Omar

Omar is a thriller about a young Palestinian man who gets caught up in a cat and mouse game with the Israeli police, his two childhood friends, and the woman he loves. Written and directed by Hany Abu-Assad, it centers on the current situation in  Israel's Occupied territories.   Beyond the great performances by actors Adam Bakri (Omar) and Waleed Zuaiter (Agent Rami), is a taut and convoluted storyline that puts a special and realistic spin on the ideas of betrayal, trust, love, and innocence lost. There's a very nicely crafted tenseness in the performances and script, that play up very well against the beautiful camera work throughout, comparable to 2002's City Of God. Where it also excels, is in showcasing a story from a very misunderstood politically charged part of the world without easily falling into the overt one sided politics of what one would expect.  As the title would also suggest and foreshadow, it's very character driven instead.

Boyhood

Boyhood is a very unique coming of age film written and directed by Richard Linklater. It was put together over a twelve year period. For that alone, it deserves much praise.  With exceptional performances by Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, and Lorelei Linklater, it chronicles the complexities of the modern family shown through the eyes of Mason Jr. (Linklater).  The experience of watching Boyhood is very much like watching a documentary in ways, but more like viewing a moving scrapbook or video without consciously realizing it.  The passage of time never really feels dated as there are no obvious traditional markers. Yet that's also the unique quality of something like this, in that it forces the audience to also reflect on their own lives during that period and lends itself to much introspection.  Unlike most movies that mark the passage of time in a more obvious manner, Boyhood has a more seamless and patient method in letting the passage of time take the lead  in telling the story.  It's a fascinating way to film and perform, as it obviously bonds the characters together in real life and in a less rehearsed fashion that comes through in the performances.  So in many ways, it's a documentary of the actors themselves personally and professionally and the development of  their characters.  For a 4 million dollar indie film, Boyhood a wonderful and original classic that is groundbreaking on many levels.

Lucy

Luc Besson's Lucy is an action sci-fi drama starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman. Johansson plays Lucy, a woman thrown into the middle of a drug war in Tapei with a Korean syndicate.  In the process of being forced to be a drug mule, she injest an overdose of this new experimental drug and quickly gains the capacity to expand the limits of the human brain.  Freeman plays a scientist who happens to study the limits of the mind and so becomes integral to the journey of Lucy.  The film is definetely a Besson film with his signature pace with action and story, camera look, and Asian influences. Adding a science fiction element on the level of The Matrix was very refreshing.  But it is also this over the top element embedded in the storyline of Lucy being pursued by the gangsters and international police, that is also it's undoing. At times, it is many of Besson's best movies and their urgency that we see within the film. Think The Transporter, La Femme Nikita, or Colombiana and if you've seen those films, than you've seen much of Lucy already.  Certainly a better actress in Johansson and an authenticity with Freeman were upgrades.  Yet the bombastic action starts to pale and get more cartoonish noticeably as the end of the film nears.  By this time, and as admittedly entertaining as it is, it's hard to decipher whether your looking at a typical Besson picture being overshadowed with an episode of the Neal deGrasse Tyson's Cosmos.  The character Lucy in exploring the mind and universe culminates all too neatly and comically in the end, obviously yanking us back and reminding us that it's just an action movie with a big flash drive.

The Equalizer

Directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Denzel Washington as Robert McCall, The Equalizer delivers some bad ass Denzel moments.  This movie remake of the old television series is appropriately on point and congruent with the recent trend of the older Hollywood actors making a shift into the world of straight action.  Of course the story isn't original, as it could just have easily been a movie like Leon: The Professional or any of the Taken movies. However, it's a very easy and inevitable shift for Washington, as he has been evolving towards this type of role anyway in his collaboration with Fuqua and other directors. Nonetheless, it's a joy to watch a nuanced performance even in this standard action fare from someone other than Liam Neeson go up against the likes of actor Marton Csokas, who plays the charismatic and sinister Teddy.