Deliver Us From Evil - Review

Director: Scott Derrickson Writers: Scott Derrickson, Paul Harris Boardman Studios: Screen Gems, Jerry Bruckheimer Films Cast: Eric Bana, Édgar Ramirez, Olivia Munn, Sean Harris, Joel McHale Release Date (UK): 22 August, 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 118 min

In “Deliver Us From Evil,” what starts off as an intriguing mix of a gritty, urban police procedural and a supernatural horror soon descends into a boringly typical succession of routine bumps in the night and well-worn demonic possession cliches. Inspired by the accounts of a real-life NYPD sergeant, it stars Eric Bana as cynical New York cop Ralph Sarchie, whose paranormal skepticism is called into question following a series of freaky, seemingly inexplicable investigations. When a rugged, unconventional priest (Édgar Ramirez) convinces him that the cases are demonically related, they join forces to defeat the evil, which begins to target Sarchie’s family and his mind.

Director Scott Derrickson does good in cooking up an eerie sense of dread as Bana wanders through dark hallways, armed with a flickering flashlight and being startled by felines of varying sizes (at one point a little pussycat, at another point a zoo lion). But the resulting scares, though reportedly based in truth, are so lacking in originality they’re more likely to elicit yawns than shrieks, and the big mystery surrounding the ghostly goings-on is uninteresting and largely incoherent. In his previous horror movies, Derrickson has shown an interest in asking thoughtful questions about morality and religion, as he did in “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” as well as executing simple but effective spook house thrills, as he did in “Sinister.” “Deliver Us From Evil” sadly has very little of those, though as a blending of the crime and horror genres it’s not without interest.

Inevitably, it ends with the kind of exorcism scene we’ve seen a thousand times before, with a screaming match between a priest reciting Bible verses and a thrashing demonic entity. The only difference between this and most other exorcism scenes is that instead of a bedroom or a barn, this is set in a police interrogation room; I did laugh when the camera pans to an onlooker staring through the one-way mirror in bewilderment. In this scene, Bana and Ramirez prove themselves a good team-up: the brawny Bronx cop and the devout Hispanic priest. I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel where they do further battle with the forces of evil together, though the forces of evil would have to be much more interesting than they are here.

Rating: 5/10

Devil's Knot - Review

Director: Atom Egoyan Writers: Paul Harris Boardman, Scott Derrickson Studios: Image Entertainment, Worldview Entertainment Cast: Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Mireille Enos, Dane DeHaan, Kevin Durand, Bruce Greenwood, Alessandro Nivola Release Date (UK): 13 June, 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 114 min

“Devil’s Knot” has an astonishing story based in fact, but as a drama it fails to satisfy and it adds little of anything new or worthwhile to an already thoroughly traversed case. Its inspiration is a child murder case from 21 years ago: on May 5, 1993, three eight-year-old boys went missing from their neighbourhood in West Memphis, Arkansas; the next day, their bodies were found in the woods nearby. A month later, three local teenage boys, apparently part of a devil-worshipping cult, were arrested for the murders, though they strongly professed their innocence. In Atom Egoyan’s film, private investigator Ron Lax (Colin Firth, sporting an Arkansas twang), a fictional character, becomes embroiled in the subsequent trial, strongly suspecting that the three accused are in fact innocent.

The case of the West Memphis Three has been widely covered since the trial in 1994, with countless news specials, documentaries and publications made over the years. Famously, there’s the extraordinary, in-depth “Paradise Lost” trilogy, and most recently, Amy Berg made a terrific investigative documentary on the subject called “West of Memphis.” Anyone looking to learn anything new about the case in “Devil’s Knot” is looking in the wrong place. As is anyone looking for an absorbing crime drama akin to “Zodiac:” sadly, the film seems more concerned with the inner workings of the trial rather than the people that surround it. What this really could have done with is a David Fincher type who’d give it a mood, a style, a drive and some insight into the characters; in the hands of Egoyan, it’s like a made-for-TV special airing on a Sunday afternoon. If you’re interested in the topic, do yourself a favour: skip “Devil’s Knot” and watch the riveting “Paradise Lost” instead; it tells the exact same story in much more depth and does so with extraordinary real-life footage.

Rating: 4/10

Sabotage - Review

Director: David Ayer Writers: David Ayer, Skip Woods Studios: Open Road Films, Albert S. Ruddy Productions, Crave Films, QED International Roth Films Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Worthington, Olivia Williams, Terrence Howard, Joe Manganiello, Harold Perrineau, Martin Donovan, Max Martini, Josh Holloway, Mireille Enos Release Date (UK): 7 May 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 109 min

Following up his first directorial stab, the grippingly authentic 2012 cop drama “End of Watch,” screenwriter-turned-director David Ayer continues his career-lasting obsession with American law enforcers. In “Sabotage,” he turns his eye to a crack DEA task force fighting Mexican drug cartels, only this bunch wouldn’t look out of place on the other side of the US war on drugs. Led by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s grizzled cigar-chomper John “Breacher” Wharthon, they’re all tattoos, cornrows and beaded goatees, and they live up to their dodgy looks — while raiding a cartel warehouse, they secretly thieve $10 million from the stash in the basement and blow up the rest to cover their tracks. Sounds like a solid plan, only the money goes missing, they’re found out by their superiors and soon enough they’re being hunted down one by one in variously nasty ways.

As it was in “End of Watch,” Ayer’s vision of American policing is admirably grim and gruesome — struck by a speeding train, a grown man is reduced to a pile of meat, another is nailed to a ceiling, and recalling the kidnapping of his late wife, Arnie angrily barks, “They sent me her face in the mail!” But anyone going into “Sabotage” expecting the same level of authenticity or intensity of Ayer’s debut is sure to be let down by the lunkheadedness of the script and the emptiness of the drama — despite the sky-high body count and hefty funeral costs, the film lurches through its plot with nary an emotion on display. And anyone hoping for some brainless action based on the presence of Arnie is also in for disappointment: on the excitement front there’s a raid scene at the beginning, a car chase/shootout at the end and precious little in between. As for the Governator himself, he’s handed a grimly tragic backstory, yet his facial expressions rarely change from T-800 blankness and constipated straining — though as ever, he sure does look mighty fine with a cigar between his gnashers.

Rating: 4/10

The Wolf of Wall Street - Review

Director: Martin Scorsese Writer: Terence Winter Studios: Universal Pictures, Red Granite Pictures, Appian Way Productions, Sikelia Productions, Emjag Productions Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler Release Date (UK): 17 January 2014 Certificate: 18 Runtime: 179 min

Jordan Belfort is an asshole: a straight up, full-on, coke-snorting, money-swindling, wife-cheating asshole. As played by Leonardo DiCaprio, he is the anti-hero of Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” and he is also a real person: a Bronx-born ex-stockbroker and fraudster, Belfort swindled his way into millions of dollars on the Wall Street market in the 1990s, all the while cheating on his wife with a seemingly unlimited supply of prostitutes and snorting anything and everything he could fit inside his nasal cavities. The film is based on his self-aggrandising memoir, and Scorsese has come under fire for depicting Belfort’s deplorable assholery with nary a judgemental eye; apparently showing Belfort being an asshole isn’t enough, Belfort must be punished as well, as narrative formula dictates. In reality, Belfort never truly was punished — though he was nabbed by the FBI, his 22 month sentence was spent in a minimum security prison where he was made very comfortable — and this I believe was Scorsese’s point: this asshole and his associates got away practically scot free, and ain’t that just infuriating.

An epic, darkly comic character profile which runs for three hours without ever stopping for breath, “The Wolf of Wall Street” is very much in the tradition of Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” and “Casino” and it is his best work since the latter. At 179 minutes, it’s Scorsese’s longest film and also his sweariest; wikipedia has it at a staggering 569 uses of the word “fuck,” topping “Casino”’s very admirable 422. It’s remarkable how Scorsese and his long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker can make three hours whoosh by in what feels like half that time — though it must be said, time flies when you’re watching a man blow cocaine up a hooker’s rectum.

That, coming roughly three minutes in, is one of the countless unforgettable sights on display as Belfort, and indeed DiCaprio, dives nose-first into a cesspool teeming with drugs, money, pussy and tons upon tons of money. Did I mention the money? Belfort has so much money he has sex in a bed of banknotes. And did I mention the drugs? It’s a wonder Belfort is still alive, considering the amount of dangerous illegal substances that have made their way through his system. Crack, cocaine and something called a Quaalude: a little white pill which sends its user into a practically comatose state if they are immobile and hyper-mania if they are active. Belfort informs us that it has since been made unavailable. I can’t for the life of me imagine why.

Scorsese charts Belfort’s rise to infamous, crooked multi-millionaire from his brief stint as a junior stockbroker at a doomed Wall Street firm, where he quickly learns that the Wall Street stockbrokers don’t just say, “Pass me the phone,” they say, “Pass me the cock-sucking phone.” While there, he finds himself seduced by his chest-thumping boss (Matthew McConaughey), who advises him to live a life of debauchery if he is to be successful in the financial industry. And so he does: when the company collapses on Black Monday, Belfort starts up his own company, the respectable sounding Stratton Oakmont, with a team of ambitious, money-hungry brokers — among them Jonah Hill’s delightfully goofy crack addict Donnie Azoff — whom he teaches to manipulate stocks and cheat customers out of thousands of dollars over the phone. Those that succeed are rewarded with crazy parties, the finest of strippers and in-office midget-tossing shows. Those that don’t get their goldfish eaten by Donnie.

Soon enough, Stratton Oakmont begins to resemble a modern-day Roman empire, with Belfort a shrieking, mic-swinging Caligula and the sea of stockbrokers that stand before him his worshipping crowd. You oughta see the orgies — a mile high they are. Here, Scorsese must walk a fine line between glorifying and condoning, showing Belfort’s lifestyle of excess for the unending fun it undoubtedly was yet tut-tutting its morals (or lack thereof). In fact, there’s not much tut-tutting going on, and for good reason: we’re in Belfort’s head, listening to Belfort’s smug narration and among Belfort’s friends, thus Belfort’s wild partying is nothing but exhilarating and hilarious in its madness. The tut-tutting must come from us; Scorsese steps back and allows us to be the judge. No judge ever got to properly punish him in court — maybe our judgement is his comeuppance.

As Belfort, DiCaprio is absolutely in command, deliciously manic and equal counts loathsome and roguishly lovable. It’s his best performance to date. It also turns out he’s an unprecedented master of physical comedy — a moment in which he, having a delayed reaction to an overdose of Quaaludes and sent into what he calls the “cerebral palsy phase,” drags himself across a country club car park to his car is positively Chaplin-esque in its slapstick delivery. This scene, along with the scene that follows in Belfort’s swanky home where a drugged-up Donnie chokes on some ham, is like Scorsese doing “Dumb and Dumber” and it had me in hysterics.

Eventually, “The Wolf of Wall Street” achieves a sort of fever-dream madness where we can no longer tell if what we’re watching is real, a Quaalude-induced hallucination or a figment of Belfort’s self-aggrandising imagination — did he really watch a rescue plane burst into a fireball when a seagull flew into the engine? Whatever the case, this is magnificently entertaining: a gloriously fucked up ride through the mind and experiences of a lowlife living the high life that’s riveting in the most intoxicating of ways. Jordan Belfort is an asshole, unpunished and proud, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a blast watching him be one.

Rating: 10/10

American Hustle - Review

Director: David O. Russell Writers: Eric Warren Singer, David O. Russell Studios: Columbia Pictures, Annapurna Pictures Cast: Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence Release Date (UK): 1 January 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 138 min

David O. Russell gets his Scorsese on in a fiercely enjoyable, fact-based crime caper about con artists working with the feds in 1970s New Jersey. Mimicking Marty’s sweeping camera, sprawling storytelling techniques and jet-black humour to gloriously entertaining effect, Russell makes the best film Scorsese never made, and would’ve got a Scorsesian full house if he’d thrown a few Rolling Stones tracks in there — maybe we’ll get those from the big man himself in the upcoming “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Like “Goodfellas” and “Casino” before it, “American Hustle” is loosely inspired by a true crime story, that of the “Abscam” sting, and is nostalgically narrated by one of its key figures: Irving Rosenfeld, a lowlife conman played by Christian Bale. Bale has had some startling physiques in his career — most memorably his nightmarish skeletal frame in “The Machinist” — but this one’s a little different; here, he’s sporting a beer belly the size of a wrecking ball and a hideous comb-over rightly described by his mistress as “elaborate" (its process involves square patches of fuzz and a prit-stick).

With his mistress Sydney (Amy Adams), a smart and seductive ex-stripper who masquerades as a British countess, Irving runs a loan scam business in which down-on-their-luck clients naively hand over $5,000 and receive nothing in return. When they’re nabbed by the FBI they’re offered a deal: if they help the bureau entrap some corrupt politicians in an elaborate sting operation they’ll get off scott free. They accept and along with Bradley Cooper’s ambitious, curly-locked Agent Richie they scheme to catch the crooked public figures red-handed, among them the super-quiffed Jersey Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner). You might notice I’m mentioning the hairstyles a lot; it's nigh impossible to discuss “American Hustle" without talking about all the outrageous ’dos on display, along with the stunningly garish ‘70s fashion and Amy Adams' ever-visible cleavage — it’s her character’s alluring method of misdirection and seduction and, well, I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work (watching the film, it’s hard to remember her as Princess Giselle in Disney’s “Enchanted;” Adams is great that way).

Things get tricky when Irving’s unstable young wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) enters the equation to play a part in the sting; described by Irving as “the Picasso of passive-aggressive karate,” she’s a born trouble-maker and regularly sets fire to her kitchen with various household appliances. Things get even trickier when a love triangle starts to blossom, with Sydney straddling the top and Irving and Richie both clamouring for her from the bottom. Always a delight in Scorsese’s gangster movies was the interaction between the wild and colourful characters, and here Russell wrings belly laughs from his central quartet’s merciless banter and ferocious screaming matches. I damn near laughed my head off when, during an argument, Richie ruffles Irving’s comb-over out of place, to which a frozen Irving reacts with an intense, mortified stare — and that was only 5 minutes in.

Part of the joy of watching “American Hustle” is predicting how exactly they’re going to derail the operation: Lawrence’s unpredictable Rosalyn is the obvious loose cannon but really, they’re all loose cannons ready to blow at any second; there’s Sydney with her identity crisis and ever-changing accent; there’s Richie with his increasingly manic behaviour and the poor fiancée he’s cheating on (or at least striving to cheat on); and then there’s Irving with his mounting doubts about the operation and his growing friendship with one of the operation’s key targets (who might not be such a bad’un after all). You wonder when the whole thing’s gonna collapse in on itself; and then they bring out the Mexican to play the part of the Arab sheikh, and you can’t help but cackle.

The central story of dodgy deals and crooked politicians is less interesting than the characters that surround it, but Russell keeps the hustle always moving forward, and the characters are performed with such energy and ferocity that it’s impossible not to be reeled in by their undeniable, scene-thieving presence. Lawrence, in particular, is a force to be reckoned with, and her frantic, hoover-wielding rock-out to Wings’ Live and Let Die stands tall as one of the most memorable movie moments of 2013 — just you wait for the gifs!

Rating: 8/10

The Family - Review

Director: Luc Besson Writers: Luc Besson, Michael Caleo Studios: EuropaCorp, Relativity Media, Malavita, Media Magik Entertainment Cast: Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Dianna Agron, John D’Leo Release Date (UK): 22 November 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 111 min

Mobster comedy “The Family” might just contain the single biggest plot contrivance since Superman turned back time by flying around the world really fast. It comes halfway through the movie. Teenager Warren, in witness protection in a tiny French village after his ex-mobster family snitched on a Mafia boss, writes for a local competition a joke he once heard told by that same Mafia boss. The joke wins and is printed in the school paper. Soon after, the Mafia boss, stuck in a prison cell on the other side of the world, is handed a wine bottle. By sheer coincidence, this wine bottle was made in the same tiny French village that Warren and his family are hiding in. And wrapped around this wine bottle is, again by sheer coincidence, the same school paper containing the Mafia boss' joke. And what page does the Mafia boss turn to when he opens up the crumpled newspaper? Why of course, he turns to the page with the joke.

It sounds like the kind of tall tale Ray Liotta might’ve told in his narration for “Goodfellas,” only he might’ve sold it a little better. This could have been a deliberate nudge, but I don't think this movie's that smart. Directed by French action maestro Luc Besson, “The Family” is essentially both a parody of and love letter to Scorsese gangster movies, like “Goodfellas” and “Casino,” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” trilogy. Starring in all three of those was Robert De Niro. And wouldn’t you know it, he stars in this too, once again playing a violent mobster type, alongside Michelle Pfeiffer, once again married to the mob.

They play former Mafia couple the Manzonis, renamed the Blakes and relocated with their two teenage kids from Brooklyn to a sleepy, picturesque town by the country in Normandy, France. Supervised by Tommy Lee Jones’ grumpy FBI Agent Stansfield, they live in hiding from the vengeful and incarcerated Don Luchese (Stan Carp) and his cronies, who search for the rats in the hopes of some payback. Advised to keep a low profile, the Blakes try to live a normal, peaceful life in their new European home. But old habits die hard, and soon enough there’s a body in the backyard, the plumber’s beaten to a pulp and the local supermarket is blown to smithereens.

All of which sounds pretty funny, so it’s a shame then that most of the fish-out-of-water gags fall about as flat as a snitch under a steamroller. This, in spite of the knockabout chemistry of the cast, in particular De Niro and Jones, whose quick-fire back-and-forth banter suggests that they might be great in a buddy movie together. Pfeiffer’s lotsa fun, sporting a thick-as-a-brick Brooklyn twang and stealing the show as a Mafioso ice queen with a heart of gold. De Niro’s also fun, but the thing is, he’s already pastiched his tough guy image twice before, first in “Analyse This” and then again in “Meet the Parents” —  actually, if you count their sequels, that’s five times. By now, the novelty of De Niro sticking his tongue out at himself has worn off a little (in fact, it may have worn off halfway through “Meet the Fockers”).

Towards the end the film descends into typical Besson action fare, with firefights and rocket launchers galore as the Don, surprise surprise, discovers the Manzonis’ location. But before that, the film makes a big mistake: as a meta joke, it plays for us, and also De Niro, the sound from the opening of “Goodfellas,” with Liotta’s narration taking over and that classic Tony Bennett hit “Rags to Riches” playing over multiple scenes. Here’s a word of advice: if you’re making a gangster movie in the vein of “Goodfellas,” don’t actually show footage from “Goodfellas” — you’re not gonna come out on top.

Rating: 5/10

Prisoners - Review

Director: Denis Villeneuve Writer: Aaron Guzikowski Studios: Warner Bros., Alcon Entertainment Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano Release Date (UK): 27 September 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 153 min

Two six-year-old girls vanish without a trace from their Pennsylvania neighbourhood during Thanksgiving dinner. Apparently kidnapped, they are nowhere to be found, the only clue to their whereabouts being the RV that was parked on the street before the girls went missing. The sole suspect (Paul Dano), the mentally challenged owner of the RV who attempts to flee when approached by authorities, is clearly hiding something, but is released from police custody due to lack of evidence. Desperate, the father of one of the girls (Hugh Jackman) decides to take matters into his own hands, defying the orders of head investigator Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) and resorting to extreme measures to find his daughter before it’s too late.

This is the story of “Prisoners,” a crime thriller that grips right from its haunting opening, where parental panic takes a sharp turn into abject horror: a child abducted on the street, a parent’s worst nightmare realised in full. Flaunting the epic length of David Fincher’s underseen “Zodiac,” in which Gyllenhaal was also on the hunt for a killer, and the chillingly atmospheric cinematography of the legendary Roger Deakins, director Denis Villeneuve’s sprawling kidnap drama is an enthralling and challenging exploration into how violence inevitably begets more violence and how the only outcome of evil is more evil.

The film is harrowing in ways that are expected and ways that are unexpected. If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ll know some of the unexpected ways. Emotional and moral complexities entangle the narrative as Jackman’s Keller Dover hunts for information, committing ethically questionable acts that spiral hideously into cold-blooded monstrousness and which are sure to have viewers recoiling in horror while shifting their sympathies. If Kathryn Bigelow's controversial “Zero Dark Thirty” supposedly endorsed torture (it didn’t), then “Prisoners” absolutely condemns it, showing it for the evil that it is: a cowardly act of desperation that dehumanises all involved, all the while wielding no worthwhile results.

At the film’s centre are two outstanding performances from Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, both obsessed with finding young Anna and Joy, one operating on the right side of the law, the other on the wrong. Jackman, recently superb in “Les Misérables,” perfectly portrays the mental anguish and helplessness of not knowing where your children are, not knowing if they’re safe and indeed not knowing if they’re even alive. More mysterious is Gyllenhaal, whose twitchy Detective Loki is driven to obsession in his impossible mission to locate the two abducted girls and identify their kidnapper. Loki is one of the great film detectives, troubled and enigmatic but strangely likeable, and endearingly driven in his commitment to justice.

That the film’s final third or so, in which all is finally revealed, feels slightly generic speaks only of the power and strength of the rest of the movie. This is a great crime thriller: intelligent, complex and utterly captivating, and which can pride itself as one of the best films of the year so far.

Rating: 9/10

Pain & Gain - Review

Director: Michael Bay Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely Studios: Paramount Pictures, Platinum Dunes, De Line Pictures Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris Release Date (UK): 30 August 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 129 min

Shifting gears from the clunky mechanics of his deafening “Transformers” cash cows, blockbuster maestro Michael Bay momentarily ditches his rock-'em sock-'em CGI robots to tell a stranger than fiction tale of steroids, blood money and barbecued human hands in fact-based crime comedy-drama “Pain & Gain.” Inspired by the horrifying true story of a gang of Miami-based body-builders who kidnapped, tortured and butchered their way to fortune in the mid-1990s, it stars Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Anthony Mackie as a trio of dimwitted fitness freaks willing to get their hands dirty — and their toes blown off — to achieve the American Dream.

Tony Shalhoub is unashamedly unpleasant as their supposedly deserving victim: slimy, millionaire scumbag and self-made entrepreneur Victor Kershaw (real name and general demeanour changed for artistic purposes), who’s abducted, held captive and forced to sign over his every cent and possession to these scheming knuckleheads. Ed Harris is the retired private investigator tasked with aiding Kershaw’s case when the incompetent crooks’ multiple attempts to kill Kershaw, now crippled, fail miserably and when the authorities refuse to buy a single word he says — after all, who’d really believe that this drunken asshole was actually kidnapped and extorted by a bunch of crazy weightlifters dressed as ninjas?

There’s potential in this strange, almost surreal story for a great, biting satire displaying the futility of short-cutting your way to the so-called American Dream, but Bay is too concerned with the film’s flamboyant stylisation to care about cultural satire — whatever meaningful criticism the film has is murky at best, the film instead settling for flashy, excessive entertainment. Bay’s leery eye for the female figure remains problematic, as does his troublingly mocking attitude towards the homosexual community, plus here we have a truly horrific real-life story, grisly details and all, being told in a bafflingly comedic, lighthearted manner.

But wipe your memory of the real-life case, if your conscience allows you to do so, and “Pain & Gain” is a ton of darkly comic — if utterly tasteless — fun, bolstered by spirited performances from both its central muscle-head anti-heroes and its supporting players — Johnson in particular is an absolute joy as a coked up, bible-bashing ex-con attempting to set his life straight, all the while stealing and murdering his way to the top. Bay’s reliably high-octane direction keeps the story moving forward at an energetic speed while Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely’s sharp, funny script revels in the increasing ridiculousness of the situation (“Sometimes God just fucks up your order and you gotta chow down on that shitty shame sandwich,” narrates Wahlberg as he’s run over by a police cruiser). Morally repugnant it may well be, but it’s Bay’s most all-out entertaining film since 1996’s “The Rock” and, in one of many memorable highlights, it features the glorious sight of Tony Shalhoub’s taco-spewing face being tasered in slow motion — I'll take that over Optimus Prime action any day of the week.

Rating: 7/10