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‘Dear Evan Hansen’ Review: A Misguided Misfire of Monumental Proportions

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‘Dear Evan Hansen’ Review: A Misguided Misfire of Monumental Proportions

If you can watch the movie Dear Evan Hansen and imagine Evan Hansen as an actual teenager instead of a 26-year-old man playing a teenager, then you can kind of see the contours of how such a deeply problematic and uncomfortable narrative would have a prayer of working. But the fragile concept of exploring mental health falls apart completely with Ben Platt attempting to reprise his Tony-winning role for the big screen. There’s a sound concept lurking underneath all the schmaltz and sociopathy, which is that we’re all fighting our private battles. The problem is that the entire premise of Dear Evan Hansen rests on an exploitative lie that you could maybe forgive from a teenager in over his head, but when that’s stripped away, the entire façade of the story falls away and you’re left with a deeply uncomfortable and gross experience that doesn’t know how to explore mental illness with any genuine empathy.

Evan Hansen (Platt) is a high school senior suffering from social anxiety disorder. His therapist has assigned him to write letters to himself to boost his self-esteem, but while in the library one day, Evan gets brutally honest with himself only to accidentally print the letter, which gets discovered by Connor (Colton Ryan), a fellow student suffering from his own mental health battle, who, moments after signing Evan’s cast, angrily takes the letter. Days later, it turns out that Connor committed suicide and his wealthy parents Cynthia (Amy Adams) and Larry (Danny Pino) as well as his sister Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), who Evan has a crush on, believe that Evan wrote the letter to Connor and that the two were friends. Evan chooses to not only go along with this assumption but then embellishes it to pretend that they were best pals, which then spirals out of control when Class President Alana (Amandla Stenberg) wants to start “The Connor Project” to raise money in Connor’s memory. Evan starts to find the love and acceptance he’s been looking for, but it’s all based on a heinous lie.

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RELATED: Ben Platt on ‘Dear Evan Hansen,’ How He Can Sing Through Tears, and the Changes From the Stage

This is an incredibly difficult needle to thread, and Dear Evan Hansen ends up impaling its fingers. The core problem with Dear Evan Hansen is that it’s a story that wants to have everything both ways. So you need to take mental health seriously when it comes to Evan and what he’s suffering, but Connor, because he’s dead, barely in the movie, and most people think he was a problem child at best, is worthy of exploitation even when that exploitation is minimized to simply serving as a way for Evan to learn a lesson that maybe you shouldn’t use the memory of people who commit suicide for personal gain. The film doesn’t carry any sympathy for Connor until the very end of the movie, and at that point it’s wrapped up into a montage with a neat little bow rather than wrestling with any complexity.


To give you an idea of how gross this gets, after Evan sings a song to Connor’s parents where he makes up an entire friendship of hanging out in an orchard that Connor loved, he then needs to forge a bunch of emails to further prove their friendship. So then there’s a “fun” song where they make up Connor’s voice to further cement that fake friendship and Connor is basically a mean puppet, and it’s just so astonishingly misguided that you can’t believe this was part of a Tony-award winning musical. Maybe it works better on the stage (full disclosure: I haven’t seen the stage performance), but seeing it on the screen I was aghast that a show that professes to be about the importance of mental health could be so callous about a teenage suicide victim.


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Again, maybe you can get away with it if Evan is a teenager and there’s an innocence there to the callousness and that he’s shitty in the way all teenagers are shitty because they don’t know any better, but that’s not the case here because by having Platt reprise his role, the film can’t possibly work. It’s not that older actors can’t play teenagers, but not all actors can play teenagers and at 26, Platt looks 26. It is unintentionally hilarious at best that he’s playing a teenager in a “How do you do, fellow kids?” kind of way, and then can be downright uncomfortable as he tries to romance Zoe, not only in the context of the story (Evan is a creep and you really have to forgive him in a way the film never comes close to achieving) but because Dever can credibly play a high schooler and Platt can credibly play a post-graduate student.


This confluence of weak casting and weak storytelling combined with catchy songs comes together in the film’s showstopper piece, “You Will Be Found.” The breakout hit from the show doesn’t have much visual flair (director Stephen Chbosky takes a largely unremarkable approach to the show, and while his previous films have shown a great eye for human connection, the material fails him here), so when you strip it down, you get how the premise fails completely. You have a good message—everyone is fighting their own battles and we should listen—but it’s based on a lie. No one knew Connor, not even and especially Evan Hansen, but they’re using it to feel good about themselves. A sharper film would use this for dark comedy and biting critique of how we use feel-good narratives regardless of the messy truths to assuage our own egos (*ahem*World’s Greatest Dad*ahem*), but Dear Evan Hansen wants it both ways—to uplift and to later condemn. The film’s thinking seems to be that yes, it’s a horrible lie, but there’s a larger truth that’s worth it. But that’s the same lie that Evan is embracing! And the musical then wants him to learn why that’s bad while never making the same accounting of itself and interrogating its own phony uplift.


While I can understand the enmity and loathing people have towards this musical, for me, it’s all just remarkably misguided. I think it’s worthwhile to tell a story about engendering empathy for mental illness and fostering connection, but you have to build that on some kind of truth and not a misunderstanding that is so deeply repulsive that it sours everything that comes after. It’s nice to pluck a song like “You Will Be Found” out of context and say that this is an uplifting musical, and yes, devoid of context, it’s good. But the context of Dear Evan Hansen with a 26-year-old man playing a teenager who is apparently a sociopath damns the entire project to an abominable creation that will mystify and stun viewers who see through its crass veneer.

Rating: F

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Dear Evan Hansen opens in theaters on Friday, September 24th.

KEEP READING: ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ Cast and Character Guide: Who Plays Who in the Broadway Musical Adaptation?


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Bullet Train Review: A Wickedly Funny, High-Octane Thrill Ride

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Bullet Train Review: A Wickedly Funny, High-Octane Thrill Ride

Brad Pitt leads a wickedly funny ensemble in a high-octane actioner loaded with twists. Adapted from the 2010 Japanese novel by Kōtarō Isaka, Bullet Train has a bevy of disparate assassins manipulated by a mysterious criminal mastermind. Stuntman turned action director, David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde), stays true to form with unrelenting bloody and flamboyant violence. The codenamed characters get downright verbose before beating, stabbing, and shooting each other to bits. The loquacious banter tends to run long, but the narrative always bounces back with sharp reveals. Strap in for a helluva ride.

Ladybug (Pitt) boards the overnight bullet train to Tokyo with a newfound sense of self. He’s chock-full of philosophy after recovering from a near fatal ambush. Ladybug ignores his unseen handler’s advice to take a gun. Surely any issues can be resolved peacefully. The job seems straightforward enough. Steal a briefcase with a sticker and exit at the next stop.

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Also on board are Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), ruthless “twins” known for their brutal methods. Lemon is obsessed with the British children’s show “Thomas & Friends”. He reads people by comparing them to the anthropomorphized trains. The twins are escorting the previously kidnapped son (Logan Lerman) of a powerful gangster, the White Death (Michael Shannon).

None of the hired guns are aware of the Father, aka Yuichi Kimura’s (Andrew Koji), mission. He’s out for vengeance but foolishly runs into a deceptive figure. The Prince (Joey King) has a score to settle with the White Death. Meanwhile, the Wolf (Bad Bunny) joins the fray after his truly horrific Mexican wedding. He’s also ready for serious comeuppance. Ladybug quickly realizes they’re all unwitting pawns in a dangerous game. Someone has packed the train with killers for an unknown purpose. He desperately wants to get off but can’t seem to escape the carnage.


Related: I Love My Dad Review: Patton Oswalt’s Delightfully Cringeworthy Catfishing Comedy

Cast of Bullet Train

Bullet Train introduces the cast with splashy entrances that flashes back to their dark pasts. The murderous montages are informative but don’t fill in every gap. The script doles out more critical information as the bodies pile up. Alliances bounce back and forth as everyone wonders who’s actually pulling the strings. The whodunit element works well as the audience becomes embroiled in a series of betrayals. You don’t have a sense of the plot’s true trajectory until the third act. The film builds to a showdown that delivers a huge action payoff.

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Bullet Train has complex characters that each contribute slices of devilish humor. Brad Pitt preaching self-help and understanding is an effective gag throughout. Brian Tyree Henry’s constant comparisons to Thomas & Friends aren’t as comical but play an important role in the story. There are a lot of moving parts. Leitch, who worked as Pitt’s stunt double for years, is clearly fond of his players. He gives everyone a chance to babble incessantly. I would have trimmed the dialogue to be more incisive.


The action scenes are worth the price of admission. Leitch has a great eye for mixing stylized set pieces with intimate fights. He knows when to go big and small. You never feel let down by his pacing. There’s always the right amount of adrenaline to keep your pulse pumping. Bullet Train is another feather in a skilled filmmaker’s cap. Watch out for A-list cameos and a mid-credits scene.

Bullet Train is a production of Columbia Pictures, Fuqua Films, and 87North Productions. It will be released theatrically on August 5th from Sony Pictures.

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Bullet Train Review: Brad Pitt Has A Blast In The Silly And Badass Action Comedy

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Bullet Train Review: Brad Pitt Has A Blast In The Silly And Badass Action Comedy

If orchestrated properly, with adjusted stakes, tone, and atmosphere, there can be a beautiful, symbiotic relationship between intense action and comedy. A hero pulling off a rapid and vicious series of blows against an opponent can be savage and dramatic in one context, but it can also be so deliriously awesome that an audience’s first reaction is to laugh. Fast paced martial arts can be used for wonderful physical humor (see: the legendary career of Jackie Chan), and the best examples provide dual layers of entertainment: you marvel at the skill in all the ass-kicking, and cackle at the creativity in the choreography.

This is a sweet spot that filmmaker David Leitch knows well. After peppering funny moments in John Wick and Atomic Blonde at the start of his directorial career, he brilliantly utilized the action/comedy weapon that is Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool 2, and crafted some excellent physicality with the unique styles of Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. His latest, Bullet Train, is another effort that takes aim at that particular tonal target, this time with his most expansive ensemble yet, and it’s another success. With a sensibility that could be described as early Guy Ritchie with more specific action focus, it’s a movie that is both silly and skilled and inspires its primary star in particular to do energetic and engaging work.

Based on the novel Maria Beetle by Kōtarō Isaka, the film weaves multiple narrative threads through the cars of the titular bullet train as it speeds through the country of Japan – all of the protagonists being killers with their own particular reason and motivation for being aboard. Ladybug (Brad Pitt), for example, is a hired gun who has been tasked by his handler (Sandra Bullock) to perform what sounds like a simple job: find a briefcase marked with a train sticker and steal it. What he doesn’t know, though, is that said briefcase belongs to a pair of British hit men named Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and that the contents include the recovered ransom for the kidnapped son (Logan Lerman) of a powerful crime lord known as The White Death.

Meanwhile, Kimura a.k.a. The Father (Andrew Koji) is on the bullet train because he is on a mission of vengeance – hunting down the person responsible for nearly killing his son by pushing the boy off of a building. What he doesn’t expect is that the individual he is looking for is a young woman identified as The Prince (Joey King), and that she has purposefully gotten him on the high speed rail with the intention of forcing him to execute an assassination attempt.

And while five killers sharing the space would be enough for most movies, Bullet Train actually has even more that pop in and surprise throughout the film’s runtime – and their roles are worth keeping as a secret pre-release.

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Bullet Train has a chaotic storyline, but the pieces properly connect as a fun puzzle.

Narratively speaking, Bullet Train is a messy movie to put together, as focus briskly ping-pongs between the different players, but everything stays in harmony as the film persistently finds ways to build on each protagonist’s arc. This is particularly cool later in the movie as different characters are drawn together from individual angles and instant conflict is generated from their simple interaction.

The film is at its best when it keeps things simple, but it does let things go off the rails at times (if you’ll pardon the pun). This is especially true as it gets into the third act and it tries to pull off stunts like one of the leads leaping from a platform on to the back of the train as it leaves a station; it’s both a problem for the “rules” of the universe and in its strained use of visual effects. The movie also frequently tries to get a bit too cute and Tarantino-esque with what are admittedly familiar-but-not-quite-stock characters – the most prominent example being an ongoing and quickly tiresome gag with Lemon explaining that he understands people through the lens of Thomas The Tank Engine.

Primarily, though, it’s a movie that is able to generate its entertainment with engaging and quippy dynamics between the members of the ensemble, both when they are talking out their issues and trying to kill one another.

David Leitch puts a lot of exciting and weird fights in a confined space, and is at its best when working with a “less is more” philosophy.

Coming from a stunt background, both as a performer and a coordinator, David Leitch’s bread and butter remains deftly and specifically choreographed action sequences, and Bullet Train proves to be a terrific challenge and opportunity for his skills. Regardless of where you are in the titular transport, space is not a luxury, and the best fights in the movie are those that are being fought only between the characters, but against the limitations provided by the location.

There are guns, knives and explosives in the mix, but Bullet Train also has some terrific “found item” moments that add spice and humor to the various showdowns, whether it’s a pocketed cell phone saving a character’s life from a blade, a laptop making for a solid cudgel, a water bottle making for a useful projectile, or a venomous snake showing up at a perfect moment.

Once again we see David Leitch work a special magic turning dramatic and comedic actors into badasses with slick and stylish moves, and while everyone shows off some terrific skills, it’s very much the Brad Pitt show at the end of the day.

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Brad Pitt’s joy in the role of Ladybug is palpable.

At the nexus of everything good in Bullet Train is Brad Pitt, who very clearly had a blast reuniting with David Leitch (who performed the actor’s stunts in films including Fight Club, The Mexican, Mr. And Mrs. Smith and Troy). He’s a joy to watch in action not just because of the talented craft he demonstrates in his physicality, but how he channels the psychology of the character. As we meet him, Ladybug is reluctantly getting back into his business following a number of important breakthroughs with his therapist, and Pitt does a fantastic job conveying that he doesn’t ever want to choose violence as a first answer – both via verbal pleas and defense-heavy moves. Action/comedy is a genre he should revisit a lot more often.

Bullet Train doesn’t aim to revolutionize hitman movies, but instead plays with a tongue-in-cheek vibe that lets you recognize the tropes and appreciate how the film plays with them. It’s a slick/goofy action movie that is both contained and wild, and a satisfying late summer release.

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Luck Review: A Spectacular Debut Film from Skydance Animation

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Luck Review: A Spectacular Debut Film from Skydance Animation

The world’s unluckiest woman enters a magical land to change the fortunes of a fellow orphan. Luck will make you smile and possibly shed a few tears. The big-budget, CGI animated fantasy shines a spotlight on needy children while telling a truly original story. An assortment of lucky critters and creatures dazzle in a spectacular setting. The highly imaginative narrative gives age-old superstitions a dynamic new spin. Luck is a brilliant first film from Skydance Animation.

Sam Greenfield (Eva Noblezada) reaches her eighteenth birthday with trepidation. She’s finally aged out of the foster care system. Sam never found her “forever family”. She spent her entire life living in orphanages. It doesn’t help that Sam has the worst luck. Everything she does or touches ends in abject disaster. Her only thoughts are for young Hazel (Adelynn Spoon), Sam’s roommate at the girls home. Sam has been set up with a job and tiny apartment. She has to stay in school and employed to remain housed.

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Sam’s first day at Marv’s (Lil Rel Howery) floral shop goes exactly as expected. She sadly eats dinner sitting on a sidewalk. Sam learns that Hazel’s weekend trip with a foster family was canceled. She gives half of her sandwich to a curious black cat. It scampers away but leaves a strange penny behind.

The following day is a revelation. Sam’s lucky penny changes everything. Her ecstatic mood sours when she loses the penny in spectacular fashion. Stewing on the sidewalk, Sam’s surprised when the black cat returns. She’s astonished when Bob (Simon Pegg) asks for his penny. The “travel penny” is the only way a creature from the Land of the Luck stays safe in the human world. She follows an unnerved Bob back through the portal to the Land of Luck. Sam has to find another lucky penny to help Hazel. Bob reluctantly agrees, but they have to be careful. Misdeeds end up in banishment to Bad Luck.

Related: Bullet Train Review: A Wickedly Funny, High-Octaine Thrill Ride

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The Land of Luck

The Land of Luck is an absolute joy to behold. Leprechauns, cats, pigs, and rabbits, lucky creatures, are the bureaucrats tasked with spreading good fortune. Bringing Sam in such a place is a recipe for absolute chaos. Bob, and his leprechaun assistant Gerry’s (Colin O’Donoghue), efforts to contain Sam’s bad luck will have audiences in stitches. I’m still chuckling at Sam’s “Latvian leprechaun” disguise; their harebrained excuse for why she’s so much bigger than everyone else.

Luck’s serious themes are artfully addressed. Sam’s lonely childhood, and her desperate efforts to change Hazel’s, brings a melancholic touch to the narrative. The film reminds us to not take love and family for granted. Every kid deserves care, nurturing, and a safe place to grow. It shouldn’t take luck or chance for a child to find a “forever home”.

Insert sigh here. Recent headlines concerning John Lasseter (Toy Story, Cars) will undoubtedly cloud this film’s release. The genius storyteller and animator behind Pixar’s success left to head Skydance Animation after awful “Me Too” allegations. He’s brought his incredible talent to Luck, and it shows. This wonderful film deserves to be judged on its own merits. Sometimes we must divorce ourselves from art and the personality of the artist.

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Luck is a production of Skydance Animation and Apple Original Films. It will have an exclusive Apple TV+ premiere on August 5th.

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