[I review Tyler Perry's latest movie "Straw" as well as "The Accountant 2" and the Netflix documentary about Brett Favre - "Untold: The Fall of Favre"]
Straw (2025)
Janiya Wiltkinson (Taraji P. Henson) is having a very, very bad day.
When we first meet Janiya we see her in bed with her daughter, Aria (Gabrielle E. Jackson). The alarm goes off and she gets her daughter up and ready for school. Janiya is a hard-working single mother with a sick daughter in a difficult living condition having trouble making ends meet, and as the day progresses, all kinds of horrible things happen to her and people are cruel and indifferent to her situation.
This is one of those movies where bad things start happening and then things get worse and worse.
Let's just say that in the course of the first 20 minutes of this movie Janiya loses her daughter to Child Protective Services; she has a very mean boss who fires her; she is in a road rage incident with an FBI agent who is abusive and threatening; her car is impounded, and to make matters worse, it's raining! She arrives home only to find that she has been evicted from her apartment and all of her belongings are spread out on the street. And did I say, it's raining? There's more. Janiya goes back to her boss to collect her check, there is an armed robbery attempt and Janiya makes a bad decision to go to the bank to cash her check CARRYING THE GUN from the robbery, thus unintentionally finding herself in a bank robbery mess and a standoff at the bank. It's all just too much.
And that's how I felt about this movie, at least for the first half, anyway. I mean, how much bad stuff can someone go through? If you are depressed when you start watching this movie, you will be really depressed while watching it, and probably after as well. And by the way, what I have revealed are not really spoilers because all of this happens in less than 40 minutes and there is still another hour of movie to go!
But then the movie turns into a sort of female version of "Dog Day Afternoon." Janiya is in the bank with the gun and Nicole (Sherri Shepherd), the sympathetic bank manager, tries to help her. She says to her "I see you. I hear you. I care." Likewise, she is on the phone with Detective Raymond (Teyana Taylor), another sympathetic female, who is trying to get her to surrender. Much of what is going on in the bank is being streamed live by one of the hostages so all of a sudden a crowd of sympathetic supporters forms outside the bank. What will Janiya do? Is this going to get even worse? And then out of nowhere - I did not see it coming - a huge twist that shows what was really happening with Janiya and that there are good people out there, people who do care about others.
So if you can hang on through all of the sturm und drang that is Janiya's life, there is a payoff that resonates in today's world.
Written and directed by Tyler Perry, this is the #1 movie on Netflix right now and all I can think is that times are so tough for people that they want to feel that at least there lives aren't as bad as Janiya's. But I see what Perry was trying to do here. It's a story about why good people might do bad things, what can happen when someone is poor and unseen, and finds herself on her last straw. At one point, Janiya says "People don't know how expensive it is to be poor." And he shines a light on the black mental health crisis.
This is a tour de force for Henson who should get an Oscar nod, though often when Oscar time rolls around, movies from the middle of the year are forgotten. But she definitely needs to be honored for this performance. But no surprise there. Henson has always delivered. The surprise, however, is comedian/talk show host Sherri Shepherd who gets to show her dramatic acting chops and she also delivers as does Taylor. Girl power!
Rosy the Reviewer says...the first half of this movie is a tough, depressing watch but if you hang in, there is a message of hope. But you will still be depressed. (Netflix)
The Accountant 2 (2025)
It's been almost 10 years since we first met Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) in the first "Accountant" film. Now he is back, this time helping to solve the murder of an ex-FinCEN director (that's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to you and me).
Former FinCEN director Raymond King (J.K. Simmons) who is now a P.I. meets with assassin Anais (Daniella Pineda) and asks her to help him find a missing Salvadorean family. He shows her a picture. She is not interested but warns King he is in danger. Later he is found murdered with the words "Find the Accountant" written on his arm. King's protegee and current deputy director of FinCEN, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), takes on the case.
Medina, despite being mistrustful of Wolff's known illegal methods and activities (refer to first film) asks for his help in finding the family in the photo.
Then there is Cobb (Grant Harvey) and Burke (Robert Morgan). Turns out Cobb killed King and is tasked to also kill Anais by his boss Burke. Wolff teams up with his estranged brother, Braxton (Jon Bernthal), who just happens to be a hitman, to help him. Meanwhile, Justine (Allison Robertson), who is non-speaking and autistic and a friend of Christian's from childhood (Christian is also on the spectrum) is now Christian's business partner assisted by a group of autistic children where they hack and use technologies to help Christian.
Still with me?
Many undeveloped plot lines and characters come and go with a few twists and turns as we discover who Anais really is but by the time that happens you won't care.
Directed by Gavin O'Connor, the film starts with an unbelievable opening and has many "huh?" moments and if you don't remember the first "Accountant" film and why Christian acts the way he does, you will probably be totally lost most of the time. I certainly was.
Most of the time, I had no idea what was going on. There is a bingo game, speed dating, hit men, a murder, some almost laughable violence, and then as the movie progresses there is sex trafficking and more weird stuff as we discover who Anais really is but by then I didn't care. Any desire to shed light on immigration issues and sex trafficking is lost in this jumbled mess of a movie.
Written by Bill Dubuque, this is more of a buddy movie than a gripping action thriller with Affleck and Bernthal playing opposite types and riffing off of each other. They have good chemistry but in general Ben, despite being the star and focus of this film, didn't seem to have much to do, though I enjoyed watching him line dance. But faint praise.
Rosy the Reviewer says...all in all, a slow moving far-fetched mish-mash. Rumor has it, there is yet another one in development. Nooooo!!! (Amazon Prime)
Untold: The Fall of Favre (2025)
A documentary about football star, Brett Favre - the good Brett Favre and the not so good!
I guess when you are a famous football quarterback - called a "football god" - you get to do what you want unchecked. And according to this documentary, it seems that Brett Favre was a really good football player but sometimes a really bad guy.
The film begins with Favre’s football career at the University of Southern Mississippi and goes on to highlight his football career with the Atlanta Falcons, Green Bay Packers, New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings in the NFL. Interviews with friends and peers highlight his successes. He was known as a football player of singular abilities and a winning public personality and was treated like a "football god." And you know what happens when someone feels like a god.
Bill Michaels, a radio sports talk host based in Wisconsin, said that after Favre's father, Irv, died of a heart attack in 2003, Favre had no guardrails. "Once Irv passed, (Brett) was the only one in charge of (Brett), and I think that's where maybe things go a little off the rails."
Sterger's story begins when she was a student at Florida State University, where a brief appearance during an NCAA football broadcast led to her being an internet sensation and eventually becoming the "Gameday Host" for the New York Jets in 2008, the same year Favre was traded there by the Packers. According to this documentary, she attracted Favre's attention, and he stalked her with texts, phone messages and photos of his private parts. She rejected all attempts to connect with him but according to her, the whole incident ruined her life.
And then Favre was allegedly involved in a scandal in Mississippi that saw millions of dollars in welfare money siphoned off for other uses, including a volleyball gym at Favre's alma mater, where his daughter was on the volleyball team, and to a drug company that was reportedly working to develop a concussion treatment drug. Favre suffered multiple concussions in his career and has long been concerned about the issue. No successful drug resulted from the investments.
Favre claimed he didn't know that money was being diverted from welfare and note that he does not appear in this documentary.
Rosy the Reviewer says...Favre fans might not learn anything new here about Favre's football career and probably won't like their hero being criticized but it's a compelling documentary that exposes some of the issues inherent in hero worship and privilege. (Netflix)
See You Next Time!
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