(2026) Animals - A Crime Thriller Drama with Interesting Premise but Lack Strong Performance to Make it Memorable

This movie was released by Netflix last Friday and I actually have seen it on that same day, but I just did not have the time to write about it till today. It was something that I was intrigued after reading its brief synopsis. OK then, I'll just get right on with the movie.

Brief Story Line

Matt Kimball (Ben Affleck - The Accountant 2, Deep Water etc) was an independent candidate for Los Angeles Mayor who had spent a lot of money for campaign and all the related expenses. Meanwhile his wife Abigail (Kerry Washington - Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Django Unchained etc) was a successful psychologist and supportive of Matt. On Halloween night, Matt and Abigail's only son Denny (Christopher Woodley) went for trick or treating accompanied by the house maid Cecilia (Adriana Paz - El Autor, Coyote TV series etc) together with Hector (Jacob Estrada), the son of her boyfriend Ramos (Luis Gerardo Mendez - Me Time, Narcos: Mexico season 3 etc) who only drove them to the location.

(2026) Vanishing Point - A Pretty Well Written Crime Thriller Mystery Drama Movie Based on Popular Novel

While my wife and I were on overseas holiday trip, we were unable to see any movies in the cinemas and my options were limited to watching on streaming services. This movie that was released on Netflix few days ago was something that interest me, though I only got the chance to put in writing today after our return. Without further ado, here's more on the film.

Brief Story Line

The movie focus on three group of people with their own experience that were somehow intertwined. Yan Wu (Roy Chiu - Dear Ex, Detective Chinatown TV series etc) was an addicted gambler living only with his elderly father and having financial trouble to pay his debts. They rented an apartment unit from a young woman named Lin Yutong (Liu Haocun - Ride On, The Seven Relics of Ill Omen TV series etc) who suffered from traumatic experience few months before and heavily protected by her older brother Doctor Lin Wenzhao (Li Chen - The Battle of Lake Chiangjin, Beijing Love Story TV series etc).

(TV SERIES) Furious Season 1 - A Dark and Heavy Crime Drama Series Loosely Inspired by 1987 Movie Black Widow

Few weeks ago while I was checking on Disney+, I found this series and another one which were both intriguing for me. However just like the usual Hulu original series, it was having one episode per week release (except for the first three that were released at the same time). Two days ago I noticed the last episode would be released on Monday, so I decided to start watching the day before and finished it last night. OK then, I'll get on with the series now.

Brief Story Line

Rookie FBI agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum - Cold Pursuit, Shameless TV series etc) who was formerly from NYPD, was asked by her old partner Detective Danny Kelly (Scoot McNairy - Man on Fire TV series, Luckiest Girl Alive etc) to look into the death of a wealthy billionaire's son. Though it looked like a simple overdoze, Alice was suspicious with similar case that occurred 14 years before and tried to bring it to the attention of Nora Washington (Quincy Tyler Bernstine - Power TV series etc), the FBI's head of sex crime units. 

(TV SERIES) R. J. Decker Season 1 - OK Enough and Pretty Light Crime Drama Series

In the past few weeks, I noticed this new series made available in Disney+ along with the release of new season from several older shows. Two days ago I saw that the full episodes have been released so I decided to start watching as I was quite intrigued with the premise and managed to finish it last night. All right then, I'll just get right with it.

Brief Story Line

RJ Decker (Scott Speedman - Underworld, Animal Kingdom TV series etc) was a former photographer for a Newspaper who was imprisoned for 18 months due to some altercation in the past and now worked as a Private Investigator. After his home was no longer suitable to stay, RJ moved in to the pool house of his bisexual ex-wife Catherine Delacroix (Adelaide Clemens - Rectify TV series, Silent Hill: Revelation etc) who was now married with Florida police detective Mel Abreu (Bevin Bru - 57 Seconds etc). During the early stage, RJ usually got clients recommended by his former cell mate and a bar owner, Aloysius "Wish" Aiken (Kevin Rankin - Claws TV series, Hell or High Water etc).

(TV SERIES) Legends Season 1 - Very Interesting Undercover Unit of Inexperienced Officers Inspired by Real Life Person

As I was searching for new things to watch last night after finishing another season of other series, I came acrossed this one which did not look so great at first. But as I read the brief synopsis, I was rather intrigued and decided to give it a try. OK then, I'll start on it now.

Brief Story Line

Story was set in the year 1990 Britain where heroin were flooding the country and the Prime Minister then decided to go on war against drugs. The head of Customs and Excise Department Angus Blake (Douglas Hodge - G20, Diana etc) was given task to stop the illegal importing of drugs. But without any additional budget, together with his Head of Operation Don Clark (Steve Coogan - Despicable Me 4, Our Idiot Brother etc), Blake decided to form an undercover team comprised of the Customs officers to infiltrate gang of drug dealers and find out their leaders to stop them.

Project Y - A Very Dark, Intense and Heavy Crime Thriller Movie

This movie was supposed to be released in all Indonesian cinemas on Friday, but in the morning when my wife and I were choosing where to see, we were surprised that it was not available in the biggest cinema chain. Hence we decided to see two other movies while postponing this the following day. Later that noon, the movie suddenly appeared on the list of that particular chain, however since we already bought other tickets, we only saw it on Saturday. All right then, let's just get on with the film.

Brief Story Line

Story focused on two women who were very close like sisters, i.e the calm straight thinking Mi-sun (Han So-hee - Gyeongseong Creature, Nevertheless TV series etc) who was working as escort girl and the impatient strong willed Do-kyung (Jeon Jong-seo - Ballerina, Queen Woo TV series etc) who worked as driver. They had saved all their money to start their own business. Unfortunately their plan was ruined due to some unforeseen circumstances.

(Mini Series) Smoke - An Unexpectedly More Character Driven Drama than Intense Thriller Series

I have known about this series for few months now ever since I noticed it as part of the upcoming shows on AppleTV+. Its premise looked interesting which made me look forward to the series. But as usual, I had to wait till it was completed (which was exactly last week), before starting to watch it 3 nights ago. Well all right then, let's just get on with the series.

Brief Story Line

David Gudsen (Taron Egerton - Carry-On, Kingsman: The Golden Circle etc) was an arson investigator who had been dealing with two serial arsonists in his area. During his free time, Dave started to write a book which centered around his life and experience with the support from his wife Ashley (Hannah Emily Anderson - Jigsaw, The Purge TV series etc). After some time unable to catch the criminal, Metropolitan PD assigned Detective Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett - Spiderhead, Friday Night Lights TV series etc) to assist in the investigation. Despite his reluctance and objection to his boss Commander Harvey Englehart (Greg Kinnear - As Good as It Gets, Sabrina 1995 remake etc), Dave had to accept the decision. 

(TV SERIES) Who Saw the Peacock Dance in the Jungle? - Despite Its Sometimes Melodramatic Moments and Slow Burn Process, but the Series was Pretty Worth the Watch with Its Multiple Shocking Twists

During 2 weeks vacation with my wife, I did not have chance to see anything in the cinemas but I did complete few series on Netflix. As they were released some time back, I decided to write about this Japanese series instead, since its finale was made available only recently and I finished it last night. All right then, I'll get right to it.

Brief Story Line

Komugi (Hirose Suzu - The Third Murder, Chiyafuru trilogy etc) was a college student living only with her ex-cop father Haruo Yamashita (Lily Franky - Tokyo Swindlers TV series, Shoplifters etc) for years. On the Christmas eve, Komugi's father was found murdered on their burnt house. Haruo's old partner from the police, Detective Akazawa (Fujimoto Takahiro - Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning, Golden Kamuy 2 TV series etc) caught the culprit Endo Tomoya (Narita Ryo - Modern Love Tokyo anthology series etc) who was the son of convicted murderer of the whole Hayashikawa family that occurred 22 years before.

(2025) Nocturnal - A Slow-Paced Crime Thriller With Disappointing Few Unresolved Things

As one of the movies that I missed out during vacation with my wife, I tried to catch this one before it's gone. There were just 3 cinemas left playing this movie yesterday, so my wife and I went to the one easiest to access from our home. Well I'll just get right to it then.

Brief Story Line

When his beloved brother Seok-tae (Park Jong-hwan - Confidential Assignment 2: International, Taxi Driver 2 TV series etc) was found dead, Min-Tae (Ha Jung-woo - Hijack 1971, Take Point etc), a former convict decided to search for the truth. His first instinct was to find out what happened from Seok-tae's boss, gang leader Chang-mo (Jung Man-sik - I, The Executioner, Rampant etc). During his investigation, Min-tae also learnt that his brother's girlfriend Moo-young (Yoo Da-in - The Cave, Memorials TV series etc) was missing and started to look for her.

Den of Thieves 2: Pantera - Sequel to the 2018 Heist Action Movie that is Better Appreciated by Critics though Slightly Less Entertaining for Action Fans

When I saw the poster to this movie in the cinemas, I was quite surprised as I did not think the original was such a big hit that warrant a sequel. Plus we saw it quite long time ago (back in 2018) that my wife and I have completely forgotten the story. Anyway, we were still interested in seeing it in the theaters so we went ahead and do it yesterday. All right, I'll get on with it then.

Brief Story Line

After the events of the first movie, Big Nick (Gerard Butler - Kandahar, Last Seen Alive etc) found that the mastermind of the previous heist on Federal Reserves Bank, Donnie (O'Shea Jackson Jr. - Long Shot, Cocaine Bear etc) was planning another hit in Europe. After some brief investigation, Nick managed to find Donnie in Nice, France getting ready for a diamond heist.

(TV SERIES) Bad Monkey Season 1 - A Crime Drama Series with Some Nice Comedic Performance of Vince Vaughn

I was aware about this series on AppleTV+ few weeks ago and was interested since it starred Vince Vaughn who was known for his comedic nature. Since it was released an episode per week, I only began to watch three days ago as the finale was going to be available yesterday. And I managed to finish it last night. All right, let's get on with the series then.

Brief Story Line

Former Miami detective Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn - Freaky, The Internship etc) who was working as a Detective in Keys Florida had been suspended for some disciplinary problem and was later assigned as Food Inspector. When a severed arm was found by tourist, Yancy agreed to deliver it to the Miami's Medical Examiner Rosa (Natalie Martinez - Message From the King, The Crossing TV series etc) for checking against missing person case, as part of his ongoing mission to get reinstated. It was later found out that the arm belonged to the missing husband of Eve (Meredith Hagner - Vacation Friends, As The World Turns soap opera etc). Feeling suspicious of Eve who did not take long to have a new boyfriend Christopher (Rob Delaney - Deadpool & Wolverine, Tom & Jerry etc), Yancy dig further into the matter with the help from Rosa. 

(2024) Revolver - A Very Slow Paced Movie for Such a Simple Premise

Last weekend was a bit unexpected for me and my wife as we had limited options of films to see in the cinemas. I mentioned in my post before this that the films released in previous week were either gone or left with only few cinemas playing. Hence we decided to see this new movie that was available since mid of the week and played in several cinemas not far from our home. OK then, I will get on it.

Brief Story Line

Former police Ha Soo-young (Jeon Do-yeon - Kill Boksoon, The Good Wife TV series etc) was just released from prison after serving two years for taking the fall for high ranked officials. In return for prison time, she would be compensated with a certain amount of money promised by Andy (Ji Chang-Wook - Fabricated City, Welcome to Samdal-ri TV series etc) who worked for a large wealthy group called Easter Promise.

However, instead of meeting the people supposedly paying her, Soo-young was met by Madam Jung (Lim Ji-yeon - Spiritwalker. The Killing Vote TV series etc) whom she never saw before and was having trouble to acquire the money. Soo-young had no choice but to find ways to get the fund promised to her, despite all the danger she had to face.

(TV SERIES) Crash Season 1 - A Delightful and Entertaining Police Procedural Series with Some Well Executed Action and Pretty Awesome Story

While looking for something new on Disney+ a couple of months back, I noticed about this South Korean series that I felt had an interesting premise. As usual, I waited till all the episodes were released which was around two weeks ago. But since I was in the middle of something, I only started to watch last Sunday and finished it last night. OK, here's more on the series. 

Brief Story Line

The series focused on a team called Traffic Crime Investigation (TCI) that consisted of their leader Captain Jung (Heo Sung-tae - The Silent Sea TV series, Stellar etc), the very smart Detective Min So-hee (Kwak Sun-young - Moving TV series, Brain Works TV series etc), the automobile specialist Donggi (Lee Ho-chul - Earth Chronicles TV series etc) and the youngest Hyeon-geong (Choi Moon-hee - Duty After School TV series etc). In one of their cases, they encountered insurance investigator Cha Yeon-ho (Lee Min-ki - Decibel, The Lies Within TV series etc) who was investigating a fraud and later became the newest member of TCI.

24 Jam Bersama Gaspar - Not the Kind of Gritty Entertaining Movie for Casual Audience

Once again another new Indonesian movie was shown on Netflix which was never released in the cinemas. With a famous actor as the lead cast, I was obviously interested in watching it. So when it was available yesterday, I immediately gave it a try. OK, I will get on the movie now.

Brief Story Line (warning possible spoiler)

Story was set few decades in the future with a large gap between rich and poor and the impoverished had to live for scraps. Gaspar (Reza Rahadian - Berbalas Kejam, Benyamin Biang Kerok etc) was a detective who had been trying to locate his missing childhood friend for years. His investigation led him to Mrs. Yati (Dewi Irawan - Tabula Rasa, Sang Penari etc) and later a gold store owner named Wan Ali (Iswadi Pratama). Gaspar was also obsessed in a mysterious black box which happened to be inside Wan Ali's store. 

Sound of Freedom - A Heavy Crime Drama with Some Powerful Messages

This week there was no major Hollywood movies released in the cinemas while the Indonesia films were not of interest for me. But there was a film shown since Wednesday that I wanted to give a try. Since we were not having anything really important to do yesterday, we decided to go and see this movie. All right, let's get to it.

Brief Story Line

Tim Ballard (Jim Caviezel - Passion of the Christ, Person of Interest TV series etc), an agent for Homeland Security Investigations had been capturing pedophiles for years and finally realized that the children saved were too few. After apprehended the latest criminal and managed to save a victim who was the child of Roberto Aguilar (Jose Zuniga - Half Brothers, The Duel etc), Tim set his heart on saving other children. Despite not fully approved by his boss (Kurt Fuller - Evil TV series, Ghostbusters II etc), but Tim's wife Katherine (Mira Sorvino - Stuber, The Replacement Killers etc) truly understood and supported his decision.

The Post-Truth World - An Interesting Murder Mystery Movie with Plenty of Twists to Satisfy Those Who Like Such Attributes

After finishing the latest season of another series on Netflix, I was browsing for movie that I could watch casually. Somehow I stumbled across this Taiwanese film that looked interesting. And besides, it was on Chinese New Year, so I thought it would be fun to watch Mandarin language movie (even though it was not a pleasant type of film). Anyway, I will get right to it now.

Brief Story Line

Liu Li-min (Joseph Chang - Love Contractually, Village of no Return etc) was working in an online news media called True Standpoint where he need to get more subscribers to keep his show. When a convicted former softball rising star Zhang Zheng-yi (Edward Chen - Your Name Engraved Herein, Mermaid Sauna TV series etc) somehow escaped from jail, Li-min was caught in the middle and tried to make the most of it to gain popularity for his show.

(TV SERIES) The Lincoln Lawyer Season 1 - An Exciting Legal Drama Series with Interesting Court Room Drama and Some Mysteries

I have been intrigued with this series ever since it was released 10 days ago. But since I never got the chance to watch the movie version, I was thinking of watching it first before starting this. Sadly though, it's not available in any of the streaming platform I subscribed. So I decided to just go ahead watching the series and finally completed it last week. OK, let's get on with it then.

Brief Story Line

Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo - Murder on the Orient Express, Sweet Girl etc) was a defense attorney who was having personal issues in the past year and was very fortunate to have gotten a bunch of new clients that would restart his career. Supported by his ex-wife Lorna (Becki Newton - Ugly Betty TV series etc) and his investigator Cisco (Angus Sampson - Insidious movies etc), Mickey started to take over the cases of various clients from petty crime to the high profile murder case involving tech billionaire Trevor Elliot (Christopher Gorham - Insatiable TV series etc).

KIMI - A Unique Thriller Drama with Slow Start but Strong Ending

Yesterday I found out about this movie which was just released on HBO Go that intrigued me. It did not play in the cinemas but seemed to have interesting premise. All right, I'll get right to it then.

Brief Synopsis

Angela Childs (Zoë Kravitz - Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, The Divergent Series: Allegiant etc) was a tech worker working for a company that developed virtual assistant application called Kimi. Being an agoraphobic (see Notes below), Angela was not able to leave her apartment.

(TV Series) The Chestnut Man - Pretty Dark Mystery Thriller Series Based on Successful Danish Novel

This series was released more than a week ago but I just started to watch it in the last 3 days. The premise looked interesting enough about solving the case of mysterious killing. All right let's get more to it now.

Brief Story Line

Detective Naia Thulin (Danica Curcic - The Mist TV series etc) was planning to transfer to Cyber crime as she wanted to spend more time with her young daughter. But before she left, there was a new murder case in Copenhagen where the victim was a woman with one of her hand cut off and a small figurine made by chestnut left at the crime scene. Naia was asked to partner with Mark Hess (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard - A Perfectly Normal Family etc) to investigate the case where they were supported by the forensic guy Simon Genz (David Dencik - Chernobyl mini series etc).

No Sudden Move - Intriguing Movie with Amazing Story Telling though Sometimes a bit too Complicated

As I said in my earlier post, this weekend has been great for me since there were quite a lot of new movies/series released. This one was actually released on Thursday, but I only got the chance to watch it yesterday since this one felt a bit heavy and I prefer to watch it when it was a full holiday like on Saturday. Anyway, will go straight to it.

Brief Story Line

Three small time criminals, i.e. Curt Goynes (Don Cheadle - Ocean's 8 etc), Ronald Russo (Benicio Del Toro - Sicario: Day of the Soldado etc) and Charley (Kieran Culkin - Igby Goes Down etc) were hired by Jones (Brendan Fraser - Doom Patrol TV series etc) to do a simple job. The job was related to Matt Wertz (David Harbour - Sleepless etc) who worked in a major company, but it also impacted his wife Mary (Amy Seimetz - Pet Sematary 2019 version etc) and their children Matthew (Noah Jupe - The Undoing mini series etc) & Peggy (Lucy Holt).