Up first this week is one of the biggest surprises of 2026, Crime 101. Despite a cast including Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo and Halle Berry, the trailers looked bad. I remember seeing them months back and thinking it looked like a generic, straight-to-video early 2000s action flick. It looked like a wannabe Heat with a big cast and set in Los Angeles. After seeing it, I was pleasantly surprised. It doesn’t reinvent the crime genre, but for a film that looked like a copycat of a dozen other films, I overall enjoyed it. It’s not as over-the-top action based like Heat, instead it’s more a cat & mouse crime drama with solid driving sequences. It won’t rival Baby Driver or Drive, but it captures Los Angeles well and shows the town in all its gloriousness and poorness. Obviously with the cast it has, the acting is more than acceptable. The fact that it’s a film that feels like something Tony Scott would have made if he was still with us is also a major positive for a movie I thought was going to be bad. The good looking Hemsworth is easy to root for despite being a “bad guy”. He’s charming and cool like Steve McQueen who the film references multiple times. You understand why a character would fall for the man with no real past. Hemsworth hasn’t done much to showcase his abilities outside the MCU, but films like this should help. It’s a thinking man’s crime drama with solid performances and action set pieces. It goes on a bit longer than it should and at least one side story (Ruffalo’s personal life, Berry’s job, etc.) could be cut and you’d still ultimately get to where the film needs to go. But other than that, it’s a nice surprise for a film I had little hope for.
Sticking with crime dramas, second we have The Mastermind. I did not get a pleasant surprise from this one though. There’s nothing exactly wrong with it, but it’s very slow and uneventful. It’s about an art thief who is the son of a judge who pulls a heist and has his entire world collapse on him. He’s a family man that has the authorities and bad guys after him. It’s loosely based on art heists in New England back in the day, but it doesn’t feel like a New England film. It’s based here, but not shot here and lacks the New England aura especially of decades past. I want to call the movie a slow burn, but I don’t know if it even has a burn. The acting is fine, but the story takes way too long to develop. I want to like it more and overall I can understand why others might like it more than me, but I can’t see myself ever revisiting this one.
Third we have A Yard of Jackals which is a bit of a headscratcher. The film wants you to think it’s a psychological thriller, but it’s also too slow and by the time its “twist” is revealed I don’t know if I even cared. Set in late 1970s Chile, you want to decide if the lead actually has criminal neighbors or if he’s imagining it all while taking care of his dying mother. Maybe something was lost in translation or I didn’t get the drama of the era, but the movie didn’t do a whole lot for me. I thought the lead actor was good, but it takes forever to get to the surprise and by then I had lost interest in the truth. Overall the acting is good and the movie captures a closed in environment that every good thriller needs, but I needed more from it.
This week sees two cool 4K box sets released from Arrow Video. First is the Mortal Kombat Kollection featuring 4K releases of Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation from the 1990s. I hadn’t seen either film in years so I had fun with this. Well let me clarify that, I had fun with Mortal Kombat which is the best film of the series prior to this year’s Mortal Kombat II (the sequel in the reboot series). The film that brought the video game to the big screen is still pretty solid decades later. Some of the special effects are suspect by today’s standards and some of the casting choices made (Christopher Lambert) might not fly in today’s political correct world, but you can see glimpses of Director Paul W.S. Anderson and where he’d go in his career. I’ve always had a soft spot for the movie and it was a solid hit at the box office. It had all our favorite characters from the game like Johnny Cage, Scorpion, Sub-Zero and more. Then there’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. I forgot just how bad the movie actually is. Only two of the original cast returned and even sees Lambert replaced with James Remar. The movie was a major disappointment at the box office and watching it after so many years I remember why. All the charm of the first film is gone. Bridgette Wilson’s Sonya Blade is now played by a Swiss fashion model. The film tries to delve into the elder gods and their story, but if Annihilation didn’t come with this Kollection I’d be cool with it. The limited edition release features 4K restorations of both films from the original camera negatives by Arrow Films, approved by directors Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil) and John R. Leonetti (Annabelle) and some fun bonus features.
Also a lot of fun is Jackie Chan’s Breakout Hits! which features Drunken Master II, Rumble in the Bronx, Thunderbolt, Police Story 4: First Strike, Mr. Nice Guy, and Who Am I? Some of these have been super hard to get in the US in good quality or without being highly edited or dubbed. We here at The Nerds Templar are big fans of Jackie Chan so this is right up my alley and getting multiple options of cuts (Hong Kong, International or American) is sweet. I don’t know if I had ever seen the original cut of Drunken Master II before and I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen an American version of Rumble in the Bronx. I watched those two in one night then the other four movies over 3 days. It was a killer Chan marathon especially with the credits full of Chan’s trademark bloopers and outtakes. This 10-disc limited edition release features brand new 4K restorations of each film from the original negatives by Arrow Films, hours of special features, and newly commissioned extras. The extras are awesome filled with commentary for each film and loads of others. I spent nearly a week digging through this box set and seeing some Jackie Chan films in ways I hadn’t seen before. If you are a Jackie Chan fan, this is a must own.
The Nerds Templar 