Three Films Make A Post: Never have so few taken so much from so many.

The Great Train Robbery aka The First Great Train Robbery (1978): This Michael Crichton movie, also written by Crichton, and based on his own historical fiction bestseller, has a really fabulous climactic action scene in the titular robbery. To get there, the film slogs through what clearly is supposed to be a semi-comedic romp through mildly satirized Victorian period detail. Alas, the word that actually describes this is “dull”. Crichton, never a man to know which details to cut, shows no feel at all for pacing dialogue scenes – even a sure winner of an innuendo-laden scene between Sean Connery’s mastermind character and a married lady goes down like a lead balloon – or timing jokes, leaving the main cast of Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down to fend for themselves while they are crushed by all that – never telling – period detail. Even that trio can’t win against such odds.

Exist Within aka 사잇소리 (2022): This thriller by Kim Jung-wook about the noises a young woman hears from the apartment above her, and the nasty surprises that follow, is about as middle of the road as South Korean productions get. There’s not much of the subversion of tropes going on that most genre movies from the country eventually at least dabble in, the pacing is never quite as effective, and the tone never quite as surehanded as it could be.

However, making a thriller of this type entertaining can also be achieved by the simple virtue of technical expertise, and though that is not the way a classic is birthed, being a genuinely fun time is an achievement in itself.

The Old Way (2023): This revenge western directed by Brett Donowho manages something you don’t see every day – getting a performance from Nicolas Cage that makes the high energy thespian look unengaged. Much of Cage’s performance gives the impression of watching him doing a second run-through of the material rather than actually putting his full force into a scene. If you’ve seen Cage emoting loudly and sometimes quietly but distinctly, throwing himself into whatever a script has to offer for most of your movie watching life, this is a rather disquieting thing to watch, like a night sky turned hot pink for no reason.

There’s little else to distract here: the script is about as rote a revenge western as is possible, the performances are uneventful, and Donowho directs with the blandness of a shrug.