Fury

Review by Bob Ignizio

Brad Pitt plays Don “Wardaddy” Collier, Sergeant in charge of the crew on board the eponymous Sherman tank in the WWII drama FURY. He's just lost his bow gunner, and the replacement he's been given is a typist with no battle experience named Norman (Logan Leman). Wardaddy isn't too happy about it, but he has no choice but to get this new member of the team battle hardened as fast as he can with the help of his crew – Boyd "Bible" Swan (Shia LeBouf), Trini “Gordo” Garcia (Michael Pena), and Grady “Coon-ass” Travis (Jon Bernthal) – all of whom have been serving together for years.

Lawless

Review by Bob Ignizio

LAWLESS tells the more or less true story of prohibition era moonshiners the Bondurant brothers: Forrest (Tom Hardy), Howard (Jason Clarke), and Jack (Shia LeBouf). They're hardly the only ones in Franklin County, Virginia making and selling bootleg liquor, but they are the only ones who refuse to give a cut of their profits to the new Attorney General and his lackey, Special Deputy Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce). It doesn't take long for the feud between the two factions to turn violent, and Forrest winds up with his throat cut. Don't worry, he gets better.

Given the larger than life nature of these characters, it's hard for the film not to glamorize them. However, as was the case in THE PROPOSITION, director John Hillcoat's previous collaboration with screenwriter/composer Nick Cave, the violence these men do is presented in ugly, unflinching detail that makes it difficult to view anyone in the film as a hero. That said, this is nowhere near as bleak a film as THE PROPOSITION. In between throat-cuttings, castrations, and machine gun assassinations, LAWLESS actually has a considerable amount of humor. There's even a little romance, with Chicago expatriate Maggie (Jessica Chastain) doing her best to get the attention of the clueless Forrest. Meanwhile, Jack takes on the seemingly futile pursuit of courting Mennonite preacher's daughter Bertha (Mia Wasikowska).

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Review by Pete Roche

Pyromaniac director Michael Bay is now three entries deep in the movie franchise based on the Hasbro toy line, and his explosive M.O. hasn’t changed a bit. 

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON finds the noble Autobots racing the dastardly Decepticons for possession of a technology that would allow teleportation of Cybertron itself into Earth’s atmosphere.  Megatron (Hugo  Weaving) and his villainous vehicles plan to enslave humanity to rebuild their dying home world—but not if Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) can help it.  Sadly, Megatron is given short shrift again, playing second fiddle to other decidedly cooler baddies like Shockwave (whose mechanical DUNE worm literally chews up scenery by the city block) and murderous pterodactyl Laserbeak.