The 355 and The Tender Bar – Movie Reviews

The 355 is directed and co-written by Simon Kinberg, co-written by Theresa Rebeck, starting Jessica Chastain as Mace, Penélope Cruz as Graciela Rivera, Diane Kruger as Marie Schmidt, Lupita Nyong’o as Khadijah Adiyeme, Sebastian Stan as Nick Fowler, and Bingbing Fan as Lin Mi Sheng. When a dangerous technology is making its way around the criminal underworld multiple different intelligence agencies are working to try and retrieve the device for their country. Only to come to the conclusion that they need to work together.

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What could have been a great movie with a stunning cast is unfortunately exactly what its release schedule suggests it is. A January junk release with a stellar cast. Seriously it is not this casts fault the leading ladies did a great job with what they were given. But, this script is terrible, crap dialogue, twists you could see from the first minute, and a plot pulled from the worst 80’s and 90’s action movies.

And the action, utter garbage, I can’t remember a single scene that didn’t make me nauseous from the number of cuts they had. Just very very bland and boring, nearly fell asleep a couple times. There was one scene where I was actually like, “Okay, some stakes!”, and then it went back to nothing. Again the cast was incredible with what they had but man everything else stuck to high hell.

I know that there will be a great women-led spy movie someday, but today is not that day. As a side note a device such as that would go for billions not half a billion. All in all, The 355 is a movie that I’ll probably forget in a week.

‘The 355’ Rating – 2/5

The Tender Bar is directed by George Clooney, written by William Monahan, based on the memoir by J.R. Moehringer, starring Ben Affleck as Uncle Charlie, Tye Sheridan as JR, Daniel Raineri as Young JR, Lily Rabe as Mom, Christopher Lloyd as Grandpa, and Briana Middleton as Sidney. JR grows up in a poor family and looks for guidance from his Uncle Charlie since his dad is out of the picture.

I don’t have much to say for this movie. I found it rather bland. It’s not that anything was bad in particular, just that there wasn’t much for me to really get into. Narration, story told from adult and young JR perspective, less than riveting dialogue, competent but mild performances, nothing distinctive. It’s fine for what it is but what it is just isn’t that compelling of a story. All in all The Tender Bar is meh.

‘The Tender Bar’ Rating – 2.5/5

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