The Brown Note Movie Review

This hugely anticipated and wildly successful N.W.A. biopic just about lives up to the incredible hype and is never less than massively entertaining.

Everything shines in this drug cartel/DEA action thriller. The direction by Denis Villeneuve, the cinematography by the esteemed Roger Deakins, the atmospheric music by Johan Johannsson and the writing by then man of the moment Taylor Sheridan. Happily the cast, led by Emily Blunt, Benicio del Torro and Josh Brolin are well up to the task. One of the finest array of across the board talent ever assembled for a film of this sort and one of the decades finest.

 

The fabulous Netflix drug cartel drama now has five fantastic series under it's belt, here with the original Pablo Escobar version.

I may put this last out of 4,5 & 6 in the franchise but that's still near top-tier state of the art action movie making.

A big fat zero out of ten for Josh Trank's woefully misguided exercise in execrable movie making, nearly perfected here. Actually everything about it is awful in one of the decades biggest cinematic disasters.

This far too late in the day movie version of a much loved bro-show pulls a Sex in the City 2, and throws out most of what was special about the program and likable about the characters, making the whole thing a grating yet soporific chore. Awful.

The almighty Bacon appears in this slightly diverting drama.

Matthew Heineman's doco about the Mexican Drug War, was one of the finest of the whole decade and almost a companion piece to the movie Sicario. Incredible, almost unbelievable footage and stories but also cinematography you would sing about if it were in a normal film.

Johnny Depp has his own cottage true-crime gangster movie industry with, Donnie Brasco, Blow, Public Enemies and now this, based on the same James "Whitey" Bulger that inspired Jack Nicholson's character in The Departed. Depp is perhaps career best creating a monstrous and terrifying unlikable villain, though director Scott Cooper just fails to convert. There's tons to recommend here though including a stella cast.

Seth MacFarlane's Ted series are a missed opportunity. Still highly watchable and often hilarious but like much of his movie output, weighed down by far too much focus on far too weak screenplays and not enough of the fantastic chemistry between Mark Walhberg and Ted nor the endless opportunities for comedy. This second films misses Mila Kunis round out the main three but is funny slightly more often.