‘Secret Mall Apartment’ (2024)
Jeremy Workman’s documentary recounts the antics of eight Rhode Island artists who in 2003 covertly built and lived in a hidden 750-square-foot apartment within the Providence Place Mall. To build the secret enclosure within a dead space in the massive mall, the team had to smuggle in cinder blocks and furniture. The apartment remained undetected for more than four years. The focal point of the film is Michael Townsend, a Rhode Island School of Design instructor, installation artist and something of a merry pied piper who sees the world as his canvas. Earlier Townsend projects include a creepy-cool community of mannequins in a post-apocalyptic setting under an overpass and along an industrial canal, as well as a 9/11 memorial depicting the faces of the fallen. The mall apartment, by default, was something more whimsical, and those involved videotaped the progress on grainy lo-res camcorders. Some of the banter about sacrifice for art and commercialism amid a retail center provokes, coming most to an edge when Townsend and his then wife, Adriana Valdez, one of the eight, get into a jocular tiff about life goals and values – she wants to build a real house in the world. The apartment, replicated on a soundstage for the documentary, makes a nice backdrop for the talking-head testimonials of Townsend and others, but it borders on the cheesy when Townsend acts out moments from the past. The apartment became second-tier national news when exposed; when asked then if he’d been curating a piece of art or living in the mall out of necessity, Townsend gleefully says, essentially, “life is art and art is life.” The son of military parents, Townsend makes for an intriguing character study in real time, archival footage and cheeky reenactment. (Tom Meek) At the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square.
‘Warfare’ (2025)
The brutality of war gets put on trial in the latest from director Alex Garland (“Men,” “Ex Machina”) working alongside Ray Mendoza, a 16-year Navy Seal and military consultant on movies such “The Outpost” (2019) and “Mile 22” (2018) who takes on more creative responsibilities here as co-director and co-writer. Mendoza worked in his former capacity on Garland’s last project, “Civil War” (2024), which eerily depicted a divided United States in the near dystopian future as a president tries to cling to a third term. Here, the two toss fiction aside for a reenactment of a 2006 Navy Seal surveillance mission in Ramadi, Iraq, that goes horribly off script when local jihadists ID the team and strategize an all-out assault on the platoon. It’s “Black Hawk Down” (2001) by way of “Assault on Precinct 13” (1976). As billed in the opening credits, the narrative is stitched together from the memories of those who endured the ever-surging siege – including Mendoza. As in “Black Hawk,” the filmmakers embed you with the team as it takes fire from unseen assailants on adjacent roofs or as IEDs explode, disorient and maim. (A content warning for grim scenes are a given.) The sound editing and subjective POVs are adroitly effective and the ensemble gives gritty goes from top to bottom, led by Will Poulter (also onscreen in an entirely different role in “Death of a Unicorn,” reviewed below) as a shellshocked squad leader; D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (“Reservation Dogs”) as Mendoza; and Charles Melton, so good in “May December” (2023), as the leader of the support squad called in for the evac. As the credits roll, you’ll see the real-life Seals alongside their thespian counterparts, though some real-life faces are blurred out. This perplexed me until I went to the press notes, which cited privacy, consent (not all were reached during the filmmaking process) and security concerns (both personal and because some are still in the service). (Tom Meek) At Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge, and AMC Assembly Row 12, 395 Artisan Way, Assembly Square, Somerville.
‘The Amateur’ (2025)
When an action thriller opens with a scene of wedded bliss, as “The Amateur” does between Charlie Heller (Rami Malek) and his lovely wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), we know in a beat it will never last. Sure enough, Sarah is almost immediately killed in a terrorist attack and a grief-stricken Charlie, an IT geek at the CIA, uses his tech savvy to swiftly identify her killers. When his bosses decline to take speedy action, Charlie takes matters into his own hands, relying on his wits and his mastery of the 21st century surveillance state to embark upon a globetrotting mission of revenge. Though its marketing buzz might suggest a high-octane beat-em-up in the “John Wick” vein, the film – based on a Ron Littell novel that was first made into movie in 1981 starring John Savage – this is something more old-fashioned, hearkening back to the glossy thrillers that dominated the 1990s (“Ransom” and all things Tom Clancy). It’s at its best when it leans into the pulpiness of the material; Laurence Fishburne and Holt McCallany are clearly having a ball as the square-jawed G-men on Charlie’s trail, as is Michael Stuhlbarg as the vaguely European mercenary he’s pursuing. Unfortunately, Rami Malek is no ’90s action hero, lacking either the everyperson charisma of a Bruce Willis (“Armageddon”) or the entertaining nerdiness of a Jeff Goldblum (“Jurassic Park” flicks). Malek is a compelling actor, but his marble-mouthed deadpan is ill-suited to a role that requires notes of heartbreak and steely rage. Ultimately, “The Amateur” makes an amusing turn toward black comedy as Charlie, lacking the prowess or the nerve to kill his adversaries face to face, instead uses their habits and weaknesses against them – a scene in which he leverages a perpetrator’s chronic allergies against him recalls the Grand Guignol theatrics of “The Abominable Dr. Phibes” (1971). But these flourishes are too often drowned out by the film’s dour tone and overwrought, constantly chugging score. “The Amateur” is diverting enough but ultimately forgettable, the sort of film with which one might pass a lazy afternoon on TNT – a summertime hit from the 1990s. (Oscar Goff) At the Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge, and AMC Assembly Row 12, 395 Artisan Way, Assembly Square, Somerville.
‘Drop’ (2025)
A semi-effective, one-trick thriller that delivers for a good stretch, arduously turning the screw on Violet, a single mom (Meghann Fahy, “White Lotus”) on a first date with a promising prospect (a generic but amiable Brandon Sklenar). Someone in the swank high-rise Chi-town restaurant they’ve met at has targeted Violet by airdropping (thus the title) prankish memes to her phone that become more ominous, dark and foreboding as the small talk and Malbec go down. Initially Violet lets Henry in on the strange happenings; then she gets a text telling her to look at her home security camera, seeing a masked man beat the stuffing out of her sister Jen (Violett Beane), who’s been called in for babysitting duty, and stand outside her son’s bedroom door with a big-ass silencer. Violet must do whatever she is commanded and not tell anyone of the duress she’s under, ask for help or call the police – otherwise the kid gets it. Before he’s frozen out, Henry tells us that you can “drop” only within a 50-foot radius, so whoever is behind the “Saw”-like machination has to be someone in the posh, sky-high eatery. The ferreting-out process and raising of the stakes by director Christopher Landon, who’s been involved with the “Paranormal Activity” films, is effective and well handled until cards start to get laid down. Once you start to glean the what and why, the provocative premise becomes instantly ridiculous and implodes. It’s not to hard to get ahead of the script, too; we went down this path with M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Trap” last year. Fahy holds it together as much as she can, working overtime to convey repressed fear while her Violet tries to carry on first-date formalities with a twinkle and smile that are just a tad off. (Tom Meek) At Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge, Apple Cinemas Cambridge, 168 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge Highlands near Alewife and Fresh Pond, and AMC Assembly Row 12, 395 Artisan Way, Assembly Square, Somerville.
Cambridge writer Tom Meek’s reviews, essays, short stories and articles have appeared in WBUR’s The ARTery, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe, The Rumpus, The Charleston City Paper and SLAB literary journal. Tom is also a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics and rides his bike everywhere.
Oscar Goff is a writer and film critic based in Somerville. He is film editor and senior critic for the Boston Hassle and his work has appeared in the monthly Boston Compass newspaper and publications such as WBUR’s The ARTery and iHeartNoise. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society.
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