Cineast Movie Previews: 'November Man,' 'Life of Crime,' 'As Above/So Below'
Before heading to the movie theater, turn to Cineast for previews of the latest films.
The November Man
East End regular Pierce Brosnan plays Peter Devereaux in The November Man, a film that returns Brosnan to the role of action killer/hero that he memorably portrayed when he held down the James Bond gig. Here his character Devereaux is called the “November Man,” because, as they say in the film, after he comes through everything dies. I guess that kind of works, although they might give the film another title in the more temperate zones, where November isn’t the same frosty killer it is up north. Devereaux is a Jason Bourne-like figure, a ruthless and unbreakable killing machine, now returned to the field to deal with a fearsome adversary. As you would predict if you have any exposure to this type of film, the adversary in question is of course himself a protégé of the November Man—no one else could possibly begin to rival such a killer except another with the same training. Unlike the PG-rated Bond films, The November Man is rated R, so expect considerably more violence, bloodshed and more than just the suggestion of sex.
Life of Crime
Life of Crime is based on the book The Switch by Elmore Leonard, and like another film based on a Leonard book, the beloved Get Shorty, Life of Crime is about lowlifes trying to play above their level. Frank Dawson, played by Tim Robbins, has been embezzling money for years and stowing it in offshore accounts, keeping his wife, Mickey (Jennifer Aniston), in the dark about it and spending some of the excess on his sex kitten Melanie, played by Isla Fisher. When two career criminals kidnap Mickey and demand a ransom, to their horror they discover that Frank would much rather have his wife mysteriously disappear then deal with extricating himself from his marriage—and he would rather not owe any alimony. What follows is the comedy of errors, here enlivened by the presence of Aniston, who is one of the better comedic actresses out there.
As Above/So Below
The title might seem to be paraphrased from a prayer, and you’ll be saying your prayers if As Above/So Below is as bone-chilling as it claims to be. Set in subterranean Paris, in the catacombs, the film is a sort of urban Blair Witch Project. College students in Paris on an archeological dig decide to enter the catacombs, notwithstanding the fact that they contain the remains of about six million people, because they believe that there’s an important artifact that they’ll find down there. Presented, like Blair Witch, as found footage, As Above/So Below follows the doomed group as it gets decimated by a sinister force of unknown origins. Yoicks!