Logan Lerman Archives | Deep Focus Review

Oh, Hi!

Brian Eggert — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 21:17:54 +0000

“I did a thing,” confesses Molly Gordon’s Iris, the sympathetic if somewhat unhinged protagonist of Oh, Hi!, a familiar, convoluted rom-com that escalates into bad-sitcom level absurdity. When Iris and Isaac (Logan Lerman) escape to a picturesque farmhouse—singing the Dolly Parton-Kenny Rogers duet “Islands in the Stream” in the car like an old married couple—their weekend trip brings some details about their relationship status to light. The “thing” she admits to over the phone, speaking to her best friend Max (Geraldine Viswanathan), is that she has chained Isaac to the headboard and refuses to release him. It started as playful bondage and good sex, until he remarked that he didn’t consider them boyfriend-girlfriend. “I’m not really looking for a relationship,” he says, after four months of dating. And so, Iris has resolved to leave him there, hoping that he might come around after twelve hours or so. This twisted look at modern dating from writer-director Sophie Brooks is the kind of insufferable movie where, if the characters just had a quick conversation to clarify their feelings, they could have avoided everything that follows. But then, of course, there wouldn’t be a movie—meaning Oh, Hi! exists to perpetuate itself. Brooks lays […]

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Bullet Train

Brian Eggert — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 00:53:29 +0000

Bullet Train is proof that a star-studded cast can distract from a movie’s faults—mostly. If someone other than Brad Pitt starred, this review would read much harsher. But Pitt brings his considerable charm and presence to a nothing role as a hired criminal on Japan’s high-speed Shinkansen. He travels from Tokyo to Kyoto along with a passenger list of (primarily non-Japanese, conspicuously so) professional killers played by Brian Tyree Henry, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Joey King, and plenty more familiar faces and surprise cameos. Given the pulpy concept and wacky execution by director David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, 2017), it’s surprising that screenwriter Zak Olkewicz adapted Bullet Train from a novel—Kotaro Isaka’s Maria Beetle from 2010. The result feels more like Guy Ritchie applied his aesthetic to a manga. At 126 minutes, the movie is overlong and drags in the final stretch, but there’s enough mindless action and playful energy here for Pitt’s admirers to enjoy. Just don’t expect this zippy yarn crammed with ironic humor to deliver anything remotely original or be memorable beyond its duration. The setup recalls Smokin’ Aces (2006), Hotel Artemis (2018), Gunpowder Milkshake (2021), or the John Wick series—movies that take place in a secret underworld of ruthless […]

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Shirley

Brian Eggert — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 20:02:45 +0000

Shirley was adapted from Susan Scarf Merrell’s 2014 novel of the same name, and screenwriter Sarah Gubbins employs a narrative structure that makes good use of director Josephine Decker’s style. The screen story might be viewed as somewhat conventional stuff, reminiscent of many other biopics about famous authors as seen through the eyes of a younger admirer. Its subject, beleaguered author Shirley Jackson, is played to incredible effect by Elisabeth Moss, in a performance that captures the troubled headspace of her character. Decker’s film takes place, most of the time anyway, from the perspective of the eponymous author whose delirium stems from bouts of severe depression, alcoholism, and pill-popping. Shirley doesn’t so much encapsulate Jackson’s life as give it definition through the process of writing Hangsaman, her second novel, published in 1951 and based on the real-life disappearance of a student named Paula Jean Welden, who never returned from a woodland walk. What follows is a blend of fact and fiction that allows the viewer to understand the author’s sometimes warped perspective; however, her behavior may be the only rational response given her surroundings. The film takes place in a small Vermont town adjacent to Bennington College, where Shirley’s husband, […]

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Fury

Brian Eggert — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 00:00:36 +0000

Director David Ayer makes no exceptions for his American exceptionalist Fury, a World War II story about a five-man American tank crew facing off against a legion of German soldiers. Usually associated with Los Angeles urban crime dramas (Harsh Times, Street Kings, End of Watch), Ayer applies his sense of situational realism with his affinity for Hollywood-style dramatics in this gritty war picture. While costumes, machinery, and on-location landscapes all contain a striking verisimilitude, the film isn’t mined from history, but rather Ayer’s palpable appreciation of classic war yarns, namely those by Samuel Fuller (Steel Helmet, The Big Red One), that were churned out one after another during Hollywood’s Golden Age. It’s familiar material—macho men perform bravely and carry out their duties regardless of the absurdity of their orders, exclaiming, “Best job I ever had!” as they mow down Nazis at the tail end of WWII, circa April 1945. It’s all very gung-ho stuff, with a few poignant moments to curb the rampant jingoism. Ayer’s well-researched setup concerns the bond between soldiers who, despite their disparate ‘real world’ walks of life, form a connection when fighting alongside one another on the front lines. Brad Pitt plays Sgt. Don “Wardaddy” Collier, […]

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Noah

Brian Eggert — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 00:00:37 +0000

In Noah, director Darren Aronofsky mines the flood myth of Genesis—though its origins derive from older mythologies in ancient Mesopotamia—and presents a picture of epic scope. Central to the film is an existential dilemma for the titular biblical hero, played with much ferocity and gravitas by Russell Crowe. Aronofsky’s rugged and battle-ready version of Noah approaches madness in his struggle to understand his instructions from God, just as the director’s obsessed protagonists from Pi (1998) and The Fountain (2006) endeavored to comprehend their respective origins. But whenever modern interpretations suggest anyone in the Christian Bible might’ve questioned orders from above, the devoutly religious invariably respond with accusations of sacrilege (case in point: reactions to The Last Temptation of Christ), and Aronofsky’s impressive $130 million production backed by Paramount Pictures hasn’t been immune to such impassioned indictments from various religious groups after early screenings. Amid several points that will undoubtedly offend the pious masses is an unexpected reading of the Old Testament that attempts, albeit clumsily, to link allegorical scripture and evolution science. And along with its fantasy-inflected battles and heavy environmentalist commentary, the film is likely to incite keen discussion more than outright protests; but as a result of Aronofsky’s […]

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The Three Musketeers

Brian Eggert — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:00:45 +0000

Taking a break from videogame adaptations and sci-fi horror, director Paul W.S. Anderson tries his hand at period adventure with The Three Musketeers, a sour swashbuckler on par with Cutthroat Island, or more appropriately, The Man in the Iron Mask. Anderson’s blindly enthusiastic production feels like something straight out of The Rocketeer’s mid-1990s style. It’s backed by an eclectic cast, some genuine talents and others not too genuine, and that’s a good way to describe this film: several genuinely entertaining moments, and others so ineffective or so over-the-top that the result never feels congruous. Revamping Alexandre Dumas’ classic tale, Anderson “modernizes” the proceedings with hot-air flying ships, flamethrowers, and his wife, Milla Jovovich, running through trap-laden corridors of gunfire and razor-sharp wire (as opposed to lasers). Afterward, any sane moviegoer will be left scratching their head and asking themselves what the hell just happened. The absurdity begins with a narrated prologue that notes how the enduring conflict between England and France marks the coming “apocalypse.” One expects at any moment, typical Anderson zombies will come barreling out onto Paris’ streets as they did in Raccoon City, but perhaps he’s saving that development for the sequel—which, based on the epilogue, Anderson […]

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Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Brian Eggert — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:00:55 +0000

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief recalls J.K. Rowling’s mythical world of wizards and witches so closely, it’s best used as a reminder of why the Harry Potter-verse works so well. Based on Rick Riordan’s derivative series of teen novels, this is a by-the-numbers fantasy adventure that merges the modern world with a magical one. It’s the kind of movie where the teenage hero, who has just discovered he has unimaginable power at his fingertips, remains hip to the teen target audience by wearing a hoodie. Uncountable would-be franchises have tried the same tactic, forgetting that the most appealing aspect of a fantasy film is the escape. Involving all manner of notable figures from Greek mythology, the story brings gods and half-blood demigods into a contemporary setting, whereas Harry Potter places modern adolescents into a magical world that the audience explores along with its hero. There’s a distinct difference in the approach and an even more distinctive upshot. In one, we’re transported into a narrative bound by discovery, whereas the other suggests the ancient gods are content with hanging around various locales in America. Pitting teenage demigods against the apathy-driven Lotus-eaters of Las Vegas just seems silly, and […]

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Gamer

Brian Eggert — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:00:38 +0000

In the not-too-distant future, video games have become truly interactive. Everyone’s logging on to play “Slayers,” the hip new ultra-real first-person shooter whose participants control actual people as their game characters. Death row prisoners “volunteer” to be the i-cons for gaming dorks who pride themselves on their accomplishments in the virtual world more than those in the real one. The prisoners fight to win their potential freedom after 30 successful games, although, of course, no prisoner has ever won. Most of them die during the authentic violence of the game, saving the federal government backers the cost of a lethal injection. This is the world of Gamer, the absurd new actioner from the even more absurd directing duo of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, co-helmers of Crank and Crank: High Voltage. Aside from pilfering their ideas from The Running Man and Death Race, they’ve made a hostile movie that pretends to contain some semblance of criticism toward escalating videogame brutality and social detachment. But its commentary is presented underneath an orgy of Hollywood movie violence and gratuitous boob close-ups. This oxymoronic approach explains why the filmmakers have resisted prescreening their films for critics. Gerard Butler stars as Kable, the top […]

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The Number 23

Brian Eggert — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:00:33 +0000

With The Number 23, Jim Carrey once again works under director Joel Schumacher to create a nauseatingly absurd film (their previous picture together was the overzealous Batman Forever). The film follows a dogcatcher named Walter Sparrow (Carrey) whose wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen) buys him a used book entitled The Number 23 on his birthday. The book tells the story of a detective named Fingerling who Walter believes to be uncannily similar to himself. Walter investigates the similarities through the mathematical phenomenon of 23, introduced to him in the pages of the novel. There’s a profusion of creepy real-life coincidences related to the number; most of them are mathematical tricks. When you add the numbers 9/11/2-0-0-1, they equal 23 (but that’s only if you count 11 as 11 and not as 1 and 1, as it forces you to do with 2001). Hundreds of names, numbers, alphabet, and historical associations behind the number link create an unsettling set of coincidences. The film’s skeptic, a college professor played by Danny Huston, explains that when people want and need to find a connection between two things, they usually do. Beyond that, the film offers no explanation to the number 23 phenomenon, or its […]

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