One-line Film Review: Monkey Man (2024), starring Dev Patel

Monkey Man is a skillful and emotional Indian fantasy of revenge against the powerful who cruelly abuse the weak, including the poor and transgender.

One-line Film Review: Aftermath (2025), starring Dylan Sprouse

You’d think that, almost 40 years after the release of Die Hard, people would stop trying to make the next one without understanding what made it great.

One-line Film Review: Death Wish 3 (1985), starring Charles Bronson

This film takes the vigilante wish fulfillment to a new level with cops endorsing Bronson's vigilantism, locals cheering on daylight extrajudicial murder, and a 32-year-old blonde chasing 64-year-old Bronson just so she can be killed after they hook up.

One-line film review: Vampire Academy (2014), starring Zoey Deutch

Nothing could save this uninspired story of high-school-age vampires, half-vampires, and evil vampires, but boy howdy does Zoey Deutch's portrayal of a sarcastic badass who says what the audience is thinking come close.

One-Line Review: Peppermint (2018), starring Jennifer Garner

Predictable and badly paced, this film tells viewers that Mexicans are gangsters and that vigilantism keeps people safe.

One-Line Review: The 2nd (2020), starring Ryan Phillippe and Jack Griffo

This one imagines a CIA conspiracy to negate the US’s 2nd Amendment that involves kidnapping, extortion, and lots of guns, which adds stupid to the sins of boring, patriarchical, and very, very white.

One-Line Review: Battle Drone (2018), starring Louis Mandylor and Dominique Swain

Aggressively sexist and passively racist, Battle Drone fails in every respect except inspiring me to rewatch The Losers, the excellent 2010 alternative to the inferior The Expendables.