ENTERTAINMENT

At the Movies with Joyce & Don

Posted 9/23/20

INFIDEL

***½

(Religion based thriller)

Movies based on actual people and events usually gain an additional half star from us, even if they appear to take poetic …

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ENTERTAINMENT

At the Movies with Joyce & Don

Posted

INFIDEL

***½

(Religion based thriller)

Movies based on actual people and events usually gain an additional half star from us, even if they appear to take poetic license.

“Infidel” is the story of religious blogger Doug Rawlins (Jim Caviezel) who travels to Egypt to participate in a live TV show exploring the similarities between Christians and Muslims.

Jim crosses the line with his strong views, offending the Muslims, resulting in his kidnapping and torture in an undisclosed place.

The U.S. government is reluctant to intercede, so his wife heads off to Egypt to find him.

His captors believe he is a CIA spy, enhanced by the fact that his wife works for the State Department.

Jim is ordered to be executed by a firing squad. A group of sympathizers unite to spring him from prison and the action picks up to a bloody, violent conclusion.

There are one too many coincidences to accept what happens, which is why these genres always begin with words like “based on.”

The movie will hold your interest, both with the action sequences and the battle between Christianity and Muslim points of view.

“Infidel” is showing at the Warwick Showcase. Rated R.

THE NEST

***

(English morality play)Jude Law stars as Rory, a British commodities broker who has moved to the United States to gain fame and fortune.

The movie opens as his “All American” family is having breakfast around the table and then are off to live their upper middle class lives.

Rory coerces his wife and two kids to move to his native England, where he rejoins his former firm, leases an old country manor, transports his wife’s horse and proceeds to manipulate his boss with his new ideas to grow the company.

Things do not go as planned and Rory faces failures at work and at home. Even the horse has trouble adapting.

While “The Nest” is an interesting study of uncontrollable ambition and its effects on a family, the story plods along without a lot happening, ending with the family again around the breakfast table contemplating their future.

NOTE: “The Nest” ends Thursday at the Avon. “Kajillionare,” starring Rhode Island’s own Richard Jenkins, opens Friday, and it looks like a winner.

NETFLIX

Harlen Coben has been one of our favorite mystery writers.

A few of his novels have been turned into Netflix series, including “The Stranger,” which will hold your interest throughout its complex story. You will meet a plethora of interesting, mysterious characters who seem to have nothing in common, but slowly and cleverly intertwine.

It is a tale of secrets, as one character attempts to bribe seemingly unrelated characters, all eventually coming together in a clever conclusion.

Cohen’s “The Woods” is also a tale of secrets as we are introduced to campers and staff of a summer camp, where murders occur.

We then meet the protagonist in his middle age as he is still haunted by the disappearance of his sister and tries to find out what happened those many years ago in the woods.

I am always looking for good endings that surprise me, and Coben knows how to write them.

entertainment, movies

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