These are the worst films of the year (different list) – but the ones that I walked in hoping for something a lot more than I got.
American Made (Doug Limon) should have at the very least been a lot of fun – but after about an hour, it starts to repeat itself and grows dull. The Assignment (Walter Hill) doesn’t even get what Hill normally does well – action – right, and would be downright offensive, if it wasn’t so silly. Beatriz at Dinner (Miguel Arteta) is an okay film, but given the fact that the director/writer team of Miguel Arteta/Mike White previously gave us Chuck & Buck and The Good Girl, it doesn’t come close to reaching those levels. The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography (Errol Morris) is probably Errol Morris’ worse doc – and it’s still pretty good – but given he is one of the best filmmakers the genre has ever produced, making an average doc qualifies as a disappointment. Dark Night (Tim Sutton) should be the type of film that is right up my alley – an examination of a mass shooting – except it’s so shallow that it actually borders on offensive. David Lynch The Art Life (Jon Nguyen/Rick Barnes/Olivia Neergaard-Holm) is a not very interesting portrait of one of the most interesting people in the world – it looks good though. Despicable Me 3 (Pierre Coffin & Kyle Balba & Eric Guillon) cannot even live up to the average Despicable Me 2 – and is miles below the immense charm of the original – I think I’m over this whole series. Detroit (Kathryn Bigelow) has an absolutely brilliant middle hour – and is surrounded by below average stuff – and comes nowhere close to The Hurt Locker or Zero Dark Thirty, the last two Bigelow/Boal films. The Foreigner (Martin Campbell) isn’t the best work for the usually solid Campbell – or his star, Jackie Chan, who can still handle action, but not the dramatics asked of him. The Great Wall (Zhang Yimou) continues Zhang Yimou’s backslide – and even if the movie is one of his largest budget movies, does confirm his best days are likely behind him. Ghost in the Shell (Rupert Sanders) there is no reason why a live action Ghost in the Shell would not work – but it’s not going to work like this. I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach) is probably only a disappointment since it’s a Palme D’or winner – it is Loach’s best in a long time – and also, the weakest Palme winner in a long time. An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power (Bonni Cohen & Jon Shenk) didn’t have the impact – on any level – of its Oscar winning predecessor. Jigsaw (Spierig Brothers) brings the famous horror franchise back with a whimper, not a bang. The Lego Ninjago Movie (Charlie Bean & Paul Fisher & Bob Logan) showed in just the third entry in the Lego franchise that they are not bulletproof – they have to take some risks, as this is already getting overly familiar. The Most Hated Woman in America (Tommy O’Haver) has a terrific true crime case to work with, and Melissa Leo in what should be a plum role – but it really was lifeless. Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh) just never quite finds its footing, even if it’s handsomely mounted, and well-acted – especially by Branagh himself. Prevenge (Alice Lowe) had such an amazing idea – a woman’s unborn child tells her to kill – that the fact that the movie ended up being just okay left be disappointed. Rings (F. Javier Gutierrez) should have at least been a guilty pleasure – instead it was awful. Salt and Fire (Werner Herzog) is another Herzog dramatic disappointment – I’d rather he stick to docs at this point. The Snowman (Tomas Alfredson) has a talented cast and director, and is absolutely awful. Staying Vertical (Alain Guiraudie) was he polar opposite of Guiraudie’s last film, Stranger by the Lake, and I have to say, I liked the last one. Table 19 (Jeff Blitz) brings back together Anna Kendrick and her Rocket Science director (which is where I first noticed her) for a disappointing dramedy. The Unknown Girl (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) is easily the weakest Dardenne movie ever – which means it’s merely good. War on Everyone (John Michael McDonagh) is a very bad buddy cop/action/comedy – how the hell the writer/director of the very good The Guard and even better Calvary came up with this, I have no idea. XX (Jovanka Vockovic/Annie Clark/Roxanne Benjamin/Karyn Kusama) is such a great idea – four female filmmakers all making female centric horror films, but the result doesn’t work at all.
10 Most Disappointing
10. Roman J. Israel, Esq. (Dan Gilroy)
Longtime screenwriter Dan Gilroy’s directorial debut – Nightcrawler – was on my top ten list a few years ago – and was a brilliant L.A. set neo-noir, with fine performances by Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo and Riz Ahmed. His follow-up is this absolute mess of a film – with Denzel Washington as the title character, a lawyer on the autism spectrum (although those words are never spoken) who is forced outside his comfort zone, and messes things up pretty royalty. The film is mess – I’m still not quite sure what the film was attempting to do, and no matter how good Denzel is (and I’m not sure how good he is, but he is as watchable as ever, and makes the whole thing interesting) he cannot save it. I still want to see what Gilroy does next – the man who made Nightcrawler gets a lot of leeway with me – but this is certainly a case of a sophomore slump – and a bad one.9. Wilson (Craig Johnson)
Daniel Clowes’ Wilson is one of the greatest graphic novels ever written – a bitterly funny book about a lonely guy, who is annoying, antisocial, and more than little pathetic. It was an original character, in an original form. Craig Johnson turns that novel into a paint-by-numbers Sundance dramedy – which is probably just about the worst thing I can imagine. He wastes a good cast – especially Woody Harrelson in the title role, who makes this Wilson far too cheery for the films good. Now, had Johnson found another interesting, entertaining way to tell the story, it would be fine – it wouldn’t be Clowes’ Wilson, but then again, no film version would. But he doesn’t – so what we end up with is a boring, dull, unfunny Sundance comedy – and we have enough of those, not based on brilliant source material. 8. The Discovery (Charles McDowell)
Charlie McDowell’s debut film – The One I Love – is a one-of-a-kind, smart funny, insightful film about a couple who go away for a weekend away together to reconnect – and discover something wholly unexpected. It was one of my favorite debuts from a few years ago. His follow-up to that film is this endlessly dull film in which brilliant scientist Robert Redford finds a way to prove the afterlife – leading to unexpected consequences. The film sounds likes another original blend of insight and science fiction – but the film is more than a little bit of a slog, with a horrible ending. Jason Segal in the lead role doesn’t help – and not even Rooney Mara (one of my absolute favorites) can save this. I the idea is interesting, but the execution doesn’t work. Here’s hoping that this is a hiccup for McDowell (not to mention writer Justin Lader, who wrote both movies, and they’re back on track with their next film. 7. Downsizing (Alexander Payne)
Up until Downsizing, Alexander Payne had really good resume of films – mostly small, comedy dramas like Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, The Descendants and Nebraska – are all quite good, and frequently great. You cannot fault his ambition with Downsizing – a kind of sci-fi comedy, set in a world where people can shrink themselves down to a very small size to help the environment, and all the strange stuff that happens because of that. The film is visually ambitious, and really does try to throw just about everything at the screen to see what will stick. The problem is, not much does – and the result is a busy, confused mess of a film. Parts work, most doesn’t. It is, at least, the kind of interesting failure you remember – but given the consistent level of Payne’s output, this is a pretty major disappointment. 6. Wonder Wheel (Woody Allen)
This isn’t the first time that I’ve had a Woody Allen film on my most disappointing list – he clearly is one of the great filmmakers of all time, but the last 20 years has been full of ups and downs. This is the first time in a long time though that I felt truly icky watching an Allen film – as he has made a film about a washed up actress, who has destroyed one husband, and is on the way to doing the same thing to another, when she discovers her lover (Justin Timberlake) is interested in her stepdaughter, and does something truly awful in response. It would be easier to dismiss the film if there weren’t good things in it – Kate Winslet’s performance, and Vittorio Storaro’s stunning cinematography chief among them. It’s getting harder and harder to separate the art from the artist in many cases – and Allen is one of them. 5. War Machine (David Michod)
David Michod blew me away with his debut film – the Australian crime thriller Animal Kingdom back in 2010, and his follow-up, The Rover (2014) was also gripping, dark, and wonderful. Even though I thought the idea of him making a military satire was a strange choice, I still thought he was talented enough to pull it off. Instead, the result, is a confused mishmash of tones – with a fiercely committed, but not exactly good performance by Brad Pitt at its core. The film, focusing on the brief tenure of Pitt’s General Glen McMahon being in charge of the war in Afghanistan. The film tries to remain apolitical and play things right down the middle, while at the same time being a comedy, and a hard hitting looking at war. Nothing every really comes together – so the few scenes that work really well seem like flukes. Michod is a fine director – he’ll recover – but War Machine was a major disappointment.4. Death Note (Adam Wingard)
Adam Wingard directed You’re Next – one of my favorite straight ahead horror films of the decade so far, and The Guest – a John Carpenter inspired thriller so good I put it on my top 10 list of the year a couple years ago. He also made the not great, but still effective Blair Witch sequel/prequel/reboot/remake or whatever it was last year. In short, he’s talented, so him making a teenage horror film, based on a popular anime series, should at have least been fun. Instead, the film is a horrible mess – it seems like Wingard has completely forgotten how to direct a scene, and the cast (aside from Lakeith Stanfield) are basically dull, boring drips. And why did a horror film have outtakes in the final credits? Strange choice. I still want to see what Wingard does next – but this does damper those expectation a little. 3. Suburbicon (George Clooney)
Normally a collaboration between George Clooney and the Coens is a reason to celebrate (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Intolerable Cruelty, Burn After Reading, Hail, Caesar!) – But this time, the result is a complete mess. Clooney used a decade’s old, unproduced Coens script as a jumping off point – a satire of 1950s suburbia, with dark, family dynamics at its core – adds a racial subplot, and tries to make a film that is both horrible and hilarious – but instead nothing ever comes together. Matt Damon is horribly miscast in the lead role – that requires him to be completely heartless and cruel – and it doesn’t work. Nothing – aside from Julianne Moore and especially Oscar Isaac – really works, and the result is movie that really did cut together into a good trailer – but as a movie, the film is a stylish misfire. I’m really starting to wonder about Clooney as a director – who hasn’t come close to matching his first two films in more than a decade now. 
2. The Bad Batch (Ana Lily Amirpour)
Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut film – A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night – was a Jim Jarmusch flavored, Iranian, vampire Western – a true original, and an announcement of a major new talent. Her follow-up – a Mad Max type dystopian cannibal, horror film set in the desert, is a mess. In many ways, this is what happens often to second time filmmakers after they found success with their first film – they really try to cram everything into one film, and the result is a mess. There is a lot to admire about the film itself – it is ambitious, it must be said – and there are lots of interesting things to see watching the film. Yet, the whole film felt empty to me – as if there was nothing behind it, nothing to say. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was imperfect, but it was an announcement of a major talent – a filmmaker with something to say. I just hope The Bad Batch isn’t a sign that the film is a one film wonder.
1. The Dinner (Oren Moverman)
Honestly, it should be nearly impossible to screw up a film version of Herbert Koch’s The Dinner. The film is basically four actors, sitting around in a fancy restaurant, talking around the horrible thing their kids did before they have to confront it. It should be, if nothing else, an actor’s showcase, with four meaty roles. The flashbacks add violence, and targets both large and small. And yet, talented writer/director Oren Moverman someone manages to screw this movie up royally. Part of it is miscasting Steve Coogan in the film’s most crucial role – but there are other parts, underwriting one of the key roles, which means Rebecca Hall has nothing to do. The book already hits out in all directions, Moverman decides that he needs to tackle even grander themes about America and its violent past. The whole thing is a pretentious mess of a movie. You really shouldn’t be able to screw up this novel, this badly.
