Day: November 25, 2014

By Joe Bendel. Considering she looks like Zhou Xun, Angie really shouldn’t have to resort to a lot of game-playing. Unfortunately, she has carried a torch so long for Marco, her colleague and former classmate, he now takes her for granted. When a flirty game-player stakes a claim to the oblivious platonic friend, Angie will have to learn how to fight fire with fire. The battle will be joined in Pang Ho-cheung’s Women Who Flirt, which opens this Friday in New York.

Shocked to learn her longtime best friend is suddenly serious about a woman who is not herself, Angie calls on her eye-lash batting chum May to form a kitchen cabinet of proud Shanghai flirters to advise her. However, she finds their recommended baby talk and helpless damsel-in-distress routines absolutely vapid. She is just not equipped for this fight and her rival Hailey knows it. Still, if she can get dumb old Marco alone for a romantic getaway in Taiwan, she just might have a puncher’s chance.

Yes, there are similarities between Flirt and My Best Friend’s Wedding and its tragically romantic Chinese-Korean reconfiguration, A Wedding Invitation, but Zhou’s Angie is a protagonist we can really get behind. Her withering stares and palpable disgust at the Sex in the City antics going on around her are often quite funny and highly sympathetic. Frankly, she is just too cool for everyone else in the film.

Of course, Flirt will eventually settle into a sentimental rom-com, but at least it takes a rainy day trip to the Ju Ming Museum, which looks incredible (so good tourist tip there). In fact, Zhou and Ju are just about enough to carry the film across the finish line. Sonia Sui certainly looks like a deceptively cute femme fatale and shows some convincing claws when the time comes. Still, it is hard to see why they would fight over a blockhead like Marco, played rather woodenly by Huang Xiaoming. In contrast, Xie Yilin constantly kicks up the energy while inhaling scenery as May, the Obi-wan of flirters.

Pang’s films certainly come in a variety of flavors. Instead of a naughty screwball comedy like Vulgaria, a gory satire like Dream Home, or a sensitive family drama like Aberdeen, Flirt is most closely akin to his reasonably mature rom-coms, such as Love in the Buff. It is too bad this one does not depart further from genre conventions, because Zhou and her character deserve something more outside-the-box. Regardless, she still commands the screen. Recommended for fans of Zhou and romantic comedy in general, Women Who Flirt opens this Wednesday (11/26) in New York at the AMC Empire, from China Lion Entertainment.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on November 25th, 2014 at 9:36pm.

By Joe Bendel. Tom Fiorini deals with contractors all day, so he can’t be a shrinking violet. The housing magnate has done very well for himself, but he is about to lose everything. We know, because he tells us in medias res. It all started with a bit of workplace trash talking. Labor relations hit an all-time low in Thomas Farone’s gritty thriller Aftermath, which opens this Friday in New York.

Fiorini is a cold and unreasonably demanding boss. We know, because his foreman tells us so. Still, everyone on his construction site stays, because work is heard to find in upstate New York, especially for an ex-con like Tony Bricker. Bricker is a sub-contracting framer, not a mason. Initially, he up-manages Fiorini fairly well. It is the foreman he has issues with—so much so, he takes a swing at him right in front of Fiorini. When said foreman mysteriously disappears shortly thereafter, suspicion naturally falls on Bricker.

Assuming the worst, Fiorini sacks Bricker. Words get heated, threats are made, and circumstances quickly escalate. The two detective working the missing person case are not much help, but at least the sheriff is on Fiorini’s side. In fact, the old lawman is much more effective than the dodgy muscle Fiorini hires to intimidate Bricker. Frankly, they only make matters worse.

Clearly, this film has been kicking around for a while, since it is billed as the final film of Chris Penn, who died in early 2006. Penn was always a reliable character actor and his work as Bricker is consistently forceful. However, one cannot help wondering if his unfortunate passing partly explains why the third act is considerably patchier than the hour or so that comes before it.

Aftermath is also notable as part of Anthony Michael Hall’s more successful-than-you-realize career reinvention. The kid best known for wearing panties on his head in John Hughes movies is now a rather credible hardnose. Roles like Fiorini and Jack, Du Pont’s troubleshooter in the disappointing Oscar contender Foxcatcher should solidify his professional evolution. Hey, this is America, anything can happen here.

In a case of stunt-casting gone bizarrely right, Tony Danza chews the scenery quite entertainingly as King, an off-the-books gun dealer and freelance fixer. However, Leo Burmester upstages everyone as the cantankerous sheriff. On the other hand, Law & Order alumnus Elisabeth Röhm is wastefully underutilized as Fiorini’s largely disinterested and uninteresting wife, Rebecca.

Aftermath is definitely aiming for a dark, Blood Simple-A Simple Plan vibe, but it ends on a note so pitch black, it is a real buzz kill. Again, you have to wonder if that was the original plan or a salvageable solution. Still, for those who enjoy indie thrillers inspired by the likes of the Cohen Brothers and Tarantino, it is worth checking out just to watch Penn, Burmester, Hall, and Danza playing off each other. Recommended accordingly for jaded viewers, Aftermath opens this Friday (11/28) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on November 25th, 2014 at 9:36pm.