Up first this week is a fantastic military documentary from Mill Creek Entertainment, Brothers After War. It is a sequel to the documentary Brothers at War and continues the story of these three brothers and those who served with them. In the first film, one brother, a documentary filmmaker, embedded himself into the lives of his active servicemembers brothers. He shot on the battlefields overseas and highlighted the lives of his brothers and their fellow servicemen. This documentary updates their lives after that film and gets pretty up to date. It tackles Covid, the fall of Afghanistan and more. We here at The Nerds Templar are big supporters of veterans so I really enjoyed this. It’s honest and open and everyone has opinions with many not agreeing on how things are handled. The filmmaker brother and one of his brothers clash big time along with his wife. They love each other, but fight just like any other family. Some of the people in the first film have passed since then and others are now retired and trying to transition to the public sector. I really enjoyed the part with Sheepdog trying to help a struggling veteran and eventually got him help. If you come from a military family you’ll love it. If you want to see how military families deal with deployments and being a family after the war, it’s also highly recommended. It’s an unbiased, no agenda based piece produced by Gary Sinise and his fantastic foundation and is easily the best release of the week we got.
Second we have Steppenwolf. I was hoping this foreign film would be another surprise gem like Sisu, but it doesn’t quite get there. It’s watchable and has some violence, but I expected more. It’s a foreign film with an area that’s sort of in martial law and sees a cop teaming up with a woman who has some sort of mental/disability issue. She’s looking for her son and the cop wants money and to seek revenge against a man who killed his family. I liked the cinematography and style of the film, but it should have been a bit more over the top. The two leads hold your attention throughout and the look of the film does add to it, but I kept waiting for it to really go off the rails and become an absolute onslaught. There is plenty of killing and the final action set piece is good, but it should have become chaotic and crazy.
Ever watch a movie and wonder if the final result is what they intended? That’s how I felt about Body Odyssey. I understand it’s about a bodybuilder and what she goes through to get to the top of the food chain, but I really expected something else by the end. I guess after seeing The Substance last year and this being one of Julian Sands final performances I thought it would turn into a body horror flick. It’s just a drama and nothing more. There are dark elements, but the proverbial shoe never really drops into a ridiculous, over-the-top spiral. I was expecting her to lose her mind or the steroid use to make her start killing people or something. Nope, just a drama about a woman and her coach doing what they need to do to win. It was not what I thought it would be.
Last we have Terror In The Fog: The Wallace Krimi At CCC. If like me you aren’t familiar with the term krimis, they were a series of crime based West German films in the 1960s and were adapted from British crime writer Edgar Wallace and his son Bryan Edgar Wallace. I can’t tell you if I was familiar with any of the films in the collection, but I had fun with them. They are murder mysteries with dark elements in German, but you can feel the British influence in the settings, characters and tone. They are more than simple Whodunits, but also fit that genre with ease. I wouldn’t call them noir either because of the era, but if you like crime noir or Sherlockian type stories I think you’ll enjoy this collection. It took me a few days to get through every movie with there being six movies in the collection. The Curse of the Yellow Snake sees an artifact stolen with a man heading to London to get married and runs into his brother at an antique shop. The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle is about a murderer who brands his victims. The Mad Executioners mixes vigilantism with a serial killer in the streets of London. The Monster of London City is a Jack the Ripper storyline which I liked because I’ve always been a Ripper fan. The Racetrack Murders involves, well a horse if you can’t tell by the name. There is also the bonus film The Phantom of Soho which sees Scotland Yard investigating murders outside a Soho nightclub. This is a pretty neat collection of films from a genre I knew nothing about. If you like Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie mysteries you’ll dig it.
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