values, but that can’t mask the weird obsession with menstruation, the cartoonishly absurd characters and the simplistic sociopolitical commentary.
1.0 stars
Richard Roeper has reviewed films and TV series for more than 25 years, most notably with the Chicago Sun-Times and on the nationally syndicated “Ebert & Roeper.” Roeper is an entertainment and culture contributor to NBC 5 Chicago. He is the host of the globally popular “The Movie of Your Life” podcast, and he writes reviews for RogerEbert.com.
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