Mercy

Posted on January 22, 2026 at 6:33 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense violence, mature thematic elements, some language, and drug/alcohol references
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcoholism, drinking and drunkenness, drug references and brief drug use
Violence/ Scariness:	Woman stabbed to death, other characters injured and killed, guns, explosions, chases, young character taken hostage
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	January 23, 2026

Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) wakes up, or maybe comes to, sitting in a chair, his wrists manacled. He is in Mercy Court, presided over by an AI judge who gives him 90 minutes to prove that he did not murder his wife. If he is not successful, he will immediately be executed.

“Mercy” is set in the near future, when civil unrest has led to the development of the AI court, reversing the Constitutional presumption of innocence and right to counsel with a system designed for efficiency. It is “the ultimate deterrent.” Chris is the 19th person to be tried by the AI judge, who appears on screen as a female character named Judge Maddox (Rachel Ferguson).

Chris does not even remember where he was the previous day and learns from the “judge” that his wife has been stabbed to death in the kitchen, her body discovered by their teenage daughter, Britt (Kylie Rogers). The “judge” plays the footage for him, showing him leaving work to return home, insisting on entering despite his wife telling him not to come in. No one else came to the house during that time period. Chris, a cop who was instrumental in developing the AI court system and brought in the first case, now sees what it is like to be on the other side. As the clock ticks down, Chris has access to all of footage, recordings, and records that are automatically stored online and is permitted to make calls to witnesses.

Producer/director Timur Bekmambetov specializes in action with a fantasy element like “Night Watch” and “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” and that makes him a good fit for this film. We might not expect a movie set primarily in one spare room with a screen and a chair to be in IMAX 3D, but it keeps the visuals from feeling claustrophobia-inducing as Chris and the judge call up images of all of footage and data Chris calls up on the screen. Chris has an immersive experience, and the effects make us feel a part of it.

The set-up is strong, raising questions (though not spending much time exploring them) about how society balances safety and justice and imposing a tight time limit to build and sustain a feeling of urgency. Adopting if not reaching the ingenuity of telling the story on a screen of the innovative films “Searching’ and “Missing,” produced by Bekmambetov, he makes the best of that form of storytelling and Pratt does very well stuck in a chair, showing us how his character shifts from horrified, confused, and humiliated to the determined problem-solver cop he is.

The last part of the movie gets over-complicated, piling detail upon detail, and cutting some logical corners. But Pratt is, as always, a likable presence and we want to see him work through this mess and prove that he is innocent — and that at least for now humans can still outthink machines.

Parents should know that this movie included the murder of a mother, discovered by her daughter who is very traumatized, as well was peril and violence including guns, explosives, and a car chase, with characters injured and killed. Characters use strong language, some are alcoholics who struggle to stay sober and one starts drinking again and gets very drunk, there is brief drug use and reference to making and distributing drugs.

Family discussion: Do you think AI will ever be able to judge someone’s guilt? Did you think Chris was guilty and if you did, what changed your mind?

If you like this, try: “Missing” and “Searching”

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t

Posted on November 13, 2025 at 5:18 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some strong language, violence and suggestive references
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking, drug reference
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and violence, character killed, references
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	November 14, 2025

Take this into account: I loved the first film in this series about the magicians who exchange quips as they dazzle audiences and outsmart international law enforcement, and I liked the second one a lot. So when I say that a better title might be: “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t Think Too Hard,” that doesn’t mean I didn’t thoroughly enjoy this third in what is being set up to be a “Mission Impossible” or “Fast and Furious”-style franchise. It does mean that you will be more likely to enjoy yourself thoroughly if you don’t get distracted by questions of logics or physics. You know, like “Mission Impossible” and “Fast and Furious.”

To recap: In the first film, illusionist Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), mentalist/hypnotist
Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), lock-picker/pickpocket/card thrower Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and escape artist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) teamed up as The Horsemen to return a portion of a billionaire’s ill-gotten gains to some of the people he stole from, and they become members of the most secret, selective, and prestigious magic club in the world, called The Eye. In the second film, the three men are joined by Lula (Lizzy Caplan), replacing Henley, and the villain is the son of the villain from the first film.

The team has separated for many years, but they are reunited when they receive mysterious cards from The Eye, and they are joined by three young magicians who are likely being set-up to lead in episode 4, teased at the end of this film. The newcomers are stage performer Bosco (Dominic Sessa from “The Holdovers”), pickpocket June (Ariana Greenblatt the girl who was too old to play with Barbies in “Barbie”), and Charlie (Justice Smith from “Dungeons and Dragons: No Honor Among Thieves”), a magic nerd deeply immersed in the history of the art and craft of deception for entertainment who prefers to plan the illusions but remain behind the scenes. As with the previous films, the fun comes from the prickly banter, the fun of being fooled and then getting a peek at how the tricks are done, and the satisfaction of outsmarting a villain who deserves it.

And Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike) is every bit as worthy of being outsmarted as we could wish. She is the ruthless head of a South African diamond company, inherited from her father. Her diamonds are involved in laundering money for arms dealers and traffickers, and warlords. “She makes all the worst criminals possible.” (If that sounds like crypto, don’t think that gets left out.) There’s also some mention of the entire premise of the diamond business being based on abusive practices. And someone with a disguised voice keeps calling her about something very bad in her past that she does not want to be made public.

Veronika has a gigantic diamond called The Heart that is the size of a very large potato and she is scheduled to show it off at an exclusive formal gala. The Horsemen infiltrate and pull various tricks to steal The Heart. The Eye cards then lead them to a magnificent castle that is like a museum of magic, with puzzle rooms that include funhouse mirrors and M.C. Escher-style steps. Then there is a final confrontation, with more twists than there are in a family size box of fusilli. That includes some appearances by characters/performers from the previous films. The series is bending toward “Mission Impossible” (the TV series, not the movies) territory with its intricate illusions to triumph over bad guys and toward “Fast and Furious” with it’s “I don’t have friends; I have family” moments, and the globe-hopping of both. Plus Lady Gaga’s very apt “Abracadabra.”

Pike makes an excellent villain. She is a master of the mirthless smile. As she did in “Gone Girl,” she shows us the fiercely feral intelligence that is always clicking toward “winning” even as her face is a mask of civility. The four original Horsemen understand their characters and their chemistry and make the most of both and the new additions show a lot of promise. They tell us up front that everything that disappears, reappears. If indeed Sessa, Smith, and Greenblatt take over the lead roles in the next film, we’ll be happy to be fooled by them again.

Parents should know that this film has some strong language, a drug reference, peril, and violence including attempted murder and a sad death of a character.

Family discussion: What kind of magic do you most enjoy? What should the Horsemen do in the next chapter?

If you like this, try: The first two films, plus “Magic Camp” and the documentary “Make Believe”

Ballad of a Small Player

Posted on October 17, 2025 at 8:57 am

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and suicide
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol, smoking, brief drug use
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	October 17, 2025

A character in “Ballad of a Small Player” tells a story about a gambler who dies and discovers that in the afterlife he is still gambling, but now he always wins. “This heaven?” he asks in amazement. “No,” he is told. “You’re in hell.”

The import of the story may be lost on the person it is told to, but it is not lost on the audience, who will understand that it is the story we are watching. Not because he is a winner, but because winning or losing, the gambling compulsion is its own hell.

In this film, the part of hell is played by Macao, the real-life gambling capital of the world, gorgeously photographed by James Friend. It looks like gambling may feel to someone who cannot give it up; thrilling, glamorous but also seedy, seductive, and dangerous.

The character who calls himself Lord Doyle (Colin Farrell) is a gambler. He wakes up in a luxurious hotel room littered with the clutter of a dozen different room service meals. He shaves and dresses in a handsome and expensive-looking green velvet suit, and fails to duck the hotel management that would like him to pay up on the $350,000 he owes them. A bellman explains he can no longer get access to the hotel limos, but whispers the name Rainbow, a casino that gives credit.

The big money game is Baccarat, and Doyle tells us millions can be won and lost in a single hand. The hostess/purveyor of credit is Dao Ming (Fala Chen). Later, after a gambler commits suicide by leaping out of a window, his widow accuses Dao Ming of causing her husband’s death and Doyle protects her. Dao Ming brings him back to her apartment. The next morning, he wakes to find her gone, but she has written a number on his palm.

The pressure on Doyle intensifies when he is tracked down by an investigator from London (Tilda Swinton), seeking repayment of money he stole when he was still called by his original name, Riley. If he does not pay back almost a million pounds, she will have him arrested.

Elements of the film tell us it may be a dream, a fantasy, or a deathbed hallucination. Or perhaps it is hell, with Doyle/Riley stuck in some kind of loop of big risks and bad decisions.

Parents should know that this film includes suicides, strong language, drinking, smoking, drug use, and criminal behavior.

Family discussion: How are Riley and Dao Ming alike and how are they different? What part of this film is a dream or fantasy?

If you like this, try: “Hard Eight” and “Molly’s Game”

Honey, Don’t!

Posted on August 21, 2025 at 6:43 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, some strong violence, and language
Profanity:	Strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and violence, many characters injured and killed, very graphic and disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 22, 2025

I liked “Drive Away Dolls,” Ethan Coen’s previous film starring Margaret Qualley as a free-spirited queer woman who has a series of crazy adventures involving gangsters and a mysterious suitcase many people are interested in. “Honey Don’t!” is not a sequel, more an offshoot that aims for the same sort of vibe, this time with Qualley as a queer private detective in Bakersfield, California. Qualley is mesmerizing but the movie is too meandering, more a series of set-pieces than a story.

Qualley is the title character, independent, confident, direct, and quippy. She is a female version of the classic movie detective, a loner (we see her casually dismissing a one-night stand) but resolutely honest. A man wants to hire her to find out if his boyfriend is cheating and Honey tries to talk him out of it because if he wants to hire her, it means he already knows. A woman who made an appointment to consult Honey ends up dead and in a car that overturned rolling down a ridge on the side of the road. Her prospective client never made it to the hiring point, but Honey investigates.

Others have gone to the upside down car before her. Marty, the local homicide detective (Charlie Day), who keeps trying to ask Honey out on a date, is there with the forensic crew. Before they got there, a mysterious woman with a Lulu bob arrived on a motorcycle, reached into the car to pull a ring from the dead woman’s finger, took time to go skinny dipping in the lake, and left.

This is not the kind of film where everything ties up at the end. It is the kind of film that lurches from scene to scene as though it is one of those Pass the Paper/Exquisite Corpse drawing games where no one knows what the first and second part of the picture looks like when it is their turn to draw the third. The individual set-pieces are very entertaining, especially Honey’s meeting with an aspiring mega-church preacher (Chris Evans) whose pulpit is between two giant portraits of himself and who tells his congregation to “submit and serve the lord,” often meaning having submitting to serving him by having sex.

The actors and filmmakers are clearly having a blast, especially costume designer Peggy Schnitzer, whose ensembles for Qualley are all knock-outs. The movie features the slightly surreal dialogue that is beloved by the Coen brothers and the love for female bodies and sexuality that we saw in “Drive Away Dolls” continues to be sigh-worthy, no matter what your pronouns or orientation. There are moments of inspired derangement. Overall, though, there’s more style than substance, a hollowness that even Qualley’s star quality cannot make up for.

Parents should know that this film has peril and violence with many characters injured and killed and some graphic and disturbing images. It also includes nudity and very explicit sexual situations including a threesome and bondage. Characters use strong language and drink alcohol.

Family discussion: Why did Honey feel obligated to investigate Mia’s death? What questions did she ask that made a difference?

If you like this, try: “Drive Away Dolls”

Nobody 2

Posted on August 14, 2025 at 5:37 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol, drug dealing
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended very intense and graphic violence, characters injured and killed, graphic and disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 15, 2025

The first “Nobody” (2021) was a surprise, with Bob Odenkirk, who was not an action movie star, playing a guy no one would expect to be willing and very, very able to fight lots of intimidating guys with many weapons. It was popular enough for a sequel, based on the same kind of “who is that guy?” expectations. Basically, it’s a cartoonish but extremely violent series of fight scenes, but the dark humor, improvised weaponry, and good spirits make it very entertaining. If you don’t get too rattled by the very graphic and disturbing images.

Like the first film, this begins with Hutch (Odenkirk), bloodied and bruised and, this time, apparently missing part of a finger, being interrogated by a pair of FBI agents. Then we go back to find out what happened.

Following the events of the first film, Hutch (Odenkirk) is in debt to a criminal kingpin known as The Barber (Colin Salmon). His wife, Becca (Connie Nielson) knows that his “job” is paying off that debt by undertaking tasks that involve grave danger. After a brief scene with Hutch waiting in a hotel lobby, wearing a badge from some kind of conference (clearly camouflage), we see him follow some guys in dark suits into an elevator. And then, jump to another rewind as he explains to The Barber what happened, setting the heightened tone for what is ahead, basically: extreme violence along the lines of a Looney Tunes cartoon, if Hutch was Road Runner AND Wile E. Coyote AND all the blow-up equipment from Acme.

As Hutch’s family gets up in a series of mornings, we can see that like many families they are stressed and feeling disconnected. Hutch’s wife, Becca (Connie Nielson) and son Brady (Gage Munroe) resent Hutch for being gone all the time. His younger daughter, Sammy (Paisley Cadorath) is just glad to see him when he’s there. Hutch decides the solution is a family vacation. He tells The Barber he’s taking a break, and books a visit to the place where he was happiest as a child, a small tourist town with a water park. They swing by to pick up Hutch’s father, David (Christopher Lloyd).

It’s rickety and cheesy, especially the “honeymoon suite” festooned with fake palm leaves, but Becca appreciates the effort and the family is determined to do their best to enjoy it. But at an arcade, Brady gets into an altercation with a teenage townie and that brings the family to the attention of the cruel and corrupt local sheriff (Colin Hanks) and the businessman who runs the town, Henry (John Ortiz).

This leads to a series of one-upping fight scenes, building to a confrontation with a small army working for the evil crime boss known as Landina (Sharon Stone, having a blast dancing in a pants suit and stabbing a cheating gambler in the hand). A most-welcome RZA shows up again as Hutch’s katana-master brother.

Director Timo Tjahjantoo, taking over from Ilya Naishuller, makes the best of the fight scenes, with a “John Wick” level of balletic movement. Hutch’s specialty, in addition to a John Wayne-category punch, is his ability to improvise with whatever is around him, and this movie gives him plenty to improvise with, from the emergency phone in an elevator to the pieces of the games at an arcade, equipment on a boat, and the final confrontation, boobytrapping an old-school water park like it’s Kevin’s house in “Home Alone.”

The premise of conflict between Hutch’s commitment to his family and the roiling rage that makes him good at killing plays out well as it echoes with his father, brother, and son, thanks to a strong script by Derek Kolstad and Aaron Rabin and a fine performance by Odenkirk. It’s easy to overlook how good he is because of all that is happening on screen, but it would just be cartoonish without Odenkirk’s ability to make us understand Hutch’s layers of emotion. It’s nice to get a glimpse of Becca’s side of things. She gets to be much more than the usual “Oh, honey, don’t do anything scary or dangerous” female role, making us wish for a prequel to fill in the details behind her story about how they met.

Parents should know that this is an exceptionally violent film with guns, knives, fire, and explosions. Many characters are injured and killed and there are many graphic and disturbing images. Characters are criminals who deal in drugs and bombs. Characters use strong language, drink and get drunk. There is some marital kissing and mild sexual references.

Family discussion: What are the parallels in the stories of the father-son relationships of Hutch, Brady, and David and Henry and Max? In what way to David, Hutch, and Henry want their sons to be better than they are?

If you like this, try: the first film and “Shoot-Em Up”