Posts Tagged ‘Ashton Sanders’

^{Brothers Under Fire}

Director: Justin Chadwick

Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Ashton Sanders, Solly Macleod, Tommy Martinez, Omar Chapparro, Laura Osma, Orlando Pineda, Fredy Yate, James Keach

Running Time: 1 hour 39 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

British director Justin Chadwick who brought cinema goers such films as Tulip Fever, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, The First Grader and The Other Boleyn Girl returns to the big screen with the Highland Film Group’s action film Brothers Under Fire starring Kiefer Sutherland (Phone Booth, Melancholia) as battle weary American army captain Jordan Wright.

Wright joins his army squadron on a special trip to a wedding in Mexico whereby Roberto played by Tommy Martinez is to marry Isabella played by Laura Osma. The squadron includes Danny, Lieutenant Carlson played by Ashton Sanders (Moonlight, I Wanna Dance with Somebody) and Orlando Pineda as Miguel.

The night of the wedding during the festivities one of the soldiers Danny played by Sonny Macleod has an altercation with a petulant cartel drug deputy whose brother is the vicious cartel leader who feels nothing at executing a whole village full of people including women and children.

Justin Chadwick captions Brothers Under Fire by showing an opening sequence in Syria whereby the squadron are bonding after a heated battle and they take a photo of the 5 of them before Roberto invites them to his Mexican wedding.

The wedding becomes a bloody affair as the cartel boss’s brother is killed and then the American squadron are under fire when the cartel goes after them and the rest of Roberto and Isabella’s village. This ultimately leads to a good old fashioned showdown in a town square.

Most of Brothers Under Fire was shot in Colombia and unfortunately the director does not give the viewer a proper sense of location, so one is not sure if the action is set in Mexico or Colombia. Either way its set in a poverty stricken Latin America country whereby the drug cartels have taken over and are terrorising the local population.

Jordan Wright well played by Kiefer Sutherland encourages his men, the original squadron to protect these people from this vile drug cartel resulting in a riveting bullet riddled showdown.

If audiences like a straight forward action film with no frills then Brothers Under Fire is recommended viewing. There is a surprising plot twist but ultimately the final showdown comes with sacrifice and an effortless display of bravado. With all violence, it’s the women and children that are left to survive after the devastation.

Brothers Under Fire gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is a worthy action film featuring machismo, murder and mayhem. The final showdown is something to behold.

This is a standard action film, which stays true to the genre and will definitely find a loyal audience.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Director: Kasi Lemmons

Cast: Naomi Ackie, Stanley Tucci, Ashton Sanders (Moonlight), Tamara Tunie, Clarke Peters, Daniel Washington

Running time: 2 hours and 26 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

In an effort to paint the celebrated musician Whitney Houston in a constantly positive light, Harriet director Kasi Lemmons choses to focus on all the high points of Whitney’s celebrated and controversial life in the new musical biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody starring British breakout star Naomi Ackie as Whitney Houston and Oscar nominee Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones) as her smart and efficient manager Clive Davis.

The Multi-Grammy winning American singer, was the first woman of colour to attract a completely multiracial American audience in the late 1980’s and in the 1990’s and was often accused that her music was not black enough. Whitney Houston’s brief excursion into acting landed her the lead role in the iconic 1992 film The Bodyguard opposite the hot young star of the 1990’s Kevin Costner.

I Wanna Dance Somebody covers all the tumultuous years of Whitney’s career from her incredible highs including the singing of the Star Spangled Banner at the 1991 Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida at the outbreak of the Gulf War to her passionate commitment to the anti-apartheid movement including her concerts in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban, South Africa in November 1994 after the first democratic elections were held.

However, the Bohemian Rhapsody screenwriter Anthony McCarten fails to contextualize certain key moments of Whitney Houston’s life and director Kasi Lemmons handles Whitney’s drug addiction and her terrible relation with R & B singer husband Bobby Brown played by Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders with kid gloves, without really giving the audience enough subtext and specific details.

Which means by the time the two and a half hour biopic ends, the death of Whitney Houston in a plush bathtub at the Beverly Hilton during Clive Davis’s pre-Grammy party in Los Angeles on the 11^th February 2012 is completely glossed over and hardly mentioned. This was one of the most dramatic deaths of a famous celebrity since River Phoenix and Marilyn Monroe. The media frenzy and consequent fallout of Whitney Houston’s death in 2012 should have been in this film 10 years later.

British new comer Naomi Ackie (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker) does a relatively good job of playing Whitney Houston however she does struggle to keep the emotional pace of a playing a music legend for two and a half hours. Maybe Austin Butler and Rami Malek need to give her some advice.

Stanley Tucci is entertaining as Clive Davis, but again Tucci does not get enough screen time and McCarten does not give the talented star enough interesting dialogue.

The best part about I Wanna Dance with Somebody is the fantastic music of Whitney Houston in which Naomi Ackie does a good job of delivering the voice of the late 1980’s.

Unfortunately as a musical biopic, there is a lot of excellent content out there already and I Wanna Dance with Somebody just falls short of becoming a brilliant film although it is entertaining and will satisfy the fans of Whitney Houston.

I Wanna Dance with Somebody gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is recommended viewing for the music but less for the incoherent storyline.

Moonlight

Director: Barry Jenkins

Cast: Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Trevante Rhodes, Janelle Monae, Andre Holland, Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders

Director Barry Jenkins breaks new visual ground in his evocative film Moonlight based upon the unproduced play “In the Moonlight Black Boys look Blue” written by Tarell Alvin McCraney.

Premiering at the Telluride film festival in Colorado, Moonlight has attracted huge critical acclaim and awards buzz anchored by two superb performances by Mahershala Ali, last scene in the brilliant series House of Cards, as a African-American Cuban drug dealer Juan and British actress Naomie Harris (Skyfall) in a breath taking role as the crack addicted mother Paula.

Moonlight deconstructs masculinity, sexuality and race in an incisive portrayal of one man’s growth from childhood into adulthood. Set in a poverty stricken Miami neighbourhood, Chiron played in three life stages by Alex Hibbert as a young boy nicknamed Little, Ashton Sanders as a teenager named Chiron and Trevante Rhodes as a muscle bound young man nicknamed Black.

Throughout this study of maturity and evolving masculinity, Chiron has to contend with his drug addicted mother Paula, who incidentally is being supplied crack cocaine by Juan who initially takes Little under his wing as a foster father and teaches him to swim in one of the film’s most effective scenes. The ethical conflict of these two parental figures adds to Chiron’s inability to express his emotions except to ask direct questions like: What is a faggot?

Moonlight is a stunning film, a visual masterpiece superbly directed by Barry Jenkins which gets under the viewers skin and inhabits their perceptions, changing every misconception there is about socially constructed identities – what it means to be black, what it means to be an addict and what it means to be gay.

Chiron’s sexual awakening on a moonlit beach in Miami as he kisses school friend Kevin played by Andre Holland sets the stage for a provocative and important film.

Moonlight is sure to be discussed and analyzed in terms of visual identity and perception but more poignantly it’s a superb portrayal of one man’s emotional journey from bullied child and teenager to a muscle bound man who manages to escape the confines of his conflicted childhood and reconcile with his real identity and find love in the process. The scene between Chiron and a much older Paula is truly phenomenal.

Moonlight is highly recommended viewing, a visually impressive film already generating critical acclaim and incisive film analysis.