Amazeballs

Gareth Evans, the kinetic firebrand behind The Raid, lets the bullets spray and bones crackle once again in Havoc, his latest Netflix spectacle. There is, at times, something almost musical to his violence—an arrhythmic percussion of bodies against concrete—that has been his signature since he left rural Wales for the Indonesian underworld. Havoc is, if nothing else, a thundering proof that Evans hasn’t lost his taste for bloody spectacle, even if his hand trembles when it comes time to string all the terrific chaos together.

Let’s get this out of the way: “Hackers” is nonsense—the kind of sprightly, neon-smeared nonsense that only the ‘90s, flush with dot-com optimism and cyberpunk delusions, could have produced. But what nonsense! Iain Softley’s 1995 ode to digital counterculture is the movie equivalent of pounding a c...

Is there anything more perverse—and perversely funny—than watching Hugh Grant, that perennial celluloid charmer, take a swan dive into villainy? In “Heretic,” he does not merely play against type; he dances into the abyss with silk gloves on, turning neighborly warmth into menace so delicious it’s almost camp, except nothing about his performance feels accidental. You watch Grant, and it’s like seeing Cary Grant slip a knife between the ribs—a delight so vertiginous you can’t help but smile before the shiver hits.

How often does a film promise fun, suspense, and genuine romance, and—miracle of miracles—actually deliver all three? “Hit Man” is the kind of briskly entertaining, tonally slippery, deeply pleasurable movie experience that leaves you with a big, silly grin in the dark, and a faint suspicion you might’ve just been lovingly cheated. And isn’t that the magic of movies? Richard Linklater, whose work is so often preoccupied with talky, meandering souls lost somewhere between philosophy and the parking lot, here lays down a genre bender that barrels through romantic comedy, crime caper, and existential disguise, and—against all odds—makes it look almost too easy.