movie review – CodyLWrites

When it comes to English crime shows, I’m pretty much always in. If there’s anything that ‘Broadchurch’ and ‘Luther’ taught us, it’s that the British sure as hell know how to make a damn good crime show. So, as soon as this show called ‘Keeping Faith’ popped up on ‘ABC iView’, I brought out the popcorn. But, just how faithful is ‘Keeping Faith’ (Get it? Faith… ‘Keeping Faith’… never mind…) to England’s brilliant crime show record?

‘Keeping Faith’ is an English thriller staring Eva Myles as Faith, a lawyer and mother of three who’s life gets thrown upside down as her husband fails to return home from a seemingly normal day’s work at their shared law firm. It’s soon discovered there’s more to this disappearance than it seems, and Faith becomes determined to discover her husband’s whereabouts. However, with a rag-tag band of clients and a police officer hot on her back, finding her husband becomes harder than she’d ever thought.

Overall, I was actually a little disappointed with ‘Keeping Faith’. The acting was excellent, especially from the gorgeous and equally as talented Eva Miles, and the plot did drag me in enough to watch an entire season, but in the end, it just didn’t feel like it paid off. The characters were relatively shallow, the dialogue was pretty average and the plot was all over the place to say the least. At times, it looks like its about to go somewhere and in the next scene, it’s forgotten all together. Overall (spoiler alert), we end up with more questions than we do answers.

And before you say anything: yes, I am aware there’s a second season. It hasn’t turned up on Australian shores yet – we’ve actually just finished the first season over here – but I’m sure we’ll be getting it sooner or later. The problem is, I just don’t know how invested in a second season I really am. From what I got in the first season, this show is one of those types of shows that’s essentially designed to keep going season after season until it ends up getting canned. If it had’ve just ended with some kind of resolution to the whole mystery, maybe I’d be interested in a second season, but it seems like all shows these days are terrified of loosing their audience if the mystery isn’t still dangling in front of them. All it takes is a quick look to shows like ‘Broadchurch’ to see how viewership still rallies for finalised shows if they’re still done well, but ‘Keeping Faith’ seems far more interested in dragging it’s viewers along by the hairs in some slight hope of a conclusion than it does in making a great show.

Overall, ‘Keeping Faith’ is by no means a bad show. It’s got excellent acting, good cinematography and a story interesting enough to keep you watching each episode, but in the end, I was left disappointed. Whether or not the second season picks up the plot, I’ll have to wait and see.

Find Season One of ‘Keeping Faith’ at:
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/keeping-faith

I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t really the biggest fan of the ‘Halloween’ franchise before seeing this movie. Watching a ton of classic horror movies was something I’d always wanted to do, but I just never got around to actually sitting down and watching them. It wasn’t until I saw the trailer for David Gordon Green’s 2018 Halloween that I decided it was time to bite the bullet and watch the original John Carpenter classic. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good film – the story was fantastic and Michael Myers was just as iconic a villain as I wanted him to be – but as somebody who was born about twenty years after its release, it just didn’t hit me the way it hit people who grew up with the franchise. So I guess you could say my expectations weren’t all that high. I was excited to see it, sure, but I wasn’t putting all my hopes and dreams in it.

But, believe it or not, this film pleasantly surprised me. Sure, it definitely had its faults. There were a few plot inconsistencies, a couple of useless characters – who you know are going to end up brutally murdered from the moment they’re introduced – and a ton of cliche plot devices that are more predictable than your cat biting you when you pet its stomach (I mean, come on, it’s practically a death wish). Some of the throw-backs to the original were a little overbearing and a few of the choices characters made were enough to make you either roll your eyes or scream at the screen. But, oddly enough, no matter how many flaws this film had, it still worked.

Jamie Lee Curtis once again was a work of art as the hardened survivor of the original Halloween, Laurie Strode. With combat skills, a recently acquired taste for vengeance, and a spooky knowledge of Michael Myers’ ways, Laurie transforms from iconic scream queen to Myers’ worse nightmare. However, with an edge of fear and intensive preparation, Laurie’s not just your average horror-movie-warrior, reminding us of the terrified origins of poor, innocent Laurie Strode in the original John Carpenter feature.

And Michael Myers? He’s… well… Michael Myers. The horrifying killer eerily mimics his 1978 self, throwing audiences back into the good old days of dead eyes, silence and an impossible sense of immortality ‘the boogieman’ was always known for being. With a mask reminiscent of the first – the good old ravished William Shatner mask – everything audiences loved from the first is completely replicated into this new and brilliantly frightening film.

Sure, it might not be a masterpiece, but 2018’s Halloween is the most fun you’ll have in a horror movie this year. It’s unrealistic, it’s completely cliched, but more importantly, it’s a cat-and-mouse slasher that will keep you on the edge of your feet until the credits roll.

Tag: movie review

‘Keeping Faith’ Season One Review

2018’s ‘Halloween’ is Ridiculously Fun