Bobby Moresco is trying to make “bent” happen. “Bent” is the new word for crooked cops, apparently, and writer-director Morsesco cannot bear the thought that any of you don’t know about this super cool slang, so he half-assed a whole movie around the concept and put it on Netflix so that you can ultra hip and not embarrass yourself in front of potentially crooked cops.
Anyway, Danny (Karl Urban) is a cop who watches his buddy cop get shot during a deal gone wrong. Or something like that. The first 10 minutes of this film are needlessly confusing. But that’s still preferable to the last 86 minutes, which are just bad. And that covers the entire 96 minutes!
Danny, disgraced and off the force, decides to lead his own private investigation into 
what went wrong. So he does that thing where he circles the date on the calendar and his heart is filled with revenge lust and he has a beard so you know he’s morose and broody. His mentor (Andy Garcia) is more concerned for his love life and maybe his personal safety, and both of those might be threatened by a mysterious government agent (Sofia Vergara).
Karl Urban is a good actor and Sofia Vergara is a bad actor (she doesn’t even fall convincingly!) but none of that matters because the script is so terrible it forms an opaque force field over the movie that feels pretty darn impenetrable.
The thing is, it does honestly at times feel like the whole script is built around just saying the word ‘bent’ a lot. A lot. Some stuff does happen but it’s pretty worthless. Can you hear my disappointment oozing through the screen? It’s so generic it offends me. It’s immediately indistinguashable among the offal of its genre. The twists and turns are painful.The love interest is painfuller. The dialogue is painfullest.
I am old enough to feel like I should remember the original Pete’s Dragon (which was released in 1977). I know that I saw it as a kid but it definitely did not stick with me. Because of that, I would have had no expectations going into the 2016 version of Pete’s Dragon but for the very positive reviews it has been getting. The new Pete’s Dragon did not resonate with me to quite that degree, but it is a good family movie that I think kids will love. It also may make you wish you had a pet dragon.
Just don’t expect there to be a clear message. Lately, Disney (/Pixar) has been doing well at including big coherent themes in kids’s movies, from 
We were treated tonight to a marathon of the new trilogy of Star Trek movies, including a screening of Star Trek Beyond. Seeing the first two reminded me how good Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness are, and seeing them all in a row made me all the more sure that Star Trek Beyond is my favourite of the three.
Yelchin, having died so tragically after filming was complete, is a key cast member in all three and is excellent in Star Trek Beyond (as always). But it’s bittersweet to watch, as his posthumous presence is harder to take than his absence would have been. Every one of his scenes serves as a reminder that there will be no more Chekov in the instalments to come. He will be sincerely missed but it feels right that his role will not be recast. May he rest in peace.
wonderful job of capturing the sarcastic Bones and the quiet pleasure Spock takes in driving Bones crazy, while letting us see that underneath it all there is nothing but love and respect between them.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 