Two big action flicks, and a welcome antidote with Mads Mikkelsen in Denmark

The Canadian Screen Awards were handed out last night and spread out nicely. Blood Quantum got the most, six, including best actor (Michael Greyeyes), Akilla’s Escape got five and Funny Boy three. I was most happy that Beans was recognized as Best Picture, which is quite an achievement because it also won the award for Best First Feature for its director, Tracey Deer. The film has been shown at festivals and will be back in general release in July. You can find all the results at the CSA website.

A few other notes for you: VIFF Connect has a couple of Canadian talks coming that are sure to be of interest. Tuesday afternoon it’s Matt Shakman, director of Marvel’s very popular WandaVision, which was shown on Disney+. Thursday, it’s Joi McMillon, the editor of the acclaimed Amazon Prime series, The Underground Railroad.

VIFF Connect is also streaming Krow's TRANSformation, the story of one young woman’s drive to become a male. It took three years as documented by Gina Hole Lazarowich of North Vancouver. It’s on until June 7, costs $7.50 and presents a live Q&A on June 3. Details here or on the VIFF website.

Meanwhile, Wonder Woman 1984 is finally streaming (on CRAVE) and that’s a good lead-in to the new action films that open my reviews today.

Wrath of Man: 3½ stars

Army of the Dead: 3½

Riders of Justice: 4

The Retreat: 2½

The Corruption of Divine Providence: 2½

WRATH OF MAN: Guy Ritchie is back in the virile and heavy-shooting genre he started in, and is clearly having a good time. He’s got Jason Statham (the action star who he introduced to the world years ago) in the lead, an engrossing tale based on a French film to tell, and a rare for him, not-in-England, setting: Los Angeles. The elements combine beautifully. There’s plenty of action, staged and edited with style, and a series of flashbacks and time shifts to reveal the story. Not a lot of humour, though.

Statham takes a job with an armoured car company and is given this caution: “It can be dangerous.” So true. And this: “We ain’t the predators. We’re the prey.” A gang has targeted them and gets information from a man inside to stage robberies. Now tired of individual jobs, they plan a giant one, robbing all the trucks at once and on the biggest day for consumer spending, Black Friday, at that. Statham, meanwhile, shows more ability with a gun than is normal for a new hire like him, and slowly we learn what he’s really up to. No spoilers, but here’s a hint: revenge. The story unfolds against giant gun battles, a heist that because of the flashbacks we see three times but understand better each time, and a supporting cast of tough characters played by Scott Eastwood (Clint’s son), Holt McCallany, Josh Hartnett, Eddie Marsan, and others. (In theatres in some provinces, and available everywhere digitally PVOD on Tuesday.) 3½ out of 5

ARMY OF THE DEAD: Zack Snyder is having one hell of a year. His reworked Justice League is a hit, and now this. It’s shorter, only 2½ hours, but just as big as it pretty well trashes Las Vegas visually in a grand series of battles with zombies. Zack’s career started in that genre, and he throws in everything he can think of in this updating. There’s enough action for a whole movie in just the opening credit sequence alone. It shows zombies taking over the city, fires and mobs, slashings and headshots, and the Eiffel Tower replica falling over. That hyper-kinetic mayhem sets the tone and will be duplicated over and over through the film.

But this is LV. Elvis is on the soundtrack with Viva Las Vegas and Suspicious Minds, and a familiar plotline emerges: The good old heist story. The city is quarantined (“US Constitutional law is not in effect,” says a sign) and is to be obliterated with a nuclear bomb. A shady casino mogul convinces a gruff war hero (Dave Bautista) to assemble a crew and go in to retrieve millions of dollars from a vault. The crew includes a German safecracker (Matthias Schweighöfer, a rising star in Europe), mid-level but diverse actors like Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi and Ella Purnell, playing Bautista’s daughter. CNN junkies should watch for a small cameo by Sean Spicer and Donna Brazile. The job is supposed to be “a simple in-and-out,” but not so. There’s lots of tension and frequent blood and gore scenes as heads get shot off, and in two cases, bitten off. Deftly woven in is a very human story in which Bautista (remember him from Guardians of the Galaxy?) shows a surprisingly tender acting ability opposite his daughter. (Some U.S. theatres last week, on Netflix now.) 3½ out of 5

RIDERS OF JUSTICE: Some thrillers wrap a story around action sequences. This does the opposite. It puts the story up front, and it’s terrific. It explores coincidence and probability, pre-judgement and logical conclusions and sits them into a very funny comedy that bounces between black or gently absurd humour. It’s from Denmark, stars the superb Mads Mikkelsen and was written and directed by Anders Thomas Jensen, who, among other prizes, has an Oscar for a short film he wrote some years ago.

Mads plays a soldier who rushes home from Afghanistan after his wife is killed in a train crash. A pair of wacky systems analysts (one of whom, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, was also on the train) arrive and convince him it was not an accident. They had seen a suspicious man get off just before and by processing bits of information since then, they conclude it was a ploy to kill a potential witness against the leader of a motorcycle gang, the Riders of Justice. They bring in another “expert” (Nicolas Bro) and he uses his computer skills and facial recognition software to further the investigation. Facts are facts, aren’t they? Well, as dad explains to his daughter something to the effect of you never know, they go after the gang leader, anyway. There’s action, but with nuanced thinking behind it. It’s a memorable film. (Rent or buy on the Apple TV app/iTunes and other VOD platforms.) 4 out of 5

THE RETREAT: I like the IMDB summary for this film. “A lesbian couple with a rocky relationship goes to a pre-wedding retreat and ends up fighting for their lives when a group of militant serial killers tries to murder them.” Yes, that’s the plot. The film does a good job of representing members of the LGBTQ community, but goes way overboard in displaying their fears. That’s an extreme view of the world against them that these two feel.

Sarah Allen and Tommie-Amber Pirie play Valerie and Renee. They drive from Toronto (where a bumper sticker sets the tone: “Take Your Ex Out Tonight. One Bullet Outta Do It.”) to a country B&B run by friends (who seem to have disappeared). Sudden noises startle them. Is that a figure they glimpse in the dark woods? What about that discarded cigar, still warm? An aura of anxiety and dread is built up skilfully by director Pat Mills and writer Alyson Richards. What it leads to, though, is not so credible. It’s overdone and more than unlikely, though it does work as a modest horror thriller. Aaron Ashmore, Rossif Sutherland, and Celina Sinden play the people they encounter, but how should remain unspoiled right here. (Available On Demand and Digital.) 2½ out of 5

THE CORRUPTION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE: Somebody called this a Catholic horror movie. Maybe. I see it more as a fantasy with serious thoughts woven in. What is religion, for instance? What do people use it for? Director Jeremy Torrie explores those thoughts in a story that feels at the start and at the climax like a screenwriter’s creation, but includes some real tangling with bigger questions in between. Torrie is an Ojibway originally from Kenora, Ont., and has set his film in a small bilingual town in Manitoba. His Indigenous background is well-reflected here.

A Metis teen (Ali Skovbye) disappears one day and reappears with bloody wounds on her wrists and forehead. Stigmata? Images of the wounds Christ suffered? She scribbles this: “I have come from the stars to deliver a message of compassion, peace and love.” A doctor doubts it, but people sense a miracle and a televangelist from Texas arrives to put her on TV. Her father (David La Haye) wants to profit from her fame. Indigenous elders chant in a sweat lodge. Tantoo Cardinal plays one with a wise view of her situation and cites the Egyptian Book of the Dead. St. Francis (Paul Amos) intimidates her. And I lost the meaning about there. How different people use religion is shown. What it all adds up to, isn’t. There’s a climactic church scene that feels like a potboiler story element, and then a really fanciful ending. It’s never boring and well-presented, but what does it mean? (It debuts on Tuesday on VOD/EST, i.e. to rent or buy.) 2½ out of 5