Fighting with My Family (2019)

When I first heard of Fighting with My Family earlier this year I thought, "great, another dumb movie with The Rock" and I avoided it. Then about a week ago I read a blogger saying it was fun and entertaining, even if wrestling is not your cup of tea, and I decided to give it a shot.

The film tells the true story of professional wrestler Paige/Saraya Knight (Florence Pugh). Born in a family of wrestlers, she joined the family business at 13, even though she didn't love it as much as her family, especially her brother, Zak (Jack Lowden). Five years later, both her bother and she find themselves competing for the same WWE and Saraya is the only one picked among all the participants. While she is pushed to new limits by coach Hutch (Vince Vaughn), Zak must move past his dreams of making the WWE.

Tomb Raider (2018)

I never cared much about Lara Croft. I never played the video game and I never even bothered with Angelina Jolie's movies. I do like Alicia Vikander though (and I'm tremendously jealous of her for marrying Fassbender) so I decided to check out this new Tomb Raider movie. Having read some brief reviews, I was expecting it to be bad but I wasn't expecting it to be as bad as it turned out to be. 

Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) is a fierce and independent young woman whose father (Dominic West), an eccentric adventurer, vanished when she was barely a teen. When forced to handle her father's global empire, she decides to leave everything she knows behind in search of her father's last-known destination, a mythical island somewhere off the coast of Japan. Needless to say, her mission won't be an easy one.

Unfinished Business (2015)

Genre

Comedy

Director

Ken Scott

Country

USA

Cast

Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, Dave Franco, Sienna Miller, June Diane Raphael, Ella Anderson, Britton Sear, James Marsden, Nick Frost

Storyline

Hard-working small business owner Dan Trunkman (Vince Vaughn) and his two associate, Tim McWinters (Tom Wilkinson) and Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), travel to Europe to close the most important deal of their lives. But what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every way imaginable - and unimaginable.

Opinion

Given the awful reviews all over the internet, I wasn't expecting much from this film, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good this film actually was. Okay, maybe I'm being too generous.

Suffering from a poorly written script, Unfinished Business does have its moments, but the humour is not always on point.

The plot is always the same trite, seen thousands of times, and totally lacking in originality - it's like The Hangover met Eurotrip -, yet the film manages to entertain a little - or not bore, which suits better in this case - through the misfortunes affecting the three main characters.

Like most comedies these days, the film does not spare vulgarity. On one hand the language is a bit more chaste than usual, but on the other hand the film "recovers" with sex and nudity scenes. 

Writer Steve Conrad, the same guy who wrote The Pursuit of Happiness, should probably work on more serious projects, as he appears to be awkward when it comes to writing comedies. When watching this film it comes to the attention that he is not able to write jokes. Vince Vaughn running in a woman's jogging clothes will never be funny, nor will be laughing at someone just because of his last name.

Also, the subplot with Vaughn's family is unnecessary since it's not properly developed, and shouldn't have been included because it feels completely out of place in such a film.

However, the performances are able to increase the level of the film. Just a little bit. Vince Vaughn does a good job, but he once again plays that character he does in every film he does. Tom Wilkinson's talent is definitely wasted here, but he give a solid support to Vaughn. Dave Franco really impressed me. I, like everyone else, am used to see Franco playing this pretty douchebags with egos bigger than Kim Kardashian's butt, and finally seeing him in a different role, playing an awkward, shy and mentally challenged guy was pleasing.

I have a question for my American readers. Why do you guys always portray Europeans as sex freaks?