Ken and Robin Consume Media: Sinners, Havoc, Wolfs
April 29th, 2025 | Robin
Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on a little podcast segment we like to call Tell Me More.
Recommended
Broken Rage (Film, Japan, Takeshi Kitano, 2025) Shambling hit man (Beat Takeshi) comes under police pressure to lure his clients into a drug bust. Kitano’s ongoing ethical struggle with the popularity of his violent yakuza films gives rise to a dual structure, where the same story is told twice, first seriously and then absurdly.—RDL
Dodes’ka-den (Film, Japan, Akira Kurosawa, 1970) Poverty grinds down the residents of a Tokyo shantytown. Kurosawa’s fundamental humanism and wild color design leaven the bleakness of the source material.—RDL
Havoc (Film, UK, Gareth Evans, 2025) In a city of corruption, a remorseful cop (Tom Hardy) races to scoop up the son of the politician who owns him (Forest Whitaker) before vengeful triads get to him. Thundering, kinetic action set pieces and Hardy’s left-field acting choices ring variations on classic cop noir themes.—RDL
Layer Cake (Film, UK, Matthew Vaughn, 2004) Cocaine trafficking middleman (Daniel Craig) seeking to get out instead gets two annoying-to-impossible assignments from mercurial mob boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham), and things spiral thusly. Somewhat more straight-faced and straightforward than Guy Ritchie’s earlier London crime films, Vaughn relies instead on propulsive energy and the real stakes of the plot. Colm Meaney’s turn as Jimmy’s second-in-command is only the top of the superb supporting roles on display, along with the tannest Michael Gambon has ever been.—KH
Sinners (Film, US, Ryan Coogler, 2025) The Smokestack Twins (Michael B. Jordan) return to their Mississippi Delta hometown from WWI and Capone’s Chicago to open a juke joint with secret weapon pure bluesman Sammie (Miles Caton). But you know what happens when you reject Chicago: God punishes you with Irish vampires. Coogler and composer/music coordinator Ludwig Göransson synthesize music, action, and story in a way that even most musicals struggle to achieve, while also providing a rich slice of Delta life and a superb vampire movie. If anything, it feels almost over-full of goodness; I await the inevitable three-hour-plus director’s cut with anticipation.—KH
Sinners (Film, US, Ryan Coogler, 2025)Twin brothers (Michael B. Jordan) return to Mississippi after a stint in Chicago’s 30s gangland to open a juke joint, little suspecting that their opening night star attraction (Miles Caton) has drawn the attention of music-appropriating vampires. Delta blues culture nerdtroped with patient assurance and passionate energy.—RDL
Good
Diamond Island (Film, Cambodia/France, Davy Chou, 2016) WIthdrawn young man from a rural village gets a construction job in the big city and reunites with his secretive brother, who has joined a circle of rich kids. Chou pushes against the limitations of contemporary neorealism in a lushly photographed slice of life drama.—RDL
Okay
Pontianak 100kg (Film, Malaysia, Shuhaimi Lua, 2023) A food-obsessed girl (Aya Amiruddin) returns to her native village as a plus-sized pontianak, who devours the locals’ food while the mayor (Kazar Saisi) frets. Ostensible comedy defangs the female-revenge horror of the cannibal-vampire ghost into a series of fat jokes and Scooby-ish fleeing. As a core sample of Malay horror-comedy, I hope it’s a flawed one.—KH
Wolfs (Film, US, Jon Watts, 2024) Both called to the same hotel room to clean up the same dead not-prostitute (Austin Abrams), two fixers (George Clooney, Brad Pitt) trade dick-measuring bits and bits of information. A tonal mess that compulsively vitiates its own meager stakes for mild approval, it eerily embodies the “made for streaming” slop movie despite the considerable charm Clooney and Pitt exhibit throughout.—KH
Wolfs (Film, US, Jon Watts, 2024) All is not what it seems when two fixers (George Clooney, Brad Pitt) are forced to work together to whisk away a hotel room corpse (Austin Abrams.) Genial reminder of how good the movies that inspired it are.—RDL
