The Grouchy Editor

The Rental

Director Dave Franco’s The Rental is a flawed movie. It’s a “slow-burn” thriller, and slow-burn is often code for “boring until something finally happens.” The plot is predictable and the last act, in which something finally does happen, is not particularly original.

But all of that is nitpicking. The Rental, in which two couples encounter terror at a beach house, is more than anything else skillfully done. The “slow” scenes are absorbing, seductive, and creepy. There is at least one truly scary bit.

There’s a reason that suspense films — unlike, say, romantic comedies or many dramas — are considered a director’s medium. The acting and story can be serviceable, but if the movie works, it’s because the dude behind the camera knew what he was doing. Release: 2020  Grade: B+

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Nightmare Alley

Critics love movies like this one because they check so many boxes: impressive cinematography, big stars, somber tone, striking art direction, etc.

Let me add a few boxes of my own: Nightmare Alley is too long, there are very few, if any, relatable characters, and did I mention that it’s too damn long?

That’s a bit harsh. As always in any Guillermo del Toro film, the visuals are gorgeous. The subject matter does require a serious tone. And yet ….

I kept comparing the movie to Double Indemnity, another noir about a doomed con man (in Alley, the grifter is played by Bradley Cooper). Fred MacMurray’s insurance agent in Indemnity had a more wrenching downfall because — until he fell into the clutches of femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck — he was an average Joe. He was relatable. Cooper’s con artist is a bad egg from the start, so it’s hard to much care when things go sour for him. Release: 2021 Grade: B

**

Werewolves Within

A small group of local yokels are trapped in a snowbound country inn — and one of them is a surreptitious werewolf. What’s not to like about that setup?

Werewolves is silly and predictable and yes, you’ve seen it all before, but in the hands of director Josh Ruben, it feels fresh and fun. Release: 2021 Grade: B+

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Ingrid Goes West

Aubrey Plaza plays dour and damaged Ingrid, a loser from Pennsylvania who moves west to stalk her idol, an Instagram “influencer” named Taylor (Elizabeth Olsen). Ingrid uses deceit to successfully penetrate Taylor’s inner circle, and hilarity results. Uh, not really.

Ingrid Goes West aspires to be All About Eve for the social-media generation, but there’s a crucial difference. In Eve, the characters were snakes — but snakes with charm and wit. In Ingrid, the characters are snakes, but shallow and witless.

Only in the third act does the movie come to life, when Ingrid sheds her creepy stalker persona and reveals herself to be a genuine human being. Release: 2017  Grade: B

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Promising Young Woman

The main reason to watch Promising Young Woman is Carey Mulligan, who shines as a damaged woman who goes to the dark side to avenge a friend’s gang rape and subsequent suicide. It’s a good film, but not a great one, I think because it tries too hard to juggle a serious topic with a desire to entertain. The muddled result is thought-provoking drama — but not too thought-provoking. Because, you know, that might be a downer. Release: 2020  Grade: B+

**

Nobody

With Nobody, Bob Odenkirk joins Liam Neeson and Keanu Reeves in the trendy late-career transition to that most unlikely of genres: the middle-aged man as action hero. Odenkirk plays a seemingly harmless everyman who, following a home-invasion that threatens his wife and kids, returns to his not-so-harmless roots.

What sinks the movie is its discordant tone. It begins like a Falling Down for a new generation, with Odenkirk in Michael Douglas’s role as the American white man who finds himself on the downswing of societal change. But once the big secret is revealed, Nobody goes from “take this serious” drama to a procession of violent, cartoonish set pieces — “hey, we’re just having fun here!”

Although a sequel is clearly on the minds of everyone involved with Nobody, I can only hope that Odenkirk finds something more suited to his talents. Something like Better Call Saul, maybe? Release: 2021  Grade: B

**

Insomnia

I liked the 2002 American remake of this movie, which starred Al Pacino as a cop with a checkered past who hunts a killer while battling his own demons — and a relentless midnight sun. I also enjoyed the original, with Stellan Skarsgard as the troubled cop, although the locale in the first film is northern Norway, not Alaska.

I guess a viewer’s preference might depend on which performance most intrigues: Skarsgard’s cold-as-ice inspector, or Pacino’s more emotional cop on the edge. I’ll give the nod to Norway’s version, if only because it came first. Release: 1997  Grade: B+

© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)