ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR (C-minus) - A fun romp from 2018 didn't need a sequel and certainly not this spectacle. At least director Paul Feig and his cast got a free extended trip to Capri to rekindle the story of mommy influencer Stephanie and the mysterious, reckless Emily.
"A Simple Favor" had juicy performances from Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively and was clever enough to keep a viewer tuned in. It was incoherent in spots but entertaining and worth the effort. This sequel is a hot mess, and a cynical one at that. The same writing team from the original (with help from a third) churns the dialogue darker and nastier, a group of women trying to out-bro their writing colleagues.
The body count is higher and the blood flows more freely as Stephanie (Kendrick) tags along to Capri with Emily (Lively), who is marrying an Italian mobster with a secret. He has a mean mother, and Emily is confronted with her own acidic aunt (Allison Janney, in one of those horrible roles she just can't resist) from the family's convoluted past. A sister of Emily's will show up (Lively doing a ditzy turn as a dimwit), and poor Elizabeth Perkins mugs through the sunset of her career in a bad wig as Emily's addled mom.
This is the kind of movie in which a father/ex-husband will be brutally murdered but the wedding will go on the next day, with barely a shrug from his adolescent son. On three different occasions characters are given needle injections, including a scene of Kendrick enduring a "truth serum" that turns her giddy, straight out of an episode of "Get Smart." Janney holds a gun to the kid's head, who rolls his eyes at her antics. LOL!
The original had a tenuous grip on reality and struck a balance between mean and playful. But this barrage of putdowns, with a plot that plays with incest and foul-mouthed children, is dark and disturbing. Feig shows off his epic drone-shot skills and drools over the scenery. But there is no joy in paradise.
THE SUN CHILDREN (2020) (A-minus) - A confident child actor anchors a whipsmart story about street-hustling kids in Tehran who enroll in a school in order to gain access to a purported treasure underground. Acclaimed writer-director Majid Majidi nails every beat of this taut neo-realist thriller (streaming on DailyMotion).
Rouhallah Zamani (above) is beyond intense as 12-year-old Ali, the ringleader among his four-boy crew of petty thieves and little scammers, all of whom survive on the streets to provide for their families, having lost their fathers mostly to addiction, prison or death. Ali is a combination of aspiring entrepreneur and seasoned mobster, and he has earned the trust and respect of Hashem (Ali Nasirian), who keeps pigeons and runs a shady chop-shop operation. Hashem convinces Ali to enroll in a school that takes in troubled youth so that Ali can dig a tunnel under the neighboring cemetery in order to access what Hashem merely refers to as a treasure that will enrich them all.
Ali displays wiles and grit in surreptitiously accessing the bowels of the school to carry out the physically draining task. He also looks out for his pals, including Abolfazl, an Afghan immigrant who excels at math, and Reza (Mani Ghafouri), who dreams of making Iran's national soccer team. Ali also befriends Abolfazl's cute sister, Zahra (Shamila Shirzad), who hawks trinkets on the city's transit system. And he skillfully navigates the school's administration -- itself a shell game of manipulating funders to keep the lights on -- finding at least one ally who believes in fighting for the futures of these exploited children.
Majidi, known for his late '90s coming-of-age tales "Children of Heaven" and "The Color of Paradise" (and co-writing with Nima Javidi), crafts a narrative as taut as a '70s crime caper. He packs a lot of plot development in 99 efficient minutes. His young star, Zamani, comes off as a scruffy young Tom Cruise intent on carrying out his mission impossible. Majidi fills in the boys' back stories with side plots about Ali's shell-shocked mother and another boy's meddling alcoholic father. Zamani and Shirzad are like a miniature Bogey and Bacall, finding each other attractive and respecting each other's grift.
It all builds to a shrewd, devastating conclusion. What is to become of the youth besieged by the inept and corrupt adults dominating their lives?
BONUS TRACKS
"Another Simple Favor" has the gall to borrow Spaghetti Western icon Ennio Morricone for its soundtrack, the lush touchstone, "C'era una Volta il West":
The trailer for "Sun Children":