TIFF Day 6

Film Recommendation / GWH (1997) x HH (2015)

‘Good Will Hunting,‘ and ‘Hardcore Henry.‘ Giving you both barrels here. One barrel is filled with a precocious writing team, the other with extreme violence as framing device.

‘Good Will Hunting.‘ There’s so much packed into this film, it’s hard to focus on only one aspect. I’ll say only this: experiencing this film as a middle-aged man I recognize the talent on display in the writing of the script. It’s hard to believe two twenty-somethings produced such a well balanced, emotionally informed work.

‘Hardcore Henry,’ is an exceptional work of action cinema. It spends the first few scenes fighting its way past your preconceptions. The first-person camera work looks like a gimmick at first. The explosions, the guns, the sci-fi elements all work in collaboration to tell a story we need to hear.

Perspective is the touchstone here. Layering in the element of time, we have the opportunity to ask some important questions. If you’re not able to come up with any of these yourself, I have no idea what you’re doing here.

(If you’ve not yet seen ‘Hardcore Henry,’ I recommend not viewing the trailer and just watching it cold.)