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Tag: Kiki Layne

  • ‘The Old Guard’ has new tricks | Netflix review

    ‘The Old Guard’ has new tricks | Netflix review

    The Old Guard follows a group of immortal mercenaries as they find themselves as the targets of a nefarious plot

    Quick cut: Director Gina Prince-Bythewood uses her keen sense for character to make The Old Guard a one of a kind groundbreaking Hollywood blockbuster that feels like a new, exciting direction for the action genre.

    Chloé Zhao makes Nomadland‘s melancholic but hopeful story of nomads traversing the American West a stunningly complex character study of life on the margins of society.



    ★★★★

    The Old Guard feels familiar. It follows the typical Hollywood action blockbuster formula, has the archetypes we’ve come to expect and even has a premise that isn’t completely unique. However, director Gina Prince-Bythewood—she’s best known for Love & Basketball—finds moments to give The Old Guard a completely singular flair that feels as invigorating as it is groundbreaking.

    The idea of an action movie led by a group of immortals out of their time is not new. In The Old Guard, we follow Andy (Charlize Theron), a centuries-old warrior who uses her endless amount of time to help people. However, it’s the team around her—also consisting of immortals she’s found—that gives the movie its much-needed lift. There’s alcoholic Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), new recruit Nile (If Beale Street Could Talk‘s Kiki Layne), and, most importantly, gay couple Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli).

    Each character, some centuries years old and aware of the labors and joys of their immortality and some newly struggling with it, is finely carved out to have a past that informs their present motivations. They’re the definitions of lived-in.

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    In particular, it’s Nicky and Joe’s story that feels most impactful. Despite the uniqueness as a gay couple in a major action blockbuster, Prince-Bythewood treats them with normalcy, which adds to their impact. Though it isn’t specifically hinted at in the script, their centuries-long love story has importance in their part of the narrative. Their love today adds to the stakes and our attachment to the characters. It’s through their adversity that we also find their moral drive.

    The movie begins with “the old guard,” Andy, Booker, Joe and Nicky, receiving a rescue assignment from James Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor). That assignment turns out to be a setup to prove the group’s immortality so that pharmacy giant CEO Steven Merrick (Harry Melling) could target the group to study. However, after being killed in a gruesome ambush, the guard resurrects and proceeds to destroy the assailants with ease. Their time-forged skill, especially Andy’s with an ancient axe, is apparent.

    The Old Guard
    THE OLD GUARD (L to R) MARWAN KENZARI as JOE and LUCA MARINELLI as NICKY in THE OLD GUARD. Cr. AIMEE SPINKS/NETFLIX © 2020

    Discovering that Copley has crossed them, the guard sets off to find Nile, the first addition to the guard in centuries, and stop Merrick. And while the premise seems like it begs for endless action, The Old Guard instead is more interested in character moments. Moments that eventually make those action scenes more impactful.

    That’s not to say that the action isn’t polished, enthralling, and punishing. Though Prince-Blyethwood hasn’t tackled an action movie, it’s clear she has a handle of capturing and communicating combat. If anything, her penchant for strong character work makes her more successful in creating action scenes that are narratively and emotionally important.

    It’s difficult in a high-concept fantasy like this to feel like you have the agency to pause and explore the adversity that Nicky and Joe faced or the losses that Booker and Andy had to endure. However, it’s that attachment to the characters that makes the physical pain they go through on their mission hard to stomach. The added rule that any of the immortals can find that they will not resurrect again heightens the stakes.

    The Old Guard *is* a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster, even if it was released directly on Netflix without a theatrical release. However, it’s a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster that’s unafraid to play within the formula given to it. Yes, one of its largest assets is putting a gay couple unabashedly at the center—and without feeling self-congratulatory—however, it does so with every character. It unabashedly explores their inner workings, which just makes their physical feats of action even more delicious to watch. To say I’m obsessed may be an understatement.

    The Old Guard is now streaming on Netflix.

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    Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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  • ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ review — An intimate and political love story

    ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ review — An intimate and political love story

    If Beale Street Could Talk is gorgeous, powerful, stunningly crafted, and another masterpiece from Barry Jenkins.

    If Beale Street Could Talk is a love story at its core the same way that Moonlight, director Barry Jenkins’ last film, is. It makes sense considering Jenkins excels at everything you need to make a good romance. He nails communicating intimacy on screen, often using delicious close-ups of faces and people touching.

    And like Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk is cast against a melancholic theme that tests the relationship. In Moonlight, the main character fights against his own identity and the circumstances of his coming-of-age as a queer black man. In If Beale Street Could Talk, the challenges are more tangible. 

    The main couple, sweet perfume counter clerk Tish (Kiki Layne) and swoon-worthy woodworker Fonny (Stephan James), have known each other since childhood. Through Tish’s gentle voiceover we learn about their love story and how it developed from friendship to something more. However, Fonny is in trouble. 

    He is accused by a white cop (an extremely creepy Ed Skrein) of raping a Puerto Rican woman named Victoria Rogers (Emily Rios). With only Tish and an old friend Daniel (Brian Tyree Henry in a masterful one scene performance) with a criminal record as his alibi, Tish must work to free him.

    It wasn’t always easy for the couple as the movie shows — it’s structured as a series of vignettes from their relationship sprinkled between moments from the present, which is 1970s Harlem.

    If Beale Street Could Talk
    Stephan James as Fonny, KiKi Layne as Tish, and Brian Tyree Henry as Daniel Carty star in Barry Jenkins’ IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, an Annapurna Pictures release.

    The first 30 minutes are dedicated to Tish trying to tell her family that she and Fonny are expecting a child. Her mother Sharon (Regina King) is warm and supportive. And after an initial shock, so are her father Joseph (Coleman Domingo) and sister Ernestine (Teyonah Parris). But, she is also tasked with telling Fonny’s deeply religious mother (Aunjanue Ellis).

    That first scene is a masterful practice in acting and staging supported by Jenkins’ generous screenplay — based off of James Baldwin’s novel of the same name. It all feels like a stage play with actors navigating the space in relation to each other and changing positions as the power in the scene ebbs and flows. 

    If Jenkins is best at anything it’s his ability to communicate emotion and power without words. In another scene, Fonny and Tish prepare to have sex for the first time. The music in the background drops out to make way for the sound of rain as we watch their bodies intertwine. It’s a powerful and emotional scene dripping with intimacy.

    Moonlight grappled with the themes of care — for oneself and others — and love. Often that care and love were represented by a safe space. If Beale Street Could Talk deals with that same idea. What is a safe space for a black person? Well, the movie answers that with its opening quote:

    “Every black person born in America was born on Beale Street, born in the black neighborhood of some American city, whether in Jackson, Mississippi or in Harlem, New York. Beale Street is our legacy.”

    James Baldwin

    What is so heartbreaking about If Beale Street Could Talk is that it presupposes that those safe spaces are almost impossible to find in America.

    If Beale Street Could Talk
    (l to r.) Teyonah Parris as Ernestine, KiKi Layne as Tish, and Regina King as Sharon star in Barry Jenkins’ IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, an Annapurna Pictures release.

    There are pockets where it exists — a grocery store where an elderly woman defends Tish and Fonny from a racist cop or an old warehouse where the Jewish landlord (Dave Franco) is willing to rent to the couple — but largely those places are vanishing. Fonny and Tish’s story acts as the conduit to explore that theme and their love story is what makes that exploration so effective.

    The film is pieced together like a memory — it’s edited by Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders, the Oscar-nominated editors of Moonlight — and Nicholas Britell’s score — also a collaborator on Moonlight — is a melancholic piece with notes of hope and yearning — the best score of the year. All those elements come together to create a masterwork of mood.

    Like his last film, Jenkins and casting director Cindy Tolan pieced together a flawless group of actors. Kiki Layne and Stephen James are both marvelous discoveries who possess so much chemistry with each other that it’s nearly impossible to resist falling for them as a couple.

    However, it’s the supporting cast that standout. Particularly, Coleman Domingo is a strong but sentimental steady hand, and Regina King — worthy of an Oscar — has a show-stopping segment set in Puerto Rico that cements her performance as one of the best of the year.

    If Beale Street Could Talk has so many moving parts that make it work. However, the core of its success is the main couple’s story. Not just the story to get Fonny freed but their love story — a beautiful black love story that we should be seeing more of. Gorgeous, powerful, and stunningly crafted, If Beale Street Could Talk is another masterpiece from Barry Jenkins.

    If Beale Street Could Talk will be in theaters on December 14th.

    Karl’s rating: