r96sk

'Agak Laen' may be a bit all over the place in terms of tone, but it is quite a fun flick all in all. It's well made too, it oddly gave me vibes of 2018's 'The Festival', particularly lighting-wise, for some reason - I didn't think I'd be making a connection between those two!

Oki Rengga, Boris Bokir, Indra Jegel and Bene Dion make for good casting, they fit as a four and do come across as a friends group. Rengga and Bokir are the standouts, for me. Arie Kriting is the one I'd rank highest of the other cast members; all of whom are absolutely fine, at worst.

The plot is a strange choice, I gotta say, for a comedy, I'm not convinced by how they blend it together but it works; even if the more sincere moments didn't quite hit as intended, at least to me. Oki's part at the conclusion is the closest a non-comedy bit came to hitting.

Also, the product placement is kinda mad, proper egregious stuff. This is my first taste of Indonesian cinema, I assume this is the norm? I only guess that because I do know that their football broadcasts are/were ad-heavy; that's how I know what Torabika is, lol.

'Warfare' ends up as expected: bleak and miserable. The sound design is truly outstanding, such fine work ensures that you hear and feel everything. The plot being told in real time makes it rather captivating too, the tone of either trepidation or torment is omnipresent.

Well, I say omnipresent, that's taking out the opening scene. I was not expecting that! Very fun though and a good way to show a snapshot of the camaraderie. It shouldn't work because it's not like it matches the rest of the film, but I gotta say I really loved it. What a tune, by the way.

It's a fairly stacked cast list, from Will Poulter to Joseph Quinn to Charles Melton to Michael Gandolfini to D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai. No-one actually stands out individually, but I think that's entirely a good thing because it obviously isn't a story about any one person - it's about all of them.

'Sinners' is a fair load of fun. It admittedly didn't fully knock my socks off, but there isn't any doubt that it is a very good film. It's stylish with impressive music and visuals, whilst all of the acting talent give good performances. It's paced astutely too.

Michael B. Jordan is as entertaining as he usually tends to be, I do like seeing him act. The dual role is done well here, the 'split screen' is solid but my brain sillily - no matter the movie or standard of how they portray the same actor twice - simply cannot interpret the effect as seamless.

Jack O'Connell stands out behind Jordan, particularly for the moments of sing. Hailee Steinfeld and Wunmi Mosaku are the others that I took notice of too, same can be said for Delroy Lindo, Li Jun Li and Omar Miller; I oddly always think of 'American Pie Presents: Band Camp' with the latter (I'm so sorry, Omar).

I must say, the trailers revealed too much. I tend to avoid those so assume I didn't get the full brunt of it anyway, though even so I remember catching a couple of bits that don't occur until the gritty part of the movie. It's no biggie, trailers are designed to get bums on seats after all.