Y tu Luna también: Criminal (2004, R)

Before we get into it, a couple exciting things. First, Andor season 2 is actually, finally imminent! April 22 feels so far away, but at least it’s a date. The 10-second clip and first-look images that have been released have me champing at the bit. And second, how on Earth did I miss that Diego Luna is gonna be playing Valentin in the movie musical adaptation of Kiss of the Spider-Woman?!? His first musical role since The Book of Life and his first live-action musical role ever??? I only found out that this project exists, and I’m already waiting for it with bated breath! (Also, Jennifer Lopez as Aurora sounds just delicious.)

Okay, onto your regularly scheduled review.

I never quite know what to expect from Diego Luna’s older movies. They can be all over the place in terms of quality—I’ve watched a number that are iffy at best, and adding insult to injury, some of those barely feature him at all. So I go into a lot of these films with an air of caution. On some level, Criminal is a bit basic and tries too hard in places, but I ultimately came away really liking it.

One day, out-for-himself conman Richard Gaddis takes notice of Rodrigo, a young man trying to pull some simple cons in a casino. He gets Rodrigo out of a tight spot and, because he’s currently without a partner, decides to take the kid for a test run. Richard offers Rodrigo the chance to learn some tricks from him, but their one day of training-wheels-level cons takes a turn when a gigantic opportunity falls into Richard’s lap.

This is an American remake of an Argentine film called Nine Queens. I haven’t seen that movie, so I don’t know how well this adaptation compares, but I thought it was a good time. It’s fun to watch Richard teach Rodrigo the tools of his trade, even if the script lays on the “world-weary crook mentor who trusts no one” routine pretty thick sometimes. And once the central scam of the film gets underway, we see a nice mix of expertise, complications, and pivots. Things do get a bit convoluted, but for the most part, it all seems to hold together.

John C. Reilly isn’t an actor I’d have thought of for a character like Richard, but it mostly works. While he’s not able to sell the hokiest of the dialogue, he gives off the right air for the sort of cons Richard pulls—he generally presents himself as a businessman, solid but not overly flashy, and Reilly plays the character with just enough slickness that you can never quite tell where he stands. Maggie Gyllenhaal is effective as his sister Valerie, who wants to keep her crook brother’s business far away from the fancy hotel where she works, and Peter Mullan does a nice job as William Hannigan, the wealthy tycoon that Richard sets his sights on (who, of course, just so happens to be staying at Valerie’s hotel.) Side note: I wouldn’t quite consider Mullan a Hey It’s That Guy!, because he’s never instantly recognizable to me. But pretty much every time I see him pop up in a film, I feel the need to look him up on IMDb, not just because I can tell I’ve seen him before, but because he’s so good. The film also features brief appearances from Enrico Colantoni and Michael Shannon.

Luna plays Rodrigo, who’s firmly the second lead of the film. This would’ve been just a few years after Y tu mamá también, when Hollywood had taken some interest in him, and even if the movie itself is a bit more middle-of-the-pack, this is a perfectly respectable role for him, and he does a nice job with it. The film revolves around the dynamic between Richard and Rodrigo. Richard is a career criminal who looks at con artistry as more than just a way to make money: it’s a philosophy, a way of life. By turns, Rodrigo explains that he’s just dipping his toe into this world because he needs money quick to help pay the loan sharks who are leaning on his father. Richard thinks Rodrigo gets too squeamish about certain aspects of the work, like not wanting to con an old lady, and he doesn’t appreciate the judgmental eye he sometimes gives. And Rodrigo is definitely wary of Richard—I can see the faintest glimmer of Cassian’s guarded watchfulness on Andor in this role—but at the same time, when he sees one of Richard’s cons comes together, he kind of lights up.

And for all that Richard frames himself as the jaded all-knowing teacher and Rodrigo as the wet-behind-the-ears novice who doesn’t have the stomach to be a “real” conman, Rodrigo shows real talent for the work. Richard tells him he “thinks too much” and says that his only real asset is that “you look like a nice guy,” but Rodrigo bails him out more than once, taking advantage of his keen sense of observation (hehe, Cassian vibes again!) to improvise on the spot.

Recommend?

In General – Maybe. It’s an entertaining conman flick with some good performances, and I think it sticks the landing pretty well.

Diego Luna – Yes. This is a good role for him, and he does a great job with it.

Warnings

Language, scenes of violence, drinking/smoking/drug references, sexual references (including sexual harassment,) and thematic elements.

A Little TLC(w): The New Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre: Season 1, Episode 39 (1986)

*A couple broad-strokes spoilers that don’t go into detail.*

Penultimate episode! In some ways, it definitely feels like it, while there are other parts that I don’t think quite got the buildup they needed. Also, we’ve possibly gotten our last New Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre extended flashback!

In the last episode, the lion-killing event went in an unexpected direction. The sects are no longer completing for the privilege to kill Xie Xun—instead, they’re preparing to band together as a common enemy approaches. Where Zhang Wuji’s love life is concerned, an important secret is revealed, and Wuji realizes once and for all where his heart lies.

The lion-killing event has felt like such a big plot over the past several episodes that I was surprised to pivot away from it so close to the end. It sort of makes sense, because the enemy that’s bearing down on all the sects has been a major one in the series, one that’s caused a lot of damage and has been on the warpath for a while. But at the same time, they haven’t been emphasized in the story recently. When I realized that this was how we were leading into the finale, my reaction was less, “Of course, everything has been building toward this moment!” and more, “Oh right, those guys are still around.” Which, for me, makes it all feel a little less epic than the story is aiming for.

Still, there are aspects of this plot that appeal to me. After Zhang Wuji has spent so much of the series trying to build bridges between various sects, it’s gratifying to see them rally and fight alongside one another. Nicely done, Wuji!

The one person who’s not fully brought into the fold here is Zhao Min. She still regularly wears her male disguise while the martial arts stuff is going down, but it’s obvious to everyone that it’s a disguise, which only makes them wonder what she’s hiding. And of course, none of the sects have forgotten how she moved against them earlier in the show—some of the masters she abducted were killed, and plenty of warriors aren’t in the mood to be forgiving about that. There’s a great moment in the episode where a group of warriors come to confront her while she’s with Zhang Wuji, and his expression as they round on her is simply a force to be reckoned with. It’s an early example of Tony Leung Chiu-wai deploying his soulful eyes to maximum effect!

As I said, this episode seems to finally settle the question of the love polygon. This is where the flashbacks come in, as a few major bombshells are first dropped and then explored. We recontextualize past events through a different vantage point. There’s an incredibly weak defense of a terrible act, and Zhang Wuji reels at the stuff he learns here.

But while the revelations of the episode might seem poised to clear the way for the “last woman standing” in the race for Zhang Wuji’s affections, I like that Wuji himself doesn’t frame it that way. It’s not really about These Are the Reasons Why I’m Choosing You and Not Her. Instead, it’s much more about his own feelings. There’s a nice scene where he compares his immediate reactions when something big went down with each of the four women who were in love with him, and that helps him see where his heart is. Which I like—he’s spent a lot of time focusing on who he’s supposed to love or how he’s supposed to act, so it’s good to see him really examine how he feels about all this.

Also, just a quick bit that made me smile: there’s a scene where Zhang Wuji and Zhao Min are discussing times when she’d been framed for crimes that weren’t her fault. Even though Wuji believed the frame job at the time, he’s now relieved that he wasn’t able to take revenge on Miss Zhao. He says, “Actually, I should thank you—if you weren’t so smart, I should have killed you already,” which is weirdly sweet? Hehe!

Other Doctor Lives: True Detective: Season 4, Episode 4 – “Night Country: Part 4” (2024)

*Spoilers from episode 3.*

I’m really liking this story. It brings such a potent mix of creep factor (both worldly and otherworldly,) thoughtfully explored themes, and complex character work. As I said last week, I haven’t watched any other seasons of True Detective, but I’m all in on “Night Country”!

Danvers and Navarro don’t know precisely how yet, but the deaths of the research scientists are definitely connected to Annie Kowtok’s murder. One of the scientists had been dating her in secret, and when her phone is recovered from an old trailer of his, a disturbing video offers further insight into her death. While Danvers and Navarro try to track down the ice cave where she was killed, Prior investigates a man who mysteriously fell off the grid after suffering injuries eerily similar to those found on the bodies of the scientists.

This show excels at blending real-world horrors with hints of the supernatural. In both the investigation and the characters’ personal lives, the edges of reality feel blurry, and it’s hard to know what to believe. Does mental illness run in Navarro’s family and her sister Julia is experiencing hallucinations? Or is there a “curse” that’s claiming them one by one, tormenting them with visions of the dead? It seems Annie’s murder was caused by the ugly forces within humanity, but why does it feel tied with the scientists’ grisly deaths in a supernatural way? Only two episodes left—we’ll see how everything ties together.

I also like how the show uses the characters to examine its deeper themes. Ongoing protests about the local mine show the real human costs at stake. It’s caused fissures through the town, between the mostly white miners and the mostly indigenous folks who are dealing with contaminated water from the runoff. Part of the disconnect between Danvers and her stepdaughter stems from Danvers’s ignorance of Leah’s Indigenous culture. Her resistance to Leah getting traditional facial tattoos is probably related to concerns about her safety—when a local elder draws sample markings on Leah’s face, I’m sure Danvers can’t help thinking of the brutal crime scene photos from Annie’s murder—but she doesn’t express that. Instead, she just snaps variations of, “Get that shit off your face,” not respecting Leah’s culture and also not voicing her own fears. Julia’s mental health struggles are endangering her, and Navarro doesn’t know how to balance her desire to care for and protect her sister with the knowledge that Julia needs more help than she can provide.

And not for nothing, there’s a sequence in this episode where Danvers is drunk, and Jodie Foster’s acting is just a knockout. Completely obvious, but in a really subtle way—so good!

We get a little more of Christopher Eccleston in this episode, which gives us a chance to learn a bit more about Connolly. Danvers kind of frames him as a villain in the story of her life—he exiled her to Ennis because he felt professionally threatened by her! He’s trying to take her investigation away from her!—but that’s a narrower picture than what’s really going on. Instead, Connolly has the bodies moved to Anchorage where there’s a proper forensics unit to examine them, but he has no intention of taking the case off her hands. And while it’s true that he always knew she was a better cop than he was, he also recognized the places where she was struggling (spoiler alert—it’s all interpersonal stuff) and transferred her to Ennis because he thought it’d be good for her, especially after the events of some still-unnamed tragedy in her past. We’ve brushed up against the edges of Danvers backstory now, but there are still important details waiting to be filled in.

I appreciate that Connolly is more nuanced than Danvers at first suggests he is, or that archetypal tropes would suggest. No, the authority figure doesn’t appear to have it in for the shrewd maverick who doesn’t like to play politics. Even as Danvers rails against what she thinks he’s up to, he says, “I’m fucking helping you here, Liz.”

Thus far, it’s not a super demanding role for Christopher Eccleston, but he’s solid in it. I like that Danvers exasperates Connolly but he’s still not afraid to call her on her shit, and there’s an intriguing history between them. I feel like he might be the key to learning about what happened in Danvers’s past to get her to where she is now.