Ron Perlman – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

THE DAY OF THE FIGHT – Review by April Neale

December 7, 2024December 13, 2024 April Neale Day of the Fight, Jack Huston, john magaro, Michael C. Pitt, Nicolette Robinson, Ron Perlman, steve buscemi

With stark and poignant imagery serving these themes of atonement and redemption, director Jack Huston’s first feature delivers a bittersweet cautionary tale. It shows how complex human transgressions are processed and how we can be seen as our true selves, not just the sum of our mistakes. Boxer “Irish” Mikey Flannigan was a world champion. He’s been in prison for years, and his career has dashed to the rocks. However, on the day the film takes place, Mikey will fight professionally after a decade of self-reflection and regret. His family and neighborhood pals who know his heart are in his corner.

Reviews

THE INSTIGATORS – Review by Susan Granger

August 15, 2024August 19, 2024 Susan Granger casey affleck, doug liman, hong Chau, matt damon, Ron Perlman, The Instigators, Ving Rhames

Friends since their Cambridge, Massachusetts, childhood, Matt Damon and Casey Affleck (younger brother of Ben – with whom Damon wrote Good Will Hunting) went back to their native Boston to film this wannabe action-comedy caper. Desperate Rory (Damon) is a divorced, debt-ridden ex-Marine who’s so depressed because he can’t come up with the $32,480 he owes in legal fees and child support for his teenage son that his VA psychiatrist, Dr. Donna Rivera (Hong Chau), fears he might be a suicide risk.

Reviews

THE INSTIGATORS – Review by T. J. Callahan

August 6, 2024August 7, 2024 T. J. Callahan Alfred Molina, ben affleck, casey affleck, doug liman, hong Chau, matt damon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Ron Perlman, The Instigators, Toby Jones, Ving Rhames

The Instigators reunites Matt Damon with the Affleck brothers, Casey as a co-star and Ben as producer, in this heist comedy set in their hometown of Boston where the accents are as thick as the bumbling criminals trying to stay one step ahead of the law. Damon is an ex-Marine, a divorced dad wanting to do right by his son. Casey is a wayward ex-con with a drinking problem. The two are thrown together as part of an inept Ocean’s Eleven tasked with robbing the city’s corrupt mayor. When the caper collapses, the would-be thieves find themselves on the run from not only the police, but the profiteering politician’s henchmen.

Reviews

THE RETIREMENT PLAN – Review by Susan Granger

November 8, 2023November 12, 2023 Susan Granger Apple TV+, Jackie Earle Haley, Nicolas Cage, Prime Video, Ron Perlman, Thalia Campbell, The Retirement Plan, Tim Brown, Vudu

After a brief release in theaters, Nicolas Cage’s newest action-comedy The Retirement Plan is now streaming. The story begins in Miami with a heist that goes terribly wrong. As a result, Jimmy (Jordan Johnson-Hinds) and his wife Ashley (Ashley Greene) are in possession of an incriminating flash-drive that mobster, Donnie (Jackie Earle Haley) promised to give Hector (Grace Byrne), who heads an organized crime syndicate.

Reviews

NIGHTMARE ALLEY – Reviewed by T. J. Callahan

December 16, 2021December 17, 2021 T. J. Callahan Bradley Cooper, cate blanchett, David Strathairn, guillermo del toro, Kim Morgan, mara, Nightmare Alley, richard jenkins, Ron Perlman, Roony, willem dafoe

Nightmare Alley is the remake of a 1947 noir thriller that starred that swashbuckling heartthrob, Tyrone Power. Bradley Cooper steps into the role trying his best to be wickedly suave as a carny with a murderous past who learns the tricks of the traveling sideshow trade to swindle the rich as a manipulating mind reader. He’s a high plains drifter grifter.

Reviews

NIGHTMARE ALLEY – Review by Diane Carson

December 9, 2021December 12, 2021 Diane Carson Bradley Cooper, cate blanchett, David Strathairn, guillermo del toro, Kim Morgan, mara, Nightmare Alley, richard jenkins, Ron Perlman, Roony, willem dafoe

A remake of director Edmund Goulding’s shattering and, at the time, shockingly macabre 1947 noir Nightmare Alley may not seem the least bit necessary. But the imaginative Guillermo del Toro, with a screenplay by him and Kim Morgan, proves that this grim story still delivers a powerful experience and a weighty warning in his compelling, superbly cinematic reinterpretation.

Reviews

RUN WITH THE HUNTED – Review by Brandy McDonnell

July 6, 2020July 9, 2020 Brandy McDonnell 0 Comments John Swab, Michael Pitt, Ron Perlman, Run with the Hunted

Filmmaker John Swab clearly has literary aspirations for the film, with references to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and S.E. Hinton’s Rumble Fish, and the writer-director has some interesting ideas about childhood innocence, trauma and struggles to understand the adult world.